De Gaulle (2026 film)

Plot

The diptych follows Charles de Gaulle from the collapse of France in 1940 to the Liberation of Paris in 1944, interweaving his political struggle with large-scale military campaigns, the clandestine Resistance in occupied France and the personal stories of those who join the fight. Alongside the historical events, the films include a romantic storyline between the young resistance fighters Fernand and Livia, while de Gaulle's tempestuous relationships with Winston Churchill and the Allied leadership frequently provide moments of humour amid the war and political confrontation.

First Part - De Gaulle: Résistance

In June 1940, the French Army is collapsing under the German invasion. Brigadier General Charles de Gaulle, convinced that the war will continue beyond the fall of metropolitan France, clashes with the increasingly defeatist political leadership. When Paul Reynaud's government falls and Marshal Philippe Pétain announces that France will seek an armistice, de Gaulle refuses to accept defeat.

With little more than his aide Geoffroy Chodron de Courcel, he escapes to London. There he attempts to persuade British Prime Minister Winston Churchill that France is still in the war, despite having neither a government, an army nor significant political support behind him. Churchill is intrigued by the virtually unknown French general's extraordinary self-confidence, beginning an alliance marked throughout the film by affection, exasperation and increasingly theatrical arguments.

Allowed access to the BBC, de Gaulle broadcasts the Appeal of 18 June, asking French soldiers, engineers and civilians to continue the struggle. The response is initially tiny. While de Gaulle behaves as though he already represents France, British officials frequently remind him that almost nobody has yet recognised his authority. Assisted by his entourage, including his secretary Blazej, he begins improvising the institutions of what will become Free France.

In occupied Paris, twenty-year-old Fernand Bonnier de La Chapelle refuses to accommodate himself to German rule. He meets Livia, a young woman equally determined to resist, and their political rebellion gradually becomes a love affair. Their storyline follows the more intimate and dangerous beginnings of the Resistance: secret meetings, clandestine activity, arrests and the constant possibility of denunciation.

Fernand and other students help organise the 11 November 1940 demonstration around the Arc de Triomphe, openly defying the German occupation. The protest is violently dispersed. Fernand and Livia become increasingly involved in resistance activity, their relationship developing as the risks surrounding them grow.

De Gaulle meanwhile discovers that declaring France still at war is easier than creating the forces capable of proving it. After the British attack the French fleet at Mers-el-Kébir, killing French sailors to prevent the ships from falling into German hands, his position becomes even more precarious. Vichy portrays him as a British puppet, while de Gaulle furiously confronts Churchill over actions taken against France.

Second Part - De Gaulle: Liberté

The second film begins in 1943 with the struggle taking place simultaneously in government offices, clandestine apartments and on the battlefield. De Gaulle is no longer the almost solitary exile of 1940, but victory has created a new danger: France may be liberated without being allowed to determine its own political future.

In the Libyan desert, General Leclerc leads the forces of Free France northwards from Chad. His campaign culminates in fighting around Ksar Ghilane, where French troops face German armour and air attacks. Leclerc's aggressive leadership and willingness to take extraordinary risks make the African campaign one of the central action threads of the second film.

Far from the battlefield, an equally dangerous war is being fought in occupied France. Jean Moulin, operating under the name "Rex", is charged by de Gaulle with bringing together the deeply divided movements of the French Resistance. Livia, continuing the struggle after Fernand's death, becomes part of this underground world of couriers, coded messages, clandestine meetings and German surveillance.

Moulin must persuade Gaullists, communists, socialists, conservatives, trade unionists and independent resistance organisations to accept a common political structure. Their disagreements concern not only how to fight the occupation but what France should become after liberation.

On 27 May 1943, Moulin succeeds in bringing representatives of the major resistance organisations together to form the National Council of the Resistance. For de Gaulle, the achievement is decisive: while Roosevelt questions his legitimacy abroad, the organised Resistance inside France increasingly recognises him as its political leader.

Moulin's success also makes him a major target of the Gestapo. He is betrayed and arrested with other resistance leaders at Caluire-et-Cuire. Interrogated and tortured under Klaus Barbie, he refuses to disclose the organisation he has helped construct. He dies after his arrest, but the unified Resistance survives him.

At the same time, another confrontation is unfolding in Algiers. Roosevelt supports General Henri Giraud, whose large Army of Africa and more accommodating attitude make him attractive to the Americans. Giraud has military power and Allied backing; de Gaulle possesses the political legitimacy of the Resistance and refuses to compromise on the restoration of the French Republic.

Cast

Simon Abkarian as Charles de Gaulle

Niels Schneider as Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque

Thierry Lhermitte as Henri Giraud

Karim Leklou as Blazej

Simon Russell Beale as Winston Churchill

Campbell Scott as Franklin D. Roosevelt

Benoît Magimel as Marie-Pierre Kœnig

Félix Kysyl as Jean Moulin

François Goeske as Klaus Barbie

Kacey Mottet Klein as Geoffroy Chodron de Courcel

Florian Lesieur as Fernand Bonnier de La Chapelle

Anamaria Vartolomei as Livia

Pip Torrens as Bernard Montgomery

Daniel Betts as Dwight D. Eisenhower

Tom Mison as Anthony Eden

Stephen Campbell Moore as Harold Macmillan

Anthony Calf as Edward Spears

Noémie Schmidt as Susan Travers

Janis Ahern as Florence Conrad, founder of The Rochambelles

Alice de Lencquesaing as Suzanne Torrès

Loïc Corbery as René Pleven

Production

Development

A two-part film directed by Antonin Baudry about Charles de Gaulle was commissioned by Pathé in July 2021.

