Netflix's Unhinged Alan Ritchson Thriller 'War Machine' Is Officially Best of the Year

Image via Prime Video Published Nov 8, 2026, 11:31 PM EST Collier Jennings is an entertainment journalist with extensive experience. Collier, or "CJ" to his friends and family, is a dedicated fan of genre films - particularly science fiction, fantasy, and comic book adaptations, not to mention all forms of animation. This stems from a close bond with his father, who introduced him to these genres via copies of X-Men comics and reruns of the original Ultraman series. With his near-encyclopedic knowledge and bottomless love of genre, he's tackled a wide variety of articles. Sign in to your Collider account The breakout movies and TV shows of 2026 are putting certain actors in the spotlight. Tom Holland became summer's biggest star thanks to the one-two punch of Spider-Man: Brand New Day and The Odyssey. Inde Navarrette's breakout role in Obsession led to her snagging the role of Rogue in Marvel Studios' upcoming X-Men reboot. It's Alan Ritchson, though, who's had the biggest surprise. While Ritchson's best known for playing the title role in Reacher, he also starred in a gritty sci-fi/action thriller that quickly became one of Netflix's biggest movies. That movie is War Machine, which is directed and co-written by Patrick Hughes (The Hitman's Bodyguard.) War Machine centers on a unnamed soldier (Ritchson) who is currently training to join the Army Rangers. The soldier, given the designation "81", is about to complete the test known as the "Death March" where he and other soldiers destroy a prototype aircraft. It turns out that the aircraft they're meant to destroy is a highly advanced alien machine that starts picking off soldiers left and right. What follows is a blood-soaked, adrenaline-fueled story that's been described as "The Terminator meets The Hurt Locker," and it wouldn't work without Alan Ritchson. 'War Machine' Lets Alan Ritchson Flex His Emotional Chops Image via Netflix War Machine takes its time building up to the reveal that its protagonist is fighting an alien machine, which makes the carnage hit that much harder once it begins. The real meat of the movie's story lies in exploring 81's emotional state. At the opening of the movie, he loses his brother (Jai Courtney) during a firefight; the lingering guilt and grief lead him to take greater risks and have his superiors questioning him. It isn't until the machine attacks that 81 is forced to rely on his fellow soldiers, even taking the leadership position he kept denying. Ritchson helps give War Machine an emotional core through his performance. Over time, he showcases a slowly defrosting exterior, going from a tortured soldier to a bona fide leader. It doesn't hurt that he has a great supporting cast to bounce off, whether it's Stephan James as fellow Ranger trainee 7 or Dennis Quaid and Esai Morales as his superior officers. Unlike Reacher, which has settled into a predictable but reliable formula, or Motor City, which prioritized its no-dialogue gimmick over an actual story, War Machine develops its characters while still delivering the action you'd expect from Army men taking on alien machinery. COLLIDERInteractive Naughty List Film/Quizzes/Christmas Collider QuizWhich ChristmasVillain Are You?8 Questions · 5 AntagonistsEvery Christmas story needs somebody standing in the way of it. Some of them are reformable, some of them are having far too good a time, and one of them meant well the entire way through. Eight questions will work out which one you are.The Lineup Grinch Scrooge Gruber Wet Bandits Jack Check The List Question 01THE DECORATIONS 01The decorations go up at work on November 3rd.Everybody reacts to the first sign. Yours says a lot. AI say something out loud, possibly to the one person I shouldn't have said it to.BI think about what it cost and who signed off on it.CI don't look up. I have a deadline and it is not in December.DI notice that everyone has gone soft and nobody is paying much attention to anything.EI'm thrilled, and within a day I have joined the committee. ← BackPick one, then Next Next Question Question 02THE PARTY 02Somebody invites you to a big Christmas party.The invitation is the test. The answer is the personality. AI'll come for forty minutes and stand fairly close to the door.BI'll pass. There's work, and parties are expensive in more ways than one.CI'll come, I'll be excellent company, and I'll leave before anybody notices.DI'll come. Free food, open house, nobody counting anything.EI'll come, and somehow I'll be running it by nine o'clock. ← BackPick one, then Next Next Question Question 03SECRET SANTA 03You get put in charge of the office Secret Santa.A small amount of power over other people's December. AI'll run it properly and resent every minute of it.BThere will be a spending cap, and the spending cap will be enforced.CIt will run perfectly. Nobody will ever know what that took.DI'll forget until the morning of and improvise at the gas station.EI'll redesign the whole format. It'll be ambitious. It may not work. ← BackPick one, then Next Next Question Question 04THE LIST 04Your family asks what you want this year.What you ask for is usually more revealing than what you give. ANothing. Truly nothing. Please do not.BSomething useful, although I'd honestly rather you kept the money.CSomething very specific. I'll send a link to the exact one.DSurprise me. I'm easy. I'll be happy with whatever turns up.EI've made a list. It's long and parts of it are unreasonable. ← BackPick one, then Next Next Question Question 05THE MORNING 05It's Christmas morning and something has gone wrong.Something always goes wrong. The tell is the first thing you do. AI predicted this. I said this would happen. I am saying it again now.BI work out who is responsible and what it is going to cost to put right.CI deal with it quietly, before anybody else has registered that it happened.DI make it considerably worse trying to fix it, and we laugh about it eventually.EI overcorrect with great enthusiasm and create a second, larger problem. ← BackPick one, then Next Next Question Question 06THE CHILD 06A child asks you a sincere question about Christmas.This is the moment most of these stories really turn on. AIt disarms me completely and I have to go and sit down for a minute.BI give them an honest answer and then feel strange about it for the rest of the day.CI give them a charming answer that gives away nothing at all.DI give them a terrible answer with total confidence.EI give them a forty-minute answer that they did not ask for. ← BackPick one, then Next Next Question Question 07THE FEEDBACK 