- Casting Gag: David Bamber (Admiral Ramsay) previously played Cicero in Rome, an orator who inspired many of Churchill's speeches and whose book he makes a point of looking for while composing his speech to Parliament.
- Completely Different Title: The Japanese title is 「ウィンストン・チャーチル ヒトラーから世界を救った男」 Romaji - "Winston Churchill: The Man Who Saved the World from Hitler."
- Dueling Works:
- Released the same year as Churchill (starring Brian Cox as Winston) in the US. Churchill deals with the Prime Minister's state of mind in the days preceding the crucial Normandy landings in 1944. Darkest Hour follows his early days as Prime Minister, as Britain faces a German invasion in the summer of 1940.
- Also, to a lesser extent, Dunkirk, also released in 2017. While the two films were up against each other for several Academy Awards (including Best Picture), they're generally taken as complementary to one another, as they're completely different genres of film; Darkest Hour basically depicts the political maneuvering surrounding the military action depicted in Dunkirk and their consequences for the UK.
- There might have been yet another dueling movie: originally, producer and Gary Oldman's manager Douglas Urbanski wanted to make a movie about Churchill starring Oldman, while screenwriter Anthony McCarten was separately pitching a screenplay about the May 1940 war cabinet crisis to producer Eric Fellner. When Fellner heard about Urbanski's plans, he contacted Urbanski and said "Let's not compete", and the two films became one.
- Dyeing for Your Art: Gary Oldman donned a fat suit and prosthetics to get closer to Winston Churchill's physical appearance. He also smoked genuine cigars for take after take (giving himself nicotine poisoning) and got so sick of tobacco that he found it easy to quit.
- Fake Brit: The Australian Ben Mendelsohn as King George VI.
- In Memoriam: The film was dedicated to John Hurt, who was supposed to play Neville Chamberlain before his death.
- Method Acting: Gary Oldman spent a year studying Churchill and his mannerisms before starting on the film. He even smoked more than 400 cigars, roughly £50 each (more than $20,000 USD). At the end of filming, he had nicotine poisoning and spent a holiday getting a colonoscopy.
- Posthumous Credit: This was prolific actor Benjamin Whitrow's final screen credit. He died in September 2017 before the film's general release.
- Spiritual Successor: To The King's Speech, which deals with the immediate lead-up to the war, and George VI's struggle to come to terms with leading Britain in wartime, presaging his eventual close relationship with Churchill.
- Typecasting: Like many of her roles, Lily James is cast in a period piece drama.
- Uncredited Role: Taron Egerton can be seen playing a member of the general public on the platform before Churchill enters the tube in an uncredited cameo.
- Underage Casting: Extensive makeup was used to transform Gary Oldman into Winston Churchill, but to call this "aging" makeup would not be entirely accurate. In May 1940, Churchill was 65 years and six months old. Oldman turned 59 during filming.
- Wag the Director: Gary Oldman was adamant that Kazuhiro Tsuji
be hired to create the necessary prosthetics. If Tsuji couldn't be persuaded to participatenote , Oldman would have walked away from the production. - What Could Have Been: John Hurt was initially cast as Neville Chamberlain, in what would have been his final role. Unfortunately, his treatments for pancreatic cancer left him unable to attend read-throughs and so the role went to Ronald Pickup.
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