In London during World War II, 10 year old George is the mixed-race son of a white woman, Rita, and Marcus, a black man who was deported to Grenada.

In flashbacks, George is called a bastard by a neighbourhood boy, and Marcus is attacked by some ruffians because he is with Rita as they leave a club.

[2] In March 2022, McQueen confirmed his next project was going to be about Londoners during the Blitz of World War II and that he had discussed this with Anne, the Princess Royal, as she awarded him his knighthood at Windsor Castle.

[4] In September 2022, it was announced that Saoirse Ronan would be heading the cast and Adam Stockhausen leading the production design.

[5] In December 2022, Harris Dickinson, Erin Kellyman, Stephen Graham and Kathy Burke were added to the cast, along with singer-songwriter Paul Weller in his feature film acting debut.

[6] Later that month, Benjamin Clementine, Leigh Gill, Mica Ricketts, CJ Beckford, Hayley Squires and Sally Messham were announced as joining the cast.

Zimmer revealed that his mother had been "a refugee in England during the Second World War, and Steve McQueen gave me one direction.

The website's consensus reads: "A surprisingly old-fashioned tale of survival from director Steve McQueen, Blitz's examination of British society under wartime is given a beating heart by Elliott Heffernan and Saoirse Ronan's lovely performances.

"[14] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 71 out of 100, based on 53 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.

[15] Writing in The Guardian, Peter Bradshaw scored the film three out of five, and described it as a "well made and unashamedly old-fashioned wartime adventure, heartfelt and rousing and – yes – a bit trad overall", and said that it was "a film about the blitz of 1940 which tries to restate the accepted imagery, the dramatic stock footage and familiar ideas but also absorb revisionist approaches".

[17] However, in the Chicago Reader, critic Kylie Bolter, while praising the score, cinematography and some of the performances, said the film didn’t "feel complete or unique".

[18] Peter Travers, for ABC News, summarised Blitz as "an indisputably good movie", but concluded that despite "all the elements [being] in place for something extraordinary", it "misses the mark".