Irakoorlog, 2006. Een Amerikaanse Navy SEAL-unit zit verscholen in het huis van een Irakese familie voor een gevaarlijke missie in Ramadi. Met snipers houden de militairen alle bewegingen van de 'vijand' tot in de kleinste details in de gaten, maar toch lukt het ze niet om een grote hinderlaag te voorkomen. Onder hevig vuur loopt de operatie volledig uit de hand, met zwaargewonden tot gevolg. Terwijl de militairen alles op alles zetten om de gewonden in leven te houden en wanhopig wachten op redding, wordt hun situatie steeds benauwder: hoe lang kunnen ze het nog volhouden?
Where to Watch Warfare
- Garrett Wilkins2 augustus 2026There are war films that entertain. Other war films lecture and chase awards. Warfare never seems interested in any of those things. Alex Garland and Iraq War veteran Ray Mendoza instead reconstruct one disastrous surveillance mission during the Battle of Ramadi with such unwavering commitment to authenticity that you can tell long before it's confirmed in the credits that the men who lived this experience weren't merely consulted—they helped shape the film itself. At just 95 minutes, Warfare never wastes time manufacturing dramatic subplots or long speeches. It simply drops the audience into confusion and split-second decision-making until you begin to understand, if only for a moment, the impossible burden carried by the men who made this their duty. Just as importantly, the film never forgets the Iraqi civilians caught in the same nightmare. Their lives aren't treated as background to an American story but as part of the same tragedy. I've never served in the military myself, but I left with an even deeper appreciation for those who have. I certainly believe Warfare should be required viewing for every politician before taking the oath of office. It's a dignified tribute to the men who served and a reminder that the freedoms most of us enjoy were purchased at a cost few of us will ever truly understand. The cast embraces the commitment. Will Poulter, whose performances don't always connect with me, brings a professionalism and quiet authority to Erik that I genuinely admired. D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai and Cosmo Jarvis disappear so naturally into the unit that I rarely felt like I was watching actors perform. Even the most uncomfortable moments never felt like shock for its own sake. They lingered because the film refused to soften the reality of combat. If there's a limitation, it's simply that Garland and Mendoza chose to tell one story from one day rather than a broader account of the war. I respected that restraint. I'm still surprised the film received so little mainstream attention, and A24 once again deserves credit for backing something this uncompromising. For me, this is a far more meaningful project than Garland's previous film. Where Civil War reached for the scale of a modern blockbuster, Warfare found something far more meaningful by honoring the real men whose story it set out to tell.
- ot6326 juli 2026A truly unique, authentic, and relentless experience. To watch this film is to embed yourself in the reality of infantry combat and understand why veterans share their trauma-riddled perspectives. The sound design alone is every bit as emotionally jarring as the autobiographical screenplay and direction. Warfare sets a new benchmark for the genre. See it and endure what will change us, who are not experienced firsthand and are thankful not to be.
- mason48925 juli 2026Warfare 2025 is one of the most honest, unvarnished depictions of modern combat put on screen. Co-directed by former Navy SEAL Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland, it is based directly on the real November 19, 2006 mission in Ramadi after the Battle of Ramadi. A SEAL platoon (Alpha One) takes a civilian house for overwatch, gets hit hard by insurgents, and has to fight its way out while trying to keep its wounded alive. It runs in near real time, about 95 minutes, and it never lets up. The film does not lecture. It does not apologize. It does not soft-pedal the chaos, the noise, the speed of bad decisions under fire, or the physical and mental damage. These men are professionals doing a brutal job in a place where the enemy is embedded, aggressive, and willing to use every advantage the urban environment gives them. The bravery on display is quiet and constant: men continuing to function while wounded, while concussed, while their friends are screaming. They adapt, they cover each other, they improvise, and they get the wounded out. That is the core of the movie, and it is powerful. The technical side is excellent. Sound design and editing sell the intensity without needing constant spectacle. CGI is kept minimal; the show-of-force pass by the aircraft has impact because of the sound and the reaction it produces, not because of digital fireworks. The violence is graphic and dark when it needs to be. The acting is committed across the board. Joseph Quinn (the Stranger Things guy) is particularly devastating as the severely wounded Leading Petty Officer—raw, prolonged pain that never feels performed. Cosmo Jarvis (Shōgun) as Elliott Miller, the corpsman/sniper who takes