If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Young Winston is based on Churchill's autobiography and therefore has a whiff of horse manure about it as he inflates his own importance in events. After all Churchill was more complex and complicated and in World War 2 he ended up being the right man at the right time but only in recent years do we see archive footage of him looking worse for wear with having a few drinks too many and this was during wartime.Only in the last few years I have seen sound recording footage after Britain had been victorious where Churchill was being booed by the crowd. I need not remind you that in the 1945 election held after victory in Europe, the Conservatives were soundly beaten by the Labour Party. Something was not quite right as the history books would have you believe.In this films directed by Richard Attenborough we see his distant relationship with his father, Lord Randolph Churchill marvellously played by Robert Shaw. His difficulties at school, his reckless behaviour in the military before he turns his ambitions to journalism and then politics.The film has flashbacks as well as scenes of various characters being interviewed by an unseen interrogator. I saw a version of the film many years ago that contained a dream sequence where an older Winston has a conversation with his father which is very moving. A recent version of the film has this scene edited out which robs the film of a lot of pathos.The film is handsome, finely mounted, well acted, Attenborough almost makes Churchill look like a prototype Indiana Jones with his military escapades but it has all the markings of a bio pic made a few years after the death of a subject widely regarded as a hero and whose flaws were swept under the carpet.You will never see this version of Churchill nowadays or at least I hope note.

Solid biography of the early life of Winston Churchill. The casting is top notch, it's a pity we don't get to see more of Anthony Hopkins, but it was an early appearance for him. The boy that played kid Winston and the guy who played young man Winston have a extraordinary resemblance to the real Churchill, and they perform their parts very well too.The story is directed well enough to keep you entertained for 2,5 hours. The only hindrance is Churchill's annoying voice-over; although the manner of speaking may be historically correct, it distracts from the story with its quaint intonation. This may be a minor issue to some, but the distraction keeps coming back.All in all a well-directed biopic, which will also appeal to non-connoisseurs.

What an excellent cast. Anybody who was anybody in the British acting world in 1972 was in this film. In addition, there was the little known Simon Ward doing a fantastic, difficult, turn as Churchill. The one thing lacking here - and it is due to the script - is Churchill's impish and often self-deprecating humour, which he brilliantly used to counterbalance the overweening ambition he was rightly accused of.The trouble is the poorish script and the plodding direction. Richard Attenborough had many great moments as a director, but this wasn't one of them. The pace is often slow and exciting moments are somehow rendered almost dull. Read Churchill's own account of his imprisonment and escape and compare it to this lame version.It has dated more than Churchill's true story and his own writings. The thing that has dated most is Anne Bancroft's ludicrous thick early 1970s makeup. If she had worn that makeup in 1900, she would have been for ever shunned as a harlot.I wish someone would have another go at this subject.

I saw the British version in 1973 in Oxford, UK, the evening after my first visit to Blenham. About 15 years later I purchased the American VHS version and discovered a vital 5 minute epilog is missing from the American. In the epilog, the portly, now retired Churchill is snoozing at his painting easel. The ghost of his long-dead father Lord Randolph shows up for a conversation. The father is vitally interested in how the young chaps of Edwardian England, such as Chamberlain, made out and did they reach 10 Downing? The sleeping Winston, in the tones of Simon Ward's voice-over, explains that "yes, such men reached the P.M.'s office." Before leaving, Lord Randolph finally asks Winston what he did with his life? Modestly, Churchill says he's written several books and Lord Randolph, with a touch of patronizing, approves, after all any larger greatness was probably out of reach for his limited son. The audience at Oxford was almost standing on their chairs screaming "Tell the bastard you saved Western Civilization!!!" A far more powerful ending than young Winston making his first political mark after his Boer War adventures.