10 Best Movies Set in or About Iraq

10 Movies Set in or About Iraq

Foreign-led films whose sustained setting or subject remains centered on Iraq.

1. 

   1. A Time for Drunken Horses

   Zamani barayé masti asbha · 2000

   Orphaned in a harsh Kurdish village on the Iran-Iraq border, five children fend for themselves, the eldest smuggling goods across the treacherous mountains to pay for his gravely ill little brother's surgery. Bahman Ghobadi's stark, unforgettable debut.

2. 

   2. The Hurt Locker

   2008

   During the Iraq War, a reckless, adrenaline-fueled sergeant leading a bomb-disposal team clashes with his cautious squadmates as each defused device brings them closer to catastrophe. Kathryn Bigelow's nerve-shredding, Oscar-winning war drama.

3. 

   3. Three Kings

   1999

   At the close of the Gulf War, a few American soldiers stumble on a map to Saddam's stolen Kuwaiti gold and set off to grab it, only to be caught up in the human cost of the conflict they are leaving behind. A sharp, genre-bending war satire.

4. 

   4. Buried

   2010

   An American truck driver ambushed in Iraq wakes to find himself buried alive in a coffin with only a lighter and a cell phone — and a ticking clock — as he desperately tries to be found. A claustrophobic single-location thriller.

5. 

   5. Battle for Haditha

   2007

   This docudrama reconstructs the 2005 Haditha massacre from multiple sides — the U.S. Marines, the insurgents, and the Iraqi civilians caught between them — after a roadside bomb triggers a deadly retaliation. A raw, unflinching account.

6. 

   6. The Liberace of Baghdad

   2005

   Holed up in a fortified Baghdad hotel amid the chaos of post-war Iraq, the country's most famous pianist waits for a visa to America, playing on as his world crumbles around him. An intimate, bittersweet documentary.

7. 

   7. Green Zone

   2010

   During the 2003 occupation of Baghdad, an army officer hunting for weapons of mass destruction that keep turning up nonexistent begins to suspect a cover-up reaching to the very top. Paul Greengrass's kinetic war thriller.

8. 

   8. Curveball

   Curveball - Wir machen die Wahrheit · 2020

   A German intelligence agent obsessed with proving Iraq has weapons of mass destruction latches onto a dubious defector's claims, and his zeal helps grease the case for war. A biting satirical drama based on a true intelligence fiasco.

9. 

   9. Malesh Ehna Benetbahdel

   معلش إحنا بنتبهدل · 2005

   When an Egyptian coffee-shop owner sends his hapless son to Baghdad to deliver a shipment of mangoes, the young man is arrested for insulting Saddam just as the U.S. invasion begins, spiraling into farce. An Egyptian comedy.

10. 

    10. Invader

    Invasor · 2012

    A Spanish army doctor on a peacekeeping mission in Iraq survives an attack on his convoy, and the disturbing truth of what happened haunts him back home, where powerful forces would rather it stay buried. A tense political thriller.