A Private WarMovies like A Private War
- Key Features:
- Journalist, Journalism, War zone, Truth seeking, PTSD, Moral courage, Sacrifice, Biopic, Female protagonist, Ethical dilemmas, Trauma, Based on true story
- Tone:
- serious, dramatic, earnest
- Target Audience:
- Biopic enthusiasts, Journalism students, Those interested in war stories, Viewers seeking thought-provoking dramas
- Emotional Arc:
- Determination → Trauma → Reflection
A Private War

One of the most celebrated war correspondents of our time, Marie Colvin is an utterly fearless and rebellious spirit, driven to the frontlines of conflicts across the globe to give voice to the voiceless.
A Private War
An American journalist and his cameraman are caught in the combat zone during the first Russian airstrikes against Georgia. Rescuing Tatia, a young Georgian schoolteacher separated from her family during the attack, the two reporters agree to help reunite her with her family in exchange for serving as their interpreter. As the three attempt to escape to safety, they witness--and document--the devastation from the full-scale crossfire and cold-blooded murder of innocent civilians.

The true story of photographer Elizabeth "Lee" Miller, a fashion model who became an acclaimed war correspondent for Vogue magazine during World War II.

Camille, a young idealistic photojournalist, goes to the Central African Republic to cover the civil war that is brewing up. What she sees there will change her destiny forever.

As a renowned producer and close associate of Dan Rather, Mary Mapes believes she’s broken the biggest story of the 2004 election: revelations of a sitting U.S. President’s military service. But when allegations come pouring in, sources change their stories, document authenticity is questioned, and the casualties begin to mount.

Documentary about war photographer James Nachtwey, considered by many the greatest war photographer ever.

When reporter Rachel Armstrong writes a story that reveals the identity of a covert CIA operative, the government demands that Rachel reveal her source. She defies the special prosecutor and is thrown in jail. Meanwhile, her attorney, Albert Burnside argues her case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The fates of Henry - an American correspondent - and Teresa, one of the Republic's censors during the Spanish Civil War.

In the near future, a group of war journalists attempt to survive while reporting the truth as the United States stands on the brink of civil war.

A group of journalists covering George Bush's planned invasion of Iraq in 2003 are skeptical of the presidents claim that Saddam Hussein has "weapons of mass destruction."

An Iraqi journalist joins an army of uneasy allies and unforgettable characters in the epic battle to liberate the city of Mosul from the Islamic State.

A searing account of war correspondent Michael Ware's seven years reporting in Iraq--an extraordinary journey that takes him into the darkest recesses of the Iraq War and the human soul.

Susannah Cahalan, an up-and-coming journalist at the New York Post becomes plagued by voices in her head and seizures, causing a rapid descent into insanity.

In 2002, cable news producer Kim Barker decides to shake up her routine by taking a daring new assignment in Kabul, Afghanistan. Dislodged from her comfortable American lifestyle, Barker finds herself in the middle of an out-of-control war zone. Luckily, she meets Tanya Vanderpoel, a fellow journalist who takes the shell-shocked reporter under her wing. Amid the militants, warlords and nighttime partying, Barker discovers the key to becoming a successful correspondent.

The wife of a photojournalist sets out to discover why he came home from a recent assignment without his colleague.

A fictional documentary discusses the effects the Iraq war has had on soldiers and local people through interviews with members of an American military unit, the media, and local Iraqis.

Writer Ernest Hemingway begins a romance with fellow scribe Martha Gellhorn.

A devoted wife and mother leads a secret life as a CIA agent until her husband’s article exposes a scandal, putting her identity and loved ones at risk. As her world crumbles, she must navigate the fallout of her double life.

During the last two years of her life, Princess Diana campaigns against the use of land mines and has a secret love affair with a Pakistani heart surgeon.

After surviving an IED explosion in combat overseas, a young soldier with the Army Motorcycle Unit is medically discharged with a broken back and leg. Against all odds he trains to make an impossible comeback as a motocross racer in order to support his family.

