The Great Escaper (2023) on Netflix
Bernard Jordan, a World War II veteran, lives in a care home with his wife Rene. The tours to Normandy for the 70th D-Day anniversary are full, so he sets out alone.
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- Netflix4.0/5
- IMDb7.0/1010,649 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes90%
Trailer
Plot summary
In June 2014, Bernard Jordan, a Royal Navy veteran of World War II, lives in a retirement home with his wife Rene, who has had health problems. He wants to attend the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy, but there are no places left on the group tours. Hesitant to leave Rene behind, he is persuaded by her to find his own way there. Bernard slips out early one morning, takes a taxi to Dover and buys a ferry ticket to France. On the crossing he meets Arthur, an RAF veteran traveling with a tour group, who invites him to join it and share his hotel room. Bernard agrees. Back at the home, the staff are alarmed by his disappearance.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Great Escaper (2023)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The Great Escaper is based on the true story of Bernard Jordan, a 90-year-old Royal Navy veteran of World War II who broke out of his nursing home to attend the 70th anniversary D-Day commemorations in France in June 2014.
- At the time of filming, Michael Caine was 89 and Glenda Jackson was 86, and the pair had last made a film together 47 years earlier, The Romantic Englishwoman (1975).
- The film was shot entirely in the UK to cut the traveling and the COVID-19 risk for its older cast, though the actor John Standing claimed this was due to Brexit restrictions, a claim the production company Pathé denied.
- Michael Caine announced his retirement from acting in October 2023 in a BBC Today radio interview with Martha Kearney, saying he had played the lead in a film with incredible reviews and might as well leave with all this.
- The Great Escaper marked the final screen performance of Glenda Jackson, who died in June 2023, nine months after filming finished.
