Paths of Glory

“It explodes in the no-man's land no picture ever dared cross before!”

Colonel Dax (Kirk Douglas) commands French soldiers ordered into a suicidal attack during World War I. When they refuse and retreat, their own generals demand a court-martial, and Dax must defend three men accused of cowardice. Kubrick frames the proceedings with the cold geometry of a trap closing, and by the end, the question is not whether the soldiers are guilty, but what the verdict will cost those sent to die for nothing.