The Thin Red Line

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The Thin Red Line

R

1998

2h 50m

War

History

Drama

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Tomatometer

Popcornmeter

80%

Tomatometer

106 Reviews

80%

Popcornmeter

100,000+ Ratings

In 1942, Private Witt (Jim Caviezel) is a U.S. Army absconder living peacefully with the locals of a small South Pacific island. Discovered by his commanding officer, Sgt. Welsh (Sean Penn), Witt is forced to resume his active duty training for the Battle of Guadalcanal. As Witt and his unit land on the island, and the American troops mount an assault on entrenched Japanese positions, the story explores their various fates and attitudes towards life-or-death situations.

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Critics Consensus

The Thin Red Line is a daringly philosophical World War II film with an enormous cast of eager stars.

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Joe Morgenstern

Wall Street Journal

04/02/2019

stunning images couldn't make Days of Heaven a coherent dramatic whole, and they can't do it for The Thin Red Line.

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Richard Schickel

TIME Magazine

04/01/2019

The film is a gorgeous garland on an unknown soldier's grave.

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Gavin Smith

Film Comment Magazine

04/10/2018

There has truly never been a film about modern war quite like this one: a kind of lyric epic poem about the way men are transformed for good by the experience of war, carefully balancing romanticism and dispassion, action and introspection.

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Matt Brunson

Film Frenzy

05/28/2025

3/4

Malick isn’t interested in the specifics of the skirmish as much as he’s interested in how the natural beauty and harmony of the earth is mercilessly disrupted by the carnage that modern man brings to the scene via his weapons of mass destruction.

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Wesley Lovell

Cinema Sight

12/25/2022

4/4

"The Thin Red Line” is a magnificent motion picture whose very essence is epitomized in its every sequence.

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Rob Gonsalves

Rob's Movie Vault

09/02/2022

C-

Malick has crafted nothing so much as a poetic tribute to his own artistic sensitivity.

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Adam A.

@AdamBaum Jun 26

brilliant. all around brilliant

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Hunter T

@huntertrace Jun 23

Terrence Malick’s masterpiece is the greatest cinematic illustration of evolutionary biology ever made. He filmed the exact arguments of Dawkins, Trivers, and Haidt without a single footnote. The film’s spine is the argument between Welsh (Sean Penn) and Witt (Jim Caviezel)—which is really the opponent-processing of a single human mind. Welsh is the cold gene’s-eye view; he preaches nihilism, yet his ancient tribal wiring forces him into machine-gun fire to save a dying man. Haidt’s elephant overrules the rider. Witt is the meaning-seeking animal. His final sacrifice isn't a rebellion against his evolutionary hardware; it's its purest expression, treating his band as fictive kin. Malick films the animal—bonding, betraying, climbing for rank, and dying for the men beside it. He exposes the machinery of natural selection, yet still allows us to choose meaning anyway. — Hunter Trace, author of The Why Behind Things (Available on Amazon).

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Daniel T

@RT19601592 Apr 18

One of the worst films ever seen with massive number of excellent actors. Long shot of dreamy scenes that contribute absolutely nothing to the plot . No characters build up. Flat

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Ben W

@Username618 Apr 18

I juist remember a crocodile and some gamelan, but that was the first minute, but I did sit through it. How to get across the mind-numbing tedium and terror of war, huh.

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Bryan M

@RT97114384 Apr 15

Good war film, definitely not great. The cast is unreal but the story drags a bit for me. that being said, there are also a lot of intense fighting scenes and it's worth watching, but I can name 20 war films better pretty quickly.

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Alexander C.

@ThisChapAlex Mar 23

This is my favorite war movie, very underrated in my opinion.

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Terrence Malick

Director

Sean Penn

Sgt. Welsh

Adrien Brody

Cpl. Fife

Jim Caviezel

Pvt. Witt

Ben Chaplin

Pvt. Bell

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Synopsis

In 1942, Private Witt (Jim Caviezel) is a U.S. Army absconder living peacefully with the locals of a small South Pacific island. Discovered by his commanding officer, Sgt. Welsh (Sean Penn), Witt is forced to resume his active duty training for the Battle of Guadalcanal. As Witt and his unit land on the island, and the American troops mount an assault on entrenched Japanese positions, the story explores their various fates and attitudes towards life-or-death situations.

Director: Terrence Malick
Producer: John Roberdeau, Robert Michael Geisler
Screenwriter: James Jones, Terrence Malick
Distributor: 20th Century Fox, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
Production Co: Phoenix Pictures, Fox 2000 Pictures
Rating: R
Genre: War, History, Drama
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Dec 25, 1998, Original
Release Date (Streaming): Mar 1, 2013
Box Office (Gross USA): $36.4M
Runtime: 2h 50m
Sound Mix: Surround, Dolby Digital
Aspect Ratio: Scope (2.35:1)