DE GAULLE - PART ONE: RÉSISTANCE

[DE GAULLE: L'ÂGE DE FER] [DE GAULLE: TILTING IRON]
A box-office hit in France, Antonin Baudry’s epic two-part biopic on Charles de Gaulle stars Simon Abkarian as de Gaulle and Simon Russell Beale as Winston Churchill. Fleeing France for England soon after the country’s occupation by Nazi Germany in 1940, General de Gaulle forms a ragtag cabinet with himself as leader of the Free French. With little funding — and lacking political support from Churchill and, more importantly, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt (Campbell Scott) — de Gaulle nevertheless plays his bad hand well, weathering setbacks and eventually gaining a foothold in the French territories of Chad and Cameroon. In counterpoint to de Gaulle’s efforts abroad, the beginnings of the French Resistance back home in Occupied France are shown in the persons of the idealistic Fernand (Florian Lesieur) and his friend Livia (Anamaria Vartolomei), and their efforts to rally the people against their occupiers. Part One culminates with the stirring Battle of Bir Hakeim, where Free French forces led by General Pierre Koenig (Benoît Magimel) hold out heroically for more than two weeks in the Libyan desert against superior German forces, crucially slowing down General Rommel’s intended advance to Egypt and beyond. –Todd Hitchcock

DIR/SCR Antonin Baudry; SCR Bérénice Vila, from the book “A Certain Idea of France: The Life of Charles de Gaulle” by Julian Jackson; PROD Axelle Boucaï, Ardavan Safaee, Jérôme Seydoux. France/Belgium, 2026, color, 158 minutes. In English and French with English subtitles. NOT RATED

DE GAULLE — PART TWO: LIBERTÉ also plays as part of the AFI European Union Film Showcase.

Run Time: 158 Minutes

Opening Date: Saturday, December 05, 2026

Genre: Historical drama

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