The story follows a group of German soldiers, from their Italian R&R in the summer of 1942 to the frozen steppes of Soviet Russia and ending with the battle for Stalingrad.The story follows a group of German soldiers, from their Italian R&R in the summer of 1942 to the frozen steppes of Soviet Russia and ending with the battle for Stalingrad.The story follows a group of German soldiers, from their Italian R&R in the summer of 1942 to the frozen steppes of Soviet Russia and ending with the battle for Stalingrad.
- Awards
- 3 wins & 1 nomination
Alexander Wachholz
- Pfarrer Renner
- (as Eckhardt A. Wachholz)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThe original screenplay was written by Christoph Fromm but the producers disagreed with his more realistic direction and had it rewritten. Consequently, Fromm took his name off the film.
- GoofsTowards the end of film a Ju52 drops a single supply parachute. When dropped out of the plane and falling towards ground, it is green, when they recover it on the ground it is white. (In reality the Luftwaffe was first using white parachutes until they realized it is too difficult to spot white parachutes on the snowy ground.)
- Quotes
Lt. Hans von Witzland: The best thing about the cold is...
[Witzland dies]
Fritz Reiser: [holding the body] You don't have to worry about sunburn.
- ConnectionsFeatured in The 100 Greatest War Films (2005)
Featured review
Stalingrad
This is a film that I keep coming back to, for a variety of reasons. As a testament to the suffering of the ordinary soldier on the Eastern Front in the Second World War, it is a powerful one. There are a number of very powerful scenes in the film which help to capture the horror of war, such as the tank battle for instance. Furthermore, from what I can see the experiences documented in the film are by and large 'true' - if you read A. Beevor's book 'Stalingrad' you will know what I mean. The film is also successful in the sense that it doesn't allow character or plot to dominate it - it is simply a tale of survival, that attempts to depict the battle mainly from the ordinary (German) soldier's point of view. I've read somewhere that the original screenplay had to be toned down, which doesn't surprise me at all - if they tried to really show what the battle was like, it would have been almost impossible to make I'm sure. Even so, there are still some moments that are difficult to watch - this was made before Private Ryan but is possibly even harder-hitting in places. Just one word of caution - don't buy the dubbed 'English' version, it's pretty awful and spoils the film - try to get a copy in the original (German) version with English subtitles, it's far more powerful. You may need to buy a Region 1 DVD of the film in this case, as I did.
helpful•493
- prunders
- Feb 4, 2007
Details
Box office
- Budget
- DEM 20,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $152,972
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $10,882
- May 29, 1995
- Gross worldwide
- $152,972
- Runtime2 hours 14 minutes
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1
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