SUBPARs Top 5 Submarine Movies

Featuring The Fault in our Rod Control System, Mean JOs, Mystic Boat Pizza and more!

Some movies are simply vital to the submarine experience; every wardroom needs to have copies of them downloaded before casting off lines. Make sure your Wardroom-Officer has these movies downloaded before your next 2-month local underway. 

5) LT Bueller's Duty Day Off

Synopsis: LT Bueller has an uncanny skill at skipping duty days and getting away with it. Intending on making one last duck-out before transferring to shore tour, LT Bueller calls in sick, “borrows” a Duty Van, and embarks on a one-day journey through the streets of San Diego. On LT Bueller’s tail is his XO, LCDR Rooney, determined to catch him in the act. 

Best Quotes:

“Your JO tour moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could just miss it.”

“You realize if we played by the rules right now we’d be in ENGDEPT Training?”

“How can I possibly be expected to handle work controls on a day like this?”

“I did have a CTE today. That wasn’t bullshit. It’s on the 17 steps for operating a PVO. I mean, really, what’s the point? I’m not a PVO operator. I don’t plan on being a PVO operator, so who gives a crap who operates the valves? They could be operated by an ELT, by an FT, an ETV - that still wouldn’t change the fact that I don’t have a PRD.”

4) The Offgoing Breakfast Club

Synopsis: This 1985 junior officer coming of qualified comedy-drama tells the story of five newly reported JGs who come from different commissioning sources who spend a Saturday after their duty day U/I on the boat at Officer Dinq Study.

Best Quotes:

“Don’t you forget about relieving me.”

“My God, are we gonna be like our Department Heads?”

“You see us as you want to see us, in the simplest terms with the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each of us is a USNA grad, an OCS grad, a USMMA grad, a VMI grad, and an ROTC grad. Does that answer your question? /R, The Offgoing Breakfast Club.”

“Come on, the JOs haven’t changed, you have. You took a department head position because you thought it’d be fun right? Thought you could look cool for some JOs and drive the submarine. And then you found out it was actually work. That really bummed you out.” 

3) Mrs. Checkfire

Synopsis: Troubled that he has little access to his JOs, recently-fired Weapons Officer Daniel Hillard hatches an elaborate plan. With help from his creative chief, FTC Frank, he impersonates the new Weapons officer and continues to provide leadership to the JOs. Mrs. Checkfire wins over the junior officers and teaches his former-CO how to be a better Commanding Officer, but when LT Hillard and LT Checkfire must attend different trainers at the same STF, his secrets may be exposed. 

2) Qualified Will Hunting

Synopsis: MMAFN(SU) Will Hunting has a genius level IQ but spends his duty days on the USS Boston cleaning drain strainers. When he solves a difficult SCC-level trawler field problem and makes 14 incredible standing plans his talents are discovered by Captain Gerald Lambeau, who decides to help the misguided youth reach his potential. When Will is arrested for attacking a base MA, Captain Lambeau makes a deal to get leniency for him if he will get treatment from greybeard Sean Maguire.

Best Quotes:

“My boy’s wicked qualified.”  

“I think maybe I’ll open your rack curtain and you won’t be there.” 

“I have to go see about a checkout.”

1) SuperDINQ

Synopsis: Two inseparable rider best friends navigate the last weeks of deployment together. Together, they spend a long day trying to score enough checkouts to qualify their first watch station in order to kick-start their qualified lives before they go back to their original boats. Their quest is complicated after one of them falls in with two ORSE Board Members who are determined to show him a good time. 

Best Quotes: 

“Look, we all know JO1 is a joke, no offense, it’s just that everyone takes this course to get off the boat for a week, and it’s bullshit and I’m sorry. I’m not putting down your profession, but it’s just how I feel.”

“And I’ve got like two solid months of tracking contacts. By the time APDT rolls around I’ll be like the Iron Chef of dodging trawlers.”

"I kinda had this problem, something like 8% of NNPTC students would do it, but whatever. For some reason, I don't know why, I would just kind of sit around all day... and draw one line diagrams."

“Oh no it’s the ORSE Board.”

“You sign our qualcards, we’ll sign yours.” “Well LT Jules, the funny thing about my qualcard is that it’s located on my CAC.”

Honorable Mentions:

The 40-year old NUB

Mean JOs

Fast Times at Romeo Pier

No Towed Arrays Attached

The Fault in Our Rod Control System

Wardroom Crashers

The SandPlot

Soylent Simple Green

An ADCAP Named Desire

(500) Days of Deployment

Pretty in FRVs

Mystic Boat Pizza

Sisterhood of the Traveling Qual Card

Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the OPS Brief

Rain NUB

Did we miss a movie your boat loves? Let us know in the comment section below.