Film

The Guns of Navarone

Name: The Guns of Navarone
Genre: Adventure, Drama, War
Released: 1961
Cast: Gregory Peck, David Niven, Anthony Quinn, Stanley Baker, Anthony Quayle

Gregory Peck leads a band of misfit specialists across a fortress island to blow up two guns nobody thinks can be destroyed. It's big, brassy, star-studded 1960s adventure filmmaking — square-jawed heroism, moral arguments between explosions, and a real sense of scale. Perfect for a rainy Sunday afternoon when you want spectacle with a brain.

TMDb rating

3.6

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like a well-oiled mission where each member of a small team brings a distinct skill, and you enjoy the wary friction that builds between them under pressure.

Skip it if you want lean, fast action, since at 160 minutes this is a long, talky film where planning and character friction take up much of the running time.

What it asks of you: Settle in for a patient build, well over two and a half hours of setup, tense sequences of climbing and sneaking, and a tone that stays serious rather than light.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Where Eagles Dare1968

Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood infiltrate a Nazi mountain fortress in another MacLean-scripted impossible mission, packed with double-crosses and gadget-heavy set pieces. If Navarone's plotting hooked you, this one's even twistier.

But The plot twists pile up so fast it occasionally forgets to make sense, and it runs long.

The Dirty Dozen1967

Lee Marvin trains twelve convicted soldiers for a suicide mission behind enemy lines — same ragtag-team-versus-impossible-odds structure, but meaner, funnier, and more cynical about the men doing the fighting.

But It's rougher and more amoral than Navarone's heroics; the tone can feel jarringly callous by the end.

The Great Escape1963

A sprawling all-star ensemble, meticulous planning, and the same pleasure in watching clever men solve an impossible problem under Nazi noses. Steve McQueen on a motorcycle doesn't hurt either.

But It's more patient and procedural — the tunnel-digging comes before any real action, and it takes its time.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Guns of Navarone

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Inglourious Basterds2009

Same commando-behind-enemy-lines engine as Navarone, but stripped of reverence and rebuilt as gleeful, morally reckless pulp — the genre wearing a completely different costume.

Tarantino takes the exact same premise — a small team on an impossible mission deep in occupied Europe — and detonates it into pulpy, dialogue-drunk, alternate-history revenge fantasy.

But The violence is stylised and extreme, and the tonal whiplash between chatty tension and cartoonish carnage isn't for everyone.

Kelly's Heroes1970

A team assembles for one last impossible job behind enemy lines, except this time it's gold, not guns, and the tone slides gleefully into heist comedy. Clint Eastwood and Donald Sutherland having a blast.

But It's shaggier and more comic than Navarone — don't expect the same gravity or moral weight.

A Bridge Too Far1977

Another all-star ensemble war epic built around one enormous, meticulously planned operation that starts to unravel. Same scale ambition, same starry cast, considerably grimmer conclusion.

But At nearly three hours with dozens of characters, it demands patience and a tolerance for tragedy.

The Wild Geese1978

A mercenary squad takes on a near-impossible rescue mission deep in hostile territory, with the same camaraderie-under-pressure dynamic and a terrific late-career Richard Burton and Roger Moore.

But It's pulpier and less polished, with politics that haven't aged especially gracefully.

Von Ryan's Express1965

Frank Sinatra leads escaped POWs commandeering a train through occupied Italy — same tension of Allied ingenuity outrunning Nazi pursuit, with a memorably bleak final act.

But Sinatra's more restrained here than you might expect, and the pacing sags in the middle stretch.

Sink the Bismarck!1960

A leaner, more clipped British war picture about hunting down a single unstoppable target, told with the same stiff-upper-lip command-room tension Navarone opens with.

But It's talkier and more procedural, with less of the ground-level commando action Navarone delivers.

Force 10 from Navarone1978

The official sequel, with Harrison Ford and Robert Shaw picking up the mission-behind-enemy-lines formula. Good pulpy fun if you want more of exactly this.

But It's a noticeably lesser film — the chemistry and craft of the original are hard to replicate.

Went the Day Well?1942

This is the ancestor: a real-time British wartime thriller about ordinary people facing an occupying force, made before anyone knew how the war would end — the anxiety Navarone later mythologizes, felt raw.

Made in Britain while the war was still being fought, this quietly ruthless thriller imagines Nazi soldiers infiltrating a sleepy English village — ordinary people forced into the same do-or-die resistance Navarone dramatizes decades later.

But It's black-and-white, stagey by modern standards, and its propaganda purpose is unmistakable throughout.

Das Boot1981

Same wartime tension and doomed-mission dread as Navarone, but flip the flag and drop the heroics — register turned from adventure to grim, sweaty dread.

A German U-boat crew endures claustrophobic, unglamorous terror hunting Allied ships — the other side of the same war, told with punishing realism instead of heroic adventure.

But It's over three hours, entirely in German, and deliberately drains away any sense that war is thrilling or fun.