Das Boot: the Director's Cut

This version of Wolfgang Petersen's sprawling U-boat epic is something of a halfway house between the 1981 theatrical cut and the longer TV mini-series version. With its spruced up visuals, overhauled sound (so essential in submarine movies) and an hour's worth of restored footage, it certainly improves on the original cinema release, particularly in respect of fleshing out the characters. Petersen depicts steely captain Jürgen Prochnow and his crew as courageous conscripts serving a cause to which they are not wholeheartedly committed, while war correspondent Herbert Grönemeyer accompanies them on their descent into hell. Submarine warfare offers film-makers little in the way of variation, and the action, based on actual incidents, inevitably alternates between tense periods of silent stalking and frantic moments of engagement. This claustrophobic existence is brilliantly captured by cinematographer Jost Vacano, who received one of the film's six Oscar nominations - high praise indeed for a foreign-language film.