The Big Red One

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

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PG, 1 hr. 53 min.
Directed By
Samuel Fuller
Genres
Drama, Action & Adventure
In Theaters
May 28, 1980 Wide
On DVD
Apr 27, 1999
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.

Read all 16 critic reviews

Critic ratings and reviews powered by RottenTomatoes.com

Fresh (60% or more critics rated the movie positively)

Rotten (59% or fewer critics rated the movie positively)

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

  • 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

  • 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

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