YMMV / Battle of Britain

• Awesome Music:
  • The main theme, natch.
  • The Luftwaffe March, which, contrary to popular belief, was written specifically for the film and then claimed by the air forces of both West and East Germany as their own due to its sheer awesomeness.
• Fair for Its Day: The film makes a point of showing that initial German bombing of London was an accident and the retaliatory British bombing of Berlin was not, though it still shies away of actually showing the effects of the strikes on Berlin while the Blitz is depicted in all its horror.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • When the RAF pilots in France are taking off to evacuate ahead of the approaching German forces, one pilot squeezes a French officer with him into the cockpit of his single-seat fighter to get the man to safety along with them.
  • One scene that takes place on a German bomber features a gunner getting shot through the chest. The pilot awkwardly drags him next to his seat so he can keep pressure on the wound while fighting to keep the badly shot-up He-111 airborne. He successfully crash-lands in France, and is visibly relieved when he sees that his gunner is still alive.
  • One scene shows "Skipper" getting up early for duty, quietly leaving behind his sleeping wife & children. Before he leaves the house, he lightly knocks on a closed door. Moments after "Skipper" leaves the house, Andy, who's obviously staying with "Skipper" and whose own family was killed in the previous scene, joins him in the ride to the airfield. No words are spoken, but we can see from his expression that "Skipper" is deeply concerned about Andy.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: One of the RAF squadrons has the callsign Batman. This sounds a lot funnier/weirder now to audiences who are unaware of what a batman ^note  an enlisted man acting as kind of personal servant to an officer was in the military. Especially funny given Michael Caine's presence.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Sergeant Pilot Chris is played by David Griffin, who would later be best known for playing Clive Dempster in Hi-de-Hi! and Emmet Hawksworth in Keeping Up Appearances.
  • A pilot is played by Hilary Minster, who would later be best known for playing General von Klinkerhoffen in 'Allo 'Allo!.
  • Warrant Officer Warwick is played by Michael Bates, who would later be best known for playing Blamire in Last of the Summer Wine and Rangi Ram in It Ain't Half Hot, Mum.
• Special Effect Failure:
  • Early in the film, German fighters are strafing an airfield, when two fighters strafe the same Hurricane on the ground, the strafing pyrotechnics on the ground go off in the wrong order. Also, one shot of a German bomber exploding in mid-air is clearly the explosion effect composited over the still-intact Real Life airplane.
  • The battle with the Stukas leaves a bit to be desired, considering those were scale RC models as it was deemed too expensive to make surviving Stukas airworthy for the film.
  • During the battle over the North Sea, at least one crashing bomber can be seen trailing a string or cable.
  • The quality of the shots depicting London on fire as seen from the air vary greatly, with the worst being moving, translucent orange blobs composited over aerial shots of the city.

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