R2I, a famous news radio station, sends its best reporting duo to Iraq: Frank, journalist, and Poussin, sound engineer. Very quickly, millions of listeners follow their highly documented stories, reflecting the hot intensity of the fighting and the difficult survival of the population.

Two young soldiers, Bartle and Murph, navigate the terrors of the Iraq war under the command of the older, troubled Sergeant Sterling. All the while, Bartle is tortured by a promise he made to Murph's mother before their deployment.

Halla declares a one-woman-war on the local aluminium industry. She is prepared to risk everything to protect the pristine Icelandic Highlands she loves… Until an orphan unexpectedly enters her life.

A cover-up that spanned four U.S. Presidents pushed the country's first female newspaper publisher and a hard-driving editor to join an unprecedented battle between journalist and government. Inspired by true events.

A platoon of Navy SEALs embarks on a dangerous mission in Ramadi, Iraq, with the chaos and brotherhood of war retold through their memories of the event.

A journalist tries to balance the duties of marriage and motherhood while researching a piece on college women who work as prostitutes to pay their tuition.

Will Montgomery, a U.S. Army Staff Sergeant who has returned home from Iraq, is assigned to the Army’s Casualty Notification service. Montgomery is partnered with Captain Tony Stone, to give notice to the families of fallen soldiers. The Sergeant is drawn to Olivia Pitterson, to whom he has delivered news of her husband’s death.

An account of the revolutionary years of the legendary American journalist John Reed, who shared his adventurous professional life with his radical commitment to the socialist revolution in Russia, his dream of spreading its principles among the members of the American working class, and his troubled romantic relationship with the writer Louise Bryant.

During the Vietnam War, a soldier finds himself the outsider of his own squad when they unnecessarily kidnap a female villager.

1991. Harrison Lloyd, a renowned photojournalist covering the war in Yugoslavia, is reported missing. Sarah, his wife, convinced that he is not dead, decides to go to Bosnia to find him.

Paralyzed in the Vietnam war, Ron Kovic becomes an anti-war and pro-human rights political activist after feeling betrayed by the country he fought for.

After teenage ambulance driver Ernest Hemingway takes shrapnel in the leg during World War I, he falls in love with Agnes von Kurowsky, a beautiful older nurse at the hospital where he's sent to recover. Their affair slowly blossoms, until Hemingway boldly asks Agnes to be his wife and journey to America with him.

In the last days of the Nazi-occupied France, writer Marguerite Duras awaits the return of her husband, Robert Antelme, arrested for being a Resistance fighter and then deported, while she maintains a tense relationship with her ambiguous lover and a dangerous game with a French collaborationist. Even when the Liberation arrives, she must still endure the unbearable pain of waiting.

The day after they get the word they'll go home in two weeks, a group of soldiers from Spokane are ambushed in an Iraqi city. Back stateside we follow four of them - a surgeon who saw too much, a teacher who's a single mom and who lost a hand in the ambush, an infantry man whose best friend died that day, and a soldier who keeps reliving the moment he killed a civilian woman.

Based on the true story of First Sergeant Charles Monroe King, a soldier deployed to Iraq begins to keep a journal of love and advice for his infant son. Back at home, senior New York Times editor Dana Canedy revisits the story of her unlikely, life-altering relationship with King and his enduring devotion to her and their child.

Inspired by real events, this fictional dramatization gives an insider account of how the women of Newsnight secured Prince Andrew's infamous interview.

Afghanistan. War correspondent Elsa Casanova is taken hostage by the Taliban. Faced with her imminent execution, a Special Forces unit is dispatched to free her. In some of the world’s most breathtaking yet hostile landscapes, a relentless pursuit begins between her kidnappers who have no intention of letting their prey escape them and a group of soldiers who risk their lives in pursuit of their single aim – to bring her home alive. This strong, independent woman and these men of duty are thrown together and forced to confront situations of great danger that inextricably bind them – emotionally, violently and intimately.

Austrian farmer Franz Jägerstätter faces the threat of execution for refusing to fight for the Nazis during World War II.

