Films and television , British war veteran A number of films and television productions emerged from the conflict. Notable examples include: •
Simon Weston, a
Welsh Guardsman who had suffered serious burns during the bombing of
Sir Galahad, became a popular figure due to British media coverage. A series of television documentaries followed the progress of rehabilitation and eventual recovery from his injuries, the first being ''
Simon's War'' (6 April 1983) in
BBC One's
QED series. • The 1983 British film ''
The Ploughman's Lunch'' is set in the media and political world at the time of the war, which it compares to the 1956
Suez War. • "A Game of Soldiers," by
Jan Needle, a three-part story in the
Thames Television schools series
Middle English, was broadcast on the
ITV network in September-October 1983. It tells the story of a group of Falkland children who find a wounded Argentinian conscript in hiding after the cessation of hostilities because he is afraid to surrender to the British. • The first Argentine film about the war was
Los chicos de la guerra (
The Boys of the War), directed by Bebe Kamin in 1984. • The film version of
Whoops Apocalypse (1986) features a conflict very similar to the Falklands War between the United Kingdom and the fictional
Caribbean country of Maguadora over the equally fictional Santa Maya. • The BBC drama
Tumbledown (31 May 1988) told the story of
Robert Lawrence MC, a
junior officer in the
Scots Guards (
Colin Firth) left paralysed down his left side by a gunshot wound to the head inflicted by an Argentine soldier on Mount Tumbledown, during the final push for Stanley, and his adjustment to disabled life after the war. •
Harley Cokeliss'
horror film Dream Demon (1988) depicts a planned marriage between the main character and a Falklands War veteran. • The
1989 British film Resurrected, directed by
Paul Greengrass, had
David Thewlis as a British soldier previously presumed dead in the war reappearing alive weeks after the end of the conflict. • In the American/British film
For Queen and Country (1989) starring
Denzel Washington, Reuben is a St. Lucia-born British ex-para finding it difficult to adjust to civilian life some years after the war. The film deals with the poverty, crime, and racism that Reuben encounters back home and how he is ignored by both society and government despite his service. • The BBC film
An Ungentlemanly Act (13 June 1992) depicts the events leading up to and during the initial occupation of the Islands by the Argentine Army. Based on true events, the film was produced to mark the 10th anniversary of the conflict and starred actors
Ian Richardson as Governor
Rex Hunt and
Bob Peck as Major Mike Norman. • The episode "
Burns' Heir" of the American animated series
The Simpsons involves
Krusty the Clown airing a rerun of his show in the belief that it will blend in with the year of the broadcast (1994), but he accidentally airs a rerun in which he discusses the
Falklands War. • The
Cracker episode "Brotherly Love" (1995) features a psychologically damaged veteran from the Falklands War, Barney (
Ron Donachie), who gets into a brief argument with DS Jimmy Beck (
Lorcan Cranitch) and flies into an insane rage when Beck shows no interest in Barney's exploits in the war. • Although the drama by
Ian Curteis that became known simply as
The Falklands Play was originally commissioned by the
BBC in 1983, it was then temporarily set aside until 1985. The Corporation subsequently gave a number of reasons why it could not be made, including that it would have been broadcast too close to the
1987 General Election. Curteis maintained that the generally sympathetic portrayal of
Margaret Thatcher and his refusal to include material that was contrary to both the official record and what his interviews with the major protagonists had revealed, went against a perceived BBC anti-government bias, citing the fact that
Tumbledown - which he and others claimed was more "
anti-establishment" -
was made and broadcast. Curteis' play was eventually recorded in a truncated form and screened by the digital satellite channel
BBC Four in 2002. • The
2005 Argentine film Iluminados por el fuego (literally "Lit by Fire", released in English speaking countries as
Blessed by Fire), directed by
Tristán Bauer and starring
Gastón Pauls, is a
docudrama based on the autobiographical novel of the same name by Argentine Falklands veteran Edgardo Esteban, who fought in the conflict as an 18-year-old
conscript. It received a
San Sebastián Festival special award. The film tells about a veteran's memories, re-awakened after he learns of the suicide of a former soldier comrade. The movie gave a realistic portrait of the extreme weather and psychologically stressful conditions the Argentine soldiers faced in the field, the brutality and indifference to the suffering of the soldiers by their leaders, and the horrors of modern conflict. The movie won several awards, including a
Goya. • The
2006 British film This Is England, directed by
Shane Meadows, is set in July 1983 in a small town in England and includes documentary footage and extracts from radio broadcasts about the Falklands War. The main character of the film is 12-year-old Shaun, whose father was killed fighting in the war. • The British science fiction series
Ashes to Ashes uses the Falklands War as a backdrop during its second series. • BBC motoring show
Top Gear visited Argentina in 2014 to film a
Christmas special episode. However, the presenters' cars' number plates were seen as references to Falklands War. Presenter
Jeremy Clarkson's
Porsche 928's original number plate "H982 FKL" was seen as a direct reference to the conflict. Upon reaching
Ushuaia, from where the
General Belgrano departed on its final voyage, an angry mob confronted them. The three presenters were forced to abandon their cars, which were pelted with rocks from demonstrators, and catch the last plane to Buenos Aires and flee to Chile. A filming crew of 30, who was left behind, was escorted to the Chilean border by local police overland. • The Falklands War is a significant episode of the
2011 biographical film The Iron Lady, depicting the life and career of former British Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher. • The 2013 Argentine
miniseries (
Combatants), depicting an Argentine conscript. • In the 2015 TV show
Blunt Talk protagonist, Walter Blunt (Played by
Patrick Stewart) is a former
Royal Marines major and veteran of the
Falklands War along with his
valet Harry Chandler (Played by
Adrian Scarborough), a former Royal Marines
lance corporal. • In episodes 4 and 5 of the fourth season of the Netflix series
The Crown the Falklands War plays a major role. In episode 4
Margaret Thatcher demands action to recover the Falkland Islands after the invasion by Argentina. In episode 5 she discusses the recapture with the Queen and organizes a victory parade without inviting the Queen to attend. • The 2020 Argentine documentary
Good Night Malvinas () focuses on the Falklands War. • The 2025 adaptation of
The Eternaut depicts flashbacks of the war experienced by Juan Salvo, a veteran with PTSD.
