Release Year: 1930

Genre: Drama, War

Director: Lewis Milestone

Writers: Maxwell Anderson, George Abbott, Del Andrews, C. Gardner Sullivan, Erich Maria Remarque (novel)

Stars: Lew Ayres, Louis Wolheim, John Wray

World War I was supposed to be the war to end all wars. Spoiler alert: things didn't work out as planned. Rather than end war, the conflict ushered the world into the era of modern warfare.

And then, in 1930, All Quiet on the Western Front looked to be the war movie to end all war movies. More spoilers ahead: that also didn't work out. Instead, the film became a template for future war movies, using realistic stories to promote anti-war sentiments.

Released a mere twelve years after the end of the war it depicts, All Quiet on the Western Front attempts to show WWI through eyes of an everyday German soldier. Yep, you read that right: a German soldier. Wanting to show that the horrors of war affect both sides of a battlefield, American director Lewis Milestone and producer Carl Laemmle, Jr. crafted a film of unprecedented scale.

Laemmle gave the film a then-unheard of budget of $1.25 million, and Milestone used that new-fangled "talkies" technology to bring the war to life on giant sets on a California ranch that recreated the devastation of the Western Front (source). And don't be fooled by the fact that this movie is old—its war scenes have the visceral oomph to make even modern audiences cringe. 

The film tells the story of Paul Bäumer and his buddies. After their blowhard teacher convinces them of the glory and heroism found in war, the young men enlist to fight for Germany. After a grueling boot camp, they're sent to the Front where their patriotic zeal is blasted away by the realities (not to mention the bombs) of war.

Paul witnesses the deaths of friends, kills other men, and discovers that, far from heaping glory upon him, the war has left him and his generation blooded and broken.

Like the novel that inspired it, All Quiet was a smash hit. The New York Times said, "It tells the story of the terrors of fighting better than anything so far has done in animated photography coupled with the microphone" (source).

And if a rave from the NY Times weren't enough, the flick went on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture and Best Director, the first film ever to take home both prizes.

In 1990, the Library of Congress inducted the film into the National Film Registry, and in 1998 the film was restored by the Library of Congress Motion Picture Conservation Center—this is probably the version you'll be watching.

We're not saying that watching All Quiet on the Western Front is going to be fun. It's about the furthest thing from "fun" you can get. But it's one of those movies that's not only important for popcorn-butter-fingered film geeks like us—it's important for everyone.

So wrap yourself up in a blanket—we don't care if it's August and you're watching this in Texas; you'll want to feel cozy when you look at all that frigid trench warfare. Get yourself a nice bowl of mac 'n' cheese—we don't care if you just finished eating Thanksgiving dinner; you'll want to eat when you see these dudes starving in the trenches. And make sure to call your buddy after you finish watching—you're going to need the moral support.

Because this movie is devastating.

If your mom's anything like ours, then she has a dictionary of terms to describe her disgust of TV. "Boob tube," "idiot box," "brain drain," "plug-and-drug," and even "the couch potato's microwave"—we've heard them all.

Here's the thing though: watching that beautiful, flickering screen can make you a better person.

As cognitive scientist Steven Pinker notes,

Realistic fiction, for its part, may expand readers' circle of empathy by seducing them into thinking and feeling like people very different from themselves. (Source)

Pinker adds that movies and TV offer this…but with even more immediacy. (Feel free to quote Dr. Pinker the next time you and your mom discuss the merits of your latest Netflix binge.)

But if your mother still isn't convinced and needs a real-life example of visual storytelling's empathy-growing powers, then we recommend All Quiet on the Western Front.

The film adapts the story of the German World War I novel by Erich Maria Remarque, a German himself. But—and here's where empathy comes in—it was produced by an American studio. And despite this film's sympathetic view of German soldiers, All Quiet was popular with American audiences, people who'd fought against the Germans a decade earlier (source).

These American audiences empathized with the German characters of the film, seeing their own wartime sufferings reflected in their enemies.

And that legacy of empathy continues on. Most of the gritty modern war/anti-war dramas we know and love today are inspired, in one way or another, by All Quiet on the Western Front. The film's grittiness, its lack of schmaltzy music in favor of the creepy "music" of shells and human screaming, and its total poignancy are all echoed in films like Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket, Saving Private Ryan, and Hotel Rwanda.

So the next time your eyes are filled with tears during a war movie—even if the soldiers shown onscreen have nothing in common with you but humanity and a fear of death—take a second to thank Lewis Milestone's All Quiet on the Western Front.

Or, better yet, take a few hours to watch the original masterpiece. As famous film critic Leonard Maltin says, "time hasn't dimmed its power, or its poignancy, one bit" (source).

We'll add to Maltin's assessment: time hasn't dimmed All Quiet on the Western Front's ability to make you feel empathetic, either.