All Quiet on the Western Front
1930
Academy Award for Best Picture — 3rd Academy Awards
- Director:
- Lewis Milestone
- Studio:
- Universal Pictures
- Starring:
- Lew Ayres, Louis Wolheim, John Wray, Slim Summerville
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Paul Bäumer, a patriotic German schoolboy swept up in nationalist fervor, enlists in the army with his classmates at the outbreak of World War I, only to discover in the trenches that the glory promised by his teachers bears no resemblance to the war's mud, hunger, and slaughter. As friend after friend is killed or maimed around him, Paul's youthful idealism curdles into numb disillusionment, and a brief return home reveals he can no longer relate to a civilian world still cheering the war on. Lewis Milestone's brutal, unflinching adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque's novel became one of the most influential anti-war films ever made, ending with a single, quietly devastating image of futility.