Games • The computer games
Harrier Attack (1983) and
Yomp presented unofficial portraits of the fighting. • The naval strategy game
Strike Fleet (1987) includes a scenario set in the Falklands, where the player takes control of British destroyers under attack from Argentine submarines. • The naval strategy game ''
Janes' Fleet Command'' includes a scenario set in the Falklands, where the player controls the entire naval force, from Carriers to Destroyers and Aircraft. • The naval tactical game
Harpoon 4 has an extension book named "South Atlantic War: Battle for the Falklands" which comprises numerous scenarios and historical details about the conflict. The second edition was published in 2002 by
Clash of Arms Games. •
Malvinas 2032, developed by
Sabarasa, is a real-time strategy game, in which the player has to command the Argentine forces and re-take the Falkland Islands for Argentina. • The
Falklands War - 1982 scenario collection, created with the Harpoon3 naval warfare simulator, is intended to accurately recreate the real-life war from 1982. •
The Falklands War 1982 was published by Shrapnel games. •
Port Stanley: Battle for the Falklands (1984), a battalion level board war game of the land campaign, was published by
3W. • ''John Tiller's Squad Battles Falklands'' is a turn-based, realistic videogame based on the Falklands land war. • ''
Falklands '82'' (1986) by
Personal Software Services. •
Project Reality v1.4 includes multiple maps based on the Falkland conflict
Literature Fiction •
Jack Higgins' thriller
Exocet (1983) deals with one of the war's most famous "buzz-words"; for many years afterwards, "Exocet" became synonymous with "missile" in the UK. ("
Yomp" and "
Task Force" also entered the lexicon.) •
Pierre Boulle's novel
La Baleine des Malouines (1983), translated in the UK as
The Falklands Whale and in the US as
The Whale of the Victoria Cross, is about a
blue whale which befriends the British task force. • The comic strip
Bloom County featured several story lines taking place during the Falklands War. •
Raymond Briggs' picture book
The Tin-Pot Foreign General and the Old Iron Woman (1984) is a
satire of the Falklands War. •
On Foreign Ground (1986) by Eduardo Quiroga, a novel in diary/letter form, tells of the war from the viewpoint of a young Argentine soldier. • In
Stephen King's novella
The Langoliers (1990), the character Nick Hopewell is a Falklands veteran. • ''Falklands 2: Argentina's Back and This Time It's Different'' (1997) by Jim Thorn is a technothriller about a fictional second invasion of the Falkland Islands. •
Las Islas (The Islands, 1998; translated 2012), a novel by
Carlos Gamerro, is a satire of the war and the Argentine dictatorship, narrated by an Argentine veteran of the war. • The first chapters of
Chris Ryan's novel
Land of Fire (2002) are set in the Falklands War, while the latter part involves a plot by a new military junta to re-invade the islands. • The novel
Ghost Force (2006) by
Patrick Robinson depicts the Argentines reinvading the Falklands. •
David Mitchell's
bildungsroman Black Swan Green (2006) is set in
Worcestershire, England, in 1982, and contains many references to the Falklands War. • Daniel E. Arias' novel
That Forgotten Little War (2012) is about the intertwined lives of 14 participants in the Falkland War. • ''The Captain's Story
(2012) by Ray J. Cowling is a Falklands War novel about fictional Commander Mike Mansfield of the fictional Type 42 destroyer HMS Devonport''. • ''A Stone's Throw'' (2015) by Lee Watts is set mainly in Belfast during the troubles but has several chapters concerning the Falklands conflict and Mount Longdon. •
Ian McEwan's novel
Machines Like Me (2019) is set in an
alternate history in which Argentina won the Falklands War. • Steven Taylor's novel
Rock Scorpion (2024) is a spy thriller set in Gibraltar during the early stages of the Falklands War about a secret Argentine operation to sink the fictional supply ship RFA
Fort Edward in Gibraltar harbour.
