This article asks various Navy men their thoughts. This one by Lieutenant Commander Jeff Vandenengel stuck out.
- Office Space is the best submarine movie. TPS reports, multiple bosses, a defective printer, coming in on Saturday, the oversight team of “the Bobs” that are “there to help,” and the engineers are not allowed to talk to normal people. Incredibly accurate!
Because engineers can't talk to customers. They need a project manager to receive the requirements sent over from the customers, and then bring the requirements to the engineers (or have someone bring them over).
Which isn't my experience at all. I've always seen PMs spend a bunch of time on the road talking to customers and in executive briefing centers. (And I was one in hardware at some distant point.) Engineers, sensibly, don't really want to spend that much time with customers--and even if they talk to one or two it sort of colors their opinions by that one customer's requirements.
You might want to add some indication if this was sarcasm. If it wasn't then that's wrong - engineers should be directly talking to customers, at least some of the time. It's by far the best way to get direct feedback on what real problems customers are having with the product.
Sounds like the German film Das Boot is a winner (the German version of All Quiet on the Western Front is also amazing. Looks like the German film industry is doing well).
My fave was the burb by Lieutenant Commander Jeff Vandenengel (U.S. Navy).
With so much attention on Das Boot, I would also recommend the DVD version of the TV series.
The TV version shows the monotony which transports the relief when finally making enemy contact a lot more. In the DVD versions the individual episodes are cut together into a continuing movie of more than 4 hours.
The director's cut however has improved visuals and sound, also worthwhile if you don't have the time for the big thing.
It was an absolute given that Das Boot would by far be the first movie mentioned by so many of them in this post. It was the instant first movie that came to my mind and nothing comes quite close, even today, decades later. An absolute masterpiece of serious film making.
Fun facts now: the cast of Das Boot was obliged to constantly stay indoors during the entire length of filming, forcefully as part of an effort to both give them a grossly pallid, sickly complexion like you'd expect from a WWII era submariner at sea for months, and to create a sense of claustrophobia that would percolate into more realistic acting.
Also, the mockup of the submarine's interior was built for maximum realism in its size and all usable physical details, with the actors rigorously trained to move through this space as naturally as possible (as a real German U-boat crew would)
The effort, along with the great script, fantastic cast and of course, memorable music, shows in pretty much everything, right down to the disgusting details of how they look and act after weeks at sea. One hell of a movie, and while my personal experience with submarines is zero, this is the one that feels like it should be absolute most realistic depiction of crewing a sub from that era. It fully deserves its rank as one of the most highly rated films of any kind on most movie ranking websites, like IMDB and etc.
I can also see why it's the most highly voted film among submariners. Even if modern nuclear subs are at a whole other level of comfort compared to anything from 85 years ago, certain basics stay the same: It's a claustrophobic, fully enclosed space with nothing but artificial lighting, observation almost entirely through instruments, and crushing, nearly inescapable, horrible death just a few inches of hull and a couple sudden mistakes away.
All this is the case in a way that just doesn't apply to the same degree with any surface vessel, where you can still somehow feel directly connected to and within reach of the wider, comforting world.
It probably has more in common with space travel than being out at sea in these characteristics.
Even if authentic, a modern nuclear sub movie just isn't going to have the same feel. I suppose you could cite K-19: The Widowmaker though that's relatively old at this point as well.
I expected K-19 to be further up the list - or at least get a mention. My naive metric for realism roughly translates to 'How much does this feel like a documentary?' - and K-19, in spite of the big names, certainly felt like a story being re-told.
I think one person mentioned it. But agree. Other sub movies I enjoyed a lot like Hunt for Red October but they're pretty much movies versus realistic.
Das Boot's soundtrack also takes the cake for me. Just compare the main title themes for Das Boot and Red October; both are good, but Das Boot's make you feel like you are in a submarine. The combination of synths, mechanical sounds, and even the sonar ping sound really adds to the artificality and claustrophobia.
Apple commissioned director Edward Berger (Academy Award-winning "All Quiet on the Western Front") to make this story of a torpedo attack on a U.S. sub during WW2.
It looks like senior officers are a bit over-represented in this survey, not surprising since it came from the US Naval Institute. Senior Partridge seems to be the only one willing to admit that Down Periscope does a surprisingly good job of capturing the inanity and absurdity of submarining. I’d argue Office Space, mentioned in a sibling comment, underrepresents the suck for the Wardroom, Nukes, and possibly MTs.
I guess it's good to validate the answer, but I would have guessed Das Boot going in, and the answers merely confirm that I already knew the answer. The couple of exceptions are interesting though.
Sigh. The curse of the acronym. I have to look up what TFA stands for. At least I didn't waste fellow HN peeps' time by commenting "What does TFA mean?" I will never understand why someone would take more time to post a comment like that than it would take to Google it....
