not as good as all the hype

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

This long ignored TV series from 1964 by the BBC is finally available again.This used archive film that I have never seen anywhere else. Other histories of the Great War seem to reuse the same old stock footage but not here. The series starts by looking at the state of Europe immediately before the war starts. A great book that compliments this is Barbara Tuchmann's Guns of August. The war itself starts with episode 3 and the pace is relentless there after. So many moving scenes, episode 11 covers the 1916 Battle of Verdun, I doubt anyone could watch this unmoved.My grandfather's generation fought this terrible conflict, This series shows a little of the terrible cost of this four year long war. I urge you to watch it if you get the chance.

What a treasure this series is. Before I got The Great War I thought I'd never see an informative, not to mention cinematic, documentary about World War I. This was a war that was hugely influential on the modern world, yet you can learn hardly anything about it in schools or on television. So much is said about World War II, but if there was no first war there's a good chance there would not have been a second. The series contains 26 episodes; each episode lasts for about 40 minutes. That means there's a great deal of footage and information. Episode "on the idle hill of summer..." begins the series. The situation of pre-war Europe is explained in detail and style. Imperial Germany had become a major world power, with perhaps the strongest army in the world and the second largest navy in the world. This caused anxiety and a change in policies by other European powers. It was a time of great innovation. Europeans controlled about 80% of the world through colonialism. It was still the age of steam, yet many inventions that would become very important later were constantly being introduced. The assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand by Slavic nationalist Gavrilo Princip would draw all the European powers and eventually the world into a war that would cause Europe's end as the center of civilization. World War I included great battles. Millions of lives were lost. All this is covered expertly in the series. Interviewees appeared in several episodes.The music for the series was composed by Wilfred Josephs. It was performed by the BBC Northern Symphony Orchestra conducted by George Hurst. His expressive yet unsentimental score was widely acclaimed at the time, and many have recalled the strong contribution it made to the series. In addition to Joseph's original score, much use was made of some great 20th Century symphonies; Shostakovitch's 11th and Vaughan Williams Sinfonia Antartica, to name two. The narration by Michael Redgrave is excellent. The series, unparalleled at the time for its depth of research, range of source material and historical accuracy - all presented in a sequence of clear narratives - is now considered one of the finest achievements of BBC documentary. The Great War really shows how great a conflict World War I was. It was epic. Following transmission of the series by the Republic of Ireland's national TV station, Telefis Eireann, The Great War won a Jacob's Award at the 1964 presentation ceremony in Dublin. There appear to be two releases as of mid-2007, both in the UK, both Region 2. If you like documentaries then don't miss out on this series. It is now a favourite of mine.

I first saw this series when it was repeated by the BBC in the early Seventies on Sunday afternoons. I watched several of the episodes with my grandmother whose beloved brother died at the Battle of the Somme. It is one of the main reasons that I am interested in the First World War, why I became a historian and why I take groups of schoolchildren to the battlefields every year. After years of claiming it was 'out of date' and 'unshowable' the BBC have released it on video/DVD and shown it on TV on Saturday evenings. As I started to watch the first episode the hairs on the back of my neck stood up-the portentous music,Sir Michael Redgrave's melifluous narratiion, the superbly literate script by John Terraine and Correlli ('Bill') Barnett, the archive footage (even if much of it is used out of context)-it was all as I remembered it. This series provided the blueprint for many others, especially 'The World at War'. It is a timeless classic which should be seen by anyone with the remotest interest in history or a moving story superbly told. Interestingly the series was masterminded by John Terraine and, as such, embodies the then unfashionable 'revisionist' view that not all the generals (especially Field Marshal Haig)were blundering idiots who sent men cruelly to their deaths but were limited by the available technology into fighting grim attrition battles as the only means of victory. This now pretty much the academic orthodoxy-40 years after this classic series was made!

This series is a PRICELESS exercise in archive footage - make no bones about it. The series is over 10 hours long yet consists almost entirely of archive footage from all the major battles of the war, particularly the Western Front. There is the odd interview with the veterans, well and alive and indeed quite young in 1964, yet the amazing sight is the reel after reel of archive footage. Where did they get it all from? (and why is it NEVER used in any WWI film before or since? - they all use the same few stills and films over and over again). Countless shots of the Somme battlefields, Belgium, Verdun, and everywhere! I only chanced upon it in the library, for a cheap rental; but watch this urgently. Another surprising impression is the sheer modernity of the whole thing - great guns, brilliant filming, great troop movements, even aeroplanes and dog fights. Footage shot from old Sopwith Camels of bomb-drops and stuff like that. It shows the Middle East fronts, Italy vs. Austria, Romanian fronts, Russian, the whole shebang! Also has a fantastic classical score to accompany it and brilliant narration by Sir Michael Redgrave.