All Quiet on the Western Front

Plot

In 1917, three years into World War I, 17-year-old Paul Bäumer enthusiastically enlists in the Imperial German Army alongside schoolmates Albert Kropp, Franz Müller, and Ludwig Behm. They hear a patriotic speech by a school official and unknowingly receive recycled uniforms from soldiers killed in a previous battle. After they are deployed in northern France near La Malmaison, they are befriended by an older and more experienced soldier, Stanislaus "Kat" Katczinsky. Their romantic view of the war is shattered by the brutal realities of trench warfare on the Western Front and Ludwig is killed by artillery on the first night.

Eighteen months later, on November 7, 1918, German State Secretary Matthias Erzberger, weary of mounting losses, meets with the German High Command to persuade them to begin armistice talks with the Allied powers. Meanwhile, Paul and Kat steal a goose from a farm to share with Albert, Franz, and another veteran, Tjaden Stackfleet, with whom they have grown close behind the front in Champagne. Kat, who is illiterate, gets Paul to read him a letter from his wife and worries that he will be unable to reintegrate into peacetime society. Franz spends the night with a local French woman and brings back her scarf as a souvenir.

On November 9, General Friedrichs drives Erzberger and the German delegation to a train bound for the Forest of Compiègne for ceasefire negotiations. Paul and his friends are sent on a mission to find 60 missing recruits who were sent to reinforce their unit and discover that they were killed by gas after taking their masks off too soon. Friedrichs, who opposes the armistice talks, orders an attack before French reinforcements arrive. That night, Erzberger's delegation reaches Compiègne, while Paul's regiment is sent to the front to prepare to attack the French lines.

On November 10, Supreme Allied Commander Ferdinand Foch gives the Germans 72 hours to accept the non-negotiable Allied terms. Meanwhile, the German attack takes the French front line after savage hand-to-hand fighting but is routed by a combined arms counterattack in which the French use Saint-Chamond tanks. Franz is separated from the group, and Albert is killed trying to surrender when he is set on fire with a flamethrower. Trapped in a crater in no man's land with a French soldier, Paul stabs him and watches him die slowly, becoming remorseful and begging for forgiveness from the dead body.

Cast

English dubbing

The English version was produced by Liquid Violet in London. James Daniel Wilson adapted the script and directed the dubbing.

Production

Development

Writers Lesley Paterson and Ian Stokell spent 16 years bringing their film project to fruition. They initially obtained an option for the film rights to the book in 2006 but faced challenges in securing funding for both the film's production and the annual option renewal, which cost between $10,000 and $15,000. In a resourceful attempt to raise funds, Paterson participated in XTERRA triathlons starting in 2011, ultimately winning the top prize of $20,000. This allowed her to maintain the option by winning five triathlon world championships over the years. Paterson and Stokell estimated that they spent approximately $200,000 to preserve the option during the 16-year period. The film was eventually announced in February 2020 with Edward Berger directing and Daniel Brühl as part of the ensemble cast.

Filming

Principal photography began on 9 March 2021 in Prague, Czech Republic, and lasted 55 days. The film cost $20 million.

Cinematographer James Friend worked closely with another DP, wildlife cameraman Rob Hollingworth, in order to capture the fox sequence in the beginning of the film. "We had to essentially put a pregnant fox in a purpose-built den that was designed for shooting with camera traps. The fox then gave birth to the cubs in this den and that turned into what you saw on camera...The only way to get those shots is basically to raise the cubs in the environment in which you're filming them, so the mother and the cubs feel completely at home. Then, if a probe lens comes in to get a closeup of a cub or the mom, they're already used to it by that stage. Essentially, we wanted it to look like a David Attenborough piece and not like a movie."

Release

All Quiet on the Western Front premiered at the 47th Toronto International Film Festival on September 12, 2022. It played exclusively at the Paris Theater in New York on October 7 before expanding to other theatres from October 14. It launched on Netflix, which acquired distribution rights prior to production, worldwide on October 28. From its release on Netflix to March 3, 2023, the film logged over 150 million hours viewed worldwide. Viewership tripled after the film's Oscar and BAFTA nominations, and was on the global Top 10 Non-English Film list for 14 weeks and in the Top 10 Films in 91 countries.

A making-of documentary called Making All Quiet on the Western Front was released on Netflix globally on February 20, 2023. A Collector's Edition Blu-ray was released on March 28, 2023, in the United States and April 24, 2023, in the United Kingdom.

Reception

Critical reception

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 90% of 176 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8.2/10. The website's consensus reads: "Both timely and timeless, All Quiet on the Western Front retains the power of its classic source material by focusing on the futility of war." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 76 out of 100, based on 37 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.

Ben Kenigsberg, writing for The New York Times, found the film to be less impressive than the 1930 version, but appreciated the pounding soundtrack. He also praised the addition of a parallel plot tracking the armistice, even if it diverged from the first person narrative of the novel. He found the tweaked fate of the characters to be narratively powerful. Jamelle Bouie in The New York Times said the 2022 version missed the essence of the novel, which is not just antiwar, but also portrays the alienation and terrible toll even on those who come home. "Remarque is not as interested in the war and geopolitics as he is in the war as human absurdity made manifest." In a sequence of the 1930 film, omitted from the 2022 film, Paul comes home on leave and can't relate to former teachers and other adults. "You still think it's beautiful and sweet to die for your country, don't you?" says Paul. "The first bombardment taught us better." According to Bouie, "The inclusion of this political subplot and the exclusion of Paul's return home transforms All Quiet on the Western Front from a psychological examination of the soldier's experience and a condemnation of war into a much simpler story of virtuous soldiers and cynical leaders who betrayed them."

Mark Kermode says that, although it is on Netflix, there is an excellent reason to see it in cinemas because it is "visually very, very impressive, overwhelming, and gruelling." "It is harrowing of course ... and it should be." Cultural historian Bethany Wyatt makes a case for its being the "finest First World War film to date". She claims that it "is faithful to the spirit of Remarque's novel". Wyatt says "it is difficult to match the power of the 1930 All Quiet on the Western Front's conclusion," ... "but the 2022 adaptation succeeds in crafting its own elegy for the men who did not return home."

Journalist Martin Schwickert of the RND media group called the film "frighteningly current" in light of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, saying it "made plain what war means for those who have to fight it". Producer Malte Grunert said the film tells the "story of a young man who falls prey to right-wing nationalist propaganda – believing that war is an adventure, and that they are on the right side. It is a timeless story, that we now see played out live in Ukraine."

Legacy

In 2023, Collider ranked it as the "Best Historical Epic of All Time". MovieWeb ranked it at number 7 on its list of "The Best Anti-War Movies Ever Made". In 2025, it was one of the films voted for the "Readers' Choice" edition of The New York Times' list of "The 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century", finishing outside of the top hundred at number 310.

Accolades

Despite the film's positive reception, some German critics and diversity advocates criticized its deviations from the source material, accusing Netflix of producing it as "Oscar bait". The film faced strong competition from Decision to Leave and Everything Everywhere All at Once but managed to outperform them in major categories at the BAFTA and Academy Awards, while guild and critics' awards favored other contenders. Some critics also took issue with the director's alterations and omissions of key elements from the novel, arguing that these changes were made to increase the film's chances during awards season.