All Quiet on the Western Front

All Quiet on the Western Front is a 1979 television film set during the First World War. It follows Paul Bäumer, a German schoolboy who, along with his classmates, is urged by patriotic propaganda to volunteer for the army straight after finishing school. Their early enthusiasm gives way to disillusionment once they reach the Western Front, where the daily reality of trench warfare, the deaths of friends and the brutal training under a sadistic corporal strip away everything they were taught to believe. Paul begins to question a war in which young men die while the newspapers report that nothing is happening on the western front. The film is based on Erich Maria Remarque's novel of the same name.

Delbert Mann directed, with a screenplay by Paul Monash and Norman Rosemont producing. It sits between That Touch of Mink and Night Crossing in Mann's filmography, which began with Marty in 1955 and includes Separate Tables, Lover Come Back and Dear Heart. Richard Thomas plays Paul, with Ernest Borgnine as Katczinsky, Donald Pleasence as Kantorek, Ian Holm as Himmelstoss, Patricia Neal as Paul's mother and Paul Mark Elliott as Josef Behm. Thirty-three cast members are credited. The film has an IMDb rating of 7.1 from around 11,000 votes and a TMDB rating of 6.7 from far fewer votes. A film critics' rating of 8 out of 10 comes from five reviews, higher than either audience score.