The Longest Day is based on Cornelius Ryan’s book with the same name. This movie was very unusual when it came out in the ’60s, it was in black and white and the Germans spoke German and the French spoke French. It’s one of the most historically accurate movies about WWII, just like Ryan’s book is very accurate. Cornelius Ryan was a war correspondent during WWII, following the US air force, Patton’s army as well as the pacific theater.

This movie however is about one single day, the longest day — D-Day. The invasion of Normandy, Operation Overlord, the worlds largest seaborne invasion in history with more then 155,000 troops, 5,333 ships and some 11,000 airplanes plus gliders.

Even with such a large scale operation seen from so many viewpoints, the films is brilliant in the way that it’s edited so you always keep track of what’s going on. Scenes are often long and you get to really know the people, just like Ryan’s book, no matter if they are commanders or privates. You see get to see the war from the participants point of view, this really is their story.

Some of the best acting around, with a cast full of stars. The Germans are shows are regular humans, not the hating Nazis that so many American movies always shows them as. All such stereotypes are gone and what’s left is the soldiers own stories. I can’t stress this enough, it’s so tiresome to always see the same stereotypes in every movie — this movie really stands out as an historically correct and brilliantly made movie. There are however some historical errors, such as the scene when the British 6th Airborne finds explosives under the Pegasus bridge, but those are minor parts of the movie.

Do yourself a favor and watch it, and if you’ve already seen it you can always read the book which I must say is even better. There’s so much more in the book that they weren’t able to fit into the movie.