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Jean Gabin, Pierre Fresnay, Erich von Stroheim, Marcel Dalio, Dita Parlo ... see more see more... , Julien Carette , Jacques Becker , Gaston Modot , Georges Péclet , Jean Daste , Sylvain Itkine , Claude Sainval

For its 75th Anniversary, Rialto Pictures presents a stunning 4K restoration of GRAND ILLUSION, Jean Renoir's powerful and eloquent anti-war film set during World War I. Aristocratic Captain de Boeldi... read more read more...eu and his mechanic, Lieutenant Maréchal are shot down by Captain von Rauffenstein, who treats them with customary officers' hospitality. The two downed pilots are then sent to a German POW camp, where they quickly join a group of prisoners who have concocted an elaborate escape plan. Their plot is foiled, however, as they are transferred to a new camp, the formidable Wintersborn fortress, run by Rauffenstein, who is now grounded due to battle wounds. Rauffenstein, lamenting the end of an aristocratic era, tries to befriend de Boeldieu, but the French captain is already hatching a new escape plan - one in which he puts himself in danger to allow the others to escape. GRAND ILLUSION was the first foreign film to receive a Best Picture Oscar nomination.

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93% liked it

8,428 ratings

Critics

98% liked it

54 critics

Unrated, 1 hr. 51 min.

Directed by: Jean Renoir

Release Date: May 11, 2012

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DVD Release Date: March 24, 1998

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Stats: 602 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (602)

  • fb100002359227440
    May 7, 2011
    fb100002359227440
    Experiência cinematografica cinco estrelas. Um filme que quase desapareceu da história do cinema mundial.
  • ceWEBrity
    April 4, 2011
    ceWEBrity
    A powerful forefather in promoting a political ideology through narrative film, Grand Illusion is at least fifty times more sensible than Birth of a Nation in that regard. I'm really not sure how I feel about the third act, though. It's touching...but completely without conflict.... read more I guess it speaks to a simpler time in film, where economy of writing wasn't of absolute importance and not every moment in the screenplay had to fulfill some greater mechanical purpose, but it stresses its point in an awfully longwinded way.
  • hobster1
    March 10, 2011
    hobster1
    The film is consistently ranked as one of the brightest stars in the cinematic firmament. It's a notoriety that unfortunately detracts from a modern moviegoer's first viewing of the picture. Is it the greatest masterpiece ever committed to celluloid? Hardly, but the terrific c... read moreharacterizations subtly reinforce the futility of combat. Why are these honorable people fighting? Director and co-writer Jean Renoir's experiences as a soldier shape much of his view of it as a "war of gentlemen". Perhaps a poignant lament of an attitude that the world on the brink of another global conflict, would never see again. This is a war film without a single battle and only one death. The portrait is such an anomaly in this genre. An overly idealistic view to be sure, but too eloquent to forget.
  • axadntpron
    February 8, 2011
    axadntpron
    I feel like I will be killed for not giving it 5 stars. The acting is unstoppable and I understand the message about a new social order coming to uproot the old, but it just didn't blow me away. Ok, you can kill me now
  • sanjurosamurai
    July 6, 2010
    sanjurosamurai
    often considered one of the great films of all time, grand illusion is a war epic set in a perfect 3 act structure. possibly renoir's best directing job and gabin was brilliant as always. the portrayal of the war was surprising but eye opening and the escape sequence was crafte... read mored well. a true classic.
  • flixsterman
    February 15, 2010
    flixsterman
    A series of German POW camps provide Renior's La Grande Illusion with a framework from which to illustrate social inequity. Two captured French airmen, one a well-to-do career officer and the other a former mechanic, discover that, even in prison, their class distinctions... read more still wedge them apart. This socio-political undercurrent adds to the tension as the prisoners work feverishly to effect an escape.

    A milestone film that no doubt influenced later offerings like Stalag 17 (1953), The Great Escape (1963) and Hart's War (2002).
  • dunmyer
    July 20, 2009
    dunmyer
    "Grand Illusion" is yet another film that was up for Best Picture in 1938, the only foreign-language film so honored. It's quite ironic that at the very time Nazi Germany was plotting to crush France and annihilate Jews, Communists, and homosexuals, the French filmmaker Jean Reno... read moreir was creating an anti-war film that humanized Germans.

    Set in World War I, "Grand Illusion" presents French and German soldiers as sharing a common humanity. The Germans who run a prisoner-of-war camp are humane, balanced and thoughtful. They think highly of their French prisoners and rub shoulders with them frequently. The head of the camp (played by Erich von Stroheim) is an aristocrat who cares more about music and literature than warfare. The idea that French and German people are different is presented as a ridiculous illusion.

    The film ends well, but there are so many dull passages to endure before you get there. The direction is also terribly pedestrian. Renoir never does a single interesting thing with the camera. The script moves along too slowly, and the artless direction only makes it worse. I like what the film has to say, but I'm not very impressed with how it says it. In addition to more flavorful direction and snappier editing, the film needed more story development. There is simply not enough drama or characterization.

    Only in the last 30 minutes did I really start to care, when there's a fabulous sequence between two escaped prisoners and an angelic German widow they befriend on their march to the Swiss border. This final sequence had a spiritual and emotional quality that the first three-quarters of the film lacked.
  • rubystevens
    April 13, 2009
    rubystevens
    it's the mother of all prison escape films!
  • tsigur
    February 16, 2008
    tsigur
    I guess I was expecting more. Good film overall.
  • mjgildea
    November 2, 2006
    mjgildea
    It might get a little droll but the ending is well worth it.

View All La Grande illusion (The Grand Illusion) Reviews

Critic Reviews

Kenneth Turan
May 17, 2012
Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

A model of simplicity and grace, with emotional effects that move you when you least expect it, the kind of great film that only a master can pull off. Full Review

Jonathan Rosenbaum
February 8, 2012
Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader

It's still one of the key humanist expressions to be found in movies: sad, funny, exalting, and glorious. Full Review

Dave Kehr
February 8, 2012
Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader

It's an excellent film, with Renoir's usual looping line and deft shifts of tone, though today the balance of critical opinion has shifted in favor of the greater darkness and filigree of The Rules of... Full Review

Variety Staff
March 26, 2009
Variety Staff, Variety

An artistically masterful feature, the picture breathes the intimate life of warriors on both sides during the [First] World War. Full Review

Frank S. Nugent
June 12, 2003
Frank S. Nugent, New York Times

Renoir has created a strange and interesting film, but he owes much to his cast.

Roger Ebert
January 1, 2000
Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

... the camera doesn't point or intrude, but glides. Full Review

Stanley Kauffmann
January 1, 2000
Stanley Kauffmann, New Republic

I can't comment yet again on this magnificent work except to say that its account of French prisoners in German hands during World War I seems now even more soaringly elegiac.

Lisa Schwarzbaum
January 1, 2000
Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly

... Renoir, the grand humanist filmmaker, spoke for all that's best about people at a time when people were in danger of becoming their worst. Full Review

Stephen Garrett
May 8, 2012
Stephen Garrett, Time Out New York

Funny, heart-wrenching, nail-biting, caustic and profound, touting the futility of armed combat while turning imprisonment and escape into a microcosm for society's aspirations and contradictions. Full Review

Philip French
April 7, 2012
Philip French, Observer [UK]

Renoir's 1937 anti-war masterpiece created a new genre, the POW movie, and with his 1939 La Règle du jeu constitutes a diptych of unparalleled excellence. Full Review

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  • For what famous film was this the final uttered line of dialogue or narration (translated into subtitles or not)? :"Don't shoot?they're in Switzerland." "Good for them."   Answer »
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