The fact that you were probably assigned the book in a high school English class and that the original film is in black-and-white contribute to the misconception that this is a run-of-the-mill war epic. Now post-Vietnam War, post-Cold War, and post-Iraq War, the anti-war sentiments of All Quiet seem commonplace and even quaint. It enraged many readers (especially in Germany where the book was banned during the Nazi era) while delivering harsh truths to a population fueled by propaganda, and with relatively few ways to understand what war actually looked like. As opposed to the prevalent view of war at the time-honorable, glorifying, heroic-the novel took a definitive anti-war stance. Paul is dispatched to complete various futile tasks on the front, watching his comrades die agonizing deaths with little rhyme or reason.

Remarque’s novel, inspired by his experience fighting in the trenches, paints a horrifying, monotonous, and ultimately pointless picture of war. The film is based on the German novel by Erich Maria Remarque, which follows a young, naive soldier named Paul through events of the First World War. But one story has been a staple in the war film canon since the very beginning: the 1930 Best Picture winner All Quiet on the Western Front. And Oscar history is littered with wartime films from classics like World War II-set Casablanca and The Bridge on the River Kwai (focused on a British POW camp) to more recent entries like Holocaust tragedy Schindler’s List and Iraq War-set The Hurt Locker. The highest-grossing film ever (adjusted for inflation) is Gone with the Wind, set against the backdrop of the Civil War. The first ever Best Picture winner at the Oscars was Wings, a 1928 silent war film about a pair of fighter pilots. All Quiet on the Western Front, the second adaptation of the novel of the same name, follows a group of young soldiers that learn the hard way that war is hellĪll Quiet on the Western Front will be released on Netflix on October 28th.įor whatever reason (schadenfreude? To stare the harshest reality straight in the eye? A fascination with large machines?), for as long as humans have been making movies, they have been making them about war.

All quiet on the western front movie