‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ Producer Sees Parallels With Young Russian Conscripts Sent to Ukraine as ‘Cannon Fodder’

Last night, director Edward Berger officially became an Oscar-winning filmmaker thanks to the Best International Film win for “All Quiet on the Western Front.” And it doesn’t appear that Berger is going to even stop to take a breath as the filmmaker’s next project has just been announced. According to Deadline, Edward Berger is signed on to direct and produce a new Amazon series, “Helltown,” which will be produced by Robert Downey Jr.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Netflix picked up big wins at the 95th Academy Awards, including the international feature film Oscar for “All Quiet on the Western Front” and its first animated feature film Oscar for “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio.” Overall, Netflix won six Oscars on Sunday, after receiving 16 total nominations this year. “All Quiet on the Western Front,” directed by Edward Berger, won four Oscars (on nine nominations), picking up the trophies for international feature, cinematography (James Friend), original score (Volker Bertelmann) and production design (Christian M. Goldbeck, Ernestine Hipper). The film — a grim, disquieting adaptation of the famous World War I novel — had dominated the U.K.’s BAFTA Awards with a record-breaking seven wins, including best film, director (Berger), adapted screenplay, cinematography, sound, original score and non-English language film.

Production designer Christian M. Goldbeck gave a shout-out to All Quiet on the Western Front‘s director Edward Berger and his team of APDs following the film’s Oscar win for Best Production Design.

Jon Burlingame editor German composer Volker Bertelmann won the original score Oscar Sunday night for his music for the World War I epic “All Quiet on the Western Front.” “By working on a film like that, you are always touched,” Bertelmann said in accepting the honor, referring to the harrowing nature of the film. “Sometimes you have to make the screen very small because there are so many explosions happening.” It is Bertelmann’s first Academy Award. He was previously nominated, under his stage name Hauschka, for his music for the 2016 film “Lion” (co-composed with Dustin O’Halloran). He won the BAFTA for “All Quiet” on Feb. 19.

Naman Ramachandran After the triumph of Edward Berger’s “All Quiet on the Western Front” at the BAFTAs, Netflix has revealed a surge in viewership for non-English language titles. New Netflix data shows that in the U.K., viewing for non-English language stories has increased by 90% over the last three years. “All Quiet on the Western Front” is now Netflix’s fourth most popular non-English language film ever, with over 150 million hours viewed since its release on Oct. 14, 2022. It has been on Netflix’s global Top 10 Non-English Film list for 14 weeks and has reached the Top 10 Films in 91 countries, including Germany, the U.K., U.S., Australia, France, Mexico and South Korea.

It’s transfer time for Phil Dunster, who has played AFC Richmond’s star striker Jamie Tartt on the Emmy-winning comedy drama Ted Lasso for three seasons. The actor is joining Gugu Mbatha-Raw on Season 2 of her psychological thriller Surface, Breaking Baz can reveal.

For the first time since2020, just before Covid dealt a devastating blow to the industry, exhibitors and awards season, it feels like this year’s Oscar show may return to some sense of normalcy. And with box office hits mixed with acclaimed indies among the 10 Best Picture nominees, this could be the turning point in the recovery of the Academy Awards. At the nominees’ luncheon, in fact, Steven Spielberg was overheard telling Tom Cruise that he may have saved the movie business with Top Gun: Maverick, 2022’s No. 1 movie and a billion-dollar rescue for the industry. On Maverick’s tail came Avatar: The Way of Water, which became the third biggest global-grossing film of all time. And shock of shocks, both of those long-gestating sequels are Best Picture contenders with 10 nominations between them.

While doing research for his work on All Quiet on the Western Front, production designer Christian M. Goldbeck was excited to find rare non-propaganda photographs of the battlefields and trenches. These images were pivotal in the design process to show the reality of the war. “We decided in a very early stage to make it visceral and physical, to show what we can lose in war,” he says. “To beautify war would be propaganda.”

Jazz Tangcay Artisans Editor Netflix’s “All Quiet on the Western Front” has surpassed over 150 million hours viewed since its release on Oct. 14, 2022. The film, which dominated the BAFTA Awards in London with a record-breaking seven wins, including best film, director (Edward Berger), adapted screenplay, cinematography, sound, original score and non-English language film, climbed up to No. 2 on the global list, according to numbers released by Netflix. Berger’s World War I epic tells Paul’s (Felix Kammerer ) journey from being a young, enthusiastic school boy wanting to join the army to a tired, worn soldier. It has been on the global Top 10 Non-English Film list for 14 weeks and has reached the Top 10 Films in 91 countries, including Germany, the U.K., U.S., Australia, France, Mexico and South Korea.

Tim Gray Senior Vice President Oscar voters rewarded “All Quiet on the Western Front” with nine nominations, including best picture and international film. But aside from the great work seen onscreen, the film is notable for what it doesn’t do. There are no heroic acts, no sense of adventure, no cheering when the enemy dies. It’s a true anti-war film. Producer Malte Grunert says: “There are a lot of things that do not follow the normal dramatic structure that you would expect in a war movie.”  He and director Edward Berger discussed the depiction of violence, since Erich Maria Remarque’s 1927 novel about World War I vividly describes atrocities. “We wanted to keep it violent because a war film has to be. It’s about young boys, just out of school, going to the Western Front and being thrown into violence and pain,” says Grunert. “But we never wanted it to be exploitative. The violence was always to have a purpose, to show the horror through the eyes of our protagonists.”

