On this special day, we are more grateful than ever for the sacrifices made by those who have served in the armed forces. Why does Veterans Day always fall on the 11th of November, you might ask? A day when everyone from all walks of life can unite to pay our respects to veterans from all wars has its origins dating back to World War I. At 11:00a.m. Paris local time on the 11th of November, 1918, the Armistice of Compiègne was signed to officially end WWI.

This Veterans Day, we are recognizing the importance of Veterans as storytellers. To celebrate, with the support of an anonymous generous donor, Film Independent is inviting 100 U.S. Military Veteran (working or aspiring) filmmakers or actors in the entertainment industry to receive a Film Independent Membership, for a contribution of just $1.00!  If you are a U.S. Military Veteran and would like to become a Member, apply here.

In honor of this, we have curated eight films that embody the values and spirit of the services (including a shout out to the first covert operations team by the British Special Air Service!).

 

THE COVENANT (2023)

Military branch: U.S. Army

Director: Guy Ritchie

Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Dar Salim, Sean Sagar

Why We Love It: “Covenant. A bond. A pledge. A commitment,” director Guy Ritchie’s emotionally lacerating and cathartic war drama ends with a tacit indictment on America’s unkept promise that left many Afghan interpreters in harm’s way after the U.S. military withdrawal in 2021. During the 20-year war, as many as 50,000 interpreters had risked their lives to work with America and its allies, many of whom were promised a special immigrant visa to immigrate to the United States at the end of their tours. In the film, after surviving an ambush by the Taliban, Master Sergeant Kinley (Spirit Awards alum Jake Gyllenhaal) is severely injured. The only other survivor is his interpreter Ahmed (Iraqi-Danish actor, Dar Salim), who drags his half-dead body across hundreds of miles of Taliban-controlled territory to safety. Unfortunately, once Kinley is evacuated Stateside, Ahmed is left to fend for himself and hunted by the Taliban. Does Kinley risk everything to repay this immeasurable debt? Resisting Hollywood clichés in many war films, The Covenant’s secret sauce is in its minimalist approach, wisely anchoring most of the narrative on the unspoken bond between these two men in a way that is grounded in emotional reality. Both leads turn in understated yet deeply moving performances in Ritchie’s gripping cinematic exercise in atonement.

 

DEVOTION (2022)

Military branch: U.S. Navy

Director: J.D. Dillard

Cast: Jonathan Majors, Glen Powell, Christina Jackson

Why We Love It: As the other naval aviation actioner also co-starring Glen Powell in 2022 (Top Gun: Maverick is the other, if you’re wondering), Dillard’s war action film is based on Adam Makos’ 2015 book about the true friendship between two naval aviators just before the Korean War erupts. Past Spirit Awards nominee for The Last Black Man in San Francisco, Majors plays Ensign Jesse Brown, the only black aviator in his squadron, who has gotten to where he is despite the daily barrage of discrimination and racism he encounters. When Lieutenant Tom Hudner (Powell, from Twisters and Hit Man) arrives, an unlikely friendship develops just before they are deployed to South Korea to battle against the communists in the North. Choosing to capture as much of the action in-camera using practical effects, Dillard shot with real WWII and Korean War-era fighter aircrafts, such as the F4U Corsair, the single-seat attack aircraft AD Skyraider, and even a MiG-15. Besides the Powell connection to Top Gun: Maverick, the film also worked with the same aerial stunt team, led by Kevin LaRosa II.

 

THE INSPECTION (2022)

Military branch: U.S. Marine Corps

Director: Elegance Bratton

Cast: Jeremy Pope, Gabrielle Union, Bokeem Woodbine

Why We Love It: Writer-director Elegance Bratton’s directorial debut is based on his own boot camp experience in the Marine Corps. As a gay black man, Ellis (Pope from FX Networks series Pose and One Night in Miami) faces savage hazing from his drill instructor Leland (Woodbine) and the other recruits. But he gets no reprieve outside the Corps either, because his religious, homophobic mother Inez (Union) cannot accept that her son is gay, and kicked him out of the house when he was just 16 years old. The production was a bittersweet healing process of sorts for Bratton, as his mother died three days after the film was greenlit. With a critics score of 88%on Rotten Tomatoes, the A24 film was nominated for three Spirit Awards in 2023, including Best First Feature and acting nods for Pope and Union. The film also served as the opening night film of the 2022 Film Independent Forum.

 

12 STRONG (2018)

Military Branch: U.S. Army

Director: Nicolai Fuglsig

Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Michael Shannon, Michael Peña, Navid Negahban, Trevante Rhodes

Why We Love It: “[It took] 19 minutes to attack our country. The 12 of you will be the first ones to fight back,” says a commander in the film. Based on the real-life mission of the Green Berets Operational Detachment Alpha (ODA) 595, Danish director Fuglsig’s feature directing debut hones in on the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks. Within a month of the World Trade Center’s collapse, U.S. Army Captain Mitch Nelson (Hemsworth), Chief Warrant Officer Hal Spencer (Spirit Awards alum Michael Shannon), and their unit were the first American boots on the ground in Afghanistan. Nelson’s unit is tasked with capturing one of the Taliban’s stronghold, the city of Mazar-i-Sharif. But with only three weeks before winter arrives, they have to navigate the punishing terrain on horseback. Inspired by Doug Stanton’s book,“Horse Soldiers: The Extraordinary Story of a Band of U.S. Soldiers Who Rode to Victory in Afghanistan,“ the film highlights one of the most impressive achievements in the war. Although military strategists predicted that capturing the city could take two years, ODA 595’s men got the job done in merely three weeks! In 2012, to honor these 12 men, a statue of a Horse Soldier was dedicated at the World Trade Center site.

