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Cultural depictions of Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill as depicted in culture From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Named the Greatest Briton of all time in a 2002 poll, and widely regarded as being among the most influential people in British history, Winston Churchill has been regularly portrayed in film, television, radio and other media. The depictions range from minor character to the biographical centerpiece, exceeding 30 films, more than two dozen television shows, several stage productions, and countless books.

Winston Churchill in his honorary air commodore's uniform, c. 1940

Film

Major biographical films

Below are films which serve as major biographical portrayals of Churchill, as opposed to other films which mention Churchill only as one part of a separate or secondary plotline.

Table of films

More information Year, Country ...
YearCountryTitleActorNotes
1935Royal CavalcadeC.M. Hallard
1941Ohm KrugerOtto Wernicke
1943Mission to MoscowDudley Field Malone
1949Stalingradskaya bitva IViktor Stanitsyn
1950The Lights of Baku
The Fall of Berlin
1951An American in ParisDudley Field Malone
1952Nezabyvaemyy god 1919 (Unforgettable 1919)Viktor Stanitsyn
1956The Man Who Never WasPeter SellersVoice only
1960The Siege of Sidney StreetJimmy Sangster
1965Operation CrossbowPatrick Wymark
1970 LiberationYuri Durov
1972Young WinstonSimon Ward
1973The Battle of SutjeskaOrson Welles
Days of BetrayalJan Vitek
1976The Eagle Has LandedLeigh DilleyPlays a stand-in for the real Churchill
1978Picassos äventyrSune Mangs
1979Sekret EnigmyJózef Zacharewicz
1983Le Bourreau des cœursRené Douglas
1984Katastrofa w GibraltarzeWlodzimierz Wiszniewski
1987Jane and the Lost CityRichard Huggett
1989Casablanca ExpressJohn Evans
1990 StalingradRonald Lacey
1994Caro dolce amoreJohn Evans
2000Shaheed Uddham Singh: Alais Ram Mohammad Singh AzadJoe Lamb
2002Two Men Went to WarDavid Ryall
2004Churchill: The Hollywood YearsChristian Slater
2005AllegianceMel Smith
2007Sinking of the Lusitania: Terror at SeaMartin Le MaitreDocudrama
2009 Inglourious BasterdsRod Taylor
2010The King's SpeechTimothy Spall
ParadoxAlan C. Peterson
L'Appel du 18 JuinChristian RodskaTV Movie
2012FDR: American Badass!Paul Willson
The ABCs of DeathTorgny Gerhard Aanderaa"H is for Hydro-Electric Diffusion"
Bad AssTyler Tuione
2015Queen of the DesertChristopher Fulford
2017ChurchillBrian Cox
Darkest HourGary OldmanWon Academy Award for Best Actor
Viceroy's HouseGerry George
The Mystery of the BritannicGeorge FokinDocumentary
2018SuffragetteRay Burnet
The Battle for Britain's HeroesGerry George
2019The Professor and the MadmanBrendan Patricks
Operation CiceroGerry George
2020The Good TraitorNicholas Blane
2021Sardar UdhamTom Hudson
Audience u královnyVladislav Benes
Operation MincemeatSimon Russell Beale
2024 The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare Rory Kinnear
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Television

Major biographical tv shows and tv movies

Below are shows and films on television which serve as major biographical portrayals of Churchill, as opposed to other films which mention Churchill only as one part of a separate plotline.

