Robert Aldrich's rousing World War II adventure follows a hardened major, played by Lee Marvin, who trains twelve condemned military prisoners into a commando unit for a near-suicidal mission to assault a chateau full of German officers. Featuring a tough ensemble including Charles Bronson, Jim Brown and John Cassavetes, it is a template-setting men-on-a-mission war movie. A massive hit, it remains a beloved, muscular classic of the genre, gritty, cynical and hugely entertaining.