Watership Down (1978)

Actors: Roy Kinnear (actor), John Bennett (actor), Denholm Elliott (actor), Harry Andrews (actor), Richard Briers (actor), Joss Ackland (actor), Ralph Richardson (actor), Nigel Hawthorne (actor), Michael Hordern (actor), John Hurt (actor), Zero Mostel (actor), Terry Rawlings (editor), Derek Griffiths (actor), Terence Rigby (actor), Hannah Gordon (actress),

Plot: Based upon Richard Adam's novel of the same title, this animated feature delves into the surprisingly violent world of a warren of rabbits as they seek to establish a new colony free of tyranny and human intervention. Frightening and bloody in some scenes. Not recommended for young children.

Keywords: allegory, ambush, animal-attack, animal-death, based-on-novel, beast-fable, bird, bird-attack, blockbuster, blood
Genres: Adventure, Animation, Drama,
Taglines: All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies, and when they catch you, they will kill you... but first they must catch you.

Quotes:

Blackberry: Men have always hated us.::Holly: No. They just destroyed the warren because we were in their way.::Fiver: They'll never rest until they've spoiled the earth.

[last lines]::Narrator: All the world will be your enemy, Prince of a Thousand enemies. And when they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you; digger, listener, runner, Prince with the swift warning. Be cunning, and full of tricks, and your people will never be destroyed.

Hazel: Where are you going?::Fiver: Away, to the hills.::Hazel: By yourself, alone? You'll die!::Fiver: You're closer to death than I am.

Bigwig: Hazel? It is Hazel, isn't it?::Hazel: It is.::Bigwig: What are you doing here?::Hazel: [Motioning to Fiver] We want to see the chief rabbit, Bigwig.::Bigwig: We? You mean he wants to see him too?::Hazel: Yes.::Fiver: I must.::Bigwig: What on earth for?::Fiver: Well, I...::Holly: Bigwig? What do they want?::Bigwig: They want to see the chief rabbit.::Holly: What for?::Fiver: Well, I...::Holly: Send them away.::Bigwig: I'll take care of it, Holly. [Turns back to Hazel]::Hazel: Look, Bigwig, when have I EVER asked to see the chief rabbit?::Bigwig: [Thinks over, hesitating] All right, all right. Wait here. [Goes into warren, speaks to Chief Rabbit for a moment, comes back up] Come along then. Though I'll probably get my ears chewed off for this...

Hazel: [to the cat] You look hungry! Rats getting too clever, I suppose?

Violet: [Running from a badger] It had just killed. I saw blood on it's lips.::Dandelion: Lucky for us it had, otherwise it might have been quicker!

Pipkin: [while all are digging in the rain] What's happening back home, I wonder? Think, when we lived in our own burrows? Dry, soft, warm bodies...::Dandelion: [to Hazel] Look, we can't go on like this.::Silver: It keeps getting worse and worse wherever we go. Where ARE we going?::Hazel: It won't be much longer, then we can all rest.::Silver: How MUCH longer?::Pipkin: We never should have left.::Blackberry: Suppose Fiver's all wrong?::Pipkin: We want to go back and find out.::Hazel: Go back? After all we've been through?::Bigwig: And probably get killed for wounding Captain Holly? An Owsla officer? Talk sense, for Frith's sake!

Bigwig: [Mocking Fiver's prophecies] I'm in a mist! Everything's bad! Oh, I've got a funny feeling in my toe! *Hraka*!

Dandelion: [looking at the countryside from Watership Down] O Frith on the hills! He made it all for us!::Hazel: Frith may have made it, but Fiver found it.

Hazel: Lord Frith, I know you've looked after us well, and it's wrong to ask even more of you. But my people are in terrible danger, and so I would like to make a bargain with you. My life in return for theirs.::Frith: There is not a day or night that a doe offers her life for her kittens, or some honest captain of Owsla, his life for his chief. But there is no bargain: what is, is what must be.