Who Dares Wins, also known as The Final Option, is a 1982 British action thriller film directed by Ian Sharp and starring Lewis Collins, Judy Davis, Richard Widmark, Tony Doyle, and Edward Woodward.

The film is loosely based on the actions of the British Army's Special Air Service (SAS) in the 1980 Iranian Embassy siege; however, the plot makes considerable fictionalised departures from the actual siege and its background, and instead follows SAS Captain Peter Skellen as he infiltrates a terrorist group planning an attack on American diplomats.

Meanwhile, two foreign officers—Captain Hagen of the United States Army Rangers and Captain Freund of GSG 9—arrive at SAS headquarters to take part in a training exercise.

However, unbeknownst to the officers, the torture case is secretly a ruse to give Skellen a cover as a disgraced special forces soldier so he can infiltrate the terrorists.

Skellen's intelligence contact, Ryan, advises him to meet Frankie Leith and Rod Walker, the leaders of the People's Lobby (PL), believed to be the terrorist group planning the attack.

A foreign man, Andrey Malek, arranges with a city banker for the distribution of large sums of money to organisations including the PL.

Skellen arranges to meet Leith at a bar frequented by PL members, and initiates a sexual relationship with her, to the annoyance of Walker and his underlings, Helga and Mac.

Security forces, including Hadley and Metropolitan Police Commander Powell, respond to the attack and learn the PL's demands: unless an American nuclear missile is launched at the Holy Loch naval base, all of the hostages will be killed.

Skellen separates himself from the group by going to the washroom, where he uses a mirror as a heliograph to reach Hadley through Morse code, advising an SAS assault at 10 a.m. while he creates a diversion.

Dennis's troop cuts the power and breaches through an adjoining wall using an explosive charge, then shoots dead Helga and Mac.

Euan Lloyd gained the idea for the film from events surrounding the Iranian Embassy siege in London, most notably the storming of the building on 5 May 1980 by the SAS.

Living just half a mile from the embassy, he visited it on multiple occasions during the four days it was occupied by terrorists, witnessing the dramatic ending to the siege in person.

That same evening he called his lawyer in New York and asked him to register five titles with the Motion Picture Association of America, one of which was SAS: Who Dares Wins.

[9][10] Lloyd intended for Who Dares Wins to "counterbalance" the anti-authority messages of contemporary films like The China Syndrome, Missing, and Gandhi.

Discussing his stance, Lloyd opined that "[s]ince John Wayne and Jack Warner have left the scene its become unfashionable to wave the flag.

[3] However, Lloyd said the ministry eventually gave its "tacit approval" to the film after two small changes to the story[further explanation needed] were made, providing much wider access to defence equipment and personnel, including three military helicopters.

[9] According to the DVD commentary, the film was made with the help of the 22 SAS Regiment at Hereford, although their commanding officer, Peter de la Billière, had initially refused to help in a pre-production meeting with Euan Lloyd.

Director Ian Sharp, who was hired due to Lloyd's liking of his direction in The Professionals, was invited to SAS headquarters at Stirling Lines where he met some of the troops who assaulted the Iranian embassy.

[17] According to an interview with director Ian Sharp, Judy Davis wanted the dialogue scene between her terrorist character and Richard Widmark's Secretary of State rewritten.

[18] The score was composed by Roy Budd, while the song "Right on Time", heard during the church scene, was written by Jerry and Marc Donahue.

[22] Film critic Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times said: "There are so many errors of judgment, strategy, behavior and simple plausibility in this movie that we just give up and wait for it to end.

[25] The Washington Post enjoyed the final assault, describing it as "a pip", and praised the authenticity of the action sequences, but thought "an awful lot of talky, slack footage accumulates before this whirlwind payoff" and that the "storytelling rhythm is defective.

[20] This claim has been strongly contested by Kubrick's assistant Anthony Frewin, saying that, "Lloyd, as the gunnery [sergeant] in Full Metal Jacket would say, is blowing smoke up our asses.