10 Near-Perfect War Shows That Nobody Remembers Today

Published Sep 12, 2026, 2:30 PM EDT Zach Moser has been writing for ScreenRant since 2022, covering movies, classic TV, and streaming TV. His areas of expertise cover a wide range of genres with a particular interest in horror and drama, and the conversations around the TV and film industry. When he's not covering the latest film releases or chronicling the latest season of a new show, he's writing humor pieces for McSweeney's Internet Tendency, Slackjaw, and Points In Case or working on short stories and his second novel. War often makes for captivating television, and there are more than a few that have been made in the last couple of decades. There are so many that you may have missed out on some, such as these 10 shows, which deserve far more attention. It's easy to get lost among the many great shows in the genre. This list of 10 series explores unexamined theaters of well-known wars, small skirmishes that never get the due they should, and the uncelebrated people who are forgotten about amongst the battles and front lines. War covers the entire swathe of human history and there's a TV show for every bit of it. The Rat Patrol (1966-1968) Credit: IMDb The Rat Patrol is a little-seen action-adventure series from the 1960s that ran on ABC for two seasons and 58 episodes. The show follows three American soldiers and one British soldier working as a special forces unit in the North African campaign. The story is loosely based on David Stirling's exploits with the SAS, recently depicted in SAS: Rogue Heroes. History buffs and Steven Knight acolytes may be wondering why a show about the SAS stars three American characters, and British and Australian audiences wondered the same. The BBC went so far as to yank the series off the air (via TVLine). Reception in the United States was far more positive, with the show ranking high in the Nielsen Ratings. Land Girls (2009-2011) Credit: BBC One The BBC One period drama Land Girls tells the story of the Women's Land Army, a British civilian organization that was created during WWI and reformed during WWII. The Women's Land Army strove to place women workers in positions held by men who had been sent off to war. It began as a volunteer service but was soon supplemented by conscription. Summer Strallen, Christine Bottomley, Jo Woodcock and Becci Gemmell star as four women who have all joined the WLA for one reason or another, whether out of a sense of duty, because they were forced to, or to escape their previous life. Though not the most historically accurate series you'll find, it's a compelling and meaningful story about an often overlooked part of World War II. Hatfields & McCoys (2012) The Hatfield-McCoy feud may be more of a series of clashes than an all-out war, but these skirmishes are kicked off by the American Civil War, and the feud serves as a tragic epilogue of that war and a reminder that America was, and in many ways still is, a fractured nation thanks in large part to the Civil War. The miniseries from 2012 stars Kevin Costner, Bill Paxton, Tom Berenger, Jena Malone, and more in its large ensemble cast, and is a dramatic, sometimes self-serious reenactment of a distinctly American kind of fight. The soundtrack is worth listening to on its own, with some tear-jerking hymns and moving compositions. The Hollow Crown (2012-2016) Credit: MovieStillsDB The Hollow Crown is an adaptation of William Shakespeare's Henriad, eight of his plays based on English kings, with a focus on The War of the Roses. The eight books are divided into seven episodes, with a huge selection of British thespians popping in for sometimes only one episode. Everyone from Andrew Scott to Patrick Stewart makes an appearance. The Henriad Henry VI, Part 1 Henry VI, Part 2 Henry VI, Part 3 Richard III Richard II Henry IV, Part 1 Henry IV, Part 2 Henry V It's a gorgeous series, and every episode presents a masterful rendition of Shakespeare's work and world with perfect costuming and set design. The Henriad consists of some of Shakespeare's lesser-known works, and The Hollow Crown is a reminder of how different and textured these plays can be. 37 Days (2014) Credit: IMDb The British miniseries 37 Days is a three-episode historical drama covering the 37 days leading up to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, one of the key events that initiated the First World War. The series begins on June 28, 1914, and ends on August 4, 1914, with the U.K. declaring war on Germany. 37 Days challenges some classically assumed notions about WWI, including that Franz Ferdinand's death was the cause of the war, rather than one of many fuses leading to a powder keg. It turns the events of the period into a character study that gives us a ground-floor view of the deliberations that led to war. 1864 (2014) Credit: MovieStillsDB 1864 is an eight-episode Danish series set during the Second Schleswig War of 1864, which was fought between Denmark and a Prussian-Austrian alliance. The war ended in a crushing defeat for Denmark, which was forced to cede a quarter of its territory to Prussia. Among many long-lasting repercussions was that those Danes who lived in the ceded land ended up being conscripted to fight for Germany in WW1. The series follows two brothers from a remote village who enlist in the Danish army and face the horrors of the bloody war first-hand. 1864 is one of the most expensive shows in Danish history, and it looks every bit of it, with stunning battle sequences, gorgeous cinematography, and a tight attention to detail (via cphpost). The Vietnam War (2017) Credit: KenBurns Ken Burns' The Vietnam War is the lesser-known of his war documentaries, the most popular one being The Civil War from 1990. The Vietnam War, fittingly, covers one of the most controversial periods in American history, and makes the choice to interview the soldiers, protestors, and civilians from all sides rather than historians and major figures. The series explores the Vietnam War from ground level and paints the era in a complex, personal light that we don't usually see. What ends up coming into focus in The Vietnam War is how the non-combatants on both sides of the war were more integral to the era than you may initially guess. World On Fire (2019-2023) World on Fire is a war drama series that ran for two seasons on the BBC, with the first season covering March 1939 to July 1940 and the second season covering October 1940 to May 1941. The series follows many different characters, whose stories begin and end all over the European theater of the war. As the show continues on, the lives of the disparate characters become intertwined, sometimes with their storylines directly colliding, and sometimes only indirectly so. Even when characters are separated by borders and countries, the analogous experiences they share reveal how their lives have become indistinguishable in the face of war. Das Boot (2018-2023) Das Boot is a German sequel to the renowned submarine movie from 1981, and explores the Nazi military machine with a wider lens than the movie. Like the film, the action is primarily centered on the crew of a German U-boat. In the series, the crew's loyalty to Hitler and Germany is beginning to wane. The show offers a different look into the war and expands upon the story that Das Boot told. The wide-ranging world of the show can get a bit unwieldy at times, but also keeps the story exciting. Everyone in the series is forced to make difficult decisions at every step, giving up pieces of themselves along the way. Catch-22 (2019) MovieStillsDB Joseph Heller's 1961 satirical war novel, Catch-22, holds up as well now as it did when it came out. It's circular, frustrating depiction of the military apparatus can be applied to World War II as well as it can be applied to any war in any country. In 2019, George Clooney produced a six-episode adaptation of the book for Hulu. While the miniseries doesn't do anything that the book doesn't, being content with bringing the story to the screen as accurately as possible, the fantastic ensemble cast gets across the hilarity and horror of Heller's writing very well. It's the perfect companion to the book, and a war show that is very, dearly anti-war.