The Thin Red Line is a 1998 American war film which tells a fictional story of United States forces during the Battle of Guadalcanal in World War II. It portrays men in C Company, and in particular, those soldiers played by Jim Caviezel, Nick Nolte, and Ben Chaplin.
The film marked director Terrence Malick's return to filmmaking after a 20–year absence. He wrote the screenplay based on the novel by James Jones. It features a large ensemble cast, including performances and cameos by notable actors, including Sean Penn, Adrien Brody, George Clooney, John Cusack, Jared Leto, and John Travolta. Reportedly, the first assembled cut took seven months to edit and ran five hours. By the final cut, all footage of the performances by Billy Bob Thornton, Martin Sheen, Gary Oldman, Bill Pullman, Lukas Haas, Jason Patric, Viggo Mortensen and Mickey Rourke had been removed. The film was scored by Hans Zimmer, with additional music from John Powell and shot by John Toll.
