Over the past 80 years, there have been some incredible World War 2 combat movies recreating the great and terrible battles of the biggest conflict in human history.

Some of the very best films in the genre are from a German perspective, with the likes of The Bridge, Downfall and Stalingrad.

Yet according to film fans on IMDb, the greatest of them all is 1981’s Das Boot.

This West German thriller is an adaptation of the novel of the same name about the experiences of a German submariner’s U-96 crew during the Battle of the Atlantic.

Wolfgang Petersen’s classic movie juxtaposes the heightened emotions of warfare with the boredom of the hunt.

Nominated for six Oscars, Das Boot has also been released as a nearly five-hour miniseries in its original, uncut version. It was the German film with the most Academy Award nominations until it was surpassed by All Quiet on the Western Front in 2022.

The original 2 hours and 29 minutes theatrical cut of Das Boot is streaming now on Netflix.