Production year: 2001
Soviet Stalingrad veterans were sufficiently offended by the portrayal of the Red Army, that on 7 May 2001, soon after it was shown in Russia, they addressed their grievances to the State Duma, demanding the film be banned. This request was not granted.
Historian Antony Beevor suggests in his book, stalingrad, that, while Zaitsev was a real person, the story of his duel (dramatized in the film) with König is fictional. Although William Craig's book Enemy at the Gates: The Battle for Stalingrad includes a "sniper's duel" between Zaitsev and König, the sequence of events in the film is fictional. Zaitsev, in an interview claims to have engaged in a sniper duel over a number of days. Zaitsev states that after killing the German sniper, and on collecting his tags, he found that he had killed the head of the Berlin Sniper School.
Countries: Ireland, Rest of the world, UK, USA
Cert (UK): 15
Runtime: 131 mins
Directors: Jean-Jacques Annaud
Cast: Bob Hoskins, Ed Harris, Joseph Fiennes, Jude Law, Rachel Weisz
