George Clooney stars in his latest directorial effort, The Monuments Men , and you can watch the first trailer below.



The film sees Clooney’s George Stout lead a ragtag team of art historians and museum curators on a mission to save valuable artworks from Nazi destruction during World War 2.



Clooney’s assembled a crack team of collaborators in front of the camera too, including Ocean’s Eleven co-star Matt Damon, Bill Murray, John Goodman and Cate Blanchett.



The tone seems to be somewhere between the men-on-a-mission antics of The Dirty Dozen , Inglourious Basterds et al, and the weightier gravitas of more serious WW2 movies.



Watch The Monuments Men trailer below:

Clooney’s becoming a more assured director with each film, so we’ll be keeping a very close eye on this one. The Monuments Men opens in the US on 18 December 2013, before hitting the UK on 9 January 2014.



Some new images (via USA Today ) can be glimpsed below: