9-ta Kompania [ 2024-2026 ]

9/10 Watch it for: The final battle sequence and the last five minutes of silence. Warning: Bring tissues. And maybe a stiff drink. Have you seen 9th Company? Do you think it is better than Platoon? Let me know in the comments below.

Here is why this film still stings, nearly two decades later. The film follows a group of young recruits drafted into the Soviet Army during the final years of the Afghan War (1979-1989). We watch them transform from clumsy, frightened boys into hardened soldiers.

Wait, what?

For weeks, they wait. They freeze in the snow. They argue. They philosophize. They listen to rumors that the war is ending. The enemy is invisible. The tension becomes unbearable. You start to feel the paranoia of a soldier who has been staring at an empty horizon for too long. And then, hell breaks loose.

"What are you doing? The war is over. The Soviet Union doesn't exist anymore. We pulled out two years ago." 9-Ta Kompania

But here is the masterstroke of the film:

They fight. They lose limbs. They cry for their mothers. They hold the hill. 9/10 Watch it for: The final battle sequence

As the sun rises, the handful of survivors survey the carnage. They have won. They have held the line. A helicopter arrives, not with ammunition, but with news. The radio crackles: