What Are The Best Movies on Taliban and Afghanistan

Knowinsiders August 17, 2021 | 19:38

To get a better understanding of Taliban and the war-torn Afghanistan's situation today, here are the top 14 best movies you can watch right now.

Best Movies on Taliban and Afghanistan

Taliban have now moved to the presidential palace of Afghanistan to prepare for a 'peaceful transfer' of power. Afghanistan is facing a lot of chaos after the Taliban on Sunday took over Kabul (the capital and largest city of Afghanistan) followed by the exit of President Ashraf Ghani.

Over the years, many journalists, photographers and filmmakers have shown the critical situation of the country through cinema.

Look at the 14 best movies that have shown the situation of Afghanistan today.

1.Escape from Taliban

2003's release Escape From Taliban is helmed by Ujjal Chattopadhyaya. The film is an adaptation of a book titled A Kabuliwala's Bengali Wife penned by Sushmita Banerjee, who fled to the war-torn country, Afghanistan in the year 1995 after six years of living there with her Afghan-businessman husband. It depicts how the Taliban-Afghanistan war had led to her death by the militants, because she refused to abide by their rule on converting to Islam.

2. 12 Strong

A 2018 action-war film, 12 Strong is helmed by Nicolai Fuglsig and written by Ted Tally and Peter Craig. It is based on Doug Stanton's non-fiction book Horse Soldiers and tells the journey of US Army Special Forces who were sent to Afghanistan immediately after the September 11 attacks.

3.The Road to Guantanamo

Helmed by Michael Winterbottom, 'The Road to Guantánamo', 2006 docu-drama follows the lives of three British Muslims who were captured in 2001 in Afghanistan without charge by American forces in 2001, and incarcerated in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for almost three years.

4.Kandahar

Helmed by Mohsen Makhmalbaf, the Iran film is set in Afghanistan during the rule of the Taliban. It is partly inspired by the true events with a fictionalised story of a successful Afghan-Canadian. The plot revolves around the journey of the Afghan-Canadian, who receives a letter from her sister left behind when the family escaped the war-stricken country, as she plans on committing suicide on the last solar eclipse of the millennium.

This 2001 film directed by Mohsen Makhmalbaf follows an Afghan woman living in Canada who must journey through the perilous, war-torn Afghan wastelands to find her suicidal sister.

Watching some of these movies might give you a minuscule understanding of the suffering that the Afghani population has had to endure for far too long.

5.Lone Survivor

The biographical war film is based on the eponymous 2007's non-fiction book by Marcus Luttrell with Patrick Robinson. Set during the war in the Muslim country, the film depicts the unsuccessful United States Navy SEALs counter-insurgent mission Operation Red Wings, during which a four-man SEAL reconnaissance and surveillance team was given the task of tracking down the Taliban leader Ahmad Shah. It is penned and helmed by Peter Berg.

6.Restrepo

Restrepo is a 2010 documentary film that tells the story of the Afghanistan war. It is directed by American journalist Sebastian Junger and British photojournalist Tim Hetherington. It explores the year that Junger and Hetherington spent in Afghanistan on an assignment for Vanity Fair. The film "captures the reality of the soldiers."

7.Osama

Osama film based on a period of time when the Taliban imposed extreme restrictions of women.

The heartbreaking film made in Afghanistan by Siddiq Barmak, which tells the story from the Afghan perspective. The film follows a preteen girl living in Afghanistan under the Taliban regime who disguises herself as a boy, Osama, to support her family.

8.The Breadwinner

The 2017 animated drama is helmed by Nora Twomey and executively produced by Mimi Polk Gitlin and Angelina Jolie. The film is based on the best-selling novel, of the same name, by Deborah Ellis and it depicts the struggles of a young girl struggling to support her family during the Taliban ruling.

9.Taxi to the Dark Side

The Oscar-winning documentary concerns the death of Dilawar, an Afghan peanut farmer, who gave up farming to become a taxi driver and who died after several days of beating at the Bagram detention centre.

During the Academy acceptance speech for the 'Best Documentary Feature' Academy Award, director Alex Gibney said:

''This is dedicated to two people who are no longer with us, Dilawar, the young Afghan taxi driver, and my father, a navy interrogator who urged me to make this film because of his fury about what was being done to the rule of law. Let's hope we can turn this country around, move away from the dark side and back to the light.''

10.Armadillo

In 2010, the Danish documentary 'Armadillo' made quite a noise at different prestigious award ceremony including Cannes Film Festival. Directed by Janus Metz, the film is bout Danish soldiers in the War in Afghanistan.

11.Earth and Ashes

This 2004 film directed by Atiq Rahimi tells the story of an elderly man and his deaf grandson traversing the war-torn badlands of Afghanistan to deliver the news to his son that his family has all but disappeared.

12.The Patience Stone

Based on the novel of the same name by Atiq Rahimi, this film is based in Afghanistan, and follows a woman confessing all her secrets and dreams to her husband of 10 years, who now lies in a vegetative state.

13. In This World

This 2002 British docudrama directed by Michael Winterbottom tells the harrowing tale of two young Afghan refugees trying to make it from a refugee camp in Pakistan to safer shores in London.

14.Zero Dark Thirty

One of the few American movies about Afghanistan that had a more balanced approach to the portrayal of their own atrocities, this film's plot revolves around the CIA's decade-long search for Osama Bin Laden.