The Spirit of ’45

Cinematic champion of working-class solidarity Ken Loach (I, DANIEL BLAKE) looks back at the remarkable twentieth-century socialist surge that changed modern Britain forever. Through a vivid mix of interviews and archival footage, Loach brings to life the crucial postwar period that swept Prime Minister Clement Attlee’s insurgent Labour Party into power over Winston Churchill’s Conservative government, inaugurating a sweeping series of reforms—including the nationalization of railways, energy, housing, and health care—that marked the birth of the UK’s welfare state. Connecting the era’s hard-won populist triumphs with their present-day precarity, Loach offers both a stirring celebration of collective power and a sobering reminder of its fragility.