Darkest Hour (2017)
- The original script for Darkest Hour was written over a decade before production finally began in 2017.
- Many of the practical effects used in the climax were achieved without any CGI.
- Before Gary Oldman was cast, several major A-list stars turned down the lead role because they felt the script was too risky.
Darkest Hour is a 2017 British war drama directed by Joe Wright. Gary Oldman delivers a towering, Academy Award-winning performance as Winston Churchill during the early days of World War II in May 1940, as the newly appointed Prime Minister faces pressure from his own War Cabinet โ particularly Lord Halifax played by Stephen Dillane and Neville Chamberlain played by Ronald Pickup โ to negotiate a peace treaty with Adolf Hitler as the British Expeditionary Force is trapped at Dunkirk and Nazi Germany appears unstoppable. Gary Oldman's transformation was one of the most remarkable in acting history โ buried under prosthetic makeup by Kazuhiro Tsuji that required three and a half hours to apply daily, Oldman was physically unrecognizable yet captured Churchill's mannerisms, vocal cadence, and emotional complexity with extraordinary precision.
The film earned $150 million worldwide on a $30 million budget. Darkest Hour was released the same year as Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk, and the two films provided complementary perspectives on the same historical crisis.
