The Cruel Sea

The Cruel Sea, directed by Charles Frend, is a British war film adapted from Nicholas Monsarrat's novel, about Commander Ericson, assigned to a convoy escort ship with inexperienced officers and men at the start of World War II. The novel draws heavily on the author's own wartime experience: Monsarrat served four years in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve escorting North Atlantic convoys, rising from a green sub-lieutenant to command of his own corvette. The film was the top grossing release at the British box office in 1953, and Jack Hawkins was voted the most popular star among British audiences for the performance. The film appears on the British Film Institute's list of the 100 Best British Films and is still screened in the Royal Navy today as a kind of rite of passage for new sailors. Who it's for: anyone curious about a British war classic drawn from its author's own North Atlantic convoy experience, the top grossing British film of its year, still screened today in the Royal Navy as tradition. Who it's not for: those wanting a fictionalized, embellished war narrative, since the film is a realistic reflection of hardships the author actually lived through.