Stalag 17

Stalag 17 (1953) is Billy Wilder's pitch-black war comedy-drama you can watch online on iFILM. Inside a German POW barracks during World War II, a hut full of American prisoners realizes one of them is feeding the enemy.

When two men who try to break out are gunned down almost at the wire, the rest do the math: there's an informer among them, reporting every move to the guards. Suspicion lands on Sergeant J.J. Sefton, a cynical wheeler-dealer who runs the camp's black market in booze and smokes and never pretends his own hide matters less than the war effort. William Holden plays him so you both sneer at him and quietly root for him. While the others are ready to beat him to death, Sefton alone keeps coolly hunting the real rat.

Wilder mixes barracks slapstick with genuine dread, the men clowning around while death waits just outside the door. The role won Holden an Oscar, and this sour survival comedy set the template for every prison-camp picture after it, with a line you can trace straight to The Great Escape and even Hogan's Heroes. Stream Stalag 17 (1953) online on iFILM.