De Gaulle: Liberté is the second of this two-part saga – after De Gaulle: Resistance – picking up not too long after the first film ended, first taking the story on to 1943 Libya, where Général Philippe Leclerc (Niels Schneider) goes up against the Italians in Libya, before moving North to take on the Nazis.
Meanwhile, Charles de Gaulle (Simon Abkarian) is expected to sign an agreement with Henri Giraud (Thierry Lhermitte), one of the leaders of the French Resistance – since they’re both co-presidents of the French Committee of National Liberation, but the pair hate each other, and so the former refuses to head to Algiers to complete this.
As the war rages on, and with de Gaulle always trying to get his own way, the Resistance have been sussed, we have a second part with not much humour this time round, which really does help to make it rather a slog.
The same goes for there being a lot less sparing between de Gualle and Winston Churchill (Simon Russell Beale – The Choral), which was one of the highlights of the first film.
Of course, if you’ve seen Part 1, you may as well watch Part 2, but it really does show that this should’ve been a TV mini-series and not a movie two-parter that few would watch on the big screen.
NOTE: There are no mid- nor post-credit scenes.
De Gaulle: Liberté is in cinemas now, but isn’t yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD. However, once announced, it will appear on the New DVD Blu-ray 3D and 4K releases UK list.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 160 minutes
Release date: September 18th 2026
Studio: Pathe
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Rating: 4/10
Director: Antonin Baudry
Producers: Jérôme Seydoux, Axelle Boucaï, Ardavan Safaee
Writers: Antonin Baudry, Bérénice Vila
Novel: Julian T Jackson (A Certain Idea of France)
Music: Théo Cascio
Cast:
Charles de Gaulle: Simon Abkarian
Winston Churchill: Simon Russell Beale
Général Pierre Koenig: Benoît Magimel
René Pleven: Loïc Corbery
Livia: Anamaria Vartolomei
Général Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque: Niels Schneider
Blazej: Karim Leklou
Henri Giraud: Thierry Lhermitte
Jean Moulin/Rex: Félix Kysyl
Eden: Tom Mison
Courcel: Kacey Mottet Klein
D’Argenlieu: Grégoire Colin
Passy: Pablo Cobo
Franklin D. Roosevelt: Campbell Scott
Amiral François Darlan: Mathieu Kassovitz
Dwight Eisenhower: Daniel Betts
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.