Das Boot

Das Boot (1981) is Wolfgang Petersen's war drama you can watch online on iFILM. The German submarine U-96 sets out into the Atlantic to hunt Allied convoys, then the roles flip and the hunter turns into prey.

Autumn 1941. Jürgen Prochnow plays a worn-out captain leading fifty young men packed into a steel tube where one mistake kills everyone. At first it's boredom, crude jokes, drills and letters home. Then come the British depth charges, the rivets that pop under pressure, and a silence so total each man can hear his own heartbeat. The camera never leaves the hull, so you sit trapped down there with the crew.

Petersen adapted the film from Lothar-Günther Buchheim's novel; the author had sailed on such a patrol himself as a war correspondent. The picture drew six Academy Award nominations, rare for a non-English-language work, and still sets the bar for the genre. Here claustrophobia does the work of any enemy. Stream Das Boot (1981) online on iFILM.