25 Best Cold War Movies Ranked

Directors making war movies often pass up the Cold War, because it didn’t actually involve any major battles. It was more of a psychological game where both sides — the capitalist countries and the communist states — would try to one-up each other in terms of pride and achievements while spreading lies and propaganda about their enemies, gathering intelligence through acts of espionage, and funding small wars known as surrogate or “proxy wars.” The conflict lasted from the end of the Second World War in 1945 to the fall of the USSR in 1991, allowing for a wide variety of the best Cold War movies to explore the era.