The Thin Red Line is a 1998 American war film written and directed by Terrence Malick. Based on the novel by James Jones, it tells a fictional story of the Battle of Mount Austen in World War II. It portrays soldiers of C Company, 2nd Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division, played by Sean Penn, Jim Caviezel, Nick Nolte, Elias Koteas and Ben Chaplin. The title echoes a line from Rudyard Kipling's poem "Tommy," from Barrack-Room Ballads, in which he calls foot soldiers "the thin red line of 'eroes".

The film marked Malick's return to filmmaking after a 20-year absence. It features a large ensemble cast, including performances and cameos by notable actors, including Sean Penn, Adrien Brody, George Clooney, John Cusack, Jared Leto, and John Travolta. Reportedly, the first assembled cut took seven months to edit and ran five hours. By the final cut, all footage of the performances by Billy Bob Thornton, Martin Sheen, Gary Oldman, Bill Pullman, Lukas Haas, Jason Patric, Viggo Mortensen and Mickey Rourke had been removed. The film was scored by Hans Zimmer, John Powell and Klaus Badelt, and shot by John Toll.

The Thin Red Line may refer to:

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Terrence Frederick Malick (born November 30, 1943) is an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. In a career spanning over four decades, Malick has directed five feature films.

Malick has received consistent regard for his work. Malick was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Director for The Thin Red Line and The Tree of Life and Best Adapted Screenplay for The Thin Red Line, as well as winning the Golden Bear at the 49th Berlin International Film Festival for The Thin Red Line and the Palme d'Or at the 64th Cannes Film Festival for The Tree of Life.

Terrence Malick was born in Ottawa, Illinois or Waco, Texas, the son of Irene (née Thompson) and Emil A. Malick, a geologist. His paternal grandparents were Assyrian Christian Lebanese immigrants. Waco is one of the settings of his film The Tree of Life. Malick attended St. Stephen's Episcopal School in Austin, Texas while his family lived in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. Malick had two younger brothers: Chris and Larry. Larry Malick was a guitarist who went to study in Spain with Segovia in the late 1960s. In 1968, Larry intentionally broke his own hands due to pressure over his musical studies. Emil went to Spain to help Larry, but Larry died shortly after, apparently committing suicide.

James Patrick Caviezel, Jr.  /kəˈviːzəl/; (born September 26, 1968), known professionally as Jim Caviezel is an American film and television actor. He played Jesus Christ in the 2004 film, The Passion of the Christ. He has also played Bobby Jones in Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius, Detective John Sullivan in Frequency, Edmond Dantès in The Count of Monte Cristo, Catch in Angel Eyes, Carroll Oerstadt in Déjà Vu and Private Witt in The Thin Red Line. He stars on the CBS crime thriller Person of Interest as John Reese.

Caviezel was born in Mount Vernon, Washington. His mother, Margaret (née Lavery), is a former stage actress and homemaker, and his father, James Patrick Caviezel, Sr., is a chiropractor. He has a younger brother, Timothy, and three sisters, Ann, Amy, and Erin, and was raised in a tight-knit Roman Catholic family in Conway, Washington. His surname is of Romansh origin; his father is of Slovak (maternal) and Swiss (paternal) descent, while his mother is of Irish descent. Caviezel's father attended UCLA and played basketball for coach John Wooden, prompting all the Caviezel siblings to play the sport.

Sean Justin Penn (born August 17, 1960) is an American actor, screenwriter and film director, also known for his left-wing political and social activism (including humanitarian work). He is a two-time Academy Award winner for his roles in Mystic River (2003) and Milk (2008), as well as the recipient of a Golden Globe Award for the former and a Screen Actors Guild Award for the latter.

Penn began his acting career in television with a brief appearance in a 1974 episode of Little House on the Prairie, directed by his father Leo Penn. Following his film debut in 1981's Taps and a diverse range of film roles in the 1980s, Penn emerged as a prominent leading actor with the 1995 drama film Dead Man Walking, for which he earned his first Academy Award nomination and the Best Actor Award at the Berlin Film Festival. Penn received another two Oscar nominations for Sweet and Lowdown (1999) and I Am Sam (2001), before winning his first Academy Award for Best Actor in 2003 for Mystic River and a second one in 2008 for Milk. He has also won a Best Actor Award of the Cannes Film Festival for She's So Lovely (1997), and two Best Actor Awards at the Venice Film Festival for Hurlyburly (1998) and 21 Grams (2003).