Darkest Hour is a 2017 British biographical war drama film directed by Joe Wright and written by Anthony McCarten. It stars Gary Oldman as Winston Churchill, in his early days as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the Second World War and the May 1940 war cabinet crisis. The cast also includes Kristin Scott Thomas as Clementine Churchill, Lily James as Elizabeth Layton, Stephen Dillane as Viscount Halifax, Ronald Pickup as Neville Chamberlain, and Ben Mendelsohn as King George VI. The title of the film refers to a description of the early days of the war, widely attributed to Churchill.