9. Jarhead

I wonder if Sam Mendes' movie about Marines in the first Gulf War arrived too soon to be seen as a great combat — or lack-of-combat — film. The movie wasn't so much about war as about the desperate need to fight. Based on Anthony Swofford's memoir, the movie conflated yearning with sexual frustration, where a man's inability to pull a trigger causes a harrowning pre-traumatic stress syndrome.