Amazon Prime Video has a massive movie library, which sounds helpful until you search for “war movies” and discover the service would also like you to rent six Steven Seagal films, subscribe to three extra channels, and buy something you swear was free yesterday. We’re here to help you get past that. Prime Video’s July catalog stretches from World War I trenches and World War II bomber crews to Iraq War bomb technicians, damaged veterans, and Chris Pratt traveling through time to shoot aliens. History occasionally leaves the room, but it usually does so with explosions. These are 21 war movies worth putting on before another half-hour disappears into the streaming menu.
Paths of Glory
Stanley Kubrick’s 1957 World War I drama stars Kirk Douglas as a French colonel ordered to defend three soldiers selected for execution after a failed attack. The battlefield sequences are impressive, but Paths of Glory saves most of its anger for the officers who treat human lives like numbers scratched onto a map. It remains one of the sharpest anti-war movies ever made, largely because Kubrick understood that stupidity in a clean uniform can be every bit as lethal as artillery.
All Quiet on the Western Front
