20 Movies Where The Hero Winning DIDN'T Matter

With any war story that doesn't directly result in that particular conflict's end, it's hard to take anything as a win. A little victory perhaps, but if the war keeps going, you know that immeasurably more lives will be lost.

This is particularly true with 1917, even before the film started. You don't need a history degree to know that World War I went until 1918, meaning that there was a strong chance men would still die even after the credits rolled on the movie.

Then, George MacKay's character was actively told that everything he went through was effectively all for nothing anyway. Lance Corporal Schofield travelled across German-occupied France to deliver a message stopping hundreds of soldiers falling into a trap and being slaughtered. Though he arrived just as the first wave went over the top, he eventually convinced Colonel Mackenzie (Benedict Cumberbatch) to call off the rest of the attack, saving many, many lives.

However, as Mackenzie calmly explained, this was war, and it was going to keep going until just one side was left standing. Those men may have had their lives spared that day, but it would only be another week before they were sent on another mission, doomed to die in the trenches regardless of what Schofield achieved.