The Forgotten Battle · reception & legacy
2021 · Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.
How The Forgotten Battle has been received, argued over, and remembered.
The arc
Barely registered outside the Netherlands on its COVID-delayed 2021 release — then Netflix picked it up that October and it rocketed into the platform's all-time top 10 non-English films, turning a local production into a global word-of-mouth hit.
What's debated
War-film fans keep debating whether it's a genuinely great 'hidden gem' that out-Hollywoods Hollywood, or just a handsomely mounted Dunkirk-by-way-of-the-Netherlands — with its choice to make a Dutch collaborator fighting for the Germans one of its three leads a recurring flashpoint.
Its footprint
Its biggest cultural achievement is right there in the title: it put the Battle of the Scheldt — a campaign Hollywood never touched — on the map for millions, and it's become a fixture of 'underrated war movies on Netflix' lists and threads.
Where it stands
A word-of-mouth streaming favourite rather than a canon entry — the war movie cinephiles recommend when someone says they've run out of WWII films.