If Reform UK leader Nigel Farage could make one film essential viewing for young people, it would be a World War 2 classic.
Back in 2017, a tweet posted by the politician quickly went viral as he urged people to watch Dunkirk, released that year. He posted: “I urge every youngster to go out and watch #Dunkirk.”
The WW2 blockbuster, directed by Christopher Nolan, stars Barry Keoghan, Mark Rylance and Tom Hardy, as well as Fionn Whitehead and Damien Bonnard.
It tells the story of Allied soldiers from Britain, France and Belgium flanked by the German army during the war, and forced into a deadly evacuation from the battlefield.
The film has a 92% score on Rotten Tomatoes and was hailed by one critic as the “best directed film of 2017”. In total, the film received 68 award wins and took home three Oscars in the year of its release.
In response to Farage’s tweet, fans chimed in with their own opinions about the film, with one writing: “I watched Dunkirk at the weekend. It was amazing. A reminder of what our ancestors went through.”
Someone else said: “If everyone watched this film, they’d probably understand why the majority of Britain voted for a FULL Brexit. No betrayal of our fallen! We voted for a full Brexit because we love our country and want to rule it ourselves. Our servicemen gave their lives so we had that right.”
“Saw it last week in Ontario, Canada. Then went home to listen to the vinyl album of Churchill’s speech. Film very well done,” another echoed.
However, according to Farage, his favourite ever film is Christmas rom-com Love Actually – a fact he reportedly revealed to podcast host Marina Hyde.
She claimed to her co-host Richard Osman: “If he did listen to any music it would be a sort of CD that had come free on the Sunday Times in about 2001. Absolutely no interest in anything. I once interviewed him and asked him for his favourite film.
“Genuinely, he couldn’t think of the name of a movie. It took so long and it was really painful. In the end he just had to say something, and he suddenly remembered Richard Curtis as an idea and said, ‘I think it would be one of those Richard Curtis things, yeah, Love Actually.’
“It was the only one he could remember, clearly, and I was thinking, ‘Just say The Great Escape, say the Dambusters.’ It’s not hard.”