Film

Hacksaw Ridge

Name: Hacksaw Ridge
Genre: Drama, History, War
Released: 2016
Cast: Andrew Garfield, Sam Worthington, Vince Vaughn, Teresa Palmer, Luke Bracey

Mel Gibson's WWII film splits neatly in half: a tender, almost corny courtship in small-town Virginia, then eighty unbroken minutes of the most visceral combat filmmaking since Saving Private Ryan. Andrew Garfield plays Desmond Doss, a medic who won't carry a weapon, and the film asks what courage looks like when it refuses to kill. Brutal, sincere, unashamedly old-fashioned in its faith.

TMDb rating

8.2

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The template for everything Hacksaw Ridge does with sound and chaos — Spielberg's Omaha Beach opening set the bar for combat this immersive and this frightening.

But You've probably already seen it, and its moral centre is more conventional than Doss's story.

19172019

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Something you would not have found on your own.

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We Were Soldiers2002

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Dunkirk2017

Christopher Nolan strips war down to pure survival and dread, told across land, sea and air — a masterclass in tension without much dialogue.

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The Pianist2002

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American Sniper2014

Clint Eastwood's study of a man defined by killing rather than refusing to, making an uneasy but illuminating companion piece to Doss's story.

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The Thin Red Line1998

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Another real WWII figure whose faith and endurance carried him through unimaginable suffering, directed with the same reverence for true heroism.

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Restrepo2010

Strips away Gibson's craft entirely to show what the chaos of the ridge actually looks like without a camera crane or a script.

A documentary shot embedded with American soldiers in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley — no reenactment, no score, just the exhausting, terrifying reality Hacksaw Ridge dramatises.

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The same true-hero, medal-of-honor story told by an era that hadn't yet learned to show war's horror the way Gibson does — a fascinating before-and-after.

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But Dated studio filmmaking with none of the visceral violence modern audiences expect from war films now.