In 1942, the romantic drama filmCasablancawas released. Surprisingly, it would later go down in history as being one of the greatest films ever made. While the American Film Institute ranks it as the second greatest, betweenCitizen KaneandThe Godfather, when it comes specifically to war films,Casablancatops the list. It’s also often regarded as having the best screenplay ever written.
While some of its main themes were romantic ones, the location, time period, and general overarching theme of the film, also placed it squarely within the purview of being categorized as a war movie. Not one battle scene and not one conflict situation.Casablancamanaged to perfectly capture a moment in time when the world was constantly on the edge, and everywhere you went could be a war zone. On that front,Casablancais arguably undisputed as the greatest film of its type.
As we look back on some of the best elements of this timeless movie, here’s also a look back at what madeCasablancathe greatest war movie ever made, in addition to why it continues to be held in such high esteem in many other ways.
Update June 18, 2025: In honor of Veterans Day and the anniversary of Operation Trench, which saw the Allie forces free French North Africa, where Casablanca is set, during World War II, this article has been updated with more reasons whyCasablancais one of the greatest war movies ever made.
Casablanca
Timing as a War Film
The period thatCasablancawas set in could not have made its cultural impact more significant. Not only was it set toward the end ofWorld War II, but the film also actively revolved around themes from it and never shied away from making the audience aware of this.Casablancaopened in theaters in January 1943, a little over a year after the United States got involved in World War II, and even cynically was rushed to theaters to cash in on the publicity from the Allied invasion of North Africa in November 1962. Yet being released at the height of the war was a major part of the film’s appeal.
This perhaps played a large part in its success since it likely leveraged many significant sentiments of the time. Whether by design or coincidence, the film seemed to pit themes of love and war against each other — engendering the audience to accept that one’s sacrifice in service to the greater cause posed by the other was both its greatest honor and greatest tragedy.
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As a war film,Casablancanever sought after thrills and deep dives into the horrific violence of the conflict. Instead, it espoused its own take on what was most important by choosing love as its highest value and then sacrificing it as a means of directly showing how important the war efforts were. In that way, without having to say it, it equated love with the defeat of the Nazis, then elevated the latter beyond the former.
The Commentary by Casablanca
InCasablanca, expatriate Rick Blaine finds himself reuniting with the love of his life in Casablanca, a city in Morocco that’s divided between German occupation and rebels. The problem is Ilsa Lund has arrived with her husband, Victor Laszlo, a Czechoslovak Resistance leader who remains a fugitive from the Nazis. Rick’s Café Américain is a neutral territory where everyone’s allowed to be themselves while German officers are allowed to hunt.
The film was released during a time of tension. The war was active, and Churchill and Roosevelt were trying to come up with a solution to effectively fight the Germans. Because of this, the movie was heavily edited for release in Germany. All scenes with Nazis were removed, and most references to World War II. Dialogue is changed in the dub, and the film is 25 minutes shorter. Germans would not see the full cut of the movie until 1975, thirty years later.
The commentary by the film was naturally associated with its anti-war message. Evidence of this is easily found in one of the film’s pivotal scenes when German officers demand a patriotic anthem to be played by the band, but then Laszlo asks for La Marseillaise, France’s National Anthem, to be played instead. The band is eventually drowned by the powerful singing of the attendees, who showed the Germans that peace could dominate war by sheer human will. Many of the people involved in the film were people who either escaped the Nazi occupation or had family who were impacted by it, so this was an emotional moment for them that can be felt through the screen.
CasablancaNever Expected to Become Significant
Once you learn some of the history and context behind the making of the film, one of its most charming features invariably becomes the fact that no one expected it to be as big as it became. The film initially set out to be just another mainstream war movie by Warner Bros.
Even throughout its creative processes and filming,Casablancawas reputedly plagued by drama. The script needed rewrites, crucial lines were improvised, and the personal lives of its main stars often overshadowed it. Yet, through this maelstrom of creative insecurities and self-imposed limited expectations, the film struck a chord of indubitable purity with audiences and industry insiders alike.
It would eventually earn itself no less thaneight Academy Award nominations, winning three - including Awards for Outstanding Motion Picture and Best Screenplay. Its director, Michael Curtiz, almost quit the film early on, after language and accent differences (he was Hungarian) made for a difficult working environment for everyone involved. To illustrate the full depth of just how much no one imagined its success, Curtiz won the Academy Award for Best Director for his work onCasablanca.
Casablanca Elevated its Cast
There’s no doubt thatCasablanca’scast contained two superstars in Humphrey Bogart (as Rick Blaine) and Ingrid Bergman(as Ilsa Lund). However, as big stars as the pair were before signing on to do the film, there’s also no doubt thatCasablancaforever elevated both their careers to unfathomable heights.
Bogart’s first-ever Academy Award nomination for Best Actor was forCasablanca.Although he didn’t win, he would go on from there to receive two more nominations of the sort, later winning one of them for his role inThe African Queen.On the other hand, Bergman wasn’t nominated forCasablancabut, as a result of starring in it, would go on to be nominated for seven Academy Awards after it, winning three of them, in addition to two Primetime Emmy Awards, and a Tony Award.
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Other notable performers included film star Peter Lorre (a Jewish actor who had run away from Germany after the Nazi Party installed itself as the highest authority), Paul Henreid, who was supposedly not very friendly on set, Conrad Veidt, who had run away from Germany after having married a Jewish woman, and notable singer and musician Dooley Wilson, among others.
CasablancaRemains Forever Timeless
Casablanca’stiming and main messages as a war film were thoroughly esoteric to its time. While it was released America’s involvement during World War II, the film’s action is set at a point when the USA was still neutral and, in many ways, was a commentary on how America likely should have gotten involved sooner. It evoked radical ideas about the fact that the country had a considerable part to play and was almost duty-bound by its own power to intervene - even if that might mean interfering with the sovereignty of other nations.
Yet what most people remember about the film is the romance.Casablancais also one of the most romantic war films of all time, as it revolves around a love conflict that ultimately calls for a great sacrifice when Rick accepts that Ilsa can’t be with him. He starts as a broken man, asking for his piano player to play Ilsa’s favorite song and indulge in a booze-guzzling night of absolute resentment. However, when he gets the chance to be alongside Ilsa, he prefers to remain the better man and let go of her in a poetic manner that translates into a compelling third act.
Some of its most famous linesremain immortalized by the references in pop culture they still garner to this very day - think of iconic lines from it such as “We’ll always have Paris” and now consider how Hawkeye and The Black Widow constantly reference their time together inThe Avengersfilms. In so many ways, the film is rendered both timeless and forever a classic. As a war movie, a love story, a drama, a period film, or however else you want to classify it,Casablancaremains one of the greats.
Here’s what world-renowned criticRoger Eberthad to say about the film in 1996, decades after he originally reviewed the film:
“From a modern perspective, the film reveals interesting assumptions. Ilsa Lund’s role is basically that of a lover and helpmate to a great man; the movie’s real question is, which great man should she be sleeping with? There is actually no reason why Laszlo cannot get on the plane alone, leaving Ilsa in Casablanca with Rick, and indeed that is one of the endings that was briefly considered. But that would be all wrong; the “happy” ending would be tarnished by self-interest, while the ending we have allows Rick to be larger, to approach nobility (“it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world”). And it allows us, vicariously experiencing all of these things in the theater, to warm in the glow of his heroism.”