It is written by Baudry and Bérénice Vila, and based upon British author Julian Jackson's book, De Gaulle, une certaine idée de la France. It is produced by Pathé in co-production with TF1 Films Production and Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Cinéma. The film had a production budget of €74 million, becoming one of the most expensive French films of all time.

Filming

Filming on the first chapter took place in the summer of 2023 with Pierre Cottereau and Giora Bejach as cinematographers. Filming on the second-part was completed by July 2024. Filming locations included Place du Panthéon and Gare de l'Est and around the Hôtel de Ville station in July and August 2023, and Le Marais area of Paris in September 2023. Filming also took place in Normandy and Morocco.

Volker Bertelmann was announced to compose the film's musical score in December 2025.

Release

The two-parts were initially subtitled Tilting Iron and Sovereign Edge, respectively. But were later retitled for the international market as Résistance and Liberté, respectively.

The first part of the film, Résistance, premiered at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival on 20 May and was followed by its theatrical release on 3 June 2026. The second part, Liberté, was planned for release on 3 July the same year but was finally moved to June 26.

Reception

Box office

The first part's performance at the French box office was characterized by an unusually slow start followed by a sustained increase in attendance, a trajectory widely attributed to strong word of mouth. L'Âge de fer sold approximately 380,000 tickets during its first week in France, a result regarded as disappointing in relation to the scale and cost of the two-film production. Attendance then declined by approximately 40 percent during its second week, initially leading several French media outlets to question whether the expensive production would become a commercial failure.

The trend reversed during the first part's third week, when admissions increased by around 17 percent rather than continuing the normal decline of a theatrical release. Its performance accelerated further during its fourth weekend: Boxoffice Pro reported 324,000 admissions over the weekend, an increase of 68 percent despite the film being shown in 22 percent fewer screenings. Le Monde described the reversal as an exceptional box-office phenomenon, citing word of mouth alongside the contemporary heatwave, which encouraged attendance at air-conditioned cinemas.

The growing momentum led Pathé to advance the French release of the second part, J'écris ton nom, from 3 July to 26 June in order to coincide with the annual Fête du cinéma, during which participating cinemas offered reduced ticket prices. The second film consequently entered cinemas while attendance for the first was still increasing and recorded around 400,000 admissions during its first week, surpassing the opening of L'Âge de fer.

Contemporary coverage identified favorable word of mouth as a major factor in the attendance reversal. Pathé Films president Ardavan Safaee stated that the distributor first observed the positive audience response translating into increased admissions during the first part's third week. The distributor subsequently intensified promotion on social media and partnered with French YouTuber Inoxtag, who organized screenings and discussions with Baudry intended to introduce the film to younger viewers. The Guardian later described the diptych as a surprise success among younger French audiences and reported that Pathé's audience research found the theme of resistance to have resonated particularly strongly with younger viewers.

The two parts continued to maintain comparatively strong attendance throughout July and August. By 20 August, the diptych had passed five million combined admissions in France, making it the most-attended French film project of the summer at that point. On 23 August, Pathé reported that L'Âge de fer had exceeded 2.7 million admissions and J'écris ton nom 2.2 million, describing the result as a long-running success following the first part's initially modest opening and an enthusiastic word-of-mouth response.

Critical response

The two films received generally positive reviews from the French press, with the second part receiving a somewhat stronger critical response. On AlloCiné, which standardizes reviews from French publications onto a five-star scale, L'Âge de fer received an average press rating of 3.5 out of 5 based on 38 reviews, while J'écris ton nom received 3.9 out of 5 based on 28 reviews.

Jacques Mandelbaum of Le Monde gave both parts the newspaper's "À voir" ("Must-see") recommendation. Reviewing the first film, he described Baudry's intention as creating a large-scale popular spectacle combining war, action, politics, humour and lyricism, and considered that the director had succeeded in doing so. He similarly recommended J'écris ton nom, highlighting its multiple narrative strands involving de Gaulle, Leclerc, Jean Moulin and Henri Giraud, while noting the film's strongly heroic and lyrical treatment of its principal characters.

International reviews of the first part were also generally favorable, although several critics regarded its approach as conventional. Tomris Laffly of Variety described Résistance as a large-scale, traditional but consistently engaging wartime biopic, praising its old-fashioned blockbuster qualities while considering its 160-minute running time excessive. Dave Calhoun of Screen Daily was more mixed, praising the accessibility of the historical narrative and the energy of the action sequences, while criticizing the film as broad-brush, old-fashioned and lacking in subtlety. Upon its British release, Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian described the film as an enjoyable and eventful biopic, particularly praising Simon Abkarian's portrayal of de Gaulle and Simon Russell Beale's performance as Winston Churchill, as well as the humorous dynamic between the two characters.