Table of television films


More information Year, Country ...
YearCountryTitleActorNotes
1960–1963The Valiant YearsRichard BurtonDocumentary
1974Jennie: Lady Randolph ChurchillWarren ClarkeEpisode "Lady Randolph"
The Gathering StormRichard Burton
1975Days of HopeLeo Brittthis is a relatively negative portrayal of Churchill that highlights his attitude towards the coal miners during the strikes of 1921 and 1926
Edward the SeventhChristopher Strauli
1977Eleanor and Franklin: The White House YearsArthur Gould-Porter
1978Edward & Mrs. SimpsonWensley Pithey
1979Churchill and the GeneralsTimothy West
1981The Life and Times of David Lloyd GeorgeWilliam Hootkins
1983Winston Churchill: The Wilderness YearsRobert Hardy
The Winds of WarHoward Lang
1983Number 10Terence Harvey
1984The Last BastionTimothy West
1986Lord Mountbatten: The Last ViceroyMalcolm Terris
1988The Woman He LovedRobert Hardy
War and Remembrance
1989Bomber Harris
1991'Allo 'Allo!John James EvansonEpisode "Up the Crick Without a Piddle"
The TreatyJulian Fellowes
1992A Dangerous Man: Lawrence After ArabiaMichael Cochrane
The Young Indiana Jones ChroniclesJulian Fellowes
1994World War II: When Lions RoaredBob Hoskins
1995HiroshimaTimothy West
Annie: A Royal Adventure!David King
1998MosleyHugh Simon
2002Bertie and ElizabethDavid Ryall
The Gathering StormAlbert FinneyWon Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie
2004DunkirkSimon Russell Beale
Ike: Countdown to D-DayIan Mune
2005Wallis and EdwardDavid Calder
2006Agatha Christie's MarpleThe Sittaford MysteryRobert Hardy
2006Above and BeyondJoss Ackland
2008Family GuySeth MacFarlaneEpisode "Road to Germany"
2009Into the StormBrendan GleesonWon Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie
2009–presentHorrible HistoriesJim Howick, Jalaal Hartley
2010–2011Doctor WhoIan McNeiceEpisodes "The Beast Below", "Victory of the Daleks", "The Pandorica Opens", "The Wedding of River Song"
2012TitanicColm Gormley
Titanic: Blood and SteelRobert Whitelock
2013Murdoch MysteriesThomas HowesEpisode "Winston's Lost Night"
2013–2014Peaky BlindersAndy Nyman, Richard McCabe, Neil Maskell
201437 DaysNicholas Asbury
The World WarsIan Beyts, Tom Vickers
2015Up the WomenHarry PeacockEpisode "Train"
2016Churchill's SecretMichael Gambon
The CrownJohn LithgowWon Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series[2]
Super Science FriendsAdam Shaheen
Drunk HistoryLouie AndersonEpisode "The Roosevelts"
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Theatre

Music

Radio

  • Peter Sellers included Churchill as his standard PM for The Goon Show. Churchill is depicted as he was during World War II. In The Goon Show, he is of course treated humorously, having a very African foreign secretary called Basil (played by Ray Ellington in Red Bladder mode). In addition he is responsible for supporting Neddie Seagoon's harebrained plans for long-range, jet-propelled guided NAAFI's, atomic dustbins, and throwing batter puddings at Clement Attlee.
  • Churchill's Other Lives, documentary series, played by Roger Allam (2011)

Literature

There are various alternative history works depicting a Nazi German victory or an otherwise widely different course of WWII posit various ultimate fates for Churchill:

