Steve McQueen’s latest movie starring Saoirse Ronan features his proudest moment ever on set

Steve McQueen returns to the big screen with Blitz, a Second World War drama about a mother's quest to reunite with her missing son amidst the devastation of '40s London – but it was a scene about collective protest that he found the most powerful to film.

In one of the movie's early scenes, the BBC comes to the munitions factory where Rita, played by Saoirse Ronan, is working. She beautifully sings a song for a morale-boosting broadcast around the nation, until the other women workers seize the moment to call for the government to open up the city’s underground stations and provide shelter for its citizens.

"The proudest day on set I ever had was that day with those 450 women and – I’ve never had that – the chemistry, the energy," McQueen tells Total Film in our final issue out on Thursday, October 10, which features Gladiator 2 on the cover. "You could taste it."

Blitz follows Rita's young son George (Elliott Heffernan) after he goes missing on his journey to be evacuated from London to the countryside, and both mother and son's perilous journeys across the city in an attempt to bring their family back together. The cast also includes Stephen Graham, Harris Dickinson, and Paul Weller.

Check out our exclusive look at Ronan as Rita below.

Blitz is released in theaters on November 1 and follows on Apple TV Plus on November 22. And you can read more about it and a whole lot else besides in the final issue of Total Film when it hits shelves and digital newsstands on Thursday, October 10.

Check out the covers below:

Subscribers have the exclusive text-free cover on the way to them right now, with the issue then hitting shops and digital newsstands on Thursday October 10.