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You can watch Grand Illusion (1937) for free on Kanopy.

A group of French soldiers, including the patrician Captain de Boeldieu and the working-class Lieutenant Maréchal, grapple with their own class differences after being captured and held in a World War I German prison camp. When the men are transferred to a high-security fortress, they must concoct a plan to escape beneath the watchful eye of aristocratic German officer von Rauffenstein, who has formed an unexpected bond with de Boeldieu.

Class divides matter far less than the shared struggle to escape a German prisoner-of-war camp. This wartime classic shifts the focus from the battlefield to the quiet, psychological chess match of survival behind barbed wire.

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