'Warfare' Dudes, Ranked
Every up-and-coming actor under 35 is in this movie. Who's the most promising one?
Earlier this week, I went to see Warfare, the new Iraq War movie from directors Alex Garland and Ray Mendoza. It’s a terrific film that’s trying to be the most realistic war movie ever made, and might be successful. Mendoza is a former Navy SEAL and combat veteran, and the film is based on his and members of his platoon’s memories of an operation in Ramadi, Iraq in 2006 that went terribly wrong. It’s an immersive, harrowing film that approaches its subject with an admirable lack of romanticism. For 90 minutes, Warfare attempts to recreate the experience of being in a building that’s being attacked.
I don’t always read the press notes, but I did after I saw Warfare, because I wanted to learn more about how this movie was made. They’re great press notes, and they make a convincing case for Warfare as an exceptional technical and artistic achievement. Mendoza and Garland met when Mendoza served as the military advisor on Civil War. That film’s journalistic, morally reserved style continues in Warfare, which has a unique screenplay. Everything in the film is based on corroborated memories from the people who were part of the operation. Mendoza and Garland approached the writing process like an investigation, trying to piece together a timeline of what happened that day in November 2006. The movie doesn’t have the usual “this is a work of fiction” disclaimer; its disclaimer is that it can’t guarantee 100% accuracy.
It’s presented in real time, with highly detailed and realistic action and dialogue. I love movies and shows that force the viewer to keep up with unfamiliar jargon. Warfare’s dialogue is not only almost entirely military jargon, it’s also delivered in a very calm way, because the comms have to stay calm and precise in order to be comprehensible over the radio. The way these soldiers are trained to be almost robotically calm even when they’re absolutely freaking out due to stress and fear and confusion gives Warfare a verisimilitude and keeps it from anything resembling glorification or sentimentality. It just shows what happened, presented without embellishment. It’s not a propagandistically anti-war movie, but, objectively, war is hell. And the pointlessness of the operation is a message in itself, as is the fact that the last shot of the movie is the Iraqi family whose home the SEALs commandeered and destroyed surveying the damage after the soldiers have left.
According to Mendoza, the goals of the movie are twofold: one, to show SEAL veteran Elliott Miller, who doesn’t remember the event that left him permanently wounded, what happened so that he can try to find some closure; and two, to serve “as a reminder to the people who make the decisions to go to war that there are people that will answer that call so that others don’t have to — and usually it’s the youth of America.”
The cast consists of a who’s who of rising male actors in their 20s and 30s. I am going to rank them, based on how much I enjoyed their performances here and in other things and how much I’m looking forward to seeing what they do next. But before I do that, I want to be clear that their placement on the list is not a reflection of their talent. They’re all great, and they’re all great in this. But what can I say, some of them are just cooler to me than others.
1. D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai
Woon-A-Tai is best known for the cult classic FX series Reservation Dogs, which was one of the best shows on TV when it was on, and for which he received an Emmy nomination. He’s excellent here, playing Ray Mendoza himself. I have a feeling Woon-A-Tai can do anything, and hopefully Hollywood has leading man roles for him in the future. He has the most upside of anyone on this list.
2. Charles Melton
Melton was so good in May December. This motherfucker’s got soul. Next he’s in Beef Season 2, which was probably one of the most desirable projects in Hollywood when it was casting. Beef Season 1 was awesome, and I’m looking forward to the next entry.
3. Joseph Quinn
Quinn is the member of the cast with the biggest upcoming projects, so we’re guaranteed to be seeing a lot of him in the next few years. He’s Johnny Storm/Human Torch in Fantastic 4, and then he’s going to play George Harrison in Sam Mendes’ Beatles movies. Personally, I would have switched him and Harris Dickinson as John, just based on looks and overall vibe, but I’m sure they were cast how they were for a reason. I don’t know much about him as a guy, but that will change once promotion for the Beatles movies starts. He was great in Stranger Things Season 4, and he was in Gladiator II and A Quiet Place: Day One. He’s technically already a pretty major dude, it just doesn’t feel like it because Hollywood can’t make stars like it used to.
