1917

Storyline

Directed and co-written by Academy Award winner Sam Mendes alongside Krysty Wilson-Cairns and inspired by real-life wartime stories told by Mendes's grandfather, 1917 (2019) is a monumental technical and emotional triumph of modern warfare cinema, grossing over $384 million globally and winning three Academy Awards including Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects, and Best Sound Mixing. Set during the brutal Western Front of World War I in northern France in April 1917, the narrative is masterfully constructed and edited to appear as two unbroken, continuous real-time continuous shots. Two young British lance corporals, Tom Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman) and Will Schofield (George MacKay in an astonishing, physically punishing performance of quiet resolve and indomitable courage), are summoned by General Erinmore (Colin Firth) and assigned an impossible, time-sensitive mission across enemy lines. With telegraph communication lines severed, they must traverse treacherous, corpse-littered No Man's Land and booby-trapped German trenches on foot to deliver an urgent cancellation order to the 2nd Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment—led by Colonel Mackenzie (Benedict Cumberbatch)—before 1,600 British soldiers, including Blake's beloved older brother, walk into a deadly German ambush trap. From surviving crumbling subterranean bunkers to dodging sniper fire through the flare-lit burning nocturnal ruins of the town of Écoust-Saint-Mein, Schofield's desperate sprint across an exploding battlefield amidst charging infantry soldiers stands as one of the most iconic action sequences in cinema history. Sir Roger Deakins's revolutionary fluid camerawork and Thomas Newman's soaring score ('The Night Window') elevate 1917 into an unforgettable, breathless masterwork on sacrifice and duty.