Watch Sands of Iwo Jima For Free

Beautiful, moving film.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

I was five years old when the Marines landed on Iwo, my eldest brother however was at Pharmacist Mate 3d (now Hospital Corpsman), with 3rd Marines at Iwo. He seldom ever spoke of it. Was called back in Korea, got a Silver Star with King Co., 3rd Bn., 7th Mar. in the vicinity of Sintanni, Nov. 1951. I enlisted in the Marine Corps, Plt. 344, San Diego, July 1959. Remember seeing the Sands of Iwo Jima on my first liberty from Lima Co., 2nd ITR, CAMPEN, as I'm sure many hundreds of Marines did, especially us new guys, in Oceanside, Ca. I digress: Seems like most of the time in the actions scenes the actors were either wearing field marching packs w/short blanket roll, or light marching pack, no blanket roll. While in the actual scenes, mostly the ones at Tarawa almost all the Marines were with out 782 gear (web gear)? Also Sgt. Stryker told them to hit the "sack". as I recall, and it's been many years, we used the term "hit the rack"? Moot points I'm sure, I'll probably watch it again, if fact I'm sure I will, and maybe have some more info as I recall it. Semper Fi

There's absolutely nothing wrong with unpredictability. In fact, being unpredictable usually makes a movie worth watching. "Sands of Iwo Jima" IS unpredictable - at least in the sense that the title sets you up to expect a movie that's largely about the Battle of Iwo Jima. That turns out to be not what you get, though. This is really about a squad of US Marines led by Sgt. Stryker (played by John Wayne) and it traces their development into a fighting unit at the Battle of Iwo Jima. Iwo Jima actually takes up little of the movie. Almost the first hour and a half is about the squad itself and about some of its adventures and exploits. There's a fairly long look at the Battle of Tarawa, before Iwo Jima. Some of the lead-in is interesting enough, especially some of the portrayal of the personal tensions within the squad. Stryker has a history with some of the men. He's not liked - especially by Conway (John Agar) and Thomas (Forrest Tucker.) Stryker is battling demons of his own on the home front - a broken family and a 10 year old son he never hears from, which lead him to get drunk whenever he's given leave. Wayne's performance in this was actually pretty good. I'm not his biggest fan, but he did well with this role.The thing I didn't like in this was too much melodrama. I realize that those who made this were trying to give us insights into the lives of the men, but there was too much of it, at the expense of the war, to be frank. I found that especially the case with Conway, who meets a girl (Adele Mara) while on leave in New Zealand and ends up married to her pretty quickly. I can see how that would happen in wartime, but I really didn't find it an especially noteworthy addition to the story. I also found it strange that when the men were on leave in New Zealand all the girls they met spoke with American accents? (The studio couldn't find someone who sounded at least a bit like a New Zealander, or who could at least pretend?)Interestingly, I didn't find this to be as much of a flag-waver as I expected it to be. It's just a pretty solid study of this particular squad of Marines. (6/10)

When I watch this movie back to back with Clint Eastwood's "Letter from Iwo Jima" it really puts perspective of how the war looked from both sides.If you see both movies, it's sort of clear that all these killing were unnecessary. Both sides were good men, not viscous killers, but for stupid reason being that you must obey orders at all cost, and some brainwashing, all this carnage occurred. Many wars if viewed in hindsight I'm sure will look this way. The movie is shot very well, and probably one of the most authentic movie of this type until more recent production such as Platoon, and Saving Private Ryan. John Wayne is great as usual, and there's real story to the plot. This is classic on its own right, and one of the better John Wayne movie that was made.

A ridiculous propaganda war movie with a hot-headed sergeant who enjoys nothing but to fight, clobber, duke it out with his soldiers whenever he feels like it without any repercussions. I was actually into the movie but after the 4 or 5th fight between Stryker and one of his subordinates, I couldn't get into it anymore. Certainly after Stryker (John Wayne) fights with Thomas (Forrest Tucker) and Thomas is fine with it, the two men talking to each other as if nothing had happened. The film's credibility, already stretched to the limit with the typical Hollywood war-time propaganda, was thrown out the window with that fight. Yes, Wayne is a manly man and I'm sure soldiers fight with each other but this was ridiculous, veering into the realm of fetish. I mean if your sergeant drags you in the middle of the forest and starts pummeling your face just because of some disagreement but then once the fight is over, the man at the receiving end doesn't complain and is fine and dandy with it, well, the homoerotic subtext suddenly becomes clear. The fighting, btw, is not shown as horseplay. Who cares about fighting the enemy with a sergeant like Stryker? This kind of behaviour wouldn't have been tolerated in reality but because this a John Wayne fantasy based on some real characters/events, well the machismo has be flowing in order to keep audiences entertained and what's more entertaining than seeing John Wayne getting his kicks and showing who's on, eh, top? Seriously underwhelmed by this so-called classic.