the worst of it, is equally strong. D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai as Ray Mendoza carries the concussion and the resulting disorientation convincingly; you watch him try to stay in the fight and keep leadership intact until he simply cannot, and command has to transfer. Will Poulter as the Officer in Charge goes through the same traumatic brain injury effects. The whole ensemble stays locked in. The house sequence is one of the most grounded parts. The SEALs take the building, move the civilian family into a bedroom, and try to do the job. The family is understandably furious and scared. The film does not pretend otherwise. What it also does not do is pretend the people shooting at the Americans from the streets and rooftops are somehow the same as the trapped civilians. The insurgents are the ones initiating the fight. The soldiers are the ones absorbing the cost of operating under rules that try to keep the distinction. That distinction is the hard, unglamorous reality the movie captures. Counterinsurgency in a place like Ramadi in 2006 meant working inside an environment where a determined enemy (al-Qaeda in Iraq at that point) used the population as cover and the dense urban layout as a weapon. Pure destructive force from the air or from stand-off weapons is always available in theory. In practice, when the enemy is that close and the rules of engagement and the mission goals prioritize limiting civilian casualties and trying to leave something stabilizable behind, the cost lands on the troops on the ground. The film shows that cost without romanticizing it and without turning the soldiers into villains for being there. They were sent into a bad situation against an enemy that chose to fight that way. They did the job as well as the conditions allowed. The movie is short, focused, and stripped of most of the usual war-film padding. It is not interested in explaining the entire Iraq War or delivering a tidy moral. It is interested in what those specific men experienced that day: the sudden violence, the medical urgency, the leadership stress under concussion, the brotherhood that keeps functioning when everything else is failing, and the fact that they still completed the extraction. That honesty is rare. The performances, the sound, the editing, and the refusal to look away from the mess make it land. Overall it is a very good film—realistic, intense, and respectful of the men who lived it. It does not sugarcoat the chaos or the price. It simply shows what happened when a professional unit got hit hard in a hostile urban environment and refused to fold. That being said, these entire countries should take accountability for the disasters their societies have become. Blaming the troops for insurgents attacking them is wrong. Excellent film, will watch again many times
- rg94008 juli 2026I went into Warfare with very high expectations considering the extremely talented cast of upcoming actors and the fact that it was written (in part) by Alex Garland. War movies tend to not move the needle very much for me, and I've started to feel that a lot of them are sanitized in their political context. With this type of talent for a movie set during the Iraq war, I was expecting a lot more thematic nuance that felt more than just a standard American propaganda movie. Make no mistake, Warfare is well-made. The sound design is excellent, and despite its opening act being a bit slow, it definitely builds tension effectively. There is a lot of military jargon thrown around, and the chaos of the singular event is palpable. The problem is that the movie doesn't do much beyond that. The characters are just various representations of shell-shock, and outside of their fight to survival, they aren't noteworthy at all. I sometimes struggled to differentiate some of the characters outside of some slight behavioral quirks. The movie frustratingly does not even elaborate on why the characters get stuck in this situation, and it glosses over any sort of reckoning with what is actually happening. There are moments where I thought the movie was somewhat self-aware of how certain people were treated during this event, but it barely spends a passing glance on them. There is no attempt at tackling some of the more difficult questions at the center of this movie, and it really is only about its title, Warfare. It is a sanitized, binary view of the conflict with very little thematic, character, or plot depth. This is standard for war movies, but I was expecting a lot more considering the people and studio behind the movie. If you just want a tense depiction of the fighting in war, it's an okay watch. If you want anything even remotely more, you'll be sorely disappointed.
- COCO14 maart 2025One of the most intense movies I’ve watched all year. A visceral 90-minute war drama that drops you behind enemy lines in the middle of the gory action. The silence throughout the first 15-minutes alone is enough to build up some dramatic tension that kept me at the edge of my seat throughout. It’s incredibly immersive and raw with its approach. There’s no score but the sound design is absolutely insane, watch it in the loudest theater possible.
