Awards season is officially upon us! And before the Oscars hit your screens in two months (March 12, thank you for asking), you better catch up on everything worth seeing so you’re not in the dark when the Best Picture winner is announced. This year’s awards-y movies have it all: mother-daughter stories set in the multiverse, fighter pilots playing double football on the beach even though that’s not a real game, orchestra conductors caught in controversy, and *checks notes* blue people? Blue people.
But a new contender is climbing up the rankings. It’s All Quiet on the Western Front, the German film based on the 1928 book by Erich Maria Remarque, telling the story of a young German soldier in the trenches in WWI. The book had only been adapted into a feature film one time before, in 1930. This version of it, directed by Edward Berger, has been praised by critics since it premiered in the fall. And just this morning at the BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts, basically Britain’s version of the Oscars) nominations, All Quiet on the Western Front had the most nominations of any film. And awards voters love a war movie, which is not to trivialize the subject matter, but usually with movies about war there’s a lot of technical achievement, with sound, cinematography, etc.
How to watch All Quiet on the Western Front
You’re in luck, because the answer to this question is super, super simple. The movie is on Netflix! You can watch it with a regular shmegular subscription. Fair warning, it is two and a half hours long, so plan accordingly if you are going to watch. And it’s an intense two and a half hours obviously, because, uh, it’s a war movie.