In 1998 two legendary directors released World War II films that couldn’t be more different: Stephen Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan is considered a masterpiece of the genre and the film’s arrival was treated like a national event when it first hit theater screens. Audiences hailed the realism of the film’s battle sequences while Spielberg was still able to play sentimental virtuoso with Ryan‘s rescue themes. There’s no doubt that Ryan is an important cinematic accomplishment, but the masterpiece war film of 1998 was Terrence Malick’s adaptation of James Jones’ The Thin Red Line.

Red Line features an insane cast spotlighted in a number of separate-seeming scenes viewed through the eyes of shifting protagonists and linked together by the kind of voice over internal monologues often featured in Malick’s films. Ryan offers a kind of penultimate WWII movie along with a nostalgic celebration of those films along with the Greatest Generation. Red Line is as subversive as Ryan is reverent — it’s specifically an anti-war movie, and where most war films are direct and action-filled Red Line is surreal and full of quiet poetry.

And take a look at some of this cast:

Jim Caviezel as Pvt. Robert Witt
Sean Penn as 1st Sgt. Edward Welsh
Elias Koteas as Capt. James ‘Bugger’ Staros
Nick Nolte as Col. Gordon Tall
John Cusack as Capt. John Gaff
Adrien Brody as Cpl. Geoffrey Fife
John C. Reilly as Sgt. Maynard Storm
Woody Harrelson as Sgt. William Keck
Jared Leto as 2nd Lt. William Whyte
John Travolta as Brig. Gen. David Quintard
George Clooney as Capt. Charles Bosche
Nick Stahl as Pfc. Edward Bead
John Savage as Sgt. Jack McCron
Tim Blake Nelson as Pvt. Brian Tills

Here’s Nick Nolte talking about making the movie…

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