- Chris C11 april 2025Intense. Visceral. Unflinching. All the adjectives you've heard about this film are true. Far from your typical Hollywood "recruitment" war film, 'Warfare' is a sobering, heart-pounding look at the effects of modern, well, warfare. The first act is almost eerily quiet, serving as a stark counterpoint to the chaotic battle set to begin. Once it starts, though, there is no pause in what unfolds in the largely real-time depiction. Ray Mendoza and Alex Garland have created a truly incredible movie based on the memories of the soldiers who were present for this battle. This film deserves to be seen on the biggest screen—and loudest theater—you can find.
- RipLinesMan20 april 2025Warfare and Event Horizon (1997) both begin with missions — controlled, tactical, professional — and end with men undone by the environments that devour them. One is grounded in the chaos of 2006 Ramadi, the other drifts in the black void of space. But both ask the same question: what happens when the mission becomes survival, and survival isn’t guaranteed? Warfare unfolds in real time, as a Navy SEAL team takes over a building and finds themselves pinned down and cut off. Will Poulter brings raw tension as Erik, the Officer in Charge losing grip by the minute. Joseph Quinn gives Sam a layered weariness, quietly powerful in the film’s most harrowing moments. Cosmo Jarvis as Elliott Miller is visceral and vulnerable — the kind of performance that says everything with almost no dialogue. Charles Melton, Michael Gandolfini, and Finn Bennett add weight and realism to a cast that feels as battered and bruised as the setting demands. In Event Horizon, Laurence Fishburne’s Captain Miller is a man built for order — a leader who watches his training dissolve into fear. Sam Neill’s Dr. Weir descends into madness with elegance, becoming something more dangerous than the ship itself. Kathleen Quinlan’s Peters, Jason Isaacs’ D.J., and Richard T. Jones’ Cooper each face their own reckoning as reality fractures around them. It’s not the void that breaks them — it’s what they brought with them. Both films hinge on the collapse of structure. Orders become pleas. Extraction becomes fantasy. And what remains is silence, injury, and the unsettling knowledge that not everyone who lives gets out clean. Warfare ends with a dust-covered retreat. Event Horizon ends in psychological ruin. But both leave the same imprint: something happened to these men that no report could ever explain.
- Mikey Smith5 mei 2025The craziest, purest, and most raw war movie I’ve ever seen. No big story, no main character just a bunch of dudes fighting together to stay alive. I really loved this approach. It took the Hollywood emotional and cliche war movie tropes and threw them out the window. It’s all about the soldiers in that building for an hour and a half. The sound design, set design, and wardrobe was all outstanding. It all felt lived in and authentic. The acting was phenomenal. Nothing too flashy, just I don’t know, it felt real! Also almost sh*t my pants when that IED went off. Great film. 4/5.
- Oʂɯαʅԃσ Rσყҽƚƚ7 mei 2025Went into this expecting a military movie like those that get rolled out on Netflix periodically, however this is a huge step above. The fact it's a true story too also adds so much to the events shown. The filmmakers go out to put you in the middle of the action. It's a very intense movie that does an amazing job of making you feel the tension in the situation. Performances keep you locked in but the real star of the show is the sound. From the gunfire to explosions you feel every hit. The 'Show of force' they use NEEDS to be heard to be believed.
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Warfare was released on 10 april 2025.
Warfare was directed by Ray Mendoza, Alex Garland.
Warfare has a runtime of 1 u, 35 m.
Warfare was produced by Peter Rice, Andrew Macdonald, Allon Reich, Matthew Penry-Davey.
Irakoorlog, 2006. Een Amerikaanse Navy SEAL-unit zit verscholen in het huis van een Irakese familie voor een gevaarlijke missie in Ramadi. Met snipers houden de militairen alle bewegingen van de 'vijand' tot in de kleinste details in de gaten, maar toch lukt het ze niet om een grote hinderlaag te voorkomen. Onder hevig vuur loopt de operatie volledig uit de hand, met zwaargewonden tot gevolg. Terwijl de militairen alles op alles zetten om de gewonden in leven te houden en wanhopig wachten op redding, wordt hun situatie steeds benauwder: hoe lang kunnen ze het nog volhouden?
The key characters in Warfare are Ray (D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai), Erik (Will Poulter), Elliott (Cosmo Jarvis).
Warfare is rated 16.
Warfare is an Oorlog, Action, Drama film.
Warfare has an audience rating of 9.2 out of 10.
Warfare had a budget of US$ 20 mln..
Warfare has made US$ 34,9 mln. at the box office.