After the success of Call of Duty 2, the developers at Infinity Ward were interested in experimenting with a setting outside of World War II for its next game. They decided to experiment with seeing how gameplay was affected when it was moved into a modern setting, resulting in 2008's Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. The game was a huge hit that spawned two sequels and launched the franchise into new directions. A decade later, the series was rebooted with 2018's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare which aspired to retain what people loved about the original while taking it in new directions. Both tried to explore the intricacies of modern combat though they may have taken different approaches to doing so.
Call of Duty draws on a variety of sources for its storylines. Though it often depicts fictional characters and events, the developers will often look to real-world events and other depictions for inspiration. That includes a lot of war movies, and in the case of Modern Warfare, especially ones about contemporary events or ones that are in recent memory. These are some of the many films about modern warfare Call of Duty fans may want to watch.
Updated on August 28, 2022 by John Hitchcock: While there is a challenge to find more modern wars that could be related specifically to Modern Warfare, there are several other films worth mentioning when widening the scope of the article, which led to the addition of Apocalypse Now due to it being cited as a heavy influence on one of the game's characters. However, lacking any other Vietnam War movies that could be tied specifically to Modern Warfare it made more sense to include it as a special mention.
6 Black Hawk Down (2001)
Ridley Scott's iconic war film chronicles the real-life battle of Mogadishu in 1993, in which a batallion of U.S. soldiers in Somalia attempted to capture a militia leader only for everything to spiral out of control. The situation took a turn for the worse as the hopelessly outnumbered soldiers struggled to avoid death or capture by the same militia. The film is an intense two and half hours of chaos and destruction as a seemingly simple military operation quickly turns into a fight for survival. Black Hawk Down has become iconic enough that it's influence can actually be felt in the original Call of Duty: Modern Warfare- the levels focused on U.S. marine Paul Jackson were clearly designed with the film in mind. Even the premise of trying to capture a high-profile target only for things to unexpectedly go wrong is similar, although the game adds a nuke into the mix.
While the reboot does not show Black Hawk Down's influence as obviously as its predecessor, its impact can definitely be felt. The game loves to throw players into heavy fighting which will quickly call the intensity of the film to mind, and a lot of it even happens in a desert environment. In particular, the level "The Embassy" probably shows the most influence from the film. Aside from a similar setup, it also follows the same idea of a group of soldiers being hopelessly outnumbered by a militia whose numbers feel infinite.
5 Jarhead (2005)
The Call of Duty series is well-known for its fast-paced intense action, throwing the player into active warzones where they have to accomplish missions under heavy enemy fire. But there are some parts of war that don't get brought up as much in the games, like the waiting. Part of the experience of being at war is simply waiting for something to happen and this can affect a person just as much as any physical or mental trauma. Obviously, there is one simple reason this is left out of Call of Duty. A campaign where the player spends large portions of time trying to keep themselves from going mad with boredom in a quiet base would not be very engaging for players. It is much more practical to limit those moments to cutscenes.
However, while it would make terrible gameplay, it does have the groundwork for an interesting movie. Enter Jarhead, a film about all the parts of war that get left out of Call of Duty. There is very little action to be found. Instead, the focus is on the experience of being stuck in one place and how war can actually be really boring. And boredom can drive a man crazy, especially in a warzone.
4 The Hurt Locker (2008)
This iconic Oscar-winning war film would have come out just after the original Modern Warfare, but its influence is definitely visible in the reboot. The Hurt Locker follows an explosive ordinance disposal (EOD) team over the course of their deployment in Iraq, with an interest in the unpredictable nature of the War on Terror as well as the ways it can mess people up in the head. A big part of the plot is the Sgt. James (played by Jeremy Renner, better known as Hawkeye) becoming addicted to the adrenaline rush he gets in dangerous situations. The thrill James gets from combat is actually somewhat similar to the experience of playing Call of Duty.
There are several moments in the 2018 reboot that seem to suggest inspiration from The Hurt Locker. The most obvious is probably the climax of the Piccadily level, where Price and Garrick find a group of hostages, one of whom has been forced to wear a bomb vest. This moment is disturbingly reminiscent of a similar scene near the end of The Hurt Locker where a similar situation happens. Additionally, the level "Highway of Death" has some resemblance to the film's sniper sequence, with the player having to locate and target enemies while being guided by a spotter.
3 Hyena Road (2015)
There are not very many Canadian war films, so the few that do exist tend to stand out. One of those is Hyena Road, directed by Paul Gross and inspired by his experiences filming soldiers in Afghanistan. Comparing a lesser-known Canadian war film to something like Call of Duty might seem like a strange decision, but it actually follows some similar themes. The 2018 Modern Warfare reboot likes to emphasize the idea that there are no real "good guys" in war, just some people that are worse than others. Even Captain Price, one of the central characters, is at best an anti-hero trying to produce the least awful outcome under messy circumstances. At worst, he is an outright war criminal.
Hyena Road is built around a similar idea. Although its characters do not commit crimes on the level of Captain Price, they do have to grapple with the immorality of war and its tendency to produce situations where no good outcome is possible. Even when trying to do the right thing there are some situations where the obvious moral choice actually has devastating consequences, or where one simply has to choose between two options that both make sense but have moral repercussions either way.
2 Zero Dark Thirty (2012)
Kathryn Bigelow's follow-up to The Hurt Locker was a much more ambitious epic chronicling the decade-long hunt for Osama Bin Laden, something that was also very clearly an influence on Call of Duty Modern Warfare. Some players may have noticed unsettling similarities in the campaign, like the second level being centered around a bombing in London. Even the name "Al-Quetala", used by one of the main antagonistic factions, is clearly based on the real-life terrorist organization Al-Quaeda which was originally led by Bin Laden. But the movie itself also shows some clear influence on the game. The presence of a female CIA agent tracking down the wolf is reminiscent of Jessica Chastain's portrayal of "Maya."
But it is the climax of Zero Dark Thirty that really shows its influence on Modern Warfare. The big climactic scene of the film involves a reconstruction of the actual Navy SEAL operation that led to Bin Laden's death. It is an intense thirty minutes that follows the team operating in the dark, having to navigate a building one room at a time without drawing attention and relying on night vision. There are actually two levels in Modern Warfare's campaign that seem to take inspiration from this sequence. The first is "Clean House" where the player is part of an SAS unit raiding a terrorist hideout. But the similarities are even more evident in "The Wolf's Den," which depicts a raid that plays out very similarly- even if the game adds an underground tunnel network that was not in the movie.
1 Special Mention: Apocalypse Now
Technically, this one is not actually about a modern war, although it is a war clearly remembered by many living in the present day. However, Francis Ford Coppola's iconic Vietnam-themed reimagining of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness remains an extremely influential masterpiece whose impact can be seen in many later depictions of war, from Black Hawk Down to Call of Duty. The original Modern Warfare even managed to slip in a subtle reference by naming one level "Charlie Don't Surf," a line spoken by Robert Duvall's Colonel Kilgore.
Call of Duty is no stranger to dropping inside jokes about classic Vietnam war movies, but there is one particular character who would be the main draw for fans of the Modern Warfare reboot. The whole film revolves around Martin Sheen's character Captain Willard being assigned to track down and kill a rogue officer known as Colonel Walter E. Kurtz. Kurtz turns out to quite an unsettling character, an unhinged soldier driven mad by endless fighting to the point where even his own government is afraid of him. If that sounds familiar, it is because Colonel Walter E. Kurtz was cited as a major inspiration for Modern Warfare's primary antagonist General Barkov.