All Quiet on the Western Front (1930)
From Summa Bergania
Probably the best anti-war movie I've seen. To make an anti-war movie you have to rely on one trick: never tell the viewer the reason for the war. As soon as the viewer knows that the soldiers are fighting to liberate Vietnam, Iraq, Germany, or Korea from an evil dictator, then all the pain becomes digestable. Tyranny is so bad that we feel that this horror must be endured for the greater good. What makes All Quiet a better movie than other anti-war movies is that the story is told from the German soldiers' perspective in WWI... young men baited into the army by patriotic phrases and stirring choruses, suddenly ask themselves once the fighting starts, "What are we really fighting for?" Because it is set in that particular war where the goals and motives were so unclear (especially for Germany) the message that (this) war is absurd rings true.
