Members of the armed services can and will argue amongst themselves, but in the minds of people and pop culture, Navy SEALs loom large as the picture of the United States’ most elite military men. We can probably thank the fiction of Tom Clancy, and the fact that a SEAL team that killed 9-11 mastermind Osama bin Laden, but Hollywood has been enamored with the special operations force for at least the last three decades. When a character in any movie is declared to be either a current or former Navy SEAL, it’s a given that they won’t go down easily. When we discuss the most ruthless thing a U.S. president can do short of a nuclear strike, more often than not it’s, “Send in SEAL Team 6!”
While movies often take artistic license, it’s fair to say that some of the movies featuring Navy SEALs are significantly more accurate than others, just as some are more positive portrayals than others. All, however, have a place on this list of the best films to feature SEALs. They’re often the heroes, but they can be the villains too, because very little is scarier as a threat than an elite hero gone bad. Regardless of the different tacks they take, all the movies on this list are worth your time, though for very different reasons.
These are the 12 best Navy SEAL movies.