Paths of Glory (1957)

Stanley Kubrick's powerful anti-war film takes place in France, 1916. To the military higher-ups the lives of men in the trenches mean less to them than their own career. To Colonel Dax (Kirk Douglas), an officer and liaison between the two parties, the lives of his men are everything. When an order is given for the soldiers to traverse a no mans land for a suicidal attack on the enemy, Dax is forced to pick sides at the expense of his own career.
The contrast between cowardly desk-sitters and men with boots in mud and blood is both shown and felt, thanks to Kubrick's dynamic composition. When later those same cowards hide truths behind formal language, ascribing notions of innocence and guilt to subjectivity (affected, it seems, by rank) we can choose to experience the struggle as onlooker or sympathiser, but an unwavering performance by Kirk makes it feel uncompromisingly real.

4 battle lines out of 5