This review of the Net­flix “Churchill at War” doc­u­men­tary first appeared in The Amer­i­can Spec­ta­tor on 13 Decem­ber 2024.

Churchill at War

A four-part Net­flix doc­u­men­tary star­ring Chris­t­ian McK­ay as Win­ston Churchill, pre­miered Decem­ber 4th. 

From Gaza to Ukraine, Unit­ed Nations to Unit­ed Europe, our lega­cy is the war that made us what we are. Win­ston Churchill had much to do with it, and Net­flix now offers its ver­sion of his sto­ry. It is a one-dimen­sion­al por­trait of a politician—not of  the human­i­tar­i­an who thought pro­found­ly about gov­er­nance, life and lib­er­ty. Yet the war­rior emerges approx­i­mate­ly as he was.

There’s a way to derive a most­ly cor­rect pic­ture of the man from this show: ignore Part 1. The oth­er three parts also suf­fer from occa­sion­al for­ays into fic­tion. But they are far more accu­rate, with hon­est dia­logue, well-cho­sen quo­ta­tions and spec­tac­u­lar footage, much of it fresh­ly colorized.

A creaky wind-up

Part 1, alas, is a palimpsest of coun­ter­fac­tu­als. Were it not for Andrew Roberts, and sev­er­al oth­er schol­ars who have actu­al­ly spent time study­ing Churchill, this intro­duc­tion to him is light, frothy and ten­den­tious. It bids fair to mis­lead the unwary viewer.

Sprin­kling in celebri­ties and the odd hos­tile biog­ra­ph­er doesn’t help. (The more hos­tile they are, the more they indulge in the famil­iar­i­ty “Win­ston.”) Among the celebri­ties is George W. Bush, who says Churchill grew up in a “dys­func­tion­al fam­i­ly.” By Vic­to­ri­an stan­dards it was more func­tion­al than the Bush­es. Why Bush? Or Boris John­son? Ask most politi­cians about Churchill and what you get are gen­er­al­i­ties: blood, toil, tears and sweat. But Net­flix also con­sults more seri­ous com­men­ta­tors, who com­mit greater errors….

• Churchill’s father’s career-end­ing 1886 res­ig­na­tion ​​comes when “his bud­get was reject­ed.” No, it was over a minor Army appro­pri­a­tion. Okay, no biggie.

​• In South Africa in 1899, young Churchill “takes over defense” of the famous armored train from ​Boer attack­ers. ​Poor Aly­mer Hal­dane, who actu­al­ly defend­ed it, spent half a cen­tu­ry lament­ing that “Win­ston got all the cred­it.” And now Net­flix bites Aylmer again.

• We skid past Churchill’s climb to fame and Par­lia­ment, informed that he changed par­ties twice—not over prin­ci­ple, but as an oppor­tunis­tic pow­er​-grab. Not so. After his 1904 switch he wait­ed two years to get pow­er. The sec­ond time​, in 1924, he was hand­ed pow­er before he switched. Where do peo­ple get such stuff? Have they read anything?

Escaped scapegoat

Churchill’s vital efforts to pre­pare the fleet for war in 1914 are ignored as Net­flix homes in on the Dar­d­anelles oper­a­tion, whose fail­ure tem­porar­i­ly ruined him. Aside from con­fus­ing naval oper­a­tions with the Gal­lipoli land­ings, which he had noth­ing to do with, the account is rea­son­ably accu­rate. ​They assert incor­rect­ly that he quit the Admi­ral­ty in 1915 in order to go fight in the trench­es, but his service​ there is ​accu­rate­ly represented.

We wit­ness his deep depres­sion over Gal­lipoli, but Chris­t­ian McK­ay, imper­son­at­ing WSC, gets the dic­tion wrong and looks more like his son-in-law Christo­pher Soames. By strain­ing hard, we can just visu­al­ize McK­ay in the role. But he’s no match for Robert Hardy​ (The Wilder­ness Years) or Gary Oldman​ (Dark­est Hour), who spent months study­ing their char­ac­ter “to find a way in.”

Part 1 ends as Churchill suc­ceeds Neville Cham­ber­lain as Prime Min­is­ter in 1940. The accu­ra­cy improves as 1940 approach­es. Despite ear­li­er errors,  this is a fair pre­sen­ta­tion com­pared to pop­u­lar mythol­o­gy like Bri­an Cox in Churchill, but hard­ly rates a cig­ar, giv­en the banal content.

