All Quiet on the Western Front

All Quiet on the Western Front is a 1930 American war film based on the Erich Maria Remarque novel of the same name. It was directed by Lewis Milestone, and stars Louis Wolheim, Lew Ayres, John Wray, Arnold Lucy and Ben Alexander. All Quiet on the Western Front is considered a realistic and harrowing account of warfare in World War I, and was named #54 on the AFI's 100 Years 100 Movies. However, it fell out of the top 100 in the AFI's 2007 revision. In June 2008, after polling over 1,500 workers in the creative community, AFI announced its 10 Top 10—the ten best films in each of ten... "classic" American film genres; All Quiet on the Western Front was ranked the seventh best film in the epic genre. 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." The film was the first to win the Academy Awards for both Outstanding Production and Best Director. The film opens in a boys' high school in Germany at the beginning of World War I. The instructor, Kantorek, gives an impassioned speech about the glory of serving in the Army and "saving the Fatherland".
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