13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi

Director Michael Bay and writer Chuck Hogan, adapting Mitchell Zuckoff’s nonfiction book, recount the 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi that left four Americans dead, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens. The movie focuses on two CIA operatives caught in the battle: one of the slain, Tyrone Woods (James Badge Dale), and a pseudonymous survivor played by John Krasinski. Tense and riveting, here’s the movie some of us never knew Michael Bay had in him—the action, when it starts, is paradoxically both chaotic and clear. There’s a palpable sense of the sun-scorched uncertainty of the Lybian street, where the Americans are never entirely sure who is friend and who is foe. Dale gives what could, with luck, turn out to be a star-making performance, with Krasinski not far behind. J.L.