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It's always weird to see the enemy as the good guy, and Das Boot leaps out as probably the greatest example of this up until Schindler's List. This time the Nazis are at sea, faced with the claustrophobia and filth of a German U-Boat, trying to figure out what the hell Hitler is doing back home while they sink English ships in the Atlantic. Its story fraught with peril and its characters full of doubt, this is a far cry from the unbridled patriotism of aw-shucks flicks like U-571. Every sub movie owes a debt to Das Boot (at nearly 3 1/2 hours long, it was originally intended as a TV miniseries) for mastering the genre and setting the bar for its contemporaries.
