The Thin Red Line

"Every man fights his own war."

1998 2h 51m EN

👍

7.4

SOLID

🍅

80%

FRESH

👌

METACRITIC

⭐

7.6

IMDB

★7.4TMDB · 3,453🍅80%Rotten Tomatoes●78Metacritic★7.6IMDB · 211,802

DramaHistoryWar

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

The story of a group of men, an Army Rifle company called C-for-Charlie, who change, suffer, and ultimately make essential discoveries about themselves during the fierce World War II battle of Guadalcanal. It follows their journey, from the surprise of an unopposed landing, through the bloody and exhausting battles that follow, to the ultimate departure of those who survived.

“Every man fights his own war.”

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Cast

Jim Caviezel
Pvt. Robert Witt
Nick Nolte
Lt. Col. Gordon Tall
Sean Penn
1st Sgt. Edward Welsh
Ben Chaplin
Pvt. Jack Bell
Elias Koteas
Capt. James Staros
John Cusack
Capt. John Gaff
Dash Mihok
Pfc. Don Doll
John C. Reilly
Sgt. Maynard Storm

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Terrence Malick
Writers: Terrence Malick
Languages: English, Greek, Japanese
Countries: United States of America

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

RUNTIME

Did you know

Clocks in at 171 minutes — on the longer side of feature-length cinema.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

Mid-budget at $52M — the now-extinct middle tier of Hollywood.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

ERA

Did you know

28 years old — old enough to be someone's favourite childhood film.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

WORLD

Did you know

Dialogue crosses 3 languages: English, Greek, Japanese.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Terrence Malick, shot by John Toll. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Hans Zimmer. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Leslie Jones shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

CAST

Did you know

Jim Caviezel and Nick Nolte and Sean Penn carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Terrence Malick directs. John Toll behind the camera. Hans Zimmer scores. Leslie Jones cuts. A long sit — settle in. Profitable at the box office. Produced in United States of America. Dialogue in English, Greek, Japanese.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1Clocks in at 171 minutes — on the longer side of feature-length cinema.
2Mid-budget at $52M — the now-extinct middle tier of Hollywood.
328 years old — old enough to be someone's favourite childhood film.
4Dialogue crosses 3 languages: English, Greek, Japanese.
5Directed by Terrence Malick, shot by John Toll. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
6Original score by Hans Zimmer. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
7Editor Leslie Jones shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
8Jim Caviezel and Nick Nolte and Sean Penn carry the top of the cast.
9Marketing tagline: "Every man fights his own war.".
10IMDB entry: tt0120863 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
11Classified under 41 themes, including "based on novel or book", "steel helmet", "world war ii", "battle assignment".

The technical file

Cinematography: John Toll
Original score: Hans Zimmer
Editing: Leslie Jones
Production design: Jack Fisk
Costume design: Margot Wilson
Makeup / hair: Angela Conte
VFX supervisor: Chris Godfrey
Sound: Anna Behlmer
Runtime: 171 min · 2h 51m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Budget: $52,000,000
Box office: $98,126,565
Return: 189% of budget
Original language: EN
Certification (US): R
IMDB: The Thin Red Line (1998)
Rotten Tomatoes: 80% 🍅 Fresh
Metacritic: 78/100
IMDB rating: 7.6/10 · 211,802 votes
MPAA: R

Awards

Nominated for 7 Oscars. 23 wins & 47 nominations total

National Board of Review: Top Ten Films
Golden Bear

Individual records documented via Wikidata; the summary above may count more.

Also by

Terrence Malick

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Trailers & featurettes

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Community reviews

What people are saying

CRCulver2018-09-01
★ 6/10
The circumstances around Terence Malick's <i>The Thin Red Line</i> are sometimes more talked about than the film itself. The reclusive director had made a big splash in the Seventies, but there followed two decades of silence. When he finally reappeared in 1998 to direct this adaptation of James Jones's novel about the Battle of Guadalcanal in World War II, many actors were desperate to work with him and he was able to gather a large ensemble cast. He shot over five hours of footage but had to cut it down to three, leaving out many actors entirely from the finished version. <i>The Thin Red Line</i> tells of the American battle against Japanese forces on the island from the landing on its beach to the time the initial troops are relieved and sail off for some new, unknown deployment. But it actually begins shortly before this when Private Witt (Jim Caviezel), who has been AWOL and living with the local Melanesian people on a nearby island, is discovered by a patrol and brought in before his sargeant. The battle itself involves the men of C Company, 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division: besides Caviezel as Witt, major roles are played by Sean Penn, Woody Harrelson, Adrien Brody and Ben Chaplin. Elias Koteas is Capt. Staros, who tries to look out for his men, while a hyperbolic Nick Nolte plays their commander who sees the infantry as nothing but cannon fodder to wrecklessly throw at the Japanese. For most of its 3-hour length, the men are torn apart by Japanese machine gun fire as they try to take a hill, but the enemy is never directly seen. Between scenes of great violence, there are portentous voiceovers by various characters as they meditate on what war says about the larger human drama. Eventually US forces are able to overcome Japanese positions, and the Japanese side of the offensive is depicted with more fairness and equanimity than in most American films on the Pacific Theatre of the war. While the realistic depiction of battle might touch viewers -- and its hard to knock any World War II film since they spur one to read more about this crucial event in history, this is not a great film. It has obviously been cut heavily from its original length. John C. Reilly appears several times at the centre of shots, clearly meant to be a major character, but most of his scenes and all of his back story were cut. The philosophic voiceovers come across as pretentious instead of insightful. Furthermore, I find this a very "Hollywood" film, with the acting often exaggerated. Woody Harrelson doesn't play a WWII grunt, he plays Woody Harrelson. George Clooney appears at the end and all realism goes out the window: there's no way this suave, handsome leading man has been fighting a war for some time now. Hans Zimmer's musical score too obviously pulls the audience towards prescribed emotions.
badelf2022-09-17
★ 4/10
As war movies go, this one sucks. I'm pretty sure (although I didn't read it, that the novel (and maybe original screenplay) must have been fantastic, but Terrence Malick really bungled this: no clear vision, no character investment, a ridiculous amount of stupid jump cuts. I was willing to quit 40% into the film but my wife wanted to see the rest (as almost kind of a challenge to see if she could spot another of the many famous that wanted to work with him (and probably regretted it later).
GenerationofSwine2023-01-12
★ 1/10
Yeah, this is pretentious. And what makes it worse is that in all of it's art house pomp, it doesn't come across so much as anti-war as it does anti- stopping the Japanese and Germans from their genocidal bid for world domination. It was like they were saying that they are devoutly on the left... so much so that they support the axis powers if only because the alternative is the United States and Democracy and that is somehow more... fascist(?). I don't know, the film suffers from schizophrenia and the message gets lost when you realize that it's a World War II story and not a Vietnam story and that it is kind of taking the wrong side of WWII in it's effort to call America a fascist nation. But, you get pointless meandering diatribes and A-list actors in a horrible movie. The good news is that it looks pretty... but I don't think the final product is what the writer of this and From Here to Eternity had in mind.