4. Cosmo Jarvis
Shogun’s John Blackthorne. I love this guy and his voices. I haven’t seen him in anything besides Shogun and this — even though Warfare is a true ensemble, he’s Elliott Miller, which is sort of the most important part — but he’s going to be in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, which could end up being the third-biggest movie of 2026 behind Shrek 5 and Avengers: Doomsday.
5. Michael Gandolfini
This kid is great. He’s the only Gen Z character actor so far. I like him as the Charlie Kirk-coded lil’ political operative on Daredevil: Born Again. And even though The Many Saints of Newark was terrible and we don’t speak of it, it never happened, Gandolfini did an admirable job playing a young version of his father, Tony Soprano. That must have been hard, in many different ways.
6. Finn Bennett
I really liked Finn Bennett on True Detective: Night Country. There’s something very natural about him. He’s the son of Ronan Bennett, creator of Dad Shows The Day of the Jackal and MobLand. Next up for him is playing some Targaryen in the Game of Thrones prequel A Night of the Seven Kingdoms. I wish him the best of luck with that.
7. Kit Connor
Extremely online teens love this kid because he was on a Netflix romance show called Heartstopper. Warfare is him going in a different direction and showing some range. Maybe he’s the next Robert Pattinson? He’s the only character in Warfare who I bumped on. His “new guy energy” felt a little stock. But his performance was good. He’s only 21. We’ll see where things go for him.
8. Noah Centineo
Everybody loved this guy when To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before came out. He was the new heartthrob who was going to save romcoms. He was everywhere. That was seven years ago. Hard to believe. Time is moving so fast. Nothing he did after that had much of an impact, unfortunately. The Recruit, the Netflix show that was supposed to turn him into the next Chris Pine or John Krasinski or something, didn’t work out. I barely recognized him in Warfare, which is maybe a good thing for him. Maybe he’ll make a successful transition to adult roles after all.
9. Will Poulter
Will Poulter is the most experienced guy in this cast, which is why he plays the platoon leader. He’s been around for a while. He was in Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, Midsommar, Dopesick, and a lot of other stuff. I’ve seen enough of him to know he doesn’t do much for me. I’ve never seen him in something and felt like he added so much that it had to be him.
10. Taylor John Smith
Sorry to this man, but I’ve never seen him before in my life. I guess I saw him in Sharp Objects, but I don’t remember him at all. And it’s not his fault he’s the most annoying character in Warfare who keeps freezing up and standing around, but that’s all I know him for at this point. He doesn’t seem to have anything major coming up. He looks like a Ken doll. I don’t know about him. I don’t have a negative opinion of him, but I don’t have a positive one, either.
There are a few other guys in the platoon, but they have smaller roles and 10 is a nice, round number to cap the list.
I interviewed David Oyelowo for Gold Derby about his new comedy series Government Cheese, which premieres on Apple TV+ today. The show is going to flop, which is a shame, because it has some really good things going for it. It has a very surreal style and a distinctly personal vision courtesy of creator Paul Hunter, and Oyelwo is terrific as Hampton Chambers, a father who invented a self-sharpening drill when he was incarcerated in Chino and has dreams of turning it into a business. He wants to walk a righteous path, but his urge to seek shortcuts is very strong. It’s a Dad Show, baby.
We had a great conversation about the show. Oyelowo is a thoughtful guy, and he had very interesting things to say about faith and working on a show that’s set in 1969 but isn’t about 1969 and filming in Los Angeles, among many other things. If you want to hear my voice and see what I look like not photoshopped onto someone else, watch the video at Gold Derby.
I just subscribed and saw this headline and immediate click on this one! I had the same thought about Harris Dickinson, no offense to Joseph who was great. My list is almost exactly the same, except I’d switch Kit and Gandolfini and I did not register Noah even though I knew he was in it. D’Pharaoh was amazing.
Definitely interested in seeing Warfare, I enjoyed the breakdown of the entire cast here. I am excited to see Charles Melton’s career continue to grow, I was surprised by his stellar performance in May/December considering how robotic he seemed in Riverdale, though I imagine that had much more to do with the incredibly strange creative choices that show made. It’s good to see more work being done to explore the Iraq War, while many contest the motivations and argument made in favour of it I think it’s important to recognize the veterans who served in the conflict which it sounds like this movie did.