Pressure

There’s a whole genre of film about men in a room deciding the fate of the world, and Pressure is a sturdy addition to it. The room is a weather station in June 1944. The decision is whether to launch the D-Day invasion, and it hinges on a Scottish meteorologist, James Stagg, telling General Eisenhower that the sky says wait. Andrew Scott plays Stagg with a clenched, sleepless intensity, and Brendan Fraser is a surprisingly good Eisenhower, all folksy calm hiding a man who knows thousands will die on his word.

It started as a stage play and it shows, in a good way: this is tension and forecasts, not battle. If you want the invasion, watch something else. If you want the argument that made it possible, this is a tight, grown-up thriller about the terror of a single call.