One of the most thoughtful films about World War II, this 1958 Edward Dmytryk (The Left Hand of God) drama, based on a novel by Irwin Shaw, tells parallel stories of two American soldiers (Montgomery Clift and Dean Martin) and one German officer (Marlon Brando), whose war experiences we follow until they intersect outside a concentration camp. Martin plays what he calls "a likable coward," Clift is intense as a Jewish GI, and Brando experiments with the limits of his part as a Nazi reevaluating his beliefs. Legend has it that Clift accused Brando of bleeding-heart excessiveness. Interestingly, the two Method actors share no scenes together. --Tom Keogh