Title from disc surface.

Based on the novel "Slaughterhouse-Five or the Children's Crusade" by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Originally produced as an American motion picture in 1972.

Special features: Trailer [original theatrical trailer] (5 min.).

Classroom use may be subject to licensing restrictions.

Director of photography, Miroslav Ondricek ; film editor, Dede Allen ; music, Glenn Gould ; production design by Henry Bumstead.

Michael Sacks (Billy Pilgrim), Ron Leibman (Paul Lazzaro), Eugene Roche (Derby), Sharon Gans (Valencia), Valerie Perrine (Montana Wildhack), Holly Near (Barbara), Perry King (Robert), Kevin Conway (Weary), Friedrich Ledebur (German leader), Nick Belle (Young German guard), Sorrell Booke (Lionel Merble), Roberts Blossom (Wild Bob Cody), John Dehner (Rumfoord), Gary Waynesmith (Stanley), Richard Schaal (Campbell), Gilmer McCormick (Lily), Stan Gottlieb (Hobo), Karl Otto Alberty (German guard, Group two).

Billy Pilgrim has become unstuck in time. An otherwise typical soldier in WWII, without warning, he jumps back and forth in his life with no control over where he is going next. Sometimes he is an ophthalmologist at home in suburbia; deep in World War II Europe, surviving the Allied bombing of Dresden; on the planet Tralfamadore, being held captive by aliens in an intergalactic zoo--accompanied by a porn star. In the end, he learns that the many tragic and sometimes funny ironies of life--the randomness of tragedy, the cruelty and senselessness of war, and man's complete lack of control over his fate--remain constant.

MPAA rating: Rated R.

DVD; Region 1, NTSC; Dolby Digital 2.0 mono; anamorphic widescreen, presentation aspect ratio 1.85:1.

In English with optional subtitles in French or Spanish; closed-captioned for the hearing impaired.

Winner, George Roy Hill, of the Jury Prize at the 1972 Festival International du Film de Cannes.