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Cinema of WWI
A young film industry just settling into its own home - the cinema - found itself enlisted to record, report and dramatise a war unlike any other.
The films made during and just after World War I have a special directness, untainted as they are by layers of mythologising and cliché built up over the decades. There is a great variety of news, comedy and heartrending drama. A genre unique to this period of film production is the battle reconstruction film: the film equivalent of the stone memorials still to be found in every town and village of the UK.
MonsMons
Documentary 1926 110 minsSilentDirector: Walter Summers
Arrival of the British Army in France
Poppies of FlandersPoppies of Flanders
War 1928 122 minsSilentDirector: Arthur Maude
Powerful wartime drama that sees rivals in love becoming comrades-in-arms in the trenches of the Western Front.
YpresYpres
Documentary 1925 79 minsSilentDirector: Walter Summers
Battle film made as a memorial to the dead of WWI, documenting events at Ypres using reconstructed and genuine footage.
Sons of the SeaSons of the Sea
Crime 1926 76 minsSilentDirector: H. Bruce Woolfe
Two boys answer the call of the sea as Royal Navy recruits in this adventure of the seven seas.
BlightyBlighty
War 1927 106 minsSilentDirector: Adrian Brunel
Life on the Home Front during WWI, through the eyes of one family.
All Quiet on the Western FrontAll Quiet on the Western Front
War 1930 133 minsDirector: Lewis Milestone
Lewis Milestone's pioneering, Oscar®-winning film is one of the most powerful films about the consequences of war
Forgotten Men: The War As It WasForgotten Men: The War As It Was
Documentary 1934 79 minsDirector: Norman Lee
Norman Lee’s 1934 documentary takes audiences through the harsh horrors and realities of war, showing everyone what soldiers truly go through within the armed forces.
Brown on ResolutionBrown on Resolution
War 1935 71 minsDirector: Walter Forde
Walter Forde’s 1935 war drama stars a young John Mills as the illegitimate son of a naval officer who brings down a German cruiser in WWI.