Turns out I'm not the only one! Here's a spirited discussion on HN from 2019 in which a number of commenters note they have no clue what it means, or else have had it wrong all along:
A little OT, but the funniest sub movie has got to be "Operation Petticoat", with Cary Grant and Tony Curtis at their best. And it does have a real (though pink) WW2 sub in it.
Das Boot is probably the most realistic. For more drama, Crimson Tide is a good watch. The Hunt For Red October is more of a fantasy, but also good drama.
One movie that was not even mentioned: The Fifth Missile (1986).
Aboard a nuclear-armed submarine, crew members gradually begin to descend into madness. The cause: chronic inhalation of toxic paint fumes from freshly coated interior surfaces. The resulting disorientation leads them to mistake a routine drill for the outbreak of a real nuclear war.
If Down Periscope gets a honourable mention, The Fifth Missile should, too.
Good news bad news:
Good: It's on YouTube in its 2-hour 50-minute entirety, free.
Bad: It's in French with French subtitles and a terribly low-res picture.
Fun Fact: It's a made for TV (NBC) movie.
Have at it: https://youtu.be/KMWo3hUNixc?si=eUAfihWua1eNltD6
And after reading TFA I can see it's the most voted one. I don't know if it's the most realistic one but, sheesh, does it feel claustrophobic and stressful!
This article asks various Navy men their thoughts. This one by Lieutenant Commander Jeff Vandenengel stuck out.
- Office Space is the best submarine movie. TPS reports, multiple bosses, a defective printer, coming in on Saturday, the oversight team of “the Bobs” that are “there to help,” and the engineers are not allowed to talk to normal people. Incredibly accurate!
>the engineers are not allowed to talk to normal people
why?
Because engineers can't talk to customers. They need a project manager to receive the requirements sent over from the customers, and then bring the requirements to the engineers (or have someone bring them over).
And PMs can talk to customers but don't, because it's better for their career to align with the executives and implement their amazing ideas
Which isn't my experience at all. I've always seen PMs spend a bunch of time on the road talking to customers and in executive briefing centers. (And I was one in hardware at some distant point.) Engineers, sensibly, don't really want to spend that much time with customers--and even if they talk to one or two it sort of colors their opinions by that one customer's requirements.
Whoever thinks this way probably has a brilliant product idea in their back pocket. If they can ever catch a break to try and prototype it…
You might want to add some indication if this was sarcasm. If it wasn't then that's wrong - engineers should be directly talking to customers, at least some of the time. It's by far the best way to get direct feedback on what real problems customers are having with the product.
it is basically a quote from the movie
The relevant scene: https://youtu.be/hNuu9CpdjIo
Because engineers generally fail to catch such subtleties, righr?
I think they were describing “is” as opposed to “ought”
It's disappointing though perhaps not surprising that submariners now follow "Agile" practices.
> the engineers are not allowed to talk to normal people.
That sounds the complete antithesis of agile to me.
Is a "agile" now a term like "woke", devoid of all useful meaning
Both are like the term aladeen. They mean something and its exact opposite. You can only determine from context.
https://youtu.be/NYJ2w82WifU
also "nonplussed":https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/nonplussed
always nonplussed, never plussed.
Sounds like the German film Das Boot is a winner (the German version of All Quiet on the Western Front is also amazing. Looks like the German film industry is doing well).
My fave was the burb by Lieutenant Commander Jeff Vandenengel (U.S. Navy).
With so much attention on Das Boot, I would also recommend the DVD version of the TV series.
The TV version shows the monotony which transports the relief when finally making enemy contact a lot more. In the DVD versions the individual episodes are cut together into a continuing movie of more than 4 hours.
The director's cut however has improved visuals and sound, also worthwhile if you don't have the time for the big thing.
It was an absolute given that Das Boot would by far be the first movie mentioned by so many of them in this post. It was the instant first movie that came to my mind and nothing comes quite close, even today, decades later. An absolute masterpiece of serious film making.
Fun facts now: the cast of Das Boot was obliged to constantly stay indoors during the entire length of filming, forcefully as part of an effort to both give them a grossly pallid, sickly complexion like you'd expect from a WWII era submariner at sea for months, and to create a sense of claustrophobia that would percolate into more realistic acting.
Also, the mockup of the submarine's interior was built for maximum realism in its size and all usable physical details, with the actors rigorously trained to move through this space as naturally as possible (as a real German U-boat crew would)
The effort, along with the great script, fantastic cast and of course, memorable music, shows in pretty much everything, right down to the disgusting details of how they look and act after weeks at sea. One hell of a movie, and while my personal experience with submarines is zero, this is the one that feels like it should be absolute most realistic depiction of crewing a sub from that era. It fully deserves its rank as one of the most highly rated films of any kind on most movie ranking websites, like IMDB and etc.
I can also see why it's the most highly voted film among submariners. Even if modern nuclear subs are at a whole other level of comfort compared to anything from 85 years ago, certain basics stay the same: It's a claustrophobic, fully enclosed space with nothing but artificial lighting, observation almost entirely through instruments, and crushing, nearly inescapable, horrible death just a few inches of hull and a couple sudden mistakes away.
