All Quiet on the Western Front
Universal Pictures | Release Date: August 24, 1930 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
91
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 16 Critic Reviews
Positive:
16
Mixed:
0
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
VarietyStaff (Not Credited)
A harrowing, gruesome, morbid tale of war, so compelling in its realism, bigness and repulsiveness that Universal’s Western Front becomes at once a money picture. Read full review
100
Slant MagazineRob Humanick
Anti-war statements of the cinema in the subsequent 80 years have occasionally surpassed Lewis Milestone’s technically and artistically groundbreaking film, but few can match it for relentless despair or elemental fury—both on and off the battlefield. Read full review
100
TV Guide MagazineStaff (Not Credited)
Perhaps the greatest antiwar film ever made, holding considerable power even now due to Lewis Milestone's inventive direction. Read full review
100
EmpireIan Nathan
Despite a little dating around the edges this is a truly superb example of its genre and a cinema classic. Read full review
100
The TelegraphMartin Chilton
All Quiet on the Western Front remains an essential piece of social history and a heart-wrenching film. Read full review
100
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
It remains an anti-war masterpiece. [09 Feb 2007, p.C6]
91
The A.V. ClubNoel Murray
Milestone’s visual style lacks the flourish of Wellman’s Wings, but it’s no less explicit, as the camera pans across battlefields where dismembered body parts hang from barbed wire. Read full review
90
The GuardianPhilip French
It is the most thoroughgoing exposé of the absurdity of war, and the most explicitly pacifist movie ever made. Read full review
90
The New York TimesMordaunt Hall
Often the scenes are of such excellence that if they were not audible one might believe that they were actual motion pictures of activities behind the lines, in the trenches and in No Man's Land. Read full review
88
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
Lewis Milestone's powerful 1930 adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque's antiwar novel, starring Lew Ayres and Louis Wolheim, deserves its reputation as a classic. Read full review
88
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
All Quiet on the Western Front is the definitive World War I motion picture, the best of a surprisingly small class of movies. Read full review
88
The Seattle TimesJohn Hartl
The occasional creakiness of Milestone's passionate pacifist war film adds to the sense of authenticity. It's a lot closer to World War I than we are to it. [05 Dec 1997, p.G1]
80
The New York TimesWalter Goodman
Lewis Milestone's unsparing direction of the senseless slaughter more than makes up for the soft spots and does justice to Erich Maria Remarque's novel of a generation destroyed by war. Read full review
80
Time OutStaff (Not Credited)
The film's strength now derives less from its admittedly powerful but highly simplistic utterances about war as waste, than from a generally excellent set of performances (Ayres especially) and an almost total reluctance to follow normal plot structure. Read full review
80
The GuardianPeter Bradshaw
An ambitious epic of tremendous sweep and scope, with trench-warfare battle scenes comparable to Kubrick's Paths of Glory. Read full review
70
The New YorkerPauline Kael
The point of the film gets to you, and though you may wince at the lines Maxwell Anderson wrote (every time he opens his heart, he sticks his poetic foot in it), you know what he means.
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