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.