The Unknown Soldier
Edvin Laine, 1955, 177 min
Finnish with English subtitles

The most popular film in Finland by a wide margin, The Unknown Soldier is also a cult movie in the strict sense: its dialogue has entered Finnish folklore, although it is often difficult to distinguish whether this originated with the movie or the book by Väinö Linna, which formed the basis for two other adaptations. One of the greatest war films ever made, it is a demonstration of how far Finnish cinema could go when the inspiration was genuine and shared by all involved.

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Part of Antti Alanen and Ehsan Khoshbakht's Masterpieces of Finnish Cinema season