The Thin Red Line (1998 film)

The Thin Red Line
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Terrence Malick
Screenplay by	Terrence Malick
Based on	The Thin Red Line by James Jones
Produced by	Robert Michael Geisler Grant Hill John Roberdeau
Starring	Sean Penn Adrien Brody Jim Caviezel Ben Chaplin George Clooney John Cusack Woody Harrelson Elias Koteas Nick Nolte John C. Reilly John Travolta
Cinematography	John Toll
Edited by	Billy Weber Leslie Jones Saar Klein
Music by	Hans Zimmer
Production companies	Fox 2000 Pictures Phoenix Pictures Geisler-Roberdeau
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date	December 25, 1998 (1998-12-25)
Running time	171 minutes[1]
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$52 million[2]
Box office	$98.1 million[2]

The Thin Red Line is a 1998 American epic war film written and directed by Terrence Malick. It is the second film adaptation of the 1962 novel by James Jones, following the 1964 film. Telling a fictionalized version of the Battle of Mount Austen, which was part of the Guadalcanal Campaign in the Pacific Theater of the Second World War, it portrays U.S. soldiers of C Company, 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division, played by Sean Penn, Jim Caviezel, Nick Nolte, Elias Koteas, and Ben Chaplin. The novel's title alludes to a line from Rudyard Kipling's poem "Tommy", from Barrack-Room Ballads, in which he calls Scottish foot soldiers "the thin red line of heroes",^[3] referring to the stand of the 93rd Regiment in the Battle of Balaclava of the Crimean War.

The film marked Malick's return to filmmaking after a 20-year absence. It co-stars Adrien Brody, George Clooney, John Cusack, Woody Harrelson, Jared Leto, John C. Reilly, and John Travolta. Reportedly, the first assembled cut took seven months to edit and ran five hours. By the final cut, footage of performances by Bill Pullman, Lukas Haas, and Mickey Rourke had been removed (one of Rourke's scenes was included in the special features outtakes of the Criterion Blu-ray and DVD release). The film was scored by Hans Zimmer and shot by John Toll. Principal photography took place in Queensland, Australia and in the Solomon Islands.

20th Century Fox released The Thin Red Line on December 25, 1998 and grossed $98 million against a $52 million budget. Critics gave it a positive reception, praising it for its philosophical depiction of war, Malick's direction, musical score, cinematography, screenplay, editing, and performances of the cast. The film was nominated for seven Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Original Score, and Best Sound. It won the Golden Bear at the 1999 Berlin International Film Festival. Martin Scorsese ranked it as his second-favorite film of the 1990s. On At the Movies, Gene Siskel called it "the greatest contemporary war film I've seen."