Jon Meacham, who should know bet­ter, says WSC “got lots wrong, but among what he got right, WW2 ranks pret­ty high.” Duh! That’s as pro­found as we get, though to his cred­it, Meacham is more poignant lat­er on. But after labor­ing through Part 1, I was begin­ning to think: “The things we do for England.”

A better pitch

The weak­ness of using celebri­ties or “his­to­ri­ans” who are any­thing but Churchill spe­cial­ists is still evi­dent in the last three parts, but less dis­con­cert­ing. Let’s get over the quib­bles first.

• It’s true that the first bomb­ing of Lon­don (August 1940) was acci­den­tal, prompt­ing British retal­i­a­tion on Berlin, lead­ing to the Lon­don Blitz. But Net­flix says Hitler and Churchill “egged each oth­er on,” not acknowl­edg­ing that bomb­ing open cities had been the Ger­man prac­tice since they lev­eled War­saw in 1939.

• In July 1940 Churchill “sank the French navy.” (It wasn’t the whole navy.) In August 1941, he pleads with Roo­sevelt to declare war, and is instruct­ed about the U.S. Con­sti­tu­tion. (That nev­er happened—he knew the Con­sti­tu­tion as well as FDR.) U.S. entry into the war in Decem­ber is dra­mat­i­cal­ly por­trayed, omit­ting that Hitler val­i­dat­ed the “Ger­many first” strat­e­gy when he declared war four days after Pearl Harbor.

• The 1943-44 Ben­gal Famine is mis­rep­re­sent­ed by Kehinde Andrews. Churchill caused it—well, he refused to send Cana­di­an grain. (Actu­al­ly he sent more grain, via Aus­tralia.) Andrews claims Churchill saw his “main task” as “defend­ing the Empire.” No, he saw his main task as defeat­ing Hitler, and doing that helped lose the Empire. Mr. Andrews offers sev­er­al oth­er red her­rings. (“I like the mar­tial and com­mand­ing air with which the Rt. Hon. Gen­tle­man treats facts,” Churchill once quipped. “He stands no non­sense from them.”)

• Churchill is con­demned for the 1944 “spheres of influ­ence” agree­ment with Stal­in. We are not told that he saw this as a wartime expe­di­ent, not a per­ma­nent arrangement—or that it saved Greece from communism.

Netflix gets lots right…

…about the war. It cov­ers the quandary over bomb­ing Auschwitz; con­cerns over invad­ing Europe; D-Day (if noth­ing about how Churchill made D-Day pos­si­ble). Here the dia­logue is accu­rate, the war footage admirable, the com­men­tary balanced.

They can’t help edit­ing some great speech­es, even though delet­ed words would use up only a sec­ond or two. They make up for this by get­ting many right (unlike the British Post Office on a recent com­mem­o­ra­tive stamp): “You ask what is our aim? I can answer in one word: victory.”

Key quo­ta­tions are deployed effec­tive­ly, like Churchill’s warn­ing to FDR of where the U.S. will be if Britain goes under. His clas­sic speech at Har­row, clean and unedit­ed, includes its often-ignored pro­vi­so: “Nev­er give in—except to con­vic­tions of hon­our and good sense.”

This is all to the good. Every time a faux expert mud­dies facts, Roberts or anoth­er sol­id historian—Meacham, Allen Pack­wood, Cather­ine Gale Katz—makes up for it with truths. Even David Lam­my, Britain’s For­eign Min­is­ter, is thought­ful and doesn’t suc­cumb to pop­ulist virtue-sig­nal­ing. “The British peo­ple,” Lam­my says, “saw in Churchill the image of themselves.”

After Part 1 I was expect­ing the worst, but on bal­ance it’s a good show, and the finale is well done. Kudos to Lord Roberts and oth­ers for keep­ing it on track, and for his elo­quent finale:

Phys­i­cal­ly brave, moral­ly brave, full of insights and fore­sight, humor­ous to the point that he can still make peo­ple laugh six­ty years after his death, Win­ston Churchill rep­re­sent­ed a res­olute spir­it that is very, very rarely seen in human history.

More film reviews

Robert Hardy in The Wilder­ness Years: Forty Years On and Still Num­ber One, 2019.

”Gary Old­man in Dark­est Hour: Then Out Spake Brave Hor­atius,” 2018.

“Dark­est Hour Myth-Mak­ing: Don’t Mess with Mar­cus Peters,” 2018.

“Bri­an Cox as Churchill: An Inter­view with Char­lie Rose,” 2017.

“Churchill Bio-Pics: The Trou­ble with the Movies,” 2017.