How I Won the War

1967

How I Won the War

Critics Consensus

No consensus yet.

44%

TOMATOMETER

Total Count: 16

61%

Audience Score

User Ratings: 1,367
User image

Verified

  • User image

    Super Reviewer

    Rate this movie

    Oof, that was Rotten.

    Meh, it passed the time.

    It’s good – I’d recommend it.

    Awesome!

    So Fresh: Absolute Must See!

    What did you think of the movie? (optional)

  • You're almost there! Just confirm how you got your ticket.

  • User image

    Super Reviewer

    Step 2 of 2

    How did you buy your ticket?

    Let's get your review verified.

    • Fandango

    • AMCTheatres.com or AMC AppNew

    • Cinemark Coming Soon

      We won’t be able to verify your ticket today, but it’s great to know for the future.

    • Regal Coming Soon

      We won’t be able to verify your ticket today, but it’s great to know for the future.

    • Theater box office or somewhere else

    By opting to have your ticket verified for this movie, you are allowing us to check the email address associated with your Rotten Tomatoes account against an email address associated with a Fandango ticket purchase for the same movie.

    You're almost there! Just confirm how you got your ticket.

  • User image

    Super Reviewer

    Rate this movie

    Oof, that was Rotten.

    Meh, it passed the time.

    It’s good – I’d recommend it.

    Awesome!

    So Fresh: Absolute Must See!

    What did you think of the movie? (optional)

  • How did you buy your ticket?

    • Fandango

    • AMCTheatres.com or AMC AppNew

    • Cinemark Coming Soon

      We won’t be able to verify your ticket today, but it’s great to know for the future.

    • Regal Coming Soon

      We won’t be able to verify your ticket today, but it’s great to know for the future.

    • Theater box office or somewhere else

    By opting to have your ticket verified for this movie, you are allowing us to check the email address associated with your Rotten Tomatoes account against an email address associated with a Fandango ticket purchase for the same movie.

How I Won the War Photos

View All Photos (1)

Movie Info

Among the first of the late 60s anti-war films that reflected growing concern over the Vietnam War, How I Won the War takes a cold, dark look at the Good War, World War II. In adapting Patrick Ryan's 1963 novel, screenwriter Charles Wood and director Richard Lester offered a narrative fractured by characters making side comments to the camera, stylized cinematography, inserts of newsreel war footage, and plenty of absurdist humor and slapstick. Ernest Goodbody (Michael Crawford) is a bumbling British officer who manages to get most of his small company of musketeers killed while on a mission in North Africa to set up a cricket pitch behind enemy lines for officers of the advancing British army. The rest of the company dies in an ensuing campaign in Europe near the war's end, but all of the men continue to march along, appearing as monochromatic ghosts. (Original prints of the film intercut real battle footage tinted to match the color of the soon-to-be ghost soldier. Some prints of the film, including one shown on Turner Classic Movies, present the newsreel shots in black and white, undercutting the stylized touch.) The story is framed as a flashback, with Goodbody relating his version of events to a German officer (Karl Michael Vogler), while the real version of events, demonstrating Goodbody's ineptitude, plays out on screen. Among the supporting players are John Lennon, who had worked with Lester on A Hard Day's Night and Help; Roy Kinnear, a Lester regular, as a fat soldier who is certain his wife is cheating on him; Jack MacGowran as the troop's designated fool, and Michael Hordern as a general almost as oblivious to his suffering men as Goodbody.
  • Rating:
    R
  • Genre:
    Classics, Comedy, Drama
  • Directed By:
    Richard Lester
  • Written By:
    Charles Wood
  • In Theaters:
     wide
  • On Disc/Streaming:
  • Runtime:
  • Studio:
    MGM Home Entertainment

Cast

Michael Crawford
as Lt. Goodbody
John Lennon
as Gripweed
Roy Kinnear
as Clapper
Lee Montague
as Transom
Jack MacGowran
as Juniper
Michael Hordern
as Grapple
Jack Hedley
as Melancholy Musketeer
Karl Michael Vogler
as Odlebog
Ronald Lacey
as Spool
James Cossins
as Drogue
Ewan Hooper
as Dooley
Alexander Knox
as American general
Robert Hardy
as British General
Sheila Hancock
as Mrs. Clapper's Friend
Charles Dyer
as Flappy-Trousered Man
Bill Dysart
as Paratrooper
Paul Daneman
as Skipper
Peter Graves
as Staff Officer
Jack May
as Toby
Richard Pearson
as Old Man at Alamein
Pauline Taylor
as Woman In Desert
John Ronane
as Operator
Norman Chappell
as Soldier at Alamein
Bryan Pringle
as Reporter
Fanny Carby
as Mrs. Clapper
Dandy Nichols
as Old Lady
Gretchen Franklin
as Old Lady
John Junkin
as Large Child
John Trenaman
as Driver
Mick Dillon
as Replacement
Kenneth Colley
as Replacement
View All

News & Interviews for How I Won the War

Total Recall: Across the Universe And The Beatles On Film
View All

Critic Reviews for How I Won the War

All Critics (16) | Top Critics (5) | Fresh (7) | Rotten (9)

  • Patrick Ryan's novel has been adapted into a screenplay which, as directed by Richard Lester, substitutes motion for emotion, reeling for feeling, and crude slapstick for telling satire.

    September 10, 2007 | Full Review…

    Variety Staff

    Variety
    Top Critic

  • Dated, maybe, but Lester's gruesomely black anti-war comedy still looks inventive, and manages occasionally to hit home with its blend of surreal lunacy and barbed satire.

    February 9, 2006 | Full Review…

    Geoff Andrew

    Time Out
    Top Critic

  • I am afraid Mr. Lester has not added a single discouragement of war, but simply a little discouragement toward patronizing too-pretentious films.

    May 9, 2005 | Rating: 2/5 | Full Review…

    Bosley Crowther

    New York Times
    Top Critic

  • I got no impression from this film that Lester really, personally, cares very strongly one way or the other about war. It was only a currently fashionable subject, a good excuse to make a movie.

    October 23, 2004 | Rating: 2/4 | Full Review…

    Roger Ebert

    Chicago Sun-Times
    Top Critic

  • Lester's op-pop style, jump cutting from incident to incident, seems too inherently cheerful for the material, which features fountains of stage blood.

    January 1, 2000 | Full Review…

    Dave Kehr

    Chicago Reader
    Top Critic

  • The first problem with How I Won the War is that the basic farce is not all that funny.

    March 18, 2020 | Full Review…

    Penelope Houston

    Sight and Sound
View All Critic Reviews (16)

Audience Reviews for How I Won the War

  • Feb 03, 2009
    George Bernard Shaw once wrote that England and America are two countries separated by a common language. Nowhere is that more apparent than here in <i>How I Won the War</i>. The accents are so thick and the humor so uniquely British that even when I could understand it I couldn't understand it.
    Randy T Super Reviewer
See all Audience reviews

How I Won the War Quotes

There are no approved quotes yet for this movie.

Movie & TV guides