There have been hundreds of World War 2 movies over the years but only the very best get the Academy Awards attention.
On BBC iPlayer’s Film section, there are three Oscar-winning British films about the fight against the Nazis that are streaming for a limited time.
In fact, watching them together makes for a fantastic marathon to mark the 80th anniversary of VE Day this week
First up is 2010’s The King’s Speech (available for 9 days) starring Colin Firth as King George VI coping with his stammer ahead of his wartime radio broadcast upon the 1939 declaration of war.
Tom Hooper’s film, co-starring Helena Bonham Carter and Geoffrey Rush, won four Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor for Firth and Best Original Screenplay.
Next is Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk (available after broadcast on BBC Two this Saturday), which depicts the 1940 Allied evacuation of France, as Hitler continued to conquer much of Europe. The 2017 film starred an ensemble cast including Harry Styles, Tom Hardy, Kenneth Branagh, Cillian Murphy, Barry Keoghan, Mark Rylance and Michael Caine. Dunkirk was nominated for eight Academy Awards and went home with three Oscars for Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing and Best Film Editing.
We recommend following this film up with Darkest Hour (available for 26 days), which was released the same year and was also set in 1940. The movie focuses on Winston Churchill in his early days as Prime Minister during Dunkirk. Darkest Hour won two Oscars including Best Actor for Gary Oldman in the lead role.