Lewis Milestone's groundbreaking war film is up with La Grande Illusion as one of the finest humanitarian antiwar movies ever made, though the treatment could not be more different.
Made in 1930, on the cusp of the silent and the sound eras, this follows a group of German schoolboys as they are encouraged to volunteer for the First World War, and end their lives in the senseless carnage of the trenches.
The violence and the battle scenes are, frankly, awesome and the tone of dark, accusatory irony is maintained right through to the bitter end when Lew Ayres's soldier unthinkingly reaches for a butterfly across a silent no-man's land. Amazing.
All Quiet On The Western Front
Cert: PG
