Robert Altman’s distinctive genius first announced itself with this innovative, smash-hit black comedy in which a pair of irreverent surgeons (Donald Sutherland and Elliott Gould) at a mobile army hospital stationed on the front lines of the Korean War stave off the everyday horrors they witness through their havoc-wreaking high-jinks.

Based on a novel by Richard Hooker, today M*A*S*H is noted for being an early example of Robert Altman’s ability to marshal a large ensemble cast and balance multiple storylines. However, the film’s liberal anti-war sentiments and the attempt to address institutional racism also reflect the politics of its screenwriter Ring Lardner Jnr. A member of the Hollywood 10 who had been jailed for his principles in 1950 and blacklisted until the mid-1960s, Lardner Jnr’s work on M*A*S*H would go on to win him an Oscar for best adapted screenplay in 1971.

Content warning: the film contains outdated practices, such as negative depictions and/or mistreatment of people or cultures and mysoginistic language, which some people may find offensive.