Darkest Hour (2017)

While Dunkirk was the WWII film that kept us on the battlefield and left us out of politics, Darkest Hour goes straight into the story of Churchill. Surely, a story for our times. Underestimated by the British elite, Churchill heard Nazis and fascists knocking on Britain's door. He led a bold charge to fight them with everything the nation had, instead of appeasing them to avoid conflict. "We shall never surrender". Churchill remains to be one of the most important men in human history. A man who helped save Europe from the most cancerous evils of it's society. Gary Oldman's portrayal is absolutely stirring and stunning. He is lost under the most impeccable makeup artistry of the decade as Churchill. This is the performance of 2017 to beat and nobody has done it yet. Cinematically, when the film breaks free from the dialogue laden scenes, the editing and cinematography guides us effectively through Churchill's world. An astonishing sequence involves Churchill commuting from the Underground and talking to the British working people on his way to deliver the big speech at parliament. You can feel the electricity, the hope and the righteousness among every player. For it was the people's thirst for vengeance that inspired him to lead the charge against Nazism with all of his might.

We don't quite have a leader as fearless as Churchill these days, but what we do have is history that reminds us of what kind of leader he was. If not through the pages of a textbook, Darkest Hour should be shown in every classroom in America.