All Quiet on the Western Front

Product Information

Depending perhaps on your tolerance for Netflix's trademark overbearing Dolby Vision implementation, darkness levels and encoding issues (yes, the streaming service may still trounce several of its plethora of peers, but it's not immune to crush and compression artefacts), All Quiet on the Western Front was still quite the immersive experience on its streaming bow, and the leap up from 4K Netflix DV to 4K disc DV isn't seismic, but it is noticeable in all the right places.

A decade later, after the same organization polled over 1,501 workers in the creative community, All Quiet on the Western Front was ranked the seventh-best American epic film. All Quiet on the Western Front is a 1930 American pre-Code epic anti-war film based on the 1929 novel of the same name by German novelist Erich Maria Remarque. Excellent video and audio alone will seduce many, and the promise of a film that has had just so damn many awards should likely leave the majority more than satisfied - if exhausted. Dialogue - in the native German - is keenly prioritised where necessary, although frequently it just isn't necessary, with the focus on the track's strongest and arguably most important elements: effects and score. The latter format additionally contains a 133-minute restoration of the international sound version, albeit mislabelled as the "silent version".

In an attack on a cemetery, Paul stabs a French soldier and is distraught as he spends the night trapped in a hole with the dying man. The site's critics' consensus reads: "Director Lewis Milestone's brilliant anti-war polemic, headlined by an unforgettable performance from Lew Ayres, lays bare the tragic foolishness at the heart of war. Europe's busiest forums, with independent news and expert reviews, for TVs, Home Cinema, Hi-Fi, Movies, Gaming, Tech and more. Directed by Lewis Milestone, it stars Lew Ayres, Louis Wolheim, John Wray, Arnold Lucy, and Ben Alexander.

The trenches creak, the tanks sound like some infernal machinery born from hell, rumbling overhead with fiery breath - the track just loves the maelstrom afforded by combat, and it makes for one of the most immersive experiences of late. Considered a realistic and harrowing account of warfare in World War I, it made the American Film Institute's first 100 Years.

Well it'll likely be polarising, sure, but it's never less than unique, a discordant, distorted Harmonium-dominated piece that creates a disarming accompaniment to the horror you witness, steeped in overtones of impending doom. This same version, running 102 minutes, was re-released very successfully by Realart Pictures in 1950, and Universal-International brought it back to theaters in 1958. So much so that it's easy to feel a little desensitised over another 150 minutes of war horror and get to the end wondering what was the point? If you thought it was hard enough watching best friends see each other blown to pieces by artillery fire, or be fooled by a brief reprieve before the tanks arrive, how about some vicious you-or-me squirming-around-with-knives hand-to-hand combat?