First look at new Nicholas Winton film starring Anthony Hopkins as wartime hero

The first images from the highly-anticipated feature film about the life of Holocaust hero Sir Nicholas ‘Nicky’ Winton have been released.

Oscar-winning British actor Anthony Hopkins and Johnny Flynn play the older and younger versions of the man known as the ‘British Schindler’.

Nicholas Winton was a young investment banker when, over Christmas 1938, he went to see what help he could offer in Prague, rather than go skiing as planned. Over the next nine months, he organised the evacuation of 669 children, most of whom were Jewish, to escape the Nazis in an operation later known as the Kindertransport.

Winton found homes for the children and arranged for their safe passage to Britain, but never spoke about his wartime exploits until they were revealed in 1988 by TV presenter Esther Rantzen in a now-famous episode of BBC’s ‘That’s Life’.

The film “One Life” features the iconic moment when Rantzen asks if anyone in the audience are amongst the 669 children that Winton helped bring to the UK from Czechoslovakia, and for them to identify themselves. A huge number of audience members duly stood up.

Helena Bonham-Carter plays Winton’s mother, Babi. The cast also includes Jonathan Pryce, Lena Olin, Romola Garai and Alex Sharp. The film will have its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2023.

The film is based on the book, ‘If It’s Not Impossible…The Life of Sir Nicholas Winton’, written by Winton’s daughter Barbara Winton.

Sir Nicholas Winton died at the age of 106, after which Jewish News led a successful campaign for him to be remembered with a Royal Mail stamp.