Backdrop fallback

Battle of Britain

Battle of Britain

Share

Battle of Britain

"Never was so much owed by so many to so few."

1969

2h 12m

6.8(362 votes)

War

History

Action

Drama

Overview

In 1940, the Royal Air Force fights a desperate battle against the might of the Luftwaffe for control of the skies over Britain, thus preventing an attempted Nazi invasion.

Where to Watch

Stream

MGM Plus Amazon Channel

Links & Resources

Social & External

Production Companies

United Artists

The people behind it

Cast & crew

10 featured cast members

Starring

Harry Andrews

Harry Andrews

Senior Civil Servant

Michael Caine

Michael Caine

Squadron Leader Canfield

Trevor Howard

Trevor Howard

Air Vice Marshal Keith Park

Curd Jürgens

Curd Jürgens

Baron von Richter

Ian McShane

Ian McShane

Sgt. Pilot Andy

Kenneth More

Kenneth More

Group Capt. Baker

Laurence Olivier

Laurence Olivier

Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding

Nigel Patrick

Nigel Patrick

Group Capt. Hope

Christopher Plummer

Christopher Plummer

Squadron Leader Colin Harvey

Michael Redgrave

Michael Redgrave

Air Vice Marshal Evill

Creative team

Directed by: Guy Hamilton
Written by: James Kennaway
Wilfred Greatorex
Produced by: Harry Saltzman
Benjamin Fisz

Similar Movies

The Great Love

The Great Love

The attractive Oberleutnant Paul Wendlandt is stationed in North Africa as a fighter pilot. While in Berlin to deliver a report he is given a day's leave, and on the stage of the cabaret theatre "Skala" sees the popular Danish singer Hanna Holberg. For Paul it is love at first sight. When Hanna visits friends after the end of the performance, he follows her, and speaks to her in the U-Bahn. After the party in her friends' flat, he accompanies her home and chance throws them further together when an air raid warning forces them to take cover in the air raid shelter. Hanna reciprocates Paul's feelings, but after a night spent together Paul has to return immediately to the front. There now follows a whole series of misunderstandings, and one missed opportunity after another. While Hanna waits in vain for some sign of life from Paul, he is flying on missions in North Africa. When he tries to visit her in her Berlin flat, she is giving a Christmas concert in Paris.

The Magnificent Seven

The Magnificent Seven

An oppressed Mexican peasant village hires seven gunfighters to help defend their homes.

Spartacus

Spartacus

The rebellious Thracian Spartacus, born and raised a slave, is sold to Gladiator trainer Batiatus. After weeks of being trained to kill for the arena, Spartacus turns on his owners and leads the other slaves in rebellion. As the rebels move from town to town, their numbers swell as escaped slaves join their ranks. Under the leadership of Spartacus, they make their way to southern Italy, where they will cross the sea and return to their homes.

Seven Years in Tibet

Seven Years in Tibet

Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer journeys to the Himalayas without his family to head an expedition in 1939. But when World War II breaks out, the arrogant Harrer falls into Allied forces' hands as a prisoner of war. He escapes with a fellow detainee and makes his way to Lhasa, Tibet, where he meets the 14-year-old Dalai Lama, whose friendship ultimately transforms his outlook on life.

The Vizconde Massacre: God, Help Us!

The Vizconde Massacre: God, Help Us!

A gruesome look into the infamous and seemingly neverending 1991 Vizconde murder case in the Philippines where a woman, her teen daughter, and a 6-year-old were all viciously stabbed to death while the husband was away in America on business.

King of the Night

King of the Night

In the 1940s, São Paulo nightlife is the setting for Tezinho's love affairs. In love with Aninha, he needs to get away from the girl and ends up getting involved with other women, including an obsessive relationship with a prostitute.

Heavenly Creatures

Heavenly Creatures

Precocious teenager Juliet moves to New Zealand with her family and soon befriends the quiet, brooding Pauline through their shared love of fantasy and literature. This friendship gradually develops into an intense and obsessive bond.

Sommersby

Sommersby

Set in the South just after the US Civil War, Laurel Sommersby is just managing to work the farm without her husband, believed killed in battle. By all accounts, Jack Sommersby was not a pleasant man, thus when he suddenly returns, Laurel has mixed emotions. It appears that Jack has changed a great deal, leading some people to believe that this is not actually Jack but an imposter. Laurel herself is unsure, but willing to take the man into her home, and perhaps later into her heart.

