At the start of World War I, Paul Baumer (Richard Thomas) is a young German patriot, eager to fight. Indoctrinated with propaganda at school, he and his friends eagerly sign up for the army soon after graduation. But when the horrors of war soon become too much to bear, and as his friends die or become gravely wounded, Paul questions the sanity of fighting over a few hundreds yards of war-torn countryside. The film is based on the classic novel of the same name by Erich Maria Remarque.