What does it mean to lead men in war? What does it mean to come home? Hell and Back Again is a cinematically revolutionary film that asks and answers these questions with a power and intimacy no previous film about the conflict in Afghanistan has been able to achieve.

In this groundbreaking work of cinema, two overlapping narratives are brilliantly intercut – the life of a Marine at war on the front, and the life the same Marine in recovery, at home – creating both a dreamlike quality and a strikingly realistic depiction of how Marines experience this war.

Following Sergeant Nathan Harris of Echo Company, 2nd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment, during a major assault on a Taliban stronghold, and his painful return home after a severe injury, the two stories communicate both the extraordinary drama of war and the no less shocking experience of returning home, as a whole generation of Marines struggle to find an identity in a country that prefers to be indifferent.