20 Best War Movies Released Since 2000

10. The Painted Bird (2018)

Perhaps this list's most difficult film to tackle, The Painted Bird follows a young boy (Petr Kotlar) who, devastated by the death of his aunt, ventures across war-torn Eastern Europe in search of nothing in particular.

On his travels, the young boy encounters misery and death, injustice and depravity, the places and people he comes into contact with haunted by the lingering presence of the Second World War's ghosts - both real and imagined. 

Written and directed Vaclav Marhoul, The Painted Bird is a visually ravishing black-and-white nightmare, a brutal three-hour journey through the bowels of a world forever changed by war, death, grief, and prejudice. 

As a feat of filmmaking, Marhoul's masterpiece is a truly a war film of few equals, the whole thing awash with powerful symbolism and striking close-ups of faces stained with mud and heartbreak. No, you won't enjoy this one, but you will respect it and the way it illuminates the lives of children ripped apart by a conflict they played no part in.