BlitzTrailer: Saoirse Ronan Plays a Mom Searching for Her Lost Son in WWII London

Mar. 15, 2025

Saoirse Ronanteams up with directorSteve McQueenfor a buzzy new drama.

Blitzstars the actress, 30, as Rita, a mother living in London amid the chaos of World War II. Her “epic journey,” per the synopsis, begins when her 9-year-old son George (Elliott Heffernan) “embarks on an adventure, only to find himself in immense peril, while a distraught Rita searches for her missing son.”

Thenew trailer, released Sept. 18, shows George witnessing the horrors of the Axis powers' bombing campaigns over London at a military base while Rita frantically searches for him and advocates for other parents who’d sent their children to safer parts of the U.K. during the war.

McQueen, 54, is the writer, director and producer of the historical drama, which will premiere as the opening film at the BFI London Film Festival on Oct. 9.

TheOscar-winning12 Years a Slavefilmmaker reunites with several longtime collaborators, including production designer Adam Stockhausen, costume designer Jacqueline Durran and composerHans Zimmer, on the new movie.

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McQueen toldVarietyin May 2023 that helming his documentary epicOccupied Cityabout the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam helped him research the minutiae of living through WWII forBlitz.

“It was just one of those things where we wanted to get in the details,” he said. “For example, was it raining? Well, what kind of rain? Those kinds of small things that seem to be so incidental but are a huge part of how people think and act and react.”

Ronan has another acclaimed film out this fall:The Outrun, a drama from Sony Pictures Classics.

InBlitz, the four-time Oscar nominee and her young costar Heffernan share the screen with Harris Dickinson, Benjamin Clementine, Kathy Burke, Paul Weller, Stephen Graham, Leigh Gill, Mica Ricketts, CJ Beckford, Alex Jennings, Joshua McGuire, Hayley Squires, Erin Kellyman and Sally Messham

source: people.com