A veteran soldier returns from his completed tour of duty in Iraq, only to find his life turned upside down when he is arbitrarily ordered to return to field duty by the Army.

The story of Nobel Prize winner Marie Curie and her extraordinary scientific discoveries—through the prism of her marriage to husband Pierre—and the seismic and transformative effects their discovery of radium had on the 20th century.

The story of the eventful life of George W. Bush—his struggles and triumphs, how he found both his wife and his faith—and the critical days leading up to his decision to invade Iraq.

A look at the relationship between WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and his early supporter and eventual colleague Daniel Domscheit-Berg, and how the website's growth and influence led to an irreparable rift between the two friends.

A woman searches for her adult son, who was taken away from her decades ago when she was forced to live in a convent.

In 1975, Ryszard Kapuściński, a veteran Polish journalist, embarked on a seemingly suicidal road trip into the heart of the Angola's civil war. There, he witnessed once again the dirty reality of war and discovered a sense of helplessness previously unknown to him. Angola changed him forever: it was a reporter who left Poland, but it was a writer who returned…

A look at the life of Margaret Thatcher, the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, with a focus on the price she paid for power.

In 2009, Iranian Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari was covering Iran's volatile elections for Newsweek. One of the few reporters living in the country with access to US media, he made an appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, in a taped interview with comedian Jason Jones. The interview was intended as satire, but if the Tehran authorities got the joke they didn't like it - and it would quickly came back to haunt Bahari when he was rousted from his family home and thrown into prison.

An aged Charlie Chaplin narrates his life to his autobiography's editor, including his rise to wealth and comedic fame from poverty, his turbulent personal life and his run-ins with the FBI.

After a cavalry group is massacred by the Cheyenne, only two survivors remain: Honus, a naive private devoted to his duty, and Cresta, a young woman who had lived with the Cheyenne two years and whose sympathies lie more with them than with the US government. Together, they must try to reach the cavalry's main base camp. As they travel onward, Honus is torn between his growing affection for Cresta.

The story of J. Robert Oppenheimer's role in the development of the atomic bomb during World War II.

The love story of young Countess Natasha Rostova and Count Pierre Bezukhov is interwoven with the Great Patriotic War of 1812 against Napoleon's invading army.

A drama centered on the relationship between journalist Michael Finkel and Christian Longo, an FBI Most Wanted List murderer who for years lived outside the U.S. under Finkel's name.

A US Army officer, who made a "friendly fire" mistake that was covered up, has been reassigned to a desk job. He is tasked to investigate a female chopper commander's worthiness to be awarded the Medal of Honor. At first all seems in order. But then he begins to notice inconsistencies between the testimonies of the witnesses...

Follow a group of international journalists into the heart of the once cosmopolitan city of Sarajevo—now a danger zone of sniper and mortar attacks where residents still live. While reporting on an American aid worker who’s trying to get children out of the country, a British correspondent decides to take an orphaned girl home to London.

After leaving his family's sheep farm in the Australian outback, a young man joins his countrymen on the western front of World War I with hopes of helping expedite an end to the bloody conflict. But as war rages on, he is forced to grapple with the brutal realities of trench warfare, including a near-constant battle to keep himself alive—without leaving another man behind. Inspired by the real-life diary entries of local ANZACs, the feature film details the untold story of some of Australia’s greatest military victories.

Based on the true story of Robin, a handsome, brilliant and adventurous man whose life takes a dramatic turn when polio leaves him paralyzed.

In this true story, Veronica Guerin is an investigative reporter for an Irish newspaper. As the drug trade begins to bleed into the mainstream, Guerin decides to take on and expose those responsible. Beginning at the bottom with addicts, Guerin then gets in touch with John Traynor, a paranoid informant. Not without some prodding, Traynor leads her to John Gilligan, the ruthless head of the operation, who does not take kindly to Guerin's nosing.

