Operation Homecoming (2007)

Image credit: Richard Schoenberg

No film can ''capture'' the experience of combat, but this eloquent and moving documentary brings us closer to the emotions (principally boredom and terror) of the soldiers fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan than perhaps any previous examination. It features interviews with infantrymen, but mostly it showcases their words: searing, intimate diaries of the agony and banality of battle, read by actors who make the testimony sting. The film scrapes off any glamour to reveal the eyes of bravery — looking straight into death, with no reward but survival.