This fall, Lee, a biography set during World War II, will hit theatres. The movie will debut on September 20, 2024, starring Kate Winslet as war photojournalist Lee Miller. According to Deadline, Roadside Attractions and Vertical have jointly acquired the film’s North American rights. The movie follows Miller’s life as she battles sexism to report on the escalating war in Europe and in her later years as she battles the atrocities she has seen.

Renowned cinematographer Ellen Kuras is directing her first feature film; alongside Winslet, the film stars Andy Samberg (Brooklyn Nine-Nine), Marion Cotillard (La Vie en Rose), Andrea Riseborough (To Leslie), Noémie Merlant (Portrait of a Lady on Fire), Josh O’Connor (Challengers), and Alexander Skarsgard (Infinity Pool). The Lives of Lee Miller, a 1985 biography written by Miller’s son Antony Penrose, is the basis for Winslet’s passion project Lee, for which she also serves as producer.

Release date of Kate Winslet’s World War II Biopic ‘Lee’

Lee’s release date is into a quiet month for general releases. The Wild Robot, an animated film from Dreamworks, and the George Clooney/Brad Pitt thriller Wolfs, both making their premiere on the 20th, will compete with it. It will open one week following the September 13 release of the previously rescheduled horror picture Speak No Evil and the animated prequel Transformers One. In addition, Saw IX, which debuted on September 27, will bring back the insane Jigsaw once again.

Lee Miller: Who Was He?

Lee Miller, who was born in Poughkeepsie, New York, in 1907, was a highly sought-after fashion model in the city, but he eventually gave up modelling to pursue his passion for photography. She gained recognition for her own photography and served as the renowned photographer Man Ray’s muse and protégé. She married surrealist painter Ronald Penrose after relocating to the UK. When World War II broke out in 1939, she was in England, and while in London, she captured the destruction caused by the Battle of Britain.

She was there for the landing of Allied forces in continental Europe in 1944, covering the liberation of France, the invasion of Germany, and the horrors of the Nazi death camps at Dachau and Buchenwald. Miller settled down and mostly stopped taking pictures after the war; at the age of 70, she passed away from cancer in 1977.

Rotten Tomatoes gave Lee a “Fresh” grade of 68 percent after its 2023 Toronto International Film Festival debut. Although Nate Richard of Collider gave Winslet’s lead role and Andy Samberg’s rare dramatic turn high marks in his review, he concluded that the movie “feels considerably more concerned in just laying out the facts like it’s a university history lecture.”

Lee will make her theatre debut on September 20, 2024.

Kate Winslet-Led WWII Drama ‘Lee’ Acquired by Roadside Attractions, Vertical

The WWII drama Lee has been co-acquired by Roadside Attractions and Vertical, which will be the feature directorial debut of seasoned cinematographer Ellen Kuras (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). It features Academy Award winner Kate Winslet (The Regime) as renowned war photographer and journalist Lee Miller from the United States. Written by Liz Hannah (The Post) and Marion Hume & John Collee, the movie is scheduled to release in cinemas on September 20. It will open up against Wolfs, a thriller from Sony and Apple starring Brad Pitt and George Clooney, and The Wild Robot, an animation from Uni.

Lee, which had its world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival last year, starts in the late 1930s, just as Hitler is gaining power in Germany. Miller (Winslet), who has fallen madly in love with art dealer Roland Penrose (Alexander Skarsgård), leaves her life and her group of creative friends behind and heads to London. After the two-start dating passionately, Europe is plunged into war. 

Miller, a well-known photographer, gets hired to do photo shoots for British Vogue and is surprised by the limitations put in place for women in the industry. She becomes more and more irate as Hitler’s government seizes power in Europe because patriarchal norms limit her ability to do her job, which forces her to cover the British home front. With the support of her friend and editor Audrey Withers (Andrea Riseborough), Miller defies the establishment in her determined attempt to be where the action is. She overcomes great barriers and arrives to the front lines of World War II.

She is instantly driven to record the truth, so she points her camera toward the suffering and gradually starts to show the terrible toll that Hitler’s evil acts against the defenceless people under his rule have taken. For the sake of the female Vogue Magazine readers, from whom the realities of war mainly concealed, she undertook this risky effort.

Following her successful resistance during Saint-siege Malo’s and her capture of one of the first applications of napalm, Miller teams up with photographer David E. Scherman of Life Magazine (Andy Samberg). Because of their friendship and collaboration, she and Scherman are able to send back to the United States and England a series of unforgettable photographs that have a lasting impact on our perception of these events.

Produced by Winslet, Kate Solomon, Troy Lum, Andrew Mason, Marie Savare, and Lauren Hantz, the film also stars Josh O’Connor (The Crown) and Marion Cotillard (La Vie en Rose). Sky (UK), Elevation Pictures (Canada), Acme (Baltic States), SND (France), Vertice 360 (Italy, Spain, Latin America), Empire (South Africa), Ascot Elite (Switzerland), The Searchers (Benelux), Scanbox (Scandinavia), The Film Group (Greece, Cyprus), Nos Lusomundi (Portugal), Forum Film (Israel), Front Row (Middle East), and Vertical/Monolith/Blitz are on board to distribute it internationally (Eastern Europe).

Producers Solomon and Winslet said, “We are both happy to be teaming with Roadside Attractions and Vertical to distribute Lee.” “They have the same intense feelings as we do about a movie that tells an unseen tale and introduces viewers worldwide to Lee Miller’s legacy.