American Sniper (released in theaters on Dec. 25, 2104) is a stark, conflicted character study that follows Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper), a Navy SEAL whose lethal skill behind the rifle turns him into a legend on the battlefield and a stranger in his own home. Clint Eastwood frames the film as both a boots-on-the-ground war story and a psychological portrait of a man who cannot fully return from combat, no matter how many times he comes home.
The plot traces Kyle from his Texas upbringing to his enlistment, driven by a desire to protect his country after witnessing terrorism and violence at a distance.
Cooper’s Kyle emerges as a quiet, determined figure whose talent as a marksman quickly earns him the nickname “Legend,” credited with an extraordinary number of confirmed kills across multiple tours in Iraq.
The film structures itself around these deployments: tense rooftop lookout posts, split-second moral choices about pulling the trigger, and the looming presence of a rival sniper who becomes a sort of dark mirror to Kyle’s skill and resolve.
Between tours, he returns to his wife Taya, played by Sienna Miller, and their growing family, but the emotional gulf widens with each deployment, as Kyle struggles to reconcile the intensity of war with the mundane rhythms of domestic life.
Eastwood shoots the combat sequences with an unfussy, functional clarity—dust, concrete, sudden bursts of violence—while Cooper grounds the chaos in a performance built on physical weight and controlled understatement.
Miller gives Taya a palpable mix of loyalty, fear, and resentment, embodying the toll that repeated deployments and emotional withdrawal take on military families.
The film follows Kyle through his final tours and his attempts to help other veterans cope with trauma, culminating in an ending that emphasizes both the cost of war and the fragility of whatever peace a soldier may find.
Luke Grimes (Yellowstone) also stars as Marc Lee.
Bradley Cooper in American Sniper (Photo/Warner Bros.)
Reception for American Sniper
American Sniper grossed $633,456 on its opening weekend, in limited release on four screens for a per-screen average of $158,364.
The film would open in wide release on January 16, 2015 and and grossed $107.2 million on the MLK weekend to finish No. 1 at the box office.
American Sniper would gross $350.1 million domestically and finish as the highest grossing film of 2014.
The film would gross $547.6 million worldwide.
It is the seventh R-rated film to gross over $500 million joining Terminator 2: Judgement Day, Ted, The Hangover Part II, The Passion of the Christ, The Matrix Reloaded and Fifty Shades of Grey.
Legacy
American Sniper stands as one of the most commercially successful and debated war films of its era, praised for its craftsmanship and performances while criticized for its political framing and depiction of the Iraq War.
It cemented Cooper’s status as a serious dramatic lead and reinforced Eastwood’s late-career run as a director drawn to morally fraught real-life stories.
Even amid the controversy, the film endures as a touchstone in modern combat cinema, emblematic of how Hollywood grapples with heroism, trauma, and the stories nations choose to tell about their wars.
