The Watchers (Napoleon's World)

The Watchers is a 2001 American war movie directed by Jerry Patterson and based on a book of the same name by Rodney Curry and screenplay by Aaron Goldberg. The film was set during 1953's Battle of Birmingham in the English Adventure and starred Barry Obama, Tom Brady, Jim Ames, Ryan Zegler, John Leguizamo, Nathan Fillion, Donovan McNabb and Richard Gere. While the novel was intended as a parable about race (as Obama is the first-ever black commander of an Army Ranger company) and featured relatively little violence until its end, Patterson rewrote much of the script to make it a story about a company internally divided by race relations uniting under the pressures of war.

The film was universally acclaimed and was a box office success, but despite being nominated for nine Academy Awards and being the presumptive favorite for most of its nominations, The Watchers only won the Academy Awards for Set Design, Editing, Cinematography and Sound Mixing, despite dominating the other awards ceremonies on the Hollywood awards circuit.