Their Finest

A young Welsh copywriter is hired to help write women's dialogue for a British Ministry of Information propaganda film about the Dunkirk evacuation, navigating wartime London's bombing raids and the male-dominated film industry. The production of the film-within-the-film mirrors the emotional stakes of the war itself.

The film reflects the real British Ministry of Information's wartime film propaganda efforts and the London Blitz of 1940–41, when German bombing raids killed tens of thousands and shaped daily civilian life, while morale-boosting films dramatized events like Dunkirk for public consumption.

The central characters and studio production are fictional, though grounded in the real practices of Britain's wartime Ministry of Information film unit.

With the British Expeditionary Force and French units cut off against the Channel, the Royal Navy and hundreds of civilian craft lifted the trapped armies off the beaches and mole at Dunkirk.

A German halt order and stubborn rearguard actions at Calais and along the Lys bought time. Over nine days roughly 338,000 British and Allied troops were evacuated, though nearly all heavy equipment was abandoned.

Directed by Lone Scherfig

Cast: Gemma Arterton, Sam Claflin, Bill Nighy, Jack Huston

Positioned at 1940–1941 within the Battle of France / Home Front phase of the war, as part of the Wartime propaganda filmmaking. This is entry 31 of 150 in the chronological archive.

• Ministry of Information
• wartime propaganda
• the Blitz
• Dunkirk evacuation
• women in film

• 

  Mrs. Miniver

  1939–1940

• 

  Darkest Hour

  10 May – 4 June 1940

• 

  Atonement

  1935–1940

• 

  Dunkirk

  26 May – 4 June 1940

• 

  Dunkirk

  26 May – 4 June 1940

• 

  Weekend at Dunkirk

  26 May – 4 June 1940