IF GARY OLDMAN IS THE BEST SCREEN CHURCHILL EVER, WHO ELSE WAS IN CONTENTION?

BRIAN COX in Churchill (2017) Last year’s other Churchill movie starred the craggy Scotsman in the title role as the great man had second thoughts about the D-Day landings. He wasn’t bad, but the movie itself was a tepid drama. JOHN LITHGOW in The Crown (2016)

A supporting role in the Netflix Elizabeth II saga for the 1.93m American character actor whose height might have been a bit more impressive than the 1.67m politician’s own. But he stooped to conquer.

MICHAEL GAMBON in Churchill’s Secret (2016) Another UK-US television drama, this cast Gambon as Churchill when, at the age of 76 in 1951, he became Prime Minister for a second time, only to suffer a serious stroke 20 months’ later and refuse to give up power while he was nursed back to health.

ROBERT HARDY in Churchill: 100 Days That Saved Britain

(2015)

This docudrama was the last of many times Hardy, the British character actor who died last year, played Churchill. His portrayals included everything from the miniseries Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years in 1981 to an episode of Miss Marple. TIMOTHY SPALL in The King’s Speech and Jackboots on

Whitehall (2010).

Spall did his best Winston impressions in both the Oscar-winning film about King George VI and a less-celebrated puppet satire about Nazis invading Blighty.

BRENDAN GLEESON in Into

the Storm (2009)

The Irish actor won an Emmy for his portrayal in the sequel to The Gathering Storm (see below), which was set on the eve of Churchill’s 1945 election defeat. ALBERT FINNEY in The

Gathering Storm (2002) Churchill’s history was adapted again in a BBC-HBO production set mostly before the war. Albert Finney’s lead performance won a Bafta and an Emmy.

BOB HOSKINS in World War II: When Lions Roared

(1994)

Hoskins made up a troika alongside an Emmy-nominated Michael Caine (as Joseph Stalin) and John Lithgow (as Franklin D Roosevelt) in an American miniseries about the Allied leaders and their sometimes uneasy relationships.

RICHARD BURTON in The Gathering Storm (1974) The Welsh star played him in this UK-US television adaptation of the first volume of Churchill’s history of WWII, and although the scenes involving drinking weren’t exactly a stretch, Burton wasn’t a fan of the man, writing a long piece in the New York Times that included the sentence: “I realised afresh that I hate Churchill and all his kind. I hate them virulently.”

SIMON WARD in Young

Winston (1972)

The moon-faced Ward was a good fit for Winston the dashing young cavalry officer and Boer War correspondent in Sir Richard Attenborough’s rip-roaring adaptation of Churchill’s memoir My Early Life.

VIKTOR STANITSYN in various films (1949-1951)

The Ukrainian-born actor made a career out of playing Churchill in four Soviet-era films about the USSR’s glorious victories in WWII. He never got quite as much screen time as comrade Mikheil Gelovani, who played Joseph Stalin a dozen or so times and won medals for doing so.