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. Directed by Lewis Milestone, it stars Lew Ayres, Louis Wolheim, John Wray, Arnold Lucy, and Ben Alexander.

All Quiet on the Western Front opened to wide acclaim in the United States. Considered a realistic and harrowing account of warfare in World War I, it made the American Film Institute's first 100 Years...100 Movies list in 1997. 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.^[5][6] In 1990, the film was selected and preserved by the United States Library of Congress' National Film Registry as being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".^[7][8] The film was the first to win the Academy Awards for both Outstanding Production and Best Director. It is the first Best Picture winner based on a novel. Due to being a film published in 1930, it will enter the public domain on January 1, 2026, following the expiration of the copyright on the novel in 2024.^[9][10]

Its sequel, The Road Back (1937), portrays members of the 2nd Company returning home after the war.

Professor Kantorek gives an impassioned speech to his German students about the glory of serving in the Army and "saving the Fatherland". On the brink of becoming men, the boys in his class, led by Paul Bäumer, are moved to join the army as the new 2nd Company. Their romantic delusions are quickly broken during their brief but rigorous training under the abusive Corporal Himmelstoss.

The new soldiers arrive by train at the chaotic combat zone. One in the group is killed before the recruits can reach their post, to the alarm of one of the new soldiers (Behn). The new soldiers are assigned to a unit composed of older, unwelcoming veterans. Having not eaten in days, they pay cigarettes to Corporal "Kat" Katzinsky (who has stolen a slaughtered hog from a field kitchen) in exchange for a meal.

The recruits' first trip to the trenches with the veterans is a harrowing experience, during which Behn is killed. A depiction of trench warfare follows with many casualties on both sides. Eventually, they are sent back to the field kitchens to get their rations; each man receives double helpings, simply because of the number of dead.

They hear that they are to return to the front the next day and begin a semi-serious discussion about the causes of the war and of wars in general.

One day, Corporal Himmelstoss arrives at the front and is immediately spurned because of his bad reputation. He is forced to go over the top with the 2nd Company and is promptly killed. 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. He tries and fails to save him, and begs for forgiveness. Later, he returns to the German lines and is comforted by Kat.

Going back to the front line, Paul is severely wounded and taken to a Catholic hospital, along with his good friend, Albert Kropp. Kropp's leg is amputated and Paul is taken to the bandaging ward, from which, according to its reputation, nobody has ever returned alive. Still, he later returns to the normal rooms triumphantly, only to find Kropp in depression.

Paul is given a furlough and visits his family at home. He is shocked by how uninformed and optimistic everyone is about the war's actual situation. When Paul visits the schoolroom where he was originally recruited, he shares his experiences and disillusionment with the war to Professor Kantorek and his young students, who call him a "coward".

Disillusioned and angry, Paul returns to the front and comes upon another 2nd Company filled with new young recruits, who are now also disillusioned. He discusses the people's inability to comprehend the futility of the war with Kat. Kat's shin is broken when a bomb dropped by an aircraft falls nearby, so Paul carries him back to a field hospital, only to find that a second explosion has killed Kat. Crushed by the loss of his mentor, Paul leaves.

In the final scene, Paul is back on the front line. He sees a butterfly just beyond his trench. Smiling, he reaches out for the butterfly. While reaching, however, he is shot and killed by an enemy sniper. The final sequence shows the 2nd Company arriving at the front for the first time, fading out to the image of a cemetery.

In the film, Paul is shot while reaching for a butterfly. This scene is different from the book, and was inspired by an earlier scene showing a butterfly collection in Paul's home. The scene was shot during the editing phase, so the actors were no longer available and Milestone had to use his own hand as Paul's.

Noted comedienne ZaSu Pitts was originally cast as Paul's mother and completed the film but preview audiences, used to seeing her in comic roles, laughed when she appeared onscreen so Milestone re-shot her scenes with Beryl Mercer before the film was released. The preview audience remains the only one who saw Pitts in the role, although she does appear for about 30 seconds in the film's original preview trailer.

The film was shot with two cameras side by side, with one negative edited as a sound film and the other edited as an "International Sound Version" for distribution in non-English speaking areas.

A great number of German Army veterans were living in Los Angeles at the time of filming and were recruited as bit players and technical advisers. Around 2,000 extras were utilized during production.^[11] Among them was future director Fred Zinnemann (High Noon, From Here to Eternity, A Man for All Seasons, Julia), who was fired for impudence.

The original version of this all talking picture, lasting 152 minutes,^[2] was first previewed in Los Angeles on April 21, 1930, and again in New York on April 25, 1930.^[12] The film was edited and some scenes reshot after these previews due to inappropriate laughter coming from audiences whenever ZaSu Pitts appeared on the screen. All scenes with ZaSu Pitts had to be reshot and she was replaced with Beryl Mercer. The re-edited all talking version of the film went on general release in the US on August 24, 1930.^[2] A 147-minute version was submitted to the British censors, which was cut to 145 minutes^[13][14] before the film premiered in London June 14, 1930.^[12] The sound version was re-released in 1939, though cut down to ten reels.^[2] 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.

On its initial release, Variety wrote:^[15]

The League of Nations could make no better investment than to buy up the master-print, reproduce it in every language, to be shown in all the nations until the word "war" is taken out of the dictionaries.

Some of the credit for the film's success has been ascribed to the direction of Lewis Milestone:

Without diluting or denying any ... criticisms, it should be said that from World War I to Korea, Milestone could put the viewer into the middle of a battlefield, and make the hellish confusion of it seem all too real to the viewer. Steven Spielberg noted as much when he credited Milestone's work as partial inspiration for Saving Private Ryan ... Lewis Milestone made significant contributions to [the genre of] the war film.^[16]

Later re-releases were substantially cut and the film's ending scored with new music against the wishes of director Lewis Milestone.^[17] Before he died in 1980, Milestone requested that Universal fully restore the film with the removal of the end music cue. Two decades later, Milestone's wishes were finally granted when the United States Library of Congress undertook an exhaustive restoration of the film in 2006. This version incorporates all known surviving footage and is 133 minutes long.^[14]

1929–1930 Academy Awards

It was the first talkie war film to win Oscars.

Other wins:

• 1930 Photoplay Medal of Honor – Carl Laemmle Jr.
• 1931 Kinema Junpo Award for Best Foreign Language Film – Sound to Lewis Milestone
• 1990 National Film Registry

American Film Institute recognition

• 100 Years...100 Movies – #54
• 100 Years...100 Thrills – Nominated
• AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes
  • "And our bodies are earth. And our thoughts are clay. And we sleep and eat with death." – Nominated.
• 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) – Nominated
• AFI's 10 Top 10 – #7 epic film

• All Quiet on the Western Front (1979 film)
• All Quiet on the Western Front (2022 film)
• List of World War I films