Enemy at the Gates
| Enemy at the Gates | |
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Film poster
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| Directed by | Jean-Jacques Annaud |
| Produced by | Jean-Jacques Annaud John D. Schofield |
| Written by | Jean-Jacques Annaud Alain Godard |
| Based on |
Enemy at the Gates: The Battle for Stalingrad by William Craig |
| Starring |
Joseph Fiennes Jude Law Rachel Weisz Bob Hoskins Ed Harris Ron Perlman |
| Music by | James Horner |
| Cinematography | Robert Fraisse |
| Edited by | Noëlle Boisson Humphrey Dixon |
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Production
company |
Mandalay Pictures
Repérage Films |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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131 minutes |
| Country | United States France |
| Language |
English German Russian |
| Budget | $68 million |
| Box office | $97 million |
Enemy at the Gates is a 2001 American-French war film written and directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud. The film's title is taken from William Craig's nonfiction book Enemy at the Gates: The Battle for Stalingrad (1973), which describes the events surrounding the Battle of Stalingrad in the winter of 1942/43. The film's main character is a fictionalized version of sniper Vasili Zaytsev, a Hero of the Soviet Union during World War II. It includes a "sniper's duel" between Zaytsev and a Wehrmacht sniper school director, Major Erwin König.
In 1942, following the invasion of the Soviet Union the year before, Vasili Zaitsev (Jude Law), a shepherd from the Ural Mountains who is now a soldier in the Red Army, finds himself on the front lines of the Battle of Stalingrad. Forced into a suicidal charge by barrier troops against the invading Germans, he uses impressive marksmanship skills—taught to him at a young age by his grandfather—to save himself and commissar Danilov (Joseph Fiennes).
Nikita Khrushchev (Bob Hoskins) arrives in Stalingrad to coordinate the city's defences and demands ideas to improve morale. Danilov, now a senior lieutenant, suggests that the people need figures to idolise and give them hope, and publishes tales of Vasily's exploits in the army's newspaper that paint him as a national hero and propaganda icon. Vasili is transferred to the sniper division, and he and Danilov become friends. They also both become romantically interested in Tania Chernova (Rachel Weisz), a citizen of Stalingrad who has become a private in the local militia. Danilov has her transferred to an intelligence unit away from the battlefield.
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Wikipedia