All Quiet On The Western Front (1930)

In this Best Picture-winning war film from award-winning director Lewis Milestone:

• the realistic battle sequences of World War I including rows of infantrymen instantaneously being mowed down by machine gun fire as the camera moved sideways across them and showed the remains of one unfortunate soldier (his hands grabbed barbed wire)
• the scene of soldier Paul (Lew Ayres) stabbing a Frenchman in a panic and being trapped in the bomb crater with the slowly dying man and attempting to give him water to drink
• the scene of Paul's return to his school to tell the students of his disillusionment with war
• the death scene of experienced platoon leader Katczinsky (Louis Wolheim) when Paul discovered that his friend was dead

Paul's Death by Sniper When Reaching for Butterfly

• and Paul's death to the sound of the whine of a French sniper's bullet as his hand reached out to touch a beautiful butterfly from the shell-hole trench
• also the film's final image of ghostly soldiers marching away, while superimposed over a dark, battle-scarred hillside covered with a sea of white crosses