Coming Home: 10 Essential Movies About the Plight of the American Veteran

Born on the Fourth of July (1989)

Remember this guy -- this Tom Cruise? You know, the one who was willing to take chances -- the one willing making himself look less attractive to play paraplegic Vietnam veteran and activist Ron Kovic? Oliver Stone's biopic was one of the last milestones of the life-after-'Nam tales that stretched from the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s -- an era one can only presume is related to the fact that there weren't really any American wars of note during the 1980s. I mean, I guess Clint Eastwood did try to make a movie about the invasion of Grenada (Heartbreak Ridge), which lasted only 52 days. But think about it: If either Gulf War had never happened, would we still be seeing movies about Vietnam and/or World War II?

Forrest Gump

Forrest Gump and Lt. Dan go on a journey of sorts for redemption after Dan lost both legs during battle. A tale of two fates: Forrest -- whom the government uses as propaganda during his worldwide ping-pong tournament tour -- and Lt. Dan, who, after his entire generational line gave their lives for the United States, has been discarded, forced to hire prostitutes as his company on New Year's Eve.

Stop-Loss (2008)

Unlike Vietnam, there's been no draft implemented for the conflict in Iraq. Considering that the United States went to war with a volunteer army, those volunteers are going to be used and reused, often unfairly. Stop-Loss follows the story of a soldier expecting a discharge and, instead, is ordered back to Iraq. Which, compared to the rest of the films on this list, is a situation pretty exclusive to this film -- no one was ever forced to return to the horrors of Vietnam after their service has ended. Since March of 2009, the stop-loss policy has been dramatically reduced as troops have been removed from Iraq.

The Hurt Locker (2008)

There's only a short sequence giving the viewer a glimpse of what mundane life is like for those returning from Iraq, but it says plenty: Sgt. First Class William James (Jeremy Renner) comes home after multiple tours on an Explosive Ordnance Disposal team and can't even cope with the daily rigors of buying cereal. He decides he'd rather take his chances defusing bombs and signs up for another tour. The Hurt Locker would win the Oscar for Best Picture but fare anemically at the box office, which is perhaps emblematic of the commercial appeal of a war still in the headlines: Many of the Vietnam classics we know today were hits. Maybe, as mentioned with Stop-Loss, the draft made those movies more accessible: If you didn't fight in Vietnam, you were sure to know someone who was there. That's not necessarily the case with Iraq or Afghanistan, and we're seeing that divide at the box-office.

Brothers (2009)

While social critics often compare Iraq and Vietnam, the wars' resulting films generally feature one crucial difference: Iraq movies focus more on war's emotional and psychological aftermath as opposed to the physical consequences. Brothers is probably the strongest treatment to date: Capt. Sam Cahill (Tobey Maguire) -- a former prisoner of war presumed dead at one point -- discovers that his brother (Jake Gyllenhaal) has been sleeping with his wife (Natalie Portman). Though the loss of body functions due to war is still a grim reality, Sam's mental anguish -- and its effects on his family -- are front-and-center here.

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