All this is the case in a way that just doesn't apply to the same degree with any surface vessel, where you can still somehow feel directly connected to and within reach of the wider, comforting world.
It probably has more in common with space travel than being out at sea in these characteristics.
Even if authentic, a modern nuclear sub movie just isn't going to have the same feel. I suppose you could cite K-19: The Widowmaker though that's relatively old at this point as well.
I expected K-19 to be further up the list - or at least get a mention. My naive metric for realism roughly translates to 'How much does this feel like a documentary?' - and K-19, in spite of the big names, certainly felt like a story being re-told.
I think one person mentioned it. But agree. Other sub movies I enjoyed a lot like Hunt for Red October but they're pretty much movies versus realistic.
It's a brave man indeed who volunteers after watching Das Boot (2nd from the end in the article).
Das Boot's soundtrack also takes the cake for me. Just compare the main title themes for Das Boot and Red October; both are good, but Das Boot's make you feel like you are in a submarine. The combination of synths, mechanical sounds, and even the sonar ping sound really adds to the artificality and claustrophobia.
If you get a chance, visit an Apple Store and ask to watch 2024 "Submerged" — first scripted film in Immersive Video — on Vision Pro.
Trailer: https://youtu.be/yDvASSABhNQ?si=iVSqDKuIUlrh23IF
Apple commissioned director Edward Berger (Academy Award-winning "All Quiet on the Western Front") to make this story of a torpedo attack on a U.S. sub during WW2.
Talk about claustrophobia and fear....
Runtime: 17 minutes
On the Beach (1959).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Beach_(1959_film)
It looks like senior officers are a bit over-represented in this survey, not surprising since it came from the US Naval Institute. Senior Partridge seems to be the only one willing to admit that Down Periscope does a surprisingly good job of capturing the inanity and absurdity of submarining. I’d argue Office Space, mentioned in a sibling comment, underrepresents the suck for the Wardroom, Nukes, and possibly MTs.
Very amused that someone picked Down Periscope, which for some reason is where my mind immediately went.
I guess it's good to validate the answer, but I would have guessed Das Boot going in, and the answers merely confirm that I already knew the answer. The couple of exceptions are interesting though.
Why not ask the actual crew?
Just watched this last week about the USS Oregon, and the crew were asked their favourite sub movies...
https://youtu.be/YeVsxF-MVQE?t=394
I watched and the cultural references seemed pretty limited compared to TFA.
I didn't hear Das Boot even mentioned...
Sigh. The curse of the acronym. I have to look up what TFA stands for. At least I didn't waste fellow HN peeps' time by commenting "What does TFA mean?" I will never understand why someone would take more time to post a comment like that than it would take to Google it....
Turns out I'm not the only one! Here's a spirited discussion on HN from 2019 in which a number of commenters note they have no clue what it means, or else have had it wrong all along:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19781756
I would not be surprised if the average US submariner is not exactly the kind of person who would seek out german anti-war movies about submarines.
I mean, us as IT people ... how many of us have even heard of Dhunki, an 2019 Indian movie about morals and suffering in an Bangalore IT company?
I'm not an IT person and I'd never heard of "Dhunki" until your comment.
Turns out it's on Prime Video:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/search?phrase=Dhunki&k=Dhunk...
https://www.amazon.com/gp/video/detail/B07WJ34ZC5/ref=atv_sr...
I'm watching it tonight! Thank you for the tip.
I would bet the average U.S. submariner wasn't even born when "Das Boot" was released in 1981 — 44 years ago.
A little OT, but the funniest sub movie has got to be "Operation Petticoat", with Cary Grant and Tony Curtis at their best. And it does have a real (though pink) WW2 sub in it.
Das Boot is probably the most realistic. For more drama, Crimson Tide is a good watch. The Hunt For Red October is more of a fantasy, but also good drama.
It's funny because Crimson Tide is picked out here as one of the least realistic.
The mention some alternative modern movies instead
One movie that was not even mentioned: The Fifth Missile (1986).
Aboard a nuclear-armed submarine, crew members gradually begin to descend into madness. The cause: chronic inhalation of toxic paint fumes from freshly coated interior surfaces. The resulting disorientation leads them to mistake a routine drill for the outbreak of a real nuclear war.
If Down Periscope gets a honourable mention, The Fifth Missile should, too.
Good news bad news: Good: It's on YouTube in its 2-hour 50-minute entirety, free. Bad: It's in French with French subtitles and a terribly low-res picture. Fun Fact: It's a made for TV (NBC) movie. Have at it: https://youtu.be/KMWo3hUNixc?si=eUAfihWua1eNltD6
Yellow Submarine, clearly.
Before reading TFA I was going to post:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Boot
And after reading TFA I can see it's the most voted one. I don't know if it's the most realistic one but, sheesh, does it feel claustrophobic and stressful!