 

MEGAN LEAVEY (2017)

Military Branch: U.S. Marine Corps

Director: Gabriela Cowperthwaite

Cast: Kate Mara, Edie Falco, Common, and Ramón Rodríguez

Why We Love It: BAFTA-nominated director Cowperthwaite’s (Blackfish) biographical drama shines the light on a military sub-culture that rarely gets cinematic attention – it takes us deep into the world of the military’s K-9 units. Based on IRL U.S. Marine Corporal Megan Leavey’s life, Spirit Awards alum Mara portrays the titular Leavey, who was paired with military working dog – a German Shepherd named “Rex” – as a military police dog handler with the 2nd Military Police Battalion, II Marine Expeditionary Force. Together, they served deployments in Iraq, where both were injured in an IED attack in Ramadi in 2005. After both were discharged from the Corps, it took years for her to be able to adopt Rex, after the assistance of many parties, including U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer. The film was shot in Charleston, South Carolina – including scenes shot at The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina – with some desert combat scenes shot in Spain.

 

GOOD KILL (2014)

Military Branch: U.S. Air Force

Director: Andrew Niccol

Cast: Ethan Hawke, Bruce Greenwood, Zoë Kravitz, Jake Abel, and January Jones

Why We Love It: The director of refreshingly thought-provoking sci-fi thrillers such as Gattaca and In Time, Niccol’s drone warfare morality drama centers on Major Thomas Egan (2019 Spirit Awards winner for First Reformed, Hawke), a former F-16 Falcon pilot. A veteran of six tours with 3,000 flight hours on sorties over war zones, he now sits on base all day killing the enemy with MQ-9 Reaper drones – more widely known as UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles). But he soon grows disillusioned with his job and begins to question his role in the Air Force: “I am a pilot, and I’m not flying. I don’t know what it is that I am doing, but it’s not flying.” As some of his missions and orders grow more morally ambiguous, he finds himself at a crossroads. When at home with his wife Molly (Mad Men’s January Jones), he grows even quieter and retreats into alcohol, further splintering the cracks in his already fragile marriage.

 

ACT OF VALOR (2012)

Military Branch: U.S. Navy

Directors: Mouse McCoy and Scott Waugh

Cast: Unnamed active-duty U.S. Navy SEALS, Alex Veadov, Roselyn Sanchez, Nestor Serrano

Why We Love It: Stuntmen-turned-directors McCoy (Flight of the Phoenix) and Waugh (Sleeper Cell, Mr. & Mrs. Smith) delivered a one-of-a-kind military actioner with Act of Valor—the first-ever film starring active-duty Navy SEALS and Special Warfare Combat Crewmen (SWCC) operators. The story follows a SEAL team’s mission to rescue kidnapped CIA agent Lisa Morales (Sanchez) from the jungles of Costa Rica. The unbelievable opportunity came about after the directors shot a promotional video for the SWCC, which led the Navy to allow the filmmakers to utilize active-duty operators on several previously planned training missions to film several action set pieces. As a result, the yacht takedown sequence was filmed during an amphibious exercise and the HALO (High Altitude Low Open) jump was really done from approximately 30,000 feet, and filmed with cameras affixed to the operators. They also had to work with the SEAL members’ availability, which meant that a three-week sequence had to be completed in just six days.

 

THE MINISTRY OF UNGENTLEMANLY WARFARE (2024)

Military Branch: British Army’s Special Air Service (SAS)

Director: Guy Ritchie

Cast: Henry Cavill, Alan Ritchson, Alex Pettyfer, Eiza González, Henry Golding

Why We Love It: Based on recently declassified files from the British War Department and Damien Lewis’ historical novel, this semi-fictionalized account of Operation Postmaster follows the origin story of the first covert combat unit ever formed. In early part of WWII, Britain was desperate to combat Nazi Germany’s U-boat dominance in the Atlantic. On the cusp of defeat, Prime Minister Winston Churchill commissioned the first special forces unit, who were allowed to deploy unconventional and “ungentlemanly” guerilla warfare tactics in their operations. Led by Henry Cavill’s Major Gus March-Phillips, their first mission is to sink an Italian cargo ship in West Africa to cut off supplies to the U-boats. Although the topic at hand is no doubt deadly serious, Ritchie injected a boisterous, playful sensibility and his trademark quippy humor to balance out the savagery of war. The ten-week shoot required capturing all the seafaring adventures in-camera, including using a drone team to capture wide shots of the battles on the open sea.

 

 

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