Rent All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)

4.0 of 5 from 137 ratings
2h 8min
Rent All Quiet on the Western Front Online DVD & Blu-ray Rental
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Synopsis:
Unlike most "message" films which date themselves almost immediately, Lewis Milestone's low-key unpolished and deeply-felt screen adaptation of the Erich Maria Remarque anti-war novel has lost little of its original impact. Years after its release it was still being banned in countries mobilizing for war.
The plot follows a group of young German recruits in World War I through their passage from idealism to disillusionment. As the central character Paul Baumer declares, "We live in the trenches and we fight. We try not to be killed - that's all". All Quiet is an anthology of now famous scenes: Ayres trapped in a shell crater with a man he has killed; the first meeting of the recruits and the veterans; infantrymen being mowed down to machine-gun visual rhythms; a moonlight swim with French farm girls; Ayres' pacifist speech to his astonished schoolmates; and the final shot of the soldier's hand reaching for a fatal butterfly.
Actors:
, , , , , , Owen Davis Jr., Walter Rogers, , , , , , , , , , , , Poupée Andriot
Directors:
Producers:
Carl Laemmle Jnr
Writers:
Erich Maria Remarque, Maxwell Anderson
Others:
George Abbott, Arthur Edeson, Del Andrews
Studio:
Universal Pictures
Genres:
Action & Adventure, Classics, Drama
Collections:
Award Winners, BAFTA Nominations Competition 2023, Cinema and the First World War, Drama Films & TV, Oscar Nominations Competition 2023, Oscar's Two-Time Club, Oscars: Winners & Losers, The Biggest Oscar Snubs: Part 1, The Instant Expert's Guide, The Instant Expert's Guide to: Billy Wilder, Top 10 Best Last Films: World Cinema, Top 10 Best Picture Follow-Ups, Top 10 Films By Year, Top 10 Films of 1979, Top Films
Awards:

1931 Oscar Best Director

1931 Oscar Best Picture

BBFC:
Release Date:
21/02/2005
Run Time:
128 minutes
Languages:
English Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Subtitles:
English Hard of Hearing
DVD Regions:
Region 2
Formats:
Pal
Aspect Ratio:
Full Screen 1.33:1 / 4:3
Colour:
B & W
BBFC:
Release Date:
13/02/2012
Run Time:
133 minutes
Languages:
English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0, French DTS 2.0 Mono, German DTS 2.0 Mono, Italian DTS 2.0 Mono, Japanese DTS 2.0 Mono, Spanish DTS 2.0 Mono
Subtitles:
Cantonese, Danish, Dutch, English Hard of Hearing, Finnish, French, German, Icelandic, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish
Formats:
Pal
Aspect Ratio:
Full Screen 1.33:1 / 4:3
Colour:
B & W
BLU-RAY Regions:
B
Bonus:
  • Introduction by Film Historian Robert Osborne
  • Theatrical Trailer
  • 100 Years Of Universal: Academy Award Winners
  • 100 Years Of Universal: Restoring The Classics

More like All Quiet on the Western Front

Reviews (5) of All Quiet on the Western Front

Greatest anti-war film ever - All Quiet on the Western Front review by CP Customer

Spoiler Alert
26/03/2020

The film was made 12 years after World War 1 and it captures the horrific atmosphere of that period. Although it was adapted

ffrom a German novel it is universal in its appeal. As for the closing frames - once seen never forgotten.

2 out of 2 members found this review helpful.

Classic War Drama - All Quiet on the Western Front review by GI

Spoiler Alert
22/05/2021

Despite its age this remains one of the most realistic and powerful of war films and viewed today it recreates the trenches of the First World War so accurately it's easy to confuse the scenes with documentary footage. Based on a celebrated novel this is thematically a film that is designed to condemn war and does so through the theme of the disillusionment of youth. It tells the story of a group of German students who are roused to patriotic fervour by their teacher and en masse sign up for the new war against France and Great Britain. After tough training they are thrust into the maelstrom of the frontline where death and horror are daily occurrences. The film doesn't shy from showing dismemberment and gory battle scenes (this was made before the Production Code came fully into force in 1934) and there are some iconic scenes that have become renowned in cinema history, not least the ending. This is a wonderful and memorable film and one that every film fa n should see and I guarantee you will not be disappointed so don't be put off by it's age it's one of the finest American motion pictures ever made. It's been restored for DVD and BluRay in recent years but don't be tempted by the 1979 remake, it's not a patch on this one.

2 out of 2 members found this review helpful.

Anti-War Classic. - All Quiet on the Western Front review by Steve

Spoiler Alert
10/03/2022

A faithful adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque pacifist novel which was a landmark Hollywood war film and helped establish the conventions by which we imagine WWI on screen. Exhorted by a patriotic teacher, a group of naive German children enlist, and over years of combat they are transformed by their experiences, until mutilated, insane or dead.

There is no sense of strategy in the film. The boys and their fatalistic mentors contest the same plot of French farmland in an absurdist exercise in futility. The soldiers create a society out of their irrational circumstances, and a normality out of their fear. They come to view life away from the front as alien, even menacing.

Lewis Milestone fought with the US army in France and he does sensational work. He turns his cast into a believable band of misfits; brutalised, but processing their trauma through trench wit. The visual scope of the film is epic, the camera is mobile and the editing lively. He portrays his huge battle set pieces with coherence, which few directors ever do.  

This ranks high among anti-war films and visions of WWI. There is a lot of vérité; the film shows us the logistics of mechanical war. We see a man blown away by an explosive leaving just his hands on the barbed wire. There is no music to evoke glory or sentimentality, there is just the habit forming terror of trench warfare and the betrayal of a generation.

2 out of 2 members found this review helpful.

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