Young Winston [Blu-ray] (1972)

Richard Attenborough’s renowned, star-studded historical biopic follows the early years of one of Britain’s most beloved and controversial figures – Winston Churchill. Writer-producer Carl Foreman (High Noon, The Bridge on the River Kwai) was approached by Churchill himself, who suggested his own book, My Early Life: A Roving Commission, would make a good film. The result is a lavish and beautifully detailed drama, with Simon Ward in the lead role, detailing Churchill’s service as a cavalry officer in India and the Sudan, as a war correspondent in the Second Boer War, and his election to Parliament at the age of 26. Forman and Attenborough assembled a sterling cast in support: Robert Shaw, Anne Bancroft, Jack Hawkins, Ian Holm, Anthony Hopkins, Patrick Magee, Edward Woodward, and John Mills add weight to Attenborough’s vision of the man and the myth.