MOVIEmeter
Top 5000
Down 135 this week

Das Boot (1981)

8.4
Your rating:
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 -/10 X  
Ratings: 8.4/10 from 108,869 users   Metascore: 86/100
Reviews: 382 user | 145 critic | 15 from Metacritic.com

The claustrophobic world of a WWII German U-boat; boredom, filth, and sheer terror.

Director:

Watch Trailer
0Check in
0Share...

User Lists

Related lists from IMDb users

a list of 2366 titles created 4 months ago
 
a list of 100 titles created 28 Feb 2011
 
a list of 10000 titles created 2 months ago
 
a list of 1269 titles created 6 months ago
 
a list of 256 titles created 4 months ago
 

Connect with IMDb


Share this Rating

Title: Das Boot (1981)

Das Boot (1981) on IMDb 8.4/10

Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below.

Take The Quiz!

Test your knowledge of Das Boot.
Top 250 #72 | Nominated for 6 Oscars. Another 13 wins & 5 nominations. See more awards »

Videos

Photos

Learn more

People who liked this also liked... 

Drama | War
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8/10 X  

A young soldier faces profound disillusionment in the soul-destroying horror of World War I.

Director: Lewis Milestone
Stars: Louis Wolheim, Lew Ayres, John Wray
Drama | History | War
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.7/10 X  

123 elite U.S. soldiers drop into Somalia to capture two top lieutenants of a renegade warlord and find themselves in a desperate battle with a large force of heavily-armed Somalis.

Director: Ridley Scott
Stars: Josh Hartnett, Ewan McGregor, Tom Sizemore
Drama | History | War
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.3/10 X  

A historic telling of the failed attempt to capture several bridges to Germany in World War II in a campaign called Operation Market-Garden.

Director: Richard Attenborough
Stars: Sean Connery, Ryan O'Neal, Michael Caine
Action | Drama | History
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6.8/10 X  

In 1940, the British Royal Air Force fights a desperate battle vs. the Nazi Germany Air Force for control of British air space to prevent a Nazi invasion of Britain.

Director: Guy Hamilton
Stars: Harry Andrews, Michael Caine, Trevor Howard
Action | Drama | War
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8.6/10 X  

Following the Normandy Landings, a group of U.S. soldiers go behind enemy lines to retrieve a paratrooper whose brothers have been killed in action.

Director: Steven Spielberg
Stars: Tom Hanks, Tom Sizemore, Edward Burns
Drama | History | War
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.1/10 X  

The life stories of the six men who raised the flag at The Battle of Iwo Jima, a turning point in WWII.

Director: Clint Eastwood
Stars: Ryan Phillippe, Jesse Bradford, Barry Pepper
Drama | History | War
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.3/10 X  

True story of how the British attacked German dams in WW2 by using an ingenious technique to drop bombs where they would be most effective.

Director: Michael Anderson
Stars: Michael Redgrave, Ursula Jeans, Charles Carson
9th Company (2005)
Action | Drama | History
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.1/10 X  

Young Soviet Army recruits are stuck in the bloody war in Afghanistan, that was started by politicians.

Director: Fedor Bondarchuk
Stars: Artur Smolyaninov, Aleksey Chadov, Konstantin Kryukov
Action | Drama | War
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7/10 X  

Norway, WWII: A group of British and German soldiers find themselves stranded in the wilderness after an aircraft battle. Finding shelter in the same cabin, they realize the only way to survive the winter is to place the rules of war aside.

Director: Petter Næss
Stars: Florian Lukas, David Kross, Stig Henrik Hoff
The Warlords (2007)
Action | Drama | History
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7/10 X  

It's a heroic tale of three blood brothers and their struggle in the midst of war and political upheaval. It is based on "The Assassination of Ma," a Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) story about ... See full summary »

Directors: Peter Chan, Wai Man Yip
Stars: Jet Li, Andy Lau, Takeshi Kaneshiro
Action | Drama | History
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7/10 X  

The World War II story of the British Navy's effort to defeat Nazi Germany's most powerful warship.

