Steve McQueen's 'Blitz' follows a young boy's journey during WWII

When it comes to directing, Steve McQueen has his own point of view.

He’s been at the helm of 2011’s “Shame” — which was his breakthrough. By 2013, “12 Years a Slave” picked up the Oscar for Best Picture.

In 2018, he was at the helm, once again, with the film “Widows.”

His latest film, “Blitz” was released in theaters in late 2024 and is currently streaming on Apple TV+.

According to Apple TV+, the film follows the epic journey of George, played by Elliott Heffernan, a nine-year-old boy whose mother Rita, played by Saoirse Ronan, sends him to safety in the English countryside. George, defiant and determined to return home to Rita and his grandfather, in East London, embarks on an adventure, only to find himself in immense peril, while a distraught Rita searches for her missing son.

“As a Londoner, I’ve often reflected on what has forged our strong and proud identities. I grew up acutely aware of the monumental impact the German aerial onslaught known as ‘the Blitz’ had on the city,” McQueen says. “It was a harrowing time that in many ways yielded the elemental stiff-upper-lip constitution that permeates our national psyche to this day. But it was also a time of communal resilience, when people came together with the shared primal purpose of survival, and in some corners, a ‘Blitz spirit’ took hold.”

The film takes place during the eight months between September 1940 and May 1941, when Nazi Germany undertook an intense bombing campaign against the United Kingdom. Dubbed “the Blitz,” the term originated from German blitzkrieg — meaning lightning war.

McQueen began thinking about making the film in the early 2000s — the theme of the movie was constantly on his mind.

During that time, he discovered a photograph while researching his anthology film series “Small Axe.”

The photograph was a way into the film.

“It was an image of a small Black boy standing on a train platform with a large suitcase,” he explains. “That image stayed with me in an almost omnipresent ghostly way, and I continued to find myself wondering who this child was, what was his story during the Blitz?”

Soon after, in 2003, McQueen began working with London’s Imperial War Museum as the official artist for the Iraq War.

This led the director in learning more from the valuable material from that time — discovering the diversity of London during the Blitz.

“I’ve also realized through the experience of making the film how many parallels there are with what’s happening in the world today,” he says. “Something else I wanted to look at was the joy within the tragedy of the time and that is echoed through music, which is a vitally important part of the film. It’s a story that not only encompasses the enormous scale and devastating impact of the Blitz, but one that centers on a family trying to navigate an environment over which they have little control, while not letting go of the most important thing for them — love.”

Steve McQueen's 'Blitz' follows a young boy's journey during WWII