To End All Wars

To End All Wars (2001) is a war drama directed by David L. Cunningham — watch it online on iFILM. The script draws from the memoir of Captain Ernest Gordon, who survived a Japanese prison camp carved into the Thai-Burma jungle during World War II, where Allied POWs were put to work laying a strategic railway through the undergrowth.

The officers — Gordon (Ciarán McMenamin), Major Campbell (Robert Carlyle) and Lieutenant Reardon (Kiefer Sutherland) — face daily beatings, starvation and executions carried out to enforce compliance. Campbell pushes for escape and open revolt. Gordon takes a different route: inside the camp, he and fellow prisoners build a makeshift school, running lectures in history and philosophy for men who have nothing left but their minds. Mark Strong rounds out the central four. The film was shot on location in Thailand's actual jungle terrain, which gives it a physical weight no studio recreation could match.

A brutal, quietly argued story about what holds people together when everything else has been stripped away. Stream To End All Wars (2001) online on iFILM.