Paths of Glory (1957)

Every French soldier in Paths of Glory sounds like he grew up in the American Midwest, and it stops mattering in about a minute. Kubrick’s World War I drama runs 88 minutes and wastes none of them. The generals plan an impossible attack over drinks in a palace, and the camera follows Kirk Douglas’s Colonel Dax down a trench full of exhausted men who already know the odds. When the attack comes, it’s one long, steady push across no man’s land, devastating without ever showing off. Then the real story starts: three soldiers picked almost at random to answer for a whole regiment, in a court-martial that’s decided before anyone speaks. Adolphe Menjou smiles through it all as the general who treats lives like a line in a budget, and that politeness is chilling. The weak spot is Douglas, who sometimes delivers his outrage like a closing argument aimed at the audience. A 9.3 because it’s honest about who pays for other people’s pride. $34.64 says you watch all 88 minutes in one go without once checking the time.

What works: The attack sequence and the court-martial are gripping, and Adolphe Menjou’s calm, smiling general is quietly terrifying.

What doesn’t: Kirk Douglas sometimes plays Dax’s outrage like a speech aimed at the audience, and the American accents in a French army take a minute to get past.

Who it’s for: Anyone who wants a war movie about the people giving the orders, and how far they’ll go to protect themselves.