  • In Len Deighton's 1978 SS-GB, Churchill refuses to escape Britain even when Nazi victory is certain. He is captured by the Nazis and executed, at his last moment defiantly making the V for Victory sign. In Len Deighton's 1981 XPD A group of former SS officers attempt to seize power in West Germany, in which they intend to publish some wartime documents about a secret meeting between Churchill and Hitler in June 1940.
  • In James P. Hogan's 1985 The Proteus Operation, Lord Halifax cravenly surrenders to the Nazis without fighting. Churchill, holding no official position of any kind, organizes some of his neighbors for a foredoomed defiance, confronting the German soldiers who arrive in their countryside with an assortment of shotguns and all of them getting killed. Time travelers from a bleak world of the 1970s return to 1939, contact Churchill and Roosevelt and provide information enabling them to do better and defeat the Nazis, creating the history we know.
  • In Leo Rutman's 1990 Clash of Eagles, Churchill escapes via the Bahamas. When the Nazis follow up their conquest of Britain with an invasion of the US, occupying New York City and much of the East Coast, the exile Churchill urges the Americans to go on resisting.
  • A similar role is given to Churchill also in the Nazi-dominated 1960s of Robert Harris' 1992 Fatherland. Churchill and most of the British royal family escape to Canada where he leads a Government in exile.
  • In Harry Turtledove's Worldwar series (1994–2004), in 1942 Extraterrestrials invaded Earth, forcing humans to stop fighting each other and unite to face the common threat. Churchill managers to beat off a large scale Extraterrestrial invasion of Britain, but must concede the reptile invaders – who prefer warm climates – in permanent occupation of most of the British Empire.
  • Harry Turtledove's Southern Victory series (1997–2007) is based on an earlier diversion from the history we know – the Confederacy winning the American Civil War and from 1862 becoming a fully recognized sovereign nation. In this history, the Entente is defeated by the Central Powers in the First Great War of 1914–1917. In 1935, the Conservatives led by Churchill go into coalition with the Silvershirts and by 1941, they declare war on a Germany still ruled by a Kaizer. Under these circumstances, Churchill ends up in an uneasy alliance with a Hitler-analogue – Jake Featherston, demagogue dictator of the Confederacy, who is involved in a wholesale genocide of Blacks.
  • In Harry Turtledove's 2003 In the Presence of Mine Enemies, Churchill and the remnants of the British Army resist to the bitter end, ultimately falling to defeat, though the exact circumstances of Churchill's death are undescribed.
  • In Harry Turtledove's The War That Came Early series (2009–2014), elements in Neville Chamberlain's government are receptive to Rudolf Hess's proposal that Britain stop fighting the Nazis and rather join them in a war against the Soviet Union. When Churchill, the war minister, objects, he is killed in a suspicious car accident.
  • In Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen's 1995 1945, Germany did not declare war on the US in 1941. In 1945 two separate wars end, the US victorious against Japan but the Nazis victorious in Europe. Britain remains unoccupied but its situation is precarious. In 1946 Churchill faces a land invasion of Britain, headed by Erwin Rommel, and bombings much more severe than the 1940 London Blitz, and is desperately begging for American help
  • Winston's War (2002) – Michael Dobbs
  • Never Surrender (2003) – Michael Dobbs
  • Churchill's Hour (2004) – Michael Dobbs
  • Churchill's Triumph (2005) – Michael Dobbs
  • In Jo Walton's Farthing (2006) Rudolf Hess's flight to Scotland in May 1941 manages to successfully negotiate peace terms with the United Kingdom, mainly because the United States never gets involved with the conflict, this is because Imperial Japan never attacks Pearl Harbor, resulting in Churchill being removed from office and the British Empire pulling out of the war.
  • In C. J. Sansom's 2012 Dominion, in the 1950s in which the Nazis occupy Great Britain through a puppet government, an ageing Churchill is leader-in-exile of the British resistance movement.
  • In Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle (1962) Where the Axis Powers won World War II. The story occurs in 1962, fifteen years after the end of the war in 1947, and depicts the political intrigues between Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany as they rule the partitioned United States. The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, by Hawthorne Abendsen, the story within the story, United Kingdom contributes more to the Allied war effort, leading to joint British and Russian forces capturing Berlin, the British Empire becomes militaristic, anti-American post war, and begins a cold war against the United States that the empire eventually wins, Churchill remains Prime Minister until his death.
  • In Guy Saville's The Afrika Reich (2011) the United Kingdom is defeated by Nazi Germany during the Dunkirk Campaign, Churchill resigned, Lord Halifax becomes Prime Minister and signs a non-aggression pact with Germany ending the war.
  • In Guy Walters' The Leader (2003), King Edward VIII never abdicates, marries Wallis Simpson, leading to Oswald Mosley winning the 1935 election, allying the United Kingdom with the Axis powers. Churchill and other anti-Nazi politicians are imprisoned on the Isle of Man.
  • In Murray Davies Collaborator (2004) Nazis conquer the United Kingdom and the Irish Free State, Churchill along with the British Royal Family flee to Canada where he leads a government in exile.
  • In Philip Kerr's Hitler's Peace (2005) Adolf Hitler, realising he is going to lose the war, tries to negotiate peace with Franklin D. Roosevelt, Joseph Stalin, Churchill refuses to listen and will only accept unconditional surrender.
  • In Mike Resnick's alternate history anthology Alternate Tyrants (1997). In the short story "Children of Tears" by Adrienne Gormley After Boer uprisings in South Africa during World War II, Churchill imposes extreme measures throughout the British Empire with special attention being given to suppressing Indian nationalists such as Mohandas K. Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, and Vinoba Bhave.
  • In Kim Newman's The Bloody Red Baron (1995) Count Dracula is Supreme Commander of the Central Powers armies during World War I, Churchill who is a vampire in the world, is a member of Lord Ruthven's cabinet.
  • In John Birmingham Axis of Time trilogy, a US-led multinational task force of advanced warships and submarines in 2021 deployment, the Nagoya conducts a full-scale test of its new systems but there is a catastrophic accident—the experiment generates a massive rift in the time-space continuum, destroying the Nagoya and sending most of the fleet back in time to 1942. In the second novel, Designated Targets (2005), Churchill prepares for "Operation Sea Dragon," an attempt to invade across the English Channel. Despite heavy losses sustained by the RAF and the damage to Biggin Hill, the Germans lost most of their navy. Any airborne units that reach England are quickly isolated and crushed by the Allies.

Miscellaneous

References

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