Is The Great Escaper a true story? Explained

The Great Escaper is based on a true story and is a 2023 British drama directed by Oliver Parker and written by William Ivory. It is inspired by a real 2014 incident involving D-Day veteran Bernard Jordan.

The film stars Michael Caine as Jordan and Glenda Jackson as his wife Irene in their final roles. Jackson died in June 2023 and Caine retired shortly after release. Supporting cast includes John Standing as a fellow veteran, Danielle Vitalis as a care aide and Wolf Kahler.

The film premiered in UK cinemas in October 2023 and had a limited US theatrical run. It made its American television debut on PBS Masterpiece on Sunday, November 23, 2025 at 9/8c.

The story follows an 89-year-old Royal Navy veteran who leaves his care home in June 2014 without telling the staff and travels to Normandy for the 70th anniversary of D-Day. The real life incident made global headlines when Bernard Jordan went missing and became known as “The Great Escaper.”

The Great Escaper: True story of a Veteran’s life

The Great Escaper draws straight from a 2014 escapade by Royal Navy veteran Bernard "Bernie" Jordan, then 89. Living in a care home in England with his wife Irene, Jordan slipped out one morning with a Union Jack flag and a suitcase, bound for the 70th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, France.

Instead of wearing his war medals under his raincoat, he took a bus to the ferry port and crossed the Channel alone where he'd fought on June 6, 1944 amid the largest seaborne invasion in history. 

Jordan's real trip wasn't scripted drama but it was logistics and luck. On the crossing, he bumped into RAF veteran Arthur Howard-Johnson who pulled him into a group of older ex servicemen. 

He joined other veterans in Normandy and shared a hotel room with strangers. He then attended the commemoration events. Staff only noticed he was gone hours later, triggering a police search and nationwide media storm. Irene knew his plan and kept quiet.

Jordan returned 48 hours later to cheering crowds and reporters. He died six months later in December 2014 and Irene died days after. Their story was pieced from news clips and family chats and it captured a nation's soft spot for unsung elders defying routine.

The movie stays close to the core event but adds fictional layers. It introduces flashbacks to D-Day itself and explores survivor’s guilt. It gives Irene a bigger on-screen role as Bernie’s partner-in-crime. Their wartime romance is dramatized (little is publicly known about the real couple’s early years). The care home panic and social media frenzy are heightened for tension and humor.

Critics praised the film for letting Caine and Jackson play characters their own age without gimmicks. Reviews highlight the quiet power of two screen legends delivering understated farewell performances. About his experience in adapting a real life story into a film, William Ivory shared with the RadioTimes-

"I think in the first instance, when it originally happened and there was quite a lot of press coverage, I think there was just a feeling that there was a really interesting story there. Well, there was an interesting idea, an event, and there was much that – you know, he's clearly a great old boy – but there was also much that, quite quickly, you could see the way in which the aged could be sort of sentimentalised."

He added-

"So pretty early on, and certainly when Oliver [Parker, director] and I started working on it, there was just this question of, you know, there was the story, but what was the story behind it? What was beneath it? And also, in terms of The Great Escaper, that headline, and the cheeky chappy nature of it, how real was that?"

The Great Escaper premiered in the U.S on Sunday, November 23, 2025 at 9/8c on PBS Masterpiece. It's now available to stream on the PBS app. In the UK it is currently available on BBC iPlayer.

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