The Great Escape (1963)

Dir: John Sturges
IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057115/

What a great epic. This is one seriously great ensemble cast, just about everyone involved turned in a great performance, and they all really worked together. Steve McQueen was great as usual, but he seemed to be playing himself a little more than he should in a movie of this manner.

One of the things I liked best about this movie is it refused to view the German army as all completely evil and mindless killing machines. There were many people in the army that didn't agree with Nazi policy and some that were only in there for fear of being killed.

The cinematography was pretty well done, even though there were few actual locations until the end of the movie. The score, of course, is classic.

The pacing was well done even at 3 hours long, it felt like it had all the room it needed, and didn't take more than neccesary. The ending is worlds better than I could have imagined.

Also,Richard Attenborough looks like he's Simon Pegg's dad in this movie.