Letters from Iwo Jima

Letters from Iwo Jima

The story of the battle of Iwo Jima between the United States and Imperial Japan during World War II, as told from the perspective of the Japanese who fought it.

Die Hard 2

Die Hard 2

One year after his heroics in Los Angeles, John McClane is an off-duty cop who is the wrong guy in the wrong place at the wrong time. On a snowy Christmas Eve, as he waits for his wife's plane to land at Washington Dulles International Airport, terrorists take over the air traffic control system in a plot to free a South American army general and drug smuggler being flown into the US to face drug charges. It's now up to McClane to take on the terrorists, while coping with an inept airport police chief, an uncooperative anti-terrorist squad, and the life of his wife and everyone else trapped in planes circling overhead.

Brubaker

Brubaker

The new warden of a small prison farm in Arkansas tries to clean it up of corruption after initially posing as an inmate.

Rope

Rope

Two young men attempt to prove they committed the perfect murder by hosting a dinner party for the family of a classmate they just strangled to death.

Victoria the Great

Victoria the Great

The film biography of Queen Victoria focusing initially on the early years of her reign with her marriage to Prince Albert and her subsequent rule after Albert's death in 1861.

Enemy at the Gates

Enemy at the Gates

A Russian and a German sniper play a game of cat-and-mouse during the Battle of Stalingrad in WWII.

Black Hawk Down

Black Hawk Down

When U.S. Rangers and an elite Delta Force team attempt to kidnap two underlings of a Somali warlord, their Black Hawk helicopters are shot down, and the Americans suffer heavy casualties, facing intense fighting from the militia on the ground.

Saving Private Ryan

Saving Private Ryan

As U.S. troops storm the beaches of Normandy, three brothers lie dead on the battlefield, with a fourth trapped behind enemy lines. Ranger captain John Miller and seven men are tasked with penetrating German-held territory and bringing the boy home.

Judgment at Nuremberg

Judgment at Nuremberg

In 1947, four German judges who served on the bench during the Nazi regime face a military tribunal to answer charges of crimes against humanity. Chief Justice Haywood hears evidence and testimony not only from lead defendant Ernst Janning and his defense attorney Hans Rolfe, but also from the widow of a Nazi general, an idealistic U.S. Army captain and reluctant witness Irene Wallner.

Planet of the Apes

Planet of the Apes

Astronaut Taylor crash lands on a distant planet ruled by apes who use a primitive race of humans for experimentation and sport. Soon Taylor finds himself among the hunted, his life in the hands of a benevolent chimpanzee scientist.

Ankara Express

Ankara Express

The love story between German Hilda, who came to Turkey to spy during World War II, and Seyfi, who worked in the Turkish secret agency.

Spy Brothers

Spy Brothers

An espionage story set in Türkiye and Germany during the Second World War.

Recommended Movies

Dunkirk

Dunkirk

The story of the miraculous evacuation of Allied soldiers from Belgium, Britain, Canada and France, who were cut off and surrounded by the German army from the beaches and harbour of Dunkirk between May 26th and June 4th 1940 during World War II.

The First of the Few

The First of the Few

This 1942 fictionalized biopic chronicles the true story of how two of the most remarkable men in aviation history - visionary Spitfire designer R.J. Mitchell and his test pilot Geoffrey Crisp - designed a streamlined monoplane that led to the development of the Spitfire.

Von Richthofen and Brown

Von Richthofen and Brown

Spend time on both sides of World War I, partly with German flying ace Baron Manfred Von Richthofen (John Phillip Law), aka "The Red Baron," and his colorful "flying circus" of Fokker fighter planes, during the time from his arrival at the war front to his death in combat. On the other side is Roy Brown of the Royal Air Force, sometimes credited with shooting Richthofen down.

Greyhound

Greyhound

A first-time captain leads a convoy of allied ships carrying thousands of soldiers across the treacherous waters of the "Black Pit" to the front lines of WWII. With no air cover protection for 5 days, the captain and his convoy must battle the surrounding enemy Nazi U-boats in order to give the allies a chance to win the war.

In Which We Serve

In Which We Serve

The story of the HMS Torrin, from its construction to its sinking in the Mediterranean during action in World War II. The ship’s first and only commanding officer is Captain E.V. Kinross, who trains his men not only to be loyal to him and the country, but—most importantly—to themselves.