In 1998, an auction of the estate of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor causes great excitement. For one woman, Wally Winthrop, it has much more meaning. Wally becomes obsessed by their historic love story. As she learns more about the sacrifices involved, Wally gains her own courage to find happiness.

An investigation of the massacre of 24 men, women and children in Haditha, Iraq allegedly shot by 4 U.S. Marines in retaliation for the death of a U.S. Marine killed by a roadside bomb. The movie follows the story of the Marines of Kilo Company, an Iraqi family, and the insurgents who plant the roadside bomb.

The true story of Frances Farmer's meteoric rise to fame in Hollywood and the tragic turn her life took when she was blacklisted.

France, World War II. In order to somehow make ends meet, the mother of two children, Marie Latour, does underground abortions and rents a room to a familiar prostitute. She doesn't pay any attention to her husband, who returned from the war because of his injury and lives her own life. Abortions gradually begin to bring a good income, and boredom can be easily dispelled by starting a young lover.

On the brink of the First World War, Albert's beloved horse Joey is sold to the Cavalry by his father. Against the backdrop of the Great War, Joey begins an odyssey full of danger, joy, and sorrow, and he transforms everyone he meets along the way. Meanwhile, Albert, unable to forget his equine friend, searches the battlefields of France to find Joey and bring him home.

Ideologies collide with fatal results when a military drone contractor meets an enigmatic Pakistani businessman.

The story of the first major battle of the American phase of the Vietnam War and the soldiers on both sides that fought it.

England, early 20th century. The future writer and philologist John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892-1973) and three of his schoolmates create a strong bond between them as they share the same passion for literature and art, a true fellowship that strengthens as they grow up, but the outbreak of World War I threatens to shatter it.

A documentary feature film about the biggest global corruption scandal in history, and the hundreds of journalists who risked their lives to break the story.

A Texas congressman sets a series of events in motion when he conspires with a CIA operative to aid Afghan mujahideen rebels fighting the Soviets.

An alienated teenager, saddened that he has moved away from London, must find a way to deal with a dark family secret.

With unprecedented access, this documentary follows the extraordinary journey of “Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently”—a group of anonymous citizen journalists who banded together after their homeland was overtaken by ISIS—as they risk their lives to stand up against one of the greatest evils in the world today.

At the height of the First World War, two young British soldiers must cross enemy territory and deliver a message that will stop a deadly attack on hundreds of soldiers.

A solitary nurse bonds with a badly burned patient who survived an accident on an oil rig.

Deep beneath the surface in the Syrian province of Ghouta, a group of female doctors have established an underground field hospital. Under the supervision of paediatrician Dr. Amani and her staff of doctors and nurses, hope is restored for some of the thousands of children and civilian victims of the ruthless Syrian civil war.

The true story of Marine Corporal Megan Leavey, who forms a powerful bond with an aggressive combat dog, Rex. While deployed in Iraq, the two complete more than 100 missions and save countless lives, until an IED explosion puts their faithfulness to the test.

A private security contractor in Iraq rejects the official explanation of his friend's death and decides to investigate.

The Trench tells the story of a group of young British soldiers on the eve of the Battle of the Somme in the summer of 1916, the worst defeat in British military history. Against this ill-fated backdrop, the movie depicts the soldiers' experience as a mixture of boredom, fear, panic, and restlessness, confined to a trench on the front lines.

After returning home from an extended tour in Afghanistan, a decorated U.S. Army medic and single mother struggles to rebuild her relationship with her young son.

A mother attempts to keep her family safe as war rages and a sniper lies in wait outside her home.

Irish Commandant Pat Quinlan leads a stand off with troops against French and Belgian Mercenaries in the Congo during the early 1960s.

Soldier Brian Wood, is accused of war crimes in Iraq by the human rights lawyer Phil Shiner. The two men go head to head in a legal and moral conflict that takes us from the battlefield, at so-called Checkpoint Danny Boy, to the courtroom and one of Britain’s biggest ever public inquiries, the Al-Sweady Inquiry.

