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Full Metal Jacket poster

MOVIE · 1987

Full Metal Jacket

DramaWar117 min

Stanley Kubrick follows Private Joker from Marine boot camp to the street fighting in Hue, tracing how training and the Vietnam War reshape the men sent to fight. Matthew Modine is Joker, a pragmatic recruit whose dry detachment sets him apart, while R. Lee Ermey’s Gunnery Sgt. Hartman runs the barracks through ritual humiliation and relentless discipline. Vincent D’Onofrio’s Leonard Lawrence, marked early as the platoon’s weakest recruit, becomes a flashpoint for the pressure inside the unit. As the film moves from obstacle courses and rifle drills to combat and war reporting, its focus stays on the machinery that turns young Marines into soldiers.

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Catalogue checked October 30, 2026. Use ReelRecs with an assistant