07Someone tells you that you're being a bit much about Christmas.Being told is one thing. What you do next is the other thing. AThey're right, and I'll be insufferable about admitting it.BI'll reconsider the entire thing at three in the morning, on my own.CI'll smile, agree completely, and change absolutely nothing.DI'll deny it and immediately double down.EI'll be genuinely hurt, because I was only ever trying to help. ← BackPick one, then Next Next Question Question 08DECEMBER 26 08It's the day after. What are you doing?The last shot of the story, and the one that decides what it was about. AFeeling unexpectedly fine about the whole thing.BLooking at the receipts and then at the people, in that order, and reconsidering.CAlready somewhere else, perfectly dressed, on to the next thing.DPlanning how to do it properly next year. It will go exactly the same way.EMissing it already, and starting to plan something enormous. ← BackPick one, then Next Reveal My Villain The List Has Been CheckedYou Are Your answers point to the Christmas antagonist who shares your particular objection to December, your method for dealing with it, and your odds of being forgiven by the final scene. 1966The GrinchHow the Grinch Stole Christmas!It was never the presents. It was the noise. You are not against joy. You are against volume, obligation, and being told when to feel things, which in December amounts to a full-time grievance.Why This Is You The Grinch spends an entire special engineering the perfect scheme and loses to a town that simply keeps singing. The plan was never the weak point. The premise was. You share his real quality, which is not cruelty but sensitivity, badly handled and pointed outward. You are the most reformable name on this list, and the one who gets the best scene when it finally happens. Your heart is a measurement problem. It always was. The NoiseReformableBest Turnaround 1843Ebenezer ScroogeA Christmas CarolThe ledger was always correct. That was the problem. You are not cruel so much as closed. The arithmetic of your life has been right for years, and it has quietly cost you everything that was never on the sheet.Why This Is You A Christmas Carol has outlasted nearly everything else written in 1843 because Dickens made the antagonist the only character who changes. You have the same shape. Show you the evidence and you will not argue with it, which is rarer than it sounds. Your turnaround, when it arrives, is total and slightly embarrassing in its enthusiasm. You will overpay for a goose. Nobody doubts you were wrong. The story is about what you do on the morning after you find out. The LedgerTotal TurnaroundOverpays 1988Hans GruberDie HardExceptional taste. Somebody else's building. You are the best-dressed and best-briefed person in any room, and you have never once been the one who lost control of the situation. Until the one time.Why This Is You Hans Gruber turned a Christmas party into a stage, and became the template every charming antagonist has borrowed from since. You share the method: preparation, presentation, and an absolute refusal to raise your voice. Your plan is better than everyone else's plan. It accounts for everything except one person who was not supposed to be in the building. You will be remembered for the manners rather than the scheme, which is exactly how you would want it. The SuitThe TimetableOne Variable 1990The Wet BanditsHome AlonePhysics. Repeatedly. In the face. You are not sophisticated, not subtle, and not remotely discouraged. You have been outwitted by an eight-year-old and a paint can, and you are already planning the return trip.Why This Is You Home Alone works because its antagonists are indestructible and completely undeterred, which turns the whole thing into a cartoon. You have that same quality. Setbacks do not register with you as information. They register as delay. You argue with your partner constantly and you would never once consider working with anybody else. You will be back. Worse plan, identical enthusiasm, same outcome. PersistentNever LearnsComing Back 1993Jack SkellingtonThe Nightmare Before ChristmasYour heart was right. Your judgment was not. You did not set out to ruin Christmas. You wanted to understand it, and then improve it, and then run it, and somewhere in that sequence it went very wrong.Why This Is You The Nightmare Before Christmas gives you an antagonist who is also the hero: someone whose enthusiasm vastly outpaces his research. You are the same. You commit completely to things you have not finished understanding, and the commitment is genuinely the best thing about you. An entire town believed in you, which removed the one thing that might have stopped this: somebody willing to say no. You will learn the lesson. You will have forgotten it by October. Over-CommittedMeans WellForgets By October Closest Matches 1· · ·0% 2· · ·0% 3· · ·0% Retake The QuizCopied A Collider InteractiveCOLLIDERMore quizzes at collider.com A Sequel to 'War Machine' Is In The Works While War Machine drew mixed reviews, it was a hit for Netflix and still holds a spot on the streamer's Top 10 list of most popular movies. That puts it among other Netflix breakouts, like KPop Demon Hunters and Ryan Reynolds' time travel epic The Adam Project. Ironically, War Machine wasn't developed as a Netflix movie. Patrick Hughes originally meant to release the movie theatrically until Netflix partnered with Lionsgate. Hughes also told Decider that War Machine was part of a larger story he wanted to tell if given the chance. “I know exactly where I want to take it, and what that broader story is...We absolutely love the character of 81. For me, I wanted to tell a film that started with the micro, and ended with the macro. And I thought that was a really unique take on the genre that we were working in. Let’s see what happens.” Hughes is about to get his chance as Netflix greenlit a sequel to War Machine, appropriately titled War Machines. Details are scarce, but the sequel is more than likely following up on the end of War Machine where it's revealed that more alien machines have touched down on Earth — and 81 is the sole man who knows their weakness. Alan Ritchson is also continuing his working relationship with Netflix, as he's set to star in the upcoming action thriller Malestrom. The smash success of War Machine proves Ritchson has a future outside of Reacher, and that sci-fi remains Netflix's most successful genre for original projects. Release Date March 6, 2026 Runtime 107 minutes Director Patrick Hughes Writers Patrick Hughes, James Beaufort Producers Todd Lieberman, Alexander Young, Patrick Hughes, Greg McLean, Rich Cook