Director: Lewis Gilbert
Stars: Kenneth More, Dana Wynter, Carl Möhner
Waterloo I (1970)
Action | Drama | History
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 7.1/10 X  

Facing the decline of everything he has worked to obtain, conqueror Napoleon Bonaparte and his army confront the British at the Battle of Waterloo.

Director: Sergey Bondarchuk
Stars: Rod Steiger, Christopher Plummer, Orson Welles
Edit

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
...
...
Klaus Wennemann ...
Hubertus Bengsch ...
1st Lieutenant - Number One-1WO
Martin Semmelrogge ...
2nd Lieutenant - 2WO
Bernd Tauber ...
Kriechbaum - Chief Quartermaster-Navigator
Erwin Leder ...
Johann
Martin May ...
Ullman
Heinz Hoenig ...
Hinrich (as Heinz Hönig)
...
Chief Bosun
Claude-Oliver Rudolph ...
Ario
...
Ralf Richter ...
Frenssen (as Ralph Richter)
Joachim Bernhard ...
Preacher
Oliver Stritzel ...
Schwalle
Edit

Storyline

It is 1942 and the German submarine fleet is heavily engaged in the so called "Battle of the Atlantic" to harass and destroy British shipping. With better escorts of the Destroyer Class, however, German U-Boats have begun to take heavy losses. "Das Boot" is the story of one such U-Boat crew, with the film examining how these submariners maintained their professionalism as soldiers, attempted to accomplish impossible missions, while all the time attempting to understand and obey the ideology of the government under which they served. Written by Anthony Hughes <husnock31@hotmail.com>

Plot Summary | Plot Synopsis

Taglines:

Hitler sent out 40,000 men aboard German U-Boats during World War 2. Less than 10,000 returned. See more »


Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for some war violence and brief language | See all certifications »

Parents Guide:

 »
Edit

Details

Official Sites:

Country:

Language:

| |

Release Date:

10 February 1982 (USA)  »

Also Known As:

The Boat  »

Filming Locations:

 »

Box Office

Budget:

$14,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

DEM 245,271 (Germany) (2 January 1998)

Gross:

$11,433,134 (USA) (25 April 1997)
 »

Company Credits

Show detailed on  »

Technical Specs

Runtime:

| (director's cut)

Sound Mix:

(director's cut)| (original release)| (director's cut)

Color:

(Fujicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1
See  »
Edit

Did You Know?

Trivia

When Wolfgang Petersen set out to cut down the German TV mini series version of the film to the 3 hour 26 feature director's cut, he discovered that the original music soundtrack had been lost due to film melt. Original soundtrack composer Klaus Doldinger painstakingly archived all the original soundtrack and remixed all the music cues that had been melted in 6 track format. Music editors then had the unenviable task of re-cutting the music to fit the new feature length of the film. See more »

Goofs

When the U-96 surfaces after the drill and test dive the bow wake of the camera boat can be clearly seen at the bottom of the frame. See more »

Quotes

Captain of the 'Weser': So, what's it like down there, in a submarine?
Der Leitende: It's... quiet.
Captain of the 'Weser': Quiet? Hmm.
See more »

Connections

Spoofed in The Steve Harvey Show: Das Bootie (1998) See more »

Soundtracks

"Heimat deine Sterne"
(uncredited)
Performed by Wilhelm Strienz
See more »

Frequently Asked Questions

See more (Spoiler Alert!) »

User Reviews

 
The best submarine film ever made.
25 March 2005 | by (Newport, Rhode Island, USA) – See all my reviews

While it has been a very long time since I have seen this movie, it is one of the very few that I own. Wolfgang Petersen's magnificent accomplishment in "Das Boot" is reiterating the dictum that "war is hell", no matter which side you look at it from and no matter where the battlefield is located.

