Jake Gyllenhaal & Jamie Foxx's True Story War Movie With Near-Perfect Score From Roger Ebert Is Now On Streaming

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Jake Gyllenhaal as Anthony Swofford in Jarhead

Published Sep 5, 2026, 8:10 PM EDT

Shawn S. Lealos is an entertainment writer who is a voting member of the Oklahoma Film Critics Circle. He has written for Screen Rant, CBR, ComicBook, The Direct, The Sportster, Chud, 411mania, Renegade Cinema, Yahoo Movies, and many more.

Shawn has a bachelor's degree in professional writing and a minor in film studies from the University of Oklahoma. He also has won numerous awards, including several Columbia Gold Circle Awards and an SPJ honor.

He also wrote Dollar Deal: The Story of the Stephen King Dollar Baby Filmmakers, the first official book about the Dollar Baby film program. Shawn is also currently writing his first fiction novel under a pen name, based in the fantasy genre.

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Released in 2005, Jake Gyllenhaal and Jamie Foxx starred in a war movie that received a near-perfect score from Roger Ebert. The movie came out the same year as an Oscar-contending movie that Gyllenhaal starred in called Brokeback Mountain, and the timing has helped his incredible war movie remain a little more obscure. Foxx was coming off his award-winning role in Ray, and this was another solid dramatic role.

In 1999, Sam Mendes broke out with his debut feature film, American Beauty, a darkly comedic psychological drama that went on to win Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director. It was a huge career launching point for Mendes, who then followed it up three years later with a comic book adaptation called Road to Perdition, a period gangster movie starring Tom Hanks and Paul Newman. That led to 2005 and his third movie, Jarhead.

Jarhead is the first movie Mendes made that is based on a true story. This movie is based on the 2003 memoir by former Marine Anthony Swofford, a veteran who served during the Persian Gulf War. Gyllenhaal stars as Swofford, with Foxx as Staff Sergeant Sykes. The movie was a moderate financial success and received above-average critical reviews, but it remains an interesting look at the cost of war.

Jarhead Is A Different Take On A War Movie

Jake Gyllenhaal as Anthony Swofford at attention in Jarhead

Jarhead tells the story of Swofford, as he joins the Marines and goes to fight as a sniper in the Persian Gulf War. Interestingly, the movie takes a different direction with the storytelling, showing his training and preparation, and then his journey into the war. However, what is most interesting is that, despite being a sniper, Swofford never fires a gun in the movie. In fact, Jarhead is more interested in the other aspects of war.

This is a war movie that shows what happens when a country sends soldiers into a war, but then removes what most people expect from the genre. This is like Full Metal Jacket in the training of soldiers, but when they end up overseas, they have nothing to do but stand around and wait.

It is also interesting to see the character of Swofford, who is not a good man for much of the film. He considers suicide at one point, threatens another soldier, and even watches as his fellow soldiers do unspeakable things during the war without lifting a finger to stop them. He is not a hero, and he is not evil, and that makes this a war movie about regular people put into unthinkable situations, but without the actual dangers of war.

Mendes added a Vietnam vet to the movie when the soldiers came home. It is here that the Vietnam vet congratulates them on the war, but none of the men feel they accomplished anything. By the end of the movie, these soldiers return home with nothing to show for their training. It brings a new look to the senselessness of war and contrasts it with a previous war that saw so many casualties.

Jarhead Is Absolutely Worth Watching On Netflix (But You Can Ignore Its Sequels)

Jake Gyllenhaal in a yellow fog in Jarhead

Jarhead is now streaming on Netflix, so anyone who missed out on it can watch it now and see a brilliantly made and contemplative look at modern-day war. It also made enough of a mark to warrant three sequels, but most viewers would be better off skipping out on watching those. Jarhead 2: Field of Fire came out in 2014, Jarhead 3: The Siege was released in 2016, and Jarhead: Law of Return followed in 2019.

None of the sequels brought back Gyllenhaal or Mendes, and they really don't fit into the war movie genre as well as the original. The second movie has a team that is outnumbered and needs to fight their way across Afghanistan. The third is about Marines defending the US Embassy, and the fourth is a rescue mission.

The original Jarhead was about being sent to war and sitting around, with the soldiers finding their roles in the war to be meaningless. The sequels are all generic war movies. What makes the original great is the one thing that the follow-ups ignore: the purposelessness of the soldiers. As a result, it is always better to skip out on these films when revisiting the Mendes film.