Ploydsge just watch it!

Tyreece Hulme One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

Nicole I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

mark.waltz This is simply one of the best war dramas made about the Second World War. Five brothers, raised by their parents (Thomas Mitchell and Selena Royle) to be very close, serve in the navy together and refuse to be separated, a decision that has catastrophic results. This is well known and as a result, laws were put into effect regarding multiple family members serving in the military ("The Sole Survivor Policy").The film mostly deals with the 20+ years before the war, including the youngest brothers' courting and marriage to pretty Anne Baxter. There is no real linear story. It is mainly a series of vignettes of their upbringing, some comical, some dramatic, but all heartwarming. To name a few, there is the christening of a small abandoned boat found by the boys (where one of them says that a bottle not breaking upon christening means that the boat will sink), the decision to fix their parent's wood box (which practically destroys the kitchen), the attempt of the toughest brothers to run away, and most humorously, papa Mitchell's attempts to teach the boys a lesson about smoking by giving them each cigars. As young adults, the two stories that stand out are the four oldest brothers' rather cruel prank on their youngest sibling's new love, and after that brother does marry, the emotional decision by Baxter to encourage her husband to enlist along with his brothers. The scene where the five brothers show up, each giving the same last name, is amusing. They demand to be together, then after not getting a guarantee, get permission from the navy department.What makes all of these vignettes work is the simple yet touching way they are each told, flowing gently from one into the next. I found it a bit disconcerting that the brothers would play such a despicable trick on their brother and fiancé without mama Royle and sister Trudy Marshall stepping in and standing up to them. However, there is no false note about how it is done. I've seen real-life pranks meant innocently end in disaster. Their regret over the incident and the way they make amends are truly believable. I liked the youngest brothers' way of not stirring up a fight, which made the others feel more guilty. ("He must really be mad", one of them says.) Each vignette sets the stage for the tragic conclusion at the end, making the non-linear story arch work had only one or two plots been introduced and focused on.As the parents, Thomas Mitchell and Selena Royle are outstanding. Both tough and tender, Mitchell is a joy, and when he must hit one son after the kitchen is damaged, the look on his face displays his sadness at what he felt he had to do. ("Every Irishman has an occasional flash of temper", he later admits to the contrite lad.) It's a good lesson on the strength of apology and the ability to accept one's apology gracefully. Royle has her very best film role here, her first major part. She's no Andy Hardy mama here. She's strict when she has to be, yet always loving, understanding, and loyal to her entire family. Both Mitchell and Royle underplay the pain in the tragic conclusion and courage in the tribute that follows. Baxter isn't used much here. Her best roles were yet to come, yet that sensuous voice is still very apparent. She does what the role calls for, perhaps realizing that the prestige of this film was more important than the size of her part. All of the actors playing the brothers, younger and older, are wonderful. The casting director took special care in bringing in kids and adult actors who could be the same person. It feels like part of the film was made in the early 30's, then filmed with the same actors 10 years later. Each are set with their own personalities, which transfer from the child actor to adult actor with ease. This makes a seamless transition as each of the older brothers makes an entrance, identifying themselves, and giving one little bit of dialog that will make the viewer smile with identification of the child actor they had just seen a few minutes before. This is a credit to the writers as well, and most definitely the five men on whom the film is about.Having seen this film about half a dozen times over the past 20 years, I thought I could avoid tears in the conclusion. Didn't happen. It wasn't as jarring as the first time, but only a comatose person could escape from feeling the non-manipulative emotion erupted by the ending. I'll probably shed a few more tears the next time I watch in five or ten years.

tonight2 I was a boy of 14 at boarding school in England when I saw this film on release. The memory of it is with me still at 75 so it must have had some merit emotionally if nothing else. The second world war was still on and we were all aware of the horrors daily being brought to notice. Fellow pupils were finding parent(s) and brothers/sisters lost in the conflict. The film I recall we who saw it went back a second time. Thomas Mitchell as the father was the dominant character in the film.I still think of him as a forerunner to characters played later by Ernest Borgnine who was in the same mould. Anne Baxter was not yet at her best but was a sympathetic player demanded by her sorely tested motherhood in this film.

rungmc Very seldom when I was small, we would be allowed to sit up late to catch a movie, but always to the distaste of my mother, who was adamant that bedtime was bedtime, movie or not. So I'll never forget the night that we were actually called out of bed to come up and watch this, the fighting Sullivan's. We sat, engrossed in the lives of these young men, convinced that it was a comedy we were watching. The little rascals-esquire capers of the boys always stuck with me, especially the "dentist" scene. As the Sullivan's grew, we grew closer and closer to them, until the tragic finale; words cannot describe the wave of emotion that flowed over me. In the end, i turned to my dad, teary eyed, to ask him if it really was a true story; more sensitive parents would have said yes, its all made up... A truly special movie, one for everybody.

Danny Tharpe I understand this movie did not do well when it was released (1944). At that time, when American hearts were so tender with pain, it is understandable. Today, it reminds us of the magnitude of sacrifice of human life and grief it cost families across this nation.I have acquired a deeper appreciation for those who went before us so that we can enjoy the freedoms we have today.I hope everyone who reads this will have the opportunity to see this movie. Though a classic it has not lost its ability to stir the mind and heart.May God hold and keep all those who have lost loved ones in the conflicts this nation has faced in the past and today.