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The Monuments Men is a 2014 war film directed by George Clooney and written and produced by Clooney and Grant Heslov. The film stars an ensemble cast including Clooney, Matt Damon, Bill Murray, John Goodman, Jean Dujardin, Bob Balaban, Hugh Bonneville and Cate Blanchett. The film is based on the 2007 non-fiction book The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History by Robert M. Edsel and Bret Witter. It follows an Allied group from the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program that is given the task of finding and saving pieces of art and other culturally important items before Nazis destroy or steal them during World War II. The Monuments Men was co-produced by Columbia Pictures (in association with 20th Century Fox) and Babelsberg Studio. It received mixed reviews from critics and grossed $156.4 million worldwide against a $70 million budget. Plot In 1943, the Allies are making good progress driving back the Axis powers in Italy. Frank Stokes convinces President Roosevelt that victory will have little meaning if the artistic treasures of Western civilization are lost. Stokes is directed to assemble an Army unit nicknamed the "Monuments Men", comprising museum directors, curators, art historians, and an architect, to both guide Allied units and search for stolen art to return it to its rightful owners. In July 1944, Claire Simone, a curator in occupied France, is forced to assist Nazi officer Viktor Stahl in the theft of art, either for Adolf Hitler's Führermuseum or as personal property of senior commanders such as Hermann Göring. All seems lost when she discovers that Stahl is taking her gallery's contents to Germany as the Allies approach Paris. She runs to the railyard to confront him, but can only watch as he departs aboard the train carrying the cargo. In the field, Stokes' unit finds its work frustrated by Allied officers who refuse to endanger their troops for the sake of his mission. The unit splits up to cover more ground, with varying degrees of success. James Granger meets Simone, but she refuses to cooperate, suspecting the Americans want to confiscate the stolen art for themselves. British officer Donald Jeffries sneaks into occupied Bruges at night to save Michelangelo's Madonna of Bruges, but is killed in the attempt. Richard Campbell and Preston Savitz learn that Van Eyck's Ghent Altarpiece was removed by the priests of Ghent Cathedral for safekeeping, but their truck was stopped and the panels taken. Eventually, they find and arrest Viktor Stahl, who is hiding as a farmer, when they identify the paintings in his house as masterpieces, at least one stolen from the Rothschild Collection. In December 1944, Walter Garfield and Jean Claude Clermont get lost in the countryside and blunder into a firefight. Clermont is mortally wounded and dies when Garfield is unable to find medical help. Meanwhile, Simone reconsiders her refusal after Granger shows her the Nero Decree, which orders the destruction of all German possessions if Hitler dies or Germany falls, and she sees him return a painting looted from a Jewish family to its rightful place in their empty home. She provides a comprehensive ledger she has compiled, with valuable information on the stolen art and the rightful owners. Even as the team learns that the artwork is being stored in various mines and castles, it also learns that it must now compete against the Soviet Union, which is seizing artwork from its occupation zone of Germany as war reparations. Meanwhile, Colonel Wegner is systematically destroying whole art caches. Eventually, the team has some success, as it discovers at least one mine hiding over 16,000 art pieces. In addition, the team captures the entire gold reserves of the Nazi German national treasury. Finally, as the war ends in May 1945, the team finds a mine in Austria that appears to have been demolished, and the Soviets will be there in hours. Discovering that the entrances were actually blocked by the locals to prevent the Nazis from destroying the contents, the team evacuates as much artwork as possible, including sculptures, the Ghent Altarpiece, and the Madonna and Child, before the Soviets arrive. Afterwards, Stokes reports back to President Truman that the team has recovered vast quantities of artwork and various other culturally significant items. As he requests to stay in Europe to oversee further searching and restoration, Truman asks Stokes if his efforts were worth the lives of the men he lost. He says they were. Truman then asks if, thirty years from then, anyone will remember that these men died for a piece of art. In the final scene, set in 1977, the elderly Stokes replies "Yeah", while he takes his grandson to see Michelangelo's Bruges Madonna. Cast George Clooney as Lieutenant Frank Stokes, loosely based on George L. Stout Nick Clooney plays an aged Stokes Matt Damon as Lieutenant James Granger, loosely based on James Rorimer Bill Murray as Sergeant Richard Campbell, loosely based on Ralph Warner Hammett and Robert K. Posey John Goodman as Sergeant Walter Garfield, loosely based on Walker Hancock Jean Dujardin as 2nd Lieutenant Jean-Claude Clermont Bob Balaban as Private Preston Savitz, loosely based on Lincoln Kirstein Hugh Bonneville as 2nd Lieutenant Donald Jeffries, loosely based on Ronald E. Balfour Cate Blanchett as Claire Simone, loosely based on Rose Valland Serge Hazanavicius as René Armand, loosely based on Jacques Jaujard Sam Hazeldine as Colonel Langton Dimitri Leonidas as Private Sam Epstein, loosely based on Harry L. Ettlinger Grant Heslov as the Army Field Surgeon Miles Jupp as Major Fielding Justus von Dohnányi as Viktor Stahl, loosely based on Kurt von Behr Holger Handtke as Colonel Wegner Zahari Baharov as Major Elya, a Red Army officer tasked with finding artworks stolen by the Nazis. Production Development A co-production between Columbia Pictures (in association with 20th Century Fox) and Germany's Studio Babelsberg, the film was funded by the German Federal Film Fund (DFFF) with €8.5 million, Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg as well as Medien- und Filmgesellschaft Baden-Württemberg. Casting was held in February 2013 for thousands of extras for the military scenes. Filming Principal photography began in early March 2013, at the Babelsberg Studios in Potsdam, Germany, in the Berlin-Brandenburg region, and the Harz. The mines around Bad Grund, particularly the Wiemannsbucht and the Grube Hilfe Gottes, were used in the filming of outdoor scenes. Other outdoor locations were the towns of Lautenthal, Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Goslar, Halberstadt, Merseburg and Osterwieck. Some of the scenes, including flights and American war base footage, were filmed at Imperial War Museum Duxford, Cambridgeshire, UK. A farm in Ashford in Kent was also used. Filming was scheduled to last until the end of June 2013, wrapping up in Rye, East Sussex. Release The film was originally set to.... Discover the Robert M Edsel Bret Witter popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Robert M Edsel Bret Witter books.