After being expelled from Beecher Prep for his treatment of a classmate with a facial deformity, Julian has struggled to fit in at his new school. To transform his life, Julian's grandmother finally reveals her own story of courage of her youth in Nazi-occupied France, where a classmate shelters her from mortal danger.

A group of U.S. soldiers returning from Iraq struggle to integrate back into family and civilian life, while living with the memory of a war that threatens to destroy them long after they've left the battlefield.

Gilda Bessé shares her Paris apartment with an Irish schoolteacher, Guy Malyon, and Mia, a refugee from Spain. As the world drifts toward war, Gilda defiantly pursues her hedonistic lifestyle and her burgeoning career as a photographer. But Guy and Mia feel impelled to join the fight against fascism, and the three friends are separated.

Branded a traitor by her countrymen, French national Marie DuJardin is rescued by American soldiers on one condition: to survive, she must lead them to a cache of gold - before the Nazis return to claim it for themselves.

The story of Lyudmila Pavlichenko, the most successful female sniper in history.

The life of a Russian physician and poet who, although married to another, falls in love with a political activist's wife and experiences hardship during World War I and then the October Revolution.

A rock star general bent on winning the “impossible” war in Afghanistan takes us inside the complex machinery of modern war. Inspired by the true story of General Stanley McChrystal.

Reporters Loretta McLaughlin and Jean Cole bravely pursue the story of the Boston Strangler at great personal risk, putting their own lives on the line in their quest to uncover the truth.

Sarah Jordan, an American living in London in 1984, is married to the son of a wealthy British industrialist. She encounters Nick Callahan, a renegade doctor, whose impassioned plea for help to support his relief efforts in war-torn Africa moves her deeply. As a result, Sarah embarks upon a journey of discovery that leads to danger, heartbreak and romance in the far corners of the world.

The true story of the Mauritanian Mohamedou Ould Slahi, who was held at the U.S military's Guantanamo Bay detention center without charges for over a decade and sought help from a defense attorney for his release.

David Hare concludes his trilogy of films about MI5 renegade Johnny Worricker with another fugue on power, secrets and the British establishment. Johnny Worricker goes on the run with Margot Tyrell across Europe, and with the net closing in, the former MI5 man knows his only chance of resolving his problems is to return home and confront prime minister Alec Beasley.

Marie Heurtin is born both blind and deaf. Sister Marguerette wins her trust and teaches her how to express herself.

A Los Angeles journalist befriends a homeless Juilliard-trained musician, while looking for a new article for the paper.

When a congressional aide is killed, a Washington, D.C. journalist starts investigating the case involving the Representative, his old college friend.

A dramatic story, based on actual events, about the friendship between two men struggling against apartheid in South Africa in the 1970s. Donald Woods is a white liberal journalist in South Africa who begins to follow the activities of Stephen Biko, a courageous and outspoken black anti-apartheid activist.

A heroic true story of Major Mukund Varadarajan, an Indian Army officer who displayed extraordinary bravery during a counterterrorism mission in Kashmir’s Shopian district. The film captures his courage in protecting his nation and the devotion of his wife Indhu Rebecaa Varghese.

Cynical British journalist Fowler falls in love with a young Vietnamese woman but is dismayed when a naïve U.S. official also begins vying for her attention. In retaliation, Fowler informs the communists that the American is selling arms to their enemy.

A woman who works for a non-governmental organization (NGO) forms a special relationship with a young boy in war-torn Chechnya.

During the Iraq War, a Sergeant recently assigned to an army bomb squad is put at odds with his squad mates due to his maverick way of handling his work.

Company commander Claus Michael Pedersen and his men are stationed in Helmand, Afghanistan. Meanwhile back in Denmark, with a husband at war and three children missing their father, everyday life is a struggle for Claus' wife Maria. During a routine mission, the soldiers are caught in heavy Taliban crossfire. In order to save his men, Claus makes a decision that ultimately sees him return to Denmark accused of a war crime.

An ex-soldier with PTSD is hired to protect the wife and child of a wealthy Lebanese businessman while he's out of town.

