Non-English Titles Surge 90% on Netflix U.K. as ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ Tops Charts (EXCLUSIVE)

BreAnna Bell Korean drama “The Glory” sits atop Netflix’s global top 10 list of titles for the second week with the release of part 2. During the March 13-19 viewing window, the show earned 123.59 million hours viewed. “The Glory” has also moved up the Most Popular List into the No. 7 spot with the release of Part 2, totaling 380.38 million hours viewed in the first 28 days of each episode’s premiere. The series follows a woman who sets out on an elaborate revenge plot to make her tormenters pay years after she survived horrific abuse in high school. “The Glory” first debuted with Season 1, Part 1 in December of last year. Part 2 was released on March 10.

EXCLUSIVE: Christopher Reich’s Simon Riske book series is headed to the screen as Netflix has re-teamed with Edward Berger, the Oscar-winning director, co-writer and producer of the streamer’s All Quiet on the Western Front, on a drama series adaptation, sources tell Deadline. Berger is set to direct the international spy thriller, in early development at Netflix UK, which is being written by Rowan Joffe (Tin Star, The Informer). The first season will focus on the first book in the series, The Take, I hear. Netflix declined comment.

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.

All Quiet on the Western Front scooped the Best International Feature Film Oscar this evening, after earlier taking the Cinematography trophy and then winning for Production Design and Original Score. Such categories in which it is also nominated, including Best Picture, Adapted Screenplay and Sound are still to be unveiled. This is the first time a German title has taken the International Feature prize since 2006’s The Lives of Others. 

German musician Volker Bertelmann nudged out the competition to pick up his first Academy Award Sunday for Netflix’s war epic All Quiet on the Western Front.

James Friend won the Oscar tonight in the Best Cinematography category for his work on Edward Berger’s All Quiet on the Western Front, beating out fellow cinematographers Darius Khondji, Mandy Walker, Roger Deakins and Florian Hoffmeister.

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.

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.

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”? 

Jon Burlingame It’s anybody’s game: this is a rare year when any of the five original-score nominees could win the Oscar. Two of the nominees are previous winners, two more are past nominees; only one is a newcomer, and it’s a three-man ensemble. Four films are period pieces: an admired German-language war film, a character study set against the Irish civil war, an epic of late 1920s Hollywood, and a coming-of-age story for a young filmmaker in the ‘50s and ‘60s; the fifth is a wild, anarchic tale of a Chinese American family that saves the universe. And the nominees are:

Naman Ramachandran Classic cult film streamer Cultpix has struck a 31-film deal from three immensely popular franchises with Japan’s Kadokawa Daiei Studio at Berlin’s ongoing European Film Market (EFM). The deal includes 20 Zatoichi films, eight Gamera films and three Daimajin films. The deal is for the Nordic countries initially, but the aim is for wider distribution eventually. In addition, timed with Nikkatsu’s 50th anniversary of their “Roman Poruno” films, Cultpix rediscovered six previously virtually unknown Nikkatsu productions, shot in Sweden between 1971-1973, with everything Japanese apart from the actors and the locations. The screenwriter, director and behind-the-camera talent were all flown in from Japan. The films were to emulate the popular “Swedish sin” films of the time, as there was a market need for them in Japan.

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.