Civil War is a 2024 dystopian action thriller film[6] written and directed by Alex Garland, starring Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura, Cailee Spaeny, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Sonoya Mizuno, and Nick Offerman.

After surviving a suicide bombing in New York City, jaded veteran war photographer Lee Smith and journalist colleague Joel meet with their mentor Sammy to share their plan to interview the isolated president.

Lee and Joel are headed to Washington, D.C., to interview the president before his likely capture, while Sammy joins them to catch a ride to the WF frontline at Charlottesville, Virginia.

Following an overnight stop near ongoing fighting, the group documents combat the next day as secessionist militiamen successfully assault a loyalist-held building.

The group spends the night at a refugee camp before passing through a small town where, under watchful guard, residents attempt to live in ignorance of the war.

The trio embed themselves with the WF as they assault the White House, where Jessie repeatedly endangers herself during fighting to capture photographs, while Lee struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder from the carnage.

Advancing through the largely-abandoned building filled with dead staffers, an abortive attempt by a single Secret Service agent to negotiate the president's surrender and safe passage results in the shooting down of the female aide.

Satisfied, Joel steps back and Jessie takes the million-dollar photographs of the WF soldiers executing the president, followed by a shot of them posing with his corpse.

Additional cast members Jared Shaw, Justin Garza, Brian Philpot, and Tywaun Tornes as the Western Forces soldiers led by the sergeant in storming the White House.

Jesse Plemons, Dunst's real-life husband, makes an uncredited appearance as a racist[8] ultranationalist militant who kills the two journalists who had briefly joined Lee's group en route to Charlottesville, after the original actor backed out about a week before shooting started.

[21][22] In a March 2024 interview with The Guardian, Garland stated that after Civil War, he intends to step back from directing and focus only on writing.

[26][27] Civil War had its world premiere at South by Southwest on March 14, 2024, with favorable reactions from the audience and positive reviews from critics.

[38] On April 17, 2024, A24 promoted the film on Instagram by posting five images created by artificial intelligence (AI), each showing a different American city in postapocalyptic disarray.

[4][5] In the United States and Canada, the film was projected to gross $18–24 million from 3,838 theaters (the widest-ever R-rated release by an independent studio) in its opening weekend.

The website's consensus reads: "Tough and unsettling by design, Civil War is a gripping close-up look at the violent uncertainty of life in a nation in crisis.

[51] Following the SXSW premiere, Rotten Tomatoes noted that critics called the film "a gorgeously shot cautionary tale full of big ideas and a fantastic performance by Kirsten Dunst, but it may surprise some viewers".

[53] Lovia Gyarkye of The Hollywood Reporter also gave the film a positive review, writing: "With the precision and length of its violent battle sequences, it's clear Civil War operates as a clarion call.

Garland wrote the film in 2020 as he watched cogs on America's self-mythologizing exceptionalist machine turn, propelling the nation into a nightmare.

"[6] Manohla Dargis of The New York Times echoed the sentiment, writing: "Rarely have I seen a movie that made me so acutely uncomfortable or watched an actor's face that, like Dunst's, expressed a nation's soul-sickness so vividly that it felt like an X-ray.

[55][56] Valerie Complex of Deadline Hollywood offered negative comments, writing: "The script's utilization of characters of color as conduits for brutality needed to be explored further ...

"[58] Eisa Nefertari Ulen, writing for The Hollywood Reporter, also found that the film, despite being "otherwise solid," was partially missing its point, stating: "Casablanca endures because it spoke to a moment as 'crazy and mixed-up' as this one, and nudged the country away from its isolationist inaction.