Midway

Midway

The story of the Battle of Midway, and the leaders and soldiers who used their instincts, fortitude and bravery to overcome massive odds.

Red Tails

Red Tails

The story of the Tuskegee Airmen, the first African-American pilots to fly in a combat squadron during World War II.

Aces High

Aces High

The first World War is in its third year and aerial combat above the Western Front is consuming the nation's favored children at an appalling rate. By early 1917, the average life-span of a British pilot is less than a fortnight. Such losses place a fearsome strain on Gresham, commanding officer of the squadron. Aces High recreates the early days of the Royal Flying Corps with some magnificently staged aerial battles, and sensitive direction presents a moving portrayal of the futilities of war.

The Longest Day

The Longest Day

The retelling of June 6, 1944, from the perspectives of the Germans, US, British, Canadians, and the Free French. Marshall Erwin Rommel, touring the defenses being established as part of the Reich's Atlantic Wall, notes to his officers that when the Allied invasion comes they must be stopped on the beach. "For the Allies as well as the Germans, it will be the longest day"

Memphis Belle

Memphis Belle

The "Memphis Belle" is a World War II bomber, piloted by a young crew on dangerous bombing raids into Europe. The crew only have to make one more bombing raid before they have finished their duty and can go home. In the briefing before their last flight, the crew discover that the target for the day is Bremen.

Sink the Bismarck!

Sink the Bismarck!

The story of the breakout of the German battleship Bismarck—accompanied by the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen—during the early days of World War II. The Bismarck and her sister ship, Tirpitz, were the most powerful battleships in the European theater of World War II. The British Navy must find and destroy Bismarck before it can escape into the convoy lanes to inflict severe damage on the cargo shipping which was the lifeblood of the British Isles. With eight 15 inch guns, it was capable of destroying every ship in a convoy while remaining beyond the range of all Royal Navy warships.

The Last Rifleman

The Last Rifleman

A WWII veteran escapes his care home in Northern Ireland and embarks on an arduous but inspirational journey to France to attend the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings, finding the courage to face the ghosts of his past.

The Cruel Sea

The Cruel Sea

At the start of World War II, Cmdr. Ericson is assigned to convoy escort HMS Compass Rose with inexperienced officers and men just out of training. The winter seas make life miserable enough, but the men must also harden themselves to rescuing survivors of U-Boat attacks, while seldom able to strike back. Traumatic events afloat and ashore create a warm bond between the skipper and his first officer.

Midway

Midway

This war drama depicts the U.S. and Japanese forces in the naval Battle of Midway, which became a turning point for Americans during World War II.

The Blue Max

The Blue Max

A young pilot in the German air force of 1918, disliked as lower-class and unchivalrous, tries ambitiously to earn the medal offered for 20 kills.

The Sea Wolves

The Sea Wolves

A German spy is passing on information about the location of Allied ships in the neutral harbor of Goa, India, with catastrophic results. Unable to undertake a full military operation in the Portuguese stronghold, English intelligence brings out of retirement a crew of geriatric ex-soldiers, veterans from World War I, using their age as cover. These old soldiers are asked to take to the seas and pull off an unlikely undercover mission.

Darkest Hour

Darkest Hour

In May 1940, the fate of World War II hangs on Winston Churchill, who must decide whether to negotiate with Adolf Hitler or fight on knowing that it could mean the end of the British Empire.

A Bridge Too Far

A Bridge Too Far

The story of Operation Market Garden—a failed attempt by the allies in the latter stages of WWII to end the war quickly by securing three bridges in Holland allowing access over the Rhine into Germany. A combination of poor allied intelligence and the presence of two crack German panzer divisions meant that the final part of this operation (the bridge in Arnhem over the Rhine) was doomed to failure.

The Devil's Brigade

The Devil's Brigade

At the onset of World War II, American Lt. Col. Robert Frederick is put in charge of a unit called the 1st Special Service Force, composed of elite Canadian commandos and undisciplined American soldiers. With Maj. Alan Crown leading the Canadians and Maj. Cliff Bricker the acting head of the American contingent, there is initial tension -- but the team comes together when given a daunting mission that few would dare to attempt.

The Battle of the River Plate

The Battle of the River Plate

In the early years of the World War II, the Royal Navy is fighting a desperate battle to keep the Atlantic convoy routes open to supply the British Isles, facing the great danger posed by the many German warships, such as the Admiral Graf Spee, which are scouring the ocean for cargo ships to sink.