Edward Berger says he didn’t realize the BAFTAs were going his way until the final award of the night, when Best Film became the seventh trophy to add to his film’s haul. If he’d known that All Quiet on the Western Front, his adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s First World War novel would do so well, he might have taken the next day off. Instead, he left the Netflix party at around 2am for a flight to Rome, in time for a 9am call at the historic Cinecittà Studios and a full day of shooting on his follow-up.

A version of this story about “All Quiet on the Western Front” first appeared in the Down to the Wire issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine.   The first German-language adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s classic anti-war novel about World War I, “All Quiet on the Western Front” is second only to “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and tied with “The Banshees of Inisherin” for the most Oscar nominations, nine.

Steven Gaydos Executive VP of Content The power of an important story told with passion and unflinching clarity always transcends the bonds of time. This explains the durability of Shakespeare’s plays when they land in the right hands, and it explains Edward Berger’s adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s fierce anti-war novel, “All Quite on the Western Front,” which is nominated for the best picture Oscar.  Nearly a century ago, director Lewis Milestone triumphed in one of the first Oscar competitions with his Universal Pictures version of the 1928 tome, filmed, remarkably, completely in and around its Hollywood Studio home.   Today, “Front” is registering with voters who are seeing the horrors of war in Europe live and in color as it sadly unfolds again with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.  

Todd Gilchrist editor Even with predecessors such as  “Paths of Glory,” “A Very Long Engagement,” “1917” and of course Lewis Milestone’s 1930 best picture winner of the same name, director Edward Berger’s adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s bestseller “All Quiet on the Western Front” conveys the meat-grinder brutality — the violence, the blood, and the mud — of trench warfare unlike almost any film in the history of the medium.  “These kids are chewed up by the merciless war machine,” says Berger. “They sign up for this war full of hopes and ideals, but very quickly they realize that they have lost everything in the mud, especially their innocence and their youth.”

All Quiet on the Western Front‘s Daniel Bishop and Ozark‘s Dave Chameides and Cristian Trova were named Camera Operator of the Year in film and TV, respectively, by the Society of Camera Operators.

Zoe Hewitt It’s not often in a career that having your hard work go by unnoticed is actually the ultimate compliment. Movie crews, almost uniformly across any filmmaking disciplines, find themselves in this nebulous zone where the less their work stands out, the more accolades they get from critics, peers and audiences. If costumes stand out, the characters feel a bit off. If set decoration draws attention, it doesn’t seem like the story is grounded in a real-life environment.   Stunts may be the only exception to the rule. Seeing daring escapades on screen becomes the bait to get audiences into seats. Who didn’t have great expectations of what Tom Cruise and company would pull off in “Top Gun: Maverick”? 

Sam Smith has teased a cameo appearance in the upcoming second season of Sex And The City spin-off And Just Like That.And Just Like That, which debuted its first season at the end of 2021, saw the return of original Sex And The City cast members Sarah Jessica Parker as Carrie Bradshaw, Cynthia Nixon as Miranda Hobbes and Kristin Davis as Charlotte York-Goldenblatt, while Kim Cattrall was absent as Samantha Jones.A second season was confirmed by HBO Max in March last year, with Cattrall set to return as Samantha.Smith could be another surprise addition to the show, after they shared a post on Instagram in collaboration with the show’s official account.In one photo, Smith pokes their head out of a trailer on set in New York, while the other sees them sitting on a chair on the street.“Up to something unholy on set,” they wrote in the caption, referencing their recent hit single with Kim Petras.A post shared by SAM SMITH (@samsmith)The upcoming second season of And Just Like That “feels like iconic Sex And The City episodes,” according to an HBO Max executive.The streaming service’s head of originals, Sarah Aubrey, has revealed what to expect from the next edition of the show. “What you’re seeing this season is all of these characters embracing life,” Aubrey told Variety.

Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor Despite representing Germany at this year’s Academy Awards for best international feature, “All Quiet on the Western Front” writer-director Edward Berger doesn’t feel national pride for the country. “I don’t feel that because of the history,” Berger tells Variety. “I could never say I’m proud to be German. Those words don’t fit into our mouths, and rightly so. I would have a hard time thinking I would represent the country because I can’t speak for the entire country.” On this episode of Variety‘s Awards Circuit Podcast, Berger discusses “All Quiet on the Western Front’s” nine Oscar noms — the second most of the year — and employing the most artisans of any non-English movie in history. Finally, he shares why he feels a responsibility to accurately portray Germany’s role in some of humanity’s most devastating wars. Listen to the full podcast below.

including Best Film, and many are wondering how they can watch the gritty World War I drama.Directed by Edward Berger, whom the British Academy named Best Director, the film is an adaptation of the 1929 novel of the same name by Erich Maria Remarque.A staple of many academic reading lists, the first English language adaptation of Remarque’s novel was made in 1930. The film netted Lewis Milestone his second Best Director Oscar and won Outstanding Production (later renamed Best Picture).

When I moderated a screening with you and Edward and Daniel Bruhl, I said, “Your music scares the hell out of me,” and the audience applauded. You must have known going into “All Quiet” that you needed something dark and foreboding and a little scary.Absolutely. But when you talk about dark and foreboding, it can easily get into an area where it’s detached suddenly from the movie, because it’s maybe too much horror or too heavy in a way that it doesn’t fit the picture.