Empire of the Sun

Empire of the Sun (1987) is Steven Spielberg's wartime drama, and you can watch it online on iFILM. In Shanghai, on the edge of a vast conflict, a pampered English boy named Jamie lives in luxury with his parents — until the morning everything is torn away.

As Japanese troops pour into the city, Jamie is swept off his feet in the crowd and left alone. A thirteen-year-old Christian Bale carries the whole film in his first leading role. The boy ends up behind the wire of an internment camp, where a scrappy American sailor, Basie, played by John Malkovich, takes him under his wing. Hunger, crowded barracks, traded tins of food, and a stubborn obsession with fighter planes fill his strange captive childhood. Miranda Richardson appears, and a very young Ben Stiller turns up in a small part.

Tom Stoppard wrote the screenplay from J.G. Ballard's semi-autobiographical novel; Ballard himself spent his boyhood inside the Lunghua camp. John Williams composed the score, and the boys' choir during the rooftop airfield scene remains one of Spielberg's most haunting moments. The film drew six Academy Award nominations. Stream Empire of the Sun (1987) online on iFILM.