The Big Red One (1980)

91% of critics liked it
(44 reviews)
74% of users liked it
(8,161 ratings)

Samuel Fuller's valedictory war picture, The Big Red One follows the First Infantry Division from Africa to Europe during the years 1942 through 1945. Lee Marvin portrays the division sergeant; he's tough and experienced, to be sure, but he takes on his job with cool professionalism rather than… More Samuel Fuller's valedictory war picture, The Big Red One follows the First Infantry Division from Africa to Europe during the years 1942 through 1945. Lee Marvin portrays the division sergeant; he's tough and experienced, to be sure, but he takes on his job with cool professionalism rather than Hollywood bravado. Based on Fuller's own experiences, the film is a loosely constructed series of anecdotes. Among them are an insane asylum under bombardment while the inmates applaud and a climactic vignette in which a very young concentration camp internee dies while a friendly soldier plays piggy-back with the boy. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

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Rating, Runtime: PG, 1 hr. 53 min.
Directed By: Samuel Fuller
Genres: Drama, Action & Adventure

In Theaters: May 28, 1980 Wide
On DVD: Apr 27, 1999
Studio: United Artists

Critic Reviews

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune
A big, impressive slab of drama -- maybe not a masterpiece or an epic, but a colorful story that sweeps you up and covers a lot of ground at a fast clip.
Kevin Crust, Los Angeles Times
'The Reconstruction,' which clocks in at 2 hours, 43 minutes, with not a single extraneous frame, elevates the work from a robust genre film to a full-blown epic.
Ty Burr, Boston Globe
The director's gift for bare-knuckles lyricism rescues scene after scene.
Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly
If you don't elect to watch The Big Red One through the lens of Sam Fuller's mystique ... you'll realize that it has been celebrated in ways that essentially make virtues of its flaws.
Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger
In its own rough and still unfinished way, The Big Red One works -- as a memoir of a time, and a movie of the war.
Stephen Hunter, Washington Post
Alas, the lost version of Samuel Fuller's The Big Red One of 1980 has been found -- reassembled, actually, by the distinguished film critic Richard Schickel -- and it's a lot less than legendary. It isn't even very good.
Sean Axmaker, Seanax.com
... if you want a World War II story from a real vet's perspective, Sam Fuller is still the man and The Big Red One, drawn from his own war experiences, is the film
Tim Brayton, Antagony & Ecstasy
Personal observation bleeds out of every scene, and somehow it feels like a true story in a way that most war movies can't achieve.
Dennis Schwartz, Ozus' World Movie Reviews
... displays both raw power and the hint of war's brutality.
Sean Axmaker, St@tic Multimedia
... one of the great films not just about WWII, but the experience of war itself.
Chris Barsanti, Filmcritic.com
meant to be the culmination of a life's work... It didn't come to pass.
Brent Simon, Now Playing Magazine
The Big Red One: The Reconstruction... stands as a riveting renovation of one of the most underappreciated war dramas of our time.
Nick Schager, Slant Magazine
A very good film reconstructed into a classic, Fuller's WWII epic is not to be missed.
Jeff Vice, Deseret News, Salt Lake City
The cast smartly underplays things, with Marvin being as charismatic as usual playing a man of few words. And Hamill, an actor given to over-the-top outbursts, reins it in here; this may be his best big-screen performance.
Sean Means, Salt Lake Tribune
These places were where Fuller himself served during the war, and he imbues these stories with the same gritty detail he probably delivered telling them over a beer.
Glenn Whipp, Los Angeles Daily News
Schickel's painstaking work elevates The Big Red One into the pantheon of the all-time great war films and gives it a fullness that the original only suggested.

Read all 16 critic reviews

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Featured Audience Ratings

AJ V

I saw this movie because Mark Hamill is in it, and he gives a good performance, but other than that, I didn't like this movie. It's just another WWII movie, and it's slow and boring too. I didn't care for it.
xGary X

A rather clumsy and over-long war movie that contains all the usual "madness of war" messages, but they're delivered in a rather ham-fisted way, and it's directed like a TV show. The emotional drama is clumsy at best, and whenever the grittiness you'd expect… More
A rather clumsy and over-long war movie that contains all the usual "madness of war" messages, but they're delivered in a rather ham-fisted way, and it's directed like a TV show. The emotional drama is clumsy at best, and whenever the grittiness you'd expect in the depiction of violence in an anti-war movie should appear, the director shies away. Half-hearted.
Walter M

[font=Century Gothic][color=darkslategray]"Fixed Bayonets"(1951) is a Korean War movie directed by Sam Fuller. In the midst of war, the main force of troops has to retreat. In order to convince the enemy that they have not moved, a small platoon of 48 men has to stay… More
[font=Century Gothic][color=darkslategray]"Fixed Bayonets"(1951) is a Korean War movie directed by Sam Fuller. In the midst of war, the main force of troops has to retreat. In order to convince the enemy that they have not moved, a small platoon of 48 men has to stay behind and convince them that they are a larger force. There are the usual amount of stock characters and it is predictable but Fuller has more things on his mind this time around. Notably, it is the psychological take on what makes for a good leader. Plus, there are several bravura sequences and an excellent performance from Richard Basehart.(Fixed Bayonets is not in the Rotten Tomatoes database. I'll give it an unofficial 7 out of 10.)[/color][/font] [font=Century Gothic][color=#2f4f4f][/color][/font] [font=Century Gothic][color=red]"The Big Red One"(1980) is a movie about a veteran sergeant(Lee Marvin) leading his troops in World War II from North Africa to the battlefields of Europe. This was Sam Fuller's dream project for many years based partially on his experiences in World War II. It was originally released in a truncated version. Last year, Richard Schickel led a team that restored most of the lost footage. I remember seeing the original version sometime in the 1980's, but I don't remember that much about it(somehow Lee Marvin chucking some poor guy's testicle over his shoulder has managed to stay with me) and couldn't really comment on what was added. It's episodic by its very nature and it does start awkwardly but it does get better as it goes along, ending on an emotionally powerful note. And this is the role that Lee Marvin was born to play. And before you deride Mark Hamill, check out Harrison Ford in Force Ten from Navarone(1979).[/color][/font] [font=Century Gothic][color=#ff0000][/color][/font] [font=Century Gothic][color=black]Throughout both movies, there is a consistency. Neither movie glorifies war.[/color][/font] [font=Century Gothic][color=#2f4f4f][/color][/font] [font=Century Gothic][color=#2f4f4f][/color][/font]
Alec B

If Samuel Fuller had a bigger budget and bigger stars when he originally made the movie and if the newly Reconstructed version had been the one released in theaters I believe the film would have more of a classic status ascribed to it. The only big issue I had with the film is the… More
If Samuel Fuller had a bigger budget and bigger stars when he originally made the movie and if the newly Reconstructed version had been the one released in theaters I believe the film would have more of a classic status ascribed to it. The only big issue I had with the film is the small side plot of a German officer, who appears to fill some kind of a "villain" role, that seems to go nowhere. I did like the performances of Lee Marvin and mark Hamil and its really great to see a WWII movie made by someone who actually fought in that war. Fuller based much of what happened on his own experience and it gives The Big Red One a sense of authenticity that many war films do not have. Band of Brothers actually owes a lot to this movie.