Intense New World War 2 Movie Hits #1 on Prime Video (But It’s Dividing Viewers)

There’s a new movie shooting up the streaming charts over on Prime Video, but despite the viewership numbers it’s generating, many viewers are walking away feeling somewhat divided, if not disappointed. That movie is The Tank (or “Der Tiger”), a 2025 German film from director Dennis Gansel, which he also co-wrote with Colin Teevan, whom he worked with on the 2020s Das Boot TV series reboot.

In The Tank, a “five-man crew of a German Tiger tank is sent on a secret mission far behind the fiercely contested front line. Fueled by the Wehrmacht’s methamphetamine, their mission increasingly becomes a journey into the heart of darkness.” The movie is currently no. 1 on Prime Video’s movie streaming charts, narrowly edging out the Dave Bautista action flick, Trap House.

That synopsis may sound wild, but it’s actually not as far out there or fantastical as you may think. Methamphetamines were, indeed, the rare exception to Nazi Germany’s strict anti-drug policies. According to Time, “While other drugs were banned or discouraged, methamphetamine was touted as a miracle product when it appeared on the market in the late 1930s. Indeed, the little pill was the perfect Nazi drug… Energizing and confidence boosting, methamphetamine played into the Third Reich’s obsession with physical and mental superiority. In sharp contrast to drugs such as heroin or alcohol, methamphetamines were not about escapist pleasure. Rather, they were taken for hyper-alertness and vigilance.”

Gansel’s film is arguably one of the first WWII dramas to explore how the drug affected the German soldiers taking it, physically and psychologically. But therein lies the issue: The Tank is throwing some viewers a serious curveball. The Tank is attracting a lot of viewers who liken it to David Ayer’s 2014 WWII tank drama Fury; however, the film is very much not the straightforward war drama it initially seems to be.

The Tank Is Splitting Viewers Down the Cinephile Line

MAJOR SPOILERS: In fact, The Tank is probably best compared to a film like Jacob’s Ladder; by the end of the film, it’s revealed that the tank crew led by Philip Gerkens died crossing a bridge the Germans blew up, during the Nazi retreat from the Soviet front. The rest of the movie is a surrealist journey through a hellish purgatory, wherein the souls of the soldiers are trapped for eternity in a cycle of warfare and death, on endless repeat.

That’s a helluva twist for cinephiles – but not so much for the average viewer. “I wanted a action packed ww2 tank Film,” Srgblackbear said in a Reddit post. “Given it looks like they spent more of their budget on the tiger I replica, sounds and Cgi, given how the battle at the bridge handled, it was a missed opportunity”.

Other viewers embraced the arthouse flip on a WWII film. In a deep analytical post, Odd_Try5499 writes, “Many people here didn’t seem to have understood the movie. If you want to watch something like ‘Fury’ then this is not a movie for you. If you like movies like ‘apocalypse now’ and the plot of games like “spec ops the line” then you will probably like this one as well. Trying to explain the twist without spoiling everything: The subtitle of the movie is ‘wir ernten was wir säen’ which translates to ‘We reap what we sow.’ In the end, it is revealed that this movie isn’t a war movie at all, but a psychological thriller. The protagonist reaped what he had sown, and his reaction to the reaping is what caused the events of the movie to happen.”

You can stream The Tank (2025) on Prime Video (if you wish to). And discuss your favorite 2025 movies with us on the ComicBook Forum!