10 Most Visually Stunning War Films Of All Time
2. Das Boot (Jost Vacano)
If there's ever a submarine film that can top this, it'll be an absolute blinder. Das Boot is considered the subgenre's preeminent feature for good reason - this depiction of the life of a U-Boat crew during the Battle of the Atlantic remains one of the all-time great war movies, unflinchingly realistic and desperately human as it follows Jürgen Prochnow's Kaleun and his attempts to keep his men alive as the world shifts around them.
Much of its claustrophobic realism comes from the work of Jost Vacano though, who would go on to be mostly associated with Paul Verhoeven for much of his career. Alongside director Wolfgang Peterson, they crafted a camera system that worked with two gyroscopes in order to slip through the cracks and crevices in the bowels of the ship without losing the quality of their compositions, to often brilliant effect.
Its surprise transatlantic success translated into half-a-dozen Oscar nominations, including for Vacano's work, and today it is widely considered one of the masterpieces of German cinema. It's a masterfully handled exercise in gut-wrenching tension that still stands up to this day almost forty years later.