*** Minor spoilers ***

The plot has been well described by other viewers so I won't rehash it again. But my personal observations, as an ex-submarine sailor, are that Petersen probably portrayed life on board the sub pretty accurately. I say "probably" because todays subs are hotels compared with the German U-boats and American submarines. The commonality between yesterday and today is how the crew deals with being closed up in a "sewer pipe" for weeks at a time. More importantly, you as a viewer become an invisible crew member as the crew lives in very cramped conditions (American WW2 subs used to be called "pig boats"), deals with an unfortunately believable political officer, deals with drills, actual torpedo firings, actual ships casualties, and deals, most frighteningly, with retribution from the "enemy". My own experience watching the depth charging of the U-boat was such that I was thinking "stop it, Stop It, STOP IT, STOPITSTOPITSTOPIT...!!!!!" That's how real it felt to me. For the rest of you, I feel certain you will too be dragged in and know what it is like to live on board a WW2 U-boat.

This movie also shows how leadership is so important in keeping the crew (and ultimately the sub) together. Petersen's direction for Captain Lehmann-Willenbrock was masterful because it didn't portray the captain as a god. It showed him as a man who knows how to lead, knows his submarine as if he were married to it (and in many ways he is) but isn't perfect at the job. It also shows that even with great leadership qualities, Captain Lehmann-Willenbrock can not do the job alone: he must have both officers and enlisted men who have the knowledge and skill to not just do their jobs, but to also advise the captain. Petersen also managed to give each member of the crew their own separate personalities instead of the predictable cookie-cutter personalities that Hollywood feels is needed.

I could go on and on. So I will close by saying that with the plot, direction, cinematography, acting, sound, music, editing all being top notch, this is one of the few movies that I can truly rate a 10 out of 10. I also preferred the German version with subtitles.

------------------------------------

I believe that this movie was either the first or one of the first to use Steadicam technology. It was truly amazing for me to see a camera zip its way through a submarine, specifically through the open watertight doors, without a break in the filming. Up until I heard what Steadicam was, I was always wondering how Petersen managed to hide the camera dolly track or the wires the camera hung from.

(It turns out I was wrong: "Bound For Glory" was the first.)

EDIT (12 OCT, 2006): I have been corrected by an observant viewer. Wikipedia has the following comment on what I thought was Steadicam usage:

"Most of the interior shots were filmed using a hand-held Arriflex of cinematographer Jost Vacano's design to convey the claustrophobic atmosphere of the boat. It had a gyroscope to provide stability, a reinvention of the Steadicam on a smaller scale, so that it could be carried throughout the interior of the mock-up. Vacano wore full-body padding to minimize injury as he ran and the mock-up was rocked and shaken."

So, literally, a Steadicam was NOT used in the filming of "Das Boot". However, a camera that resembled Steadicam in function (in the way it gyroscopically leveled the filming platform) was used.

------------------------------------

Even though todays submarines are far cleaner then their predecessors, and we have refrigerators, freezers, air conditioning, are able to take showers, etc., there is one aspect of living in an enclosed space that still lives on: the smell. While the smell of the "pig boats" of WW2 was truly atrocious, even with todays ability to clean the atmosphere, you can not escape the fact that any smell that is created, from burned toast in the galley, from the smell of the "sanitary gasses" (to be kind), to gasified hydraulic oil and diesel fuel, all these particulates will eventually become absorbed in your clothing. You, as a sailor, may get used to it, but when you get home, your wife will most likely declare that you smell like a submarine and demand that whatever you are wearing get thrown in the wash ... immediately!


163 of 170 people found this review helpful.  Was this review helpful to you?

Message Boards

Recent Posts
On Military Channel - mis-pronouncing the name csc115
Anymore good German movies? most_powerful
Did you watch it in English, or in German with subtitles? motleycruefan
Homosexual crewmember boussourir
Please help: Point of the 'Coup de Grace' suse33
What is so good about this movie?! Please explain! patte84
Discuss Das Boot (1981) on the IMDb message boards »

Contribute to This Page

Create a character page for:
?