Since the early days of Hollywood, war has served as fertile ground for dramatic storytelling—but often at the cost of truth. The American film industry has repeatedly aligned itself with the political and ideological aims of the U.S. government, particularly during times of conflict. From World War II to the Cold War, from Vietnam to the post-9/11 wars in the Middle East, Hollywood has not only shaped public opinion about America’s enemies but also vilified entire nations, peoples, and ideologies, often reducing them to caricatures. The result is a legacy of films that blur the line between entertainment and propaganda, advancing selective narratives under the guise of national pride and cinematic spectacle.
During World War II, the Office of War Information (OWI) worked directly with Hollywood to ensure that films supported the war effort. Movies such as Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944) and Sands of Iwo Jima (1949) presented American soldiers as heroic and self-sacrificing while dehumanizing Japanese opponents as brutal and subhuman. The simplification of enemy identities was not just a narrative choice—it was a deliberate tactic to mobilize support for war.
The Cold War introduced a new enemy: communism. Hollywood quickly adjusted its lens, portraying the Soviet Union and communists as insidious threats. Films like The Red Menace (1949) and I Married a Communist (1949) fed directly into the McCarthy-era paranoia. John Wayne, both actor and staunch anti-communist, starred in and supported a range of films that advanced these views. Meanwhile, directors and screenwriters who challenged this binary were blacklisted, their careers destroyed for not towing the ideological line.
As the Vietnam War escalated, Hollywood largely followed suit in its early portrayals. The Green Berets (1968), co-directed by and starring John Wayne, was a full-throated endorsement of the war effort. It painted the North Vietnamese as cruel aggressors and framed American soldiers as noble liberators. The film ignored the broader political complexity of the war and served as a cinematic extension of government talking points. Later films like Platoon (1986) and Apocalypse Now (1979) would challenge these earlier narratives, but the damage of the initial portrayal had already seeped into popular imagination.
In the post-9/11 era, Hollywood once again became a mouthpiece for American foreign policy. American Sniper (2014), directed by Clint Eastwood, tells the story of Chris Kyle, a U.S. Navy SEAL sniper in Iraq. While the film is technically well-made and emotionally powerful, it paints a one-dimensional portrait of Iraqis as either terrorists or faceless enemies. It omits context about the war’s origins, the civilian casualties, or the broader geopolitical fallout. The portrayal of Kyle himself is stripped of the troubling aspects of his memoir, which contained racist remarks and glorified violence. The film grossed over half a billion dollars worldwide, becoming a cultural touchstone for patriotism, while effectively reducing an entire nation to a battlefield backdrop.
Similarly, Zero Dark Thirty (2012), directed by Kathryn Bigelow, was criticized for its depiction of torture as a useful method in the search for Osama bin Laden. Though the CIA’s own records disprove the effectiveness of enhanced interrogation, the film implies otherwise, giving cinematic credence to discredited techniques. Bigelow claimed artistic license, but the timing and tone of the film made it an uncritical piece of political mythmaking.
Even more overt is 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi (2016), directed by Michael Bay, which dramatizes the 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Libya. The film is presented as a tribute to American heroism but subtly reinforces the narrative that the Arab world is lawless, irrational, and anti-American. It thrives on chaos and spectacle while forgoing any inquiry into why the U.S. was involved in Libya in the first place.
Hollywood’s framing of enemies often follows racialized and cultural lines. The Middle East, in particular, has long been reduced to sand, violence, and fanaticism. From True Lies (1994), in which Arnold Schwarzenegger combats a generic Arab terrorist group, to Rules of Engagement (2000), where Yemeni protesters are portrayed as bloodthirsty mobs, the message is consistent: the American soldier is the reluctant hero in a world of barbarism. These portrayals not only misrepresent entire cultures but also help justify military interventions abroad.
Directors who attempt to break this mold often face marginalization or backlash. Oliver Stone’s Salvador (1986) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989) are rare examples of films that question the official U.S. narrative. In Salvador, Stone critiques American involvement in Latin American military dictatorships, while Born on the Fourth of July deconstructs the patriotic illusion sold to Vietnam War veterans. These films won critical acclaim but struggled commercially compared to mainstream war epics.
The issue is not just one of selective storytelling but of intentional distortion. Hollywood’s partnership with the Pentagon—through script vetting, funding, and access to equipment—means that many films undergo ideological filtering before they ever hit the screen. In exchange for using military gear or filming on military bases, studios often agree to portray the U.S. military in a favorable light. This leads to a sanitized version of war, where ethical ambiguities are replaced with binary moral certainties.
Today, as new geopolitical rivalries emerge, the patterns persist. China is increasingly depicted as a rising threat, Russia remains a convenient villain, and Iran is routinely cast in a sinister light. Even films that claim to be apolitical, like Top Gun: Maverick (2022), function as soft-power endorsements of American military dominance, carefully avoiding political specifics while celebrating fighter jets and elite training squads. The original Top Gun (1986) was credited with a boost in Navy recruitment, a fact that illustrates how entertainment and militarism can become indistinguishable.
In the end, Hollywood’s history of war storytelling is not merely one of art imitating life. It is, more often, life orchestrated to serve a political script. The cost is high: generations of viewers misled about the nature of conflict, about who suffers, and about who benefits. War, when filtered through a Hollywood lens, too often becomes a heroic spectacle rather than a human tragedy. And in that distortion, the voices of the victims—the civilians, the occupied, the misunderstood—remain silent, or worse, erased.
