The Ascent (1977)
Holy crap, this is one of the most powerful films I have ever seen. It deals with the standard war movie trope of some soldiers sent behind enemy lines but does it in such a magnificent way that it is far and away the greatest film about war I've come across. The shot composition and the pacing are masterful, and it's really sad that the director died young and this was her last film. I feel if she was given a chance to make more we'd truly have a female director on the list of filmmaking giants. The performances though, they make this film a classic. The two leads are devastating, with every single expression on their faces displaying a multitude of emotion. You can tell just by looking at these men that the war has had no mercy. What really seperates this from the genre though is the message of the film, which has a strangely poignant philosophical edge, examining death in a really interesting way.
Five stars, couldn't recommend this enough to any fan of cinema.