Film

They Shall Not Grow Old

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Peter Jackson's restoration project takes WWI archive footage, corrects the frame rate, colourises it, and layers on lip-read dialogue and veterans' own voices recorded decades later. There's no narrator, no talking heads — just the men, speaking over their younger faces. It's less a history lesson than an act of resurrection, immersive and unsentimental, built for anyone who thought they'd already seen everything the war left behind.

TMDb rating3.9

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you want to feel the ordinary men of the trenches close enough to touch, and you're happy to let archive footage do the storytelling without a presenter steering every scene.

Skip it if you'd rather have war history delivered with maps, dates and expert talking heads, since this one mostly lets the images and recorded veterans' voices carry it.

What it asks of you: Ninety-nine minutes of close, steady looking at faces and everyday routine, so the pace is patient and the weight builds through detail rather than plot.

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

If you liked this

19172019

Sam Mendes stages his fictional WWI mission as one continuous take, turning the trenches into a real-time nightmare that mirrors the visceral immediacy Jackson finds in restored footage.

But The single-shot gimmick can feel more like a technical stunt than an emotional gut-punch, and its hero's journey is far tidier than the mess Jackson shows.

1917 poster

All Quiet on the Western Front2022

The German side of the same war, brutal and unglamorous, with sound design that makes every shell landing feel like it's detonating inside your own skull.

But Bleak from the first frame to the last, with none of the wry, human warmth the veterans' voices bring to Jackson's film.

All Quiet on the Western Front poster

The Cold Blue2018

Erik Nelson applies almost exactly Jackson's trick — restored WWII bomber footage interwoven with elderly veterans remembering the mission — with quietly devastating results.

But Less famous and less polished than Jackson's film, and the aerial focus means fewer faces, more machinery.

The Cold Blue poster

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from They Shall Not Grow Old

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Battle of the Somme1916

This is literally the footage Jackson's film descends from — a documentary shot by cameramen embedded with the troops, released to cinemas while the war was still being fought.

Watch the raw, unrestored, silent original that British audiences paid to see in 1916 — staged re-enactments and all — and see exactly what Jackson set out to resurrect.

But Grainy, silent, occasionally staged for the camera, and without the intimacy a century of technology later gave Jackson's veterans back their voices.

The Battle of the Somme poster
More like this (6)

Apocalypse '452020

Colourised, meticulously restored Pacific War footage paired with veteran testimony, made by filmmakers clearly drawing on the same well as Jackson's project.

But The Pacific theatre's atrocities are harder to sit through, and the film doesn't flinch from showing exactly why.

Apocalypse '45 poster

Gallipoli1981

Peter Weir's dramatisation of the WWI campaign that broke Australia's national innocence, anchored by a young Mel Gibson and one of cinema's most devastating final shots.

But A more conventional war-movie structure, with a slow build to tragedy some will find predictable rather than inevitable.

Gallipoli poster

The Vietnam War2017

A ten-part oral history built almost entirely from soldiers' own words and unearthed footage, proving the veterans-speaking-for-themselves approach works at any length.

But It runs eighteen hours, and Vietnam's politics sit very differently than the WWI story Jackson tells.

The Vietnam War poster

War Horse2011

Spielberg's sentimental take on the same trenches, seen through the eyes of a horse passed between armies, for anyone who wants the emotion undiluted.

But Deliberately soft-edged and family-friendly, a world away from the unflinching mud and blood of Jackson's restoration.

War Horse poster

The Great War1964

The original template — a landmark 26-part series built on interviews with WWI veterans while they were still alive to give them, decades before Jackson's project existed.

But Black-and-white, stiffly narrated, and structured like a classroom history lesson rather than an immersive experience.

The Great War poster

Journey's End2017

A quietly devastating chamber piece set in a single dugout in the final days before a German offensive, all dread and gallows humour.

But Small-scale and stagey by design, with none of the scale or spectacle that makes Jackson's footage so overwhelming.

Journey's End poster

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Recommended by

Saving Private Ryan, Wonder Woman, Dunkirk, All Quiet on the Western Front, 1917, The Battle of the Somme, The Four Feathers, War Horse, Grand Illusion, All Quiet on the Western Front, Paths of Glory, Wings, Cavalcade, Outlander: Blood of My Blood, Gallipoli, Oh! What a Lovely War, Testament of Youth, The Big Parade, Joyeux Noel, The Great War, Five Came Back, Passchendaele