Since its 1929 publication, All Quiet on the Western Front has been translated into over 20 languages, earned a Nobel Peace Prize nomination, and been adapted into two films. However, the latest cinematic interpretation of Erich Maria Remarque’s literary classic, helmed by director Edward Berger nearly a century later, is marked by many firsts. Since its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in early September, the harrowing epic has been met with whirlwind popular and critical acclaim and award nominations, including in nine Oscar categories. Berger, who also co-wrote the war drama with Lesley Paterson and Ian Stokell, attributes the film’s record-breaking success to one particularly salient first: “It is a world-famous German bestseller, but it had never been told [cinematically] from a German perspective,” Berger told Queue.

All Quiet on the Western Front portrays the final days of World War I through the lens of young German soldier Paul Bäumer (played brilliantly by Felix Kammerer), whose initial excitement is swiftly shattered by the brutality of what he witnesses after he enlists. Germany’s complicated relationship to World War I is at the heart of Berger’s adaptation, resulting in a two-and-a-half-hour film that is powerful and visually beautiful, albeit heartbreaking to watch. “Our view of war is marked by grief and shame, sorrow and death, destruction and guilt,” Berger says. “I felt that making our German history, background, and attitude toward war the driving force behind the movie was a huge and fascinating challenge. I wanted to make a movie that felt like, in order to make it, you would’ve had to have grown up in Germany.”

Here are some of the facts and figures behind the inimitable All Quiet on the Western Front.