Peckinpah unleashes some of the most harrowing combat footage ever put on film in this senses-shattering World War II drama. James Coburn delivers a tightly wound, tour-de-force performance as a disillusioned German soldier who clashes with his superiors as he and his platoon are dragged through hell on the Russian front. The bravura battle sequences are visually and aurally overpowering, a bloody ballet of machine-gun fire, falling bodies, and exploding shrapnel choreographed for maximum visceral impact. Orson Welles proclaimed Cross of Iron one of the greatest antiwar films ever made.