Top 10 British Movies Based on Real Life Events

It takes a lot of dedication to become an Olympian, and Michael Edwards certainly had that in droves. This film follows him as he tries his hand (and feet) at any number of sports, before finally settling on ski jumping – mainly because there were no other British ski jumpers to compete against. Eddie made history as the first Olympic British ski jumper in sixty years. At its heart, this is a story about how it’s the taking part that counts, since Eddie came last in every event. But making it to the Olympics at all is an achievement very few people can boast about.

2018 was the 100th anniversary of women being granted the right to vote in Britain, and it’s easy to forget that it wasn’t always this way. Luckily, the suffrage movement finally got the film it deserved in 2015. While its principle character, Maud Watts, isn’t based on any one specific historical character, and instead represents a whole slew of working-class women, other characters here are certainly real. Meryl Streep stole the show in her brief scenes as Emmeline Pankhurst, and it respectfully portrayed the martyrdom of Emily Wilding Davison at the Epsom Derby in 1912.

Actor and writer Alan Bennett found himself with some odd company in the 1970s, odd company which lived in a van on his driveway for fifteen years. This company was a homeless woman named Mary Shepherd, immortalised by Dame Maggie Smith when her story was adapted for the silver screen. When Shepherd died, Bennett decided to write a play based on her eccentric and tragic life, so that everybody would learn about this extraordinary woman – a gifted musician who changed her name and found herself living in fear of arrest.

Today, the United Kingdom has famously abolished the death penalty, and even a life imprisonment sentence is only 25 years. But it wasn’t always this way. “Dance with a Stranger” tells the story of Ruth Ellis, socialite, hostess and model, who was convicted of murdering her cheating lover. In 1955, she became the last ever person to walk onto the gallows in this country to be hanged for her crimes. And this film also elevated current household names Miranda Richardson and Rupert Everett into the limelight.

Dame Judi Dench stars in this poignant Stephen Frears film, chronicling the story of Irish woman Philomena Lee. Lee becomes pregnant aged just 18, which results in her family sending her away to a home for unwed mothers. She is then unwillingly separated from her infant son at the intervening hands of the nuns. 50-some years down the line we watch as she and journalist Martin Sixsmith (Steve Coogan) try to find her long lost son. While Philomena learns much about him, his life, and those who loved him, her search is ultimately a painful one, as he had died years prior.

There’s no shortage of British Second World War films, but this one is the most classic of all. Following the daring exploits of the Royal Air Force’s 617 Squadron as they attacked a series of dams in Nazi Germany in 1943, few films portray wartime aviators as romantically as this. It’s also more bittersweet than your standard epic, showing the conflict the pilots feel after blowing up the dams – succeeding in their mission, but killing many innocents in the process. It’s so influential it even inspired the “Star Wars” dogfighting scenes.

The aforementioned Helen Mirren has played any number of iconic roles throughout her prestigious career, but the most memorable has to be her take on Queen Elizabeth II in this 2000s drama. The film follows Queen Elizabeth in the aftermath of Princess Diana’s tragic death, after her car crashed in Paris in 1997. The Queen and Prince Philip both think Diana’s death shouldn’t be regarded as an official royal death, in contrast with the views of Prince Charles and Tony Blair who want a full, public funeral for her. This unique look into the world of the royals during an unusual and troubling time was met with much critical acclaim.

Another royal-centric film is up next: “The King’s Speech” follows King George VI’s efforts to overcome his stammer, so that he can broadcast Britain’s Declaration of War on Germany in 1939 over the radio. With Colin Firth taking on the role of the unlikely king – who only ascended to throne after Edward VIII’s unexpected abdication – it was bound to be a success from the beginning, and indeed became an instant classic. Considering roughly 700,000 people in the UK have a stammer, the film was a welcome portrayal of an often-overlooked problem, showing that even the royals aren’t perfect.

The anti-Thatcher sentiments of the 1980s were given a new lease on life when “Pride” was released. It tells the previously untold story of LGSM – Lesbians & Gays Support the Miners – as they rallied around the striking miners of 1984. Showing one working class Welsh village overcome the rife homophobia of the period is a heart-warming message of hope and solidarity between outcasts when everything seems lost. LGSM led London’s Gay Pride parade in 1985, and they successfully got gay rights put on the agenda of the Labour Party, thanks to pressure from the miners’ unions they helped.

Now immortalised as the country’s most popular leader on the five-pound note, there’s been no shortage of films celebrating the life and times of Winston Churchill. But the astonishing “Darkest Hour”, starring Gary Oldman as the legendary Prime Minister, received more accolades than one can count, including both Best Actor and Best Picture at the Oscars. It shows Churchill overcoming the scepticism around him from both fellow politicians and the public, thanks to his often-troubling views on India, the Irish, and Edward VIII, to become the wartime hero he’s primarily remembered as today.