Hope and Glory — United Kingdom
Nine-year-old Bill experiences the London Blitz as a childhood adventure — bomb sites become playgrounds, neighbourhoods are transformed by destruction, and war's chaos creates unexpected freedoms.
The London Blitz ran from 7 September 1940 to 11 May 1941, with the Luftwaffe bombing London for 57 consecutive nights in the first phase. Over 43,000 British civilians were killed. Director John Boorman's 1987 film is autobiographical — born in 1933, he experienced the Blitz as a child in Wandsworth. The film captures how children's experience of war differs fundamentally from adults'.