Non-fiction The war provided a wealth of material for writers, and many dozens of books came from it; in the United Kingdom (UK) an account was
Max Hastings and
Simon Jenkins'
The Battle for the Falklands. Major General
Julian Thompson, of the Royal Marines, wrote his own account as commander in his 1985 book
No Picnic: 3 Commando Brigade in the South Atlantic. Other titles focused on the Sea Harrier (
Sharkey Ward's
Sea Harrier over the Falklands), the land battles leading up to the Argentine surrender (Christian Jennings and
Adrian Weale's
Green Eyed Boys), and the general experience of battle and life in the surrounding area (
Ken Lukowiak's ''A Soldier's Song
and Marijuana Time''). Vincent Bramley's "
Forward into Hell" offers a less apologetic account of the War. In Argentina, one of the best-known is Commodore
Pablo Carballo's
Halcones de Malvinas, a collection of personal experiences of fighter pilots and many others and mandatory reading for admission to the
FAA's
Escuela de Aviación Militar.
Poetry The Argentine writer
Jorge Luis Borges, himself partly of British descent and raised bilingually in Spanish and English, wrote a short poem, called
Juan López y John Ward (1985), about two fictional soldiers (one from each side), who died in the Falklands, in which he refers to "islands that were too famous". He also said about the war: "The Falklands thing was a fight between two bald men over a comb." A large amount of poetry has been written on both sides, regarding the war. An Argentine example is "Elegy for the Argentine Dead Boys, in the South Atlantic" by Salvador Oria. • The mini-series "Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Maker," later collected as Volume 10 of
The Boys features the central character, Billy Butcher, as an enlisted man in the Falklands War. Butcher frequently refers to the other side as "Argeys."
Music Music referencing the war includes: • The song "El Aguante" by
Puerto Rican band
Calle 13 from their album
Multi Viral, which references the war among other events that Latin America and the world have had to "deal with" or "endure" ("aguante" in Spanish). • The song "Glad It's All Over" (1984) by
Captain Sensible, is about the Falklands War. • The Argentine punk-rock band
Los Violadores wrote the song "Comunicado #166" at their album
Y ahora qué pasa ¿eh?. The song is critical of the military Junta, and the role of the United States.
Pil Trafa, the lead singer, commented in 2001 that Argentina should not try to annex the islands, but rather improve as a country, so that the Falklanders themselves would emigrate to Argentina. • The song "The Right Side Won" by Dutch reggae group "What Fun!", was inspired by the Falklands War. It made the BBC Radio 1 playlist, but was quickly removed when the content of the lyrics became apparent. • The Falklands War provided much of the subject matter for
Pink Floyd's album
The Final Cut (1983), written by
Roger Waters. The lyrics are highly critical of what it portrays as British
jingoism and of the Thatcher government's actions. A specific lyric (from the song "Get Your Filthy Hands Off My Desert") protesting the sinking of ARA
General Belgrano reads: "...Galtieri took the Union Jack. And Maggie, over lunch one day, took a cruiser with all hands... apparently to make him give it back." • Pop musician
Elvis Costello wrote the song "
Shipbuilding" (1983) with
Clive Langer in response to the Falklands War. The song was originally written for
Robert Wyatt, whose version was released as a single in August 1982, a couple of months after the war had ended: Wyatt's recording was a Top 40 hit on the
UK Singles Chart. Written from the point of view of workers in a depressed shipbuilding town, it points out that their jobs only come at the expense of the lives lost in the war. 1984's "Peace in Our Time" (released under Costello's alias The Imposter) also references the "tiny island invaded". • Argentine rock musician
Charly García recorded the song
"No Bombardeen Buenos Aires" ("Do not bomb Buenos Aires") during the war and released it in his album
Yendo De La Cama Al Living. The song is about the socio-political climate in Argentina during the war. • Much material produced around this time by the
anarchist punk band
Crass was extremely critical of the war and its aftermath, in particular the album
Yes Sir, I Will (1983) and the singles "Sheep Farming in the Falklands" and "How Does it Feel to be the Mother of 1,000 Dead?" The latter, intended as a statement directed at Mrs. Thatcher, led to questions in Parliament and a request for prosecution for
obscenity from Conservative MP for
Enfield North,
Timothy Eggar. Crass were also responsible for
Thatchergate, a
hoax tape, originally attributed to the
Soviet KGB, on which the spliced voice of Margaret Thatcher appears to imply that the destroyer
HMS Sheffield was deliberately sacrificed in order to escalate the conflict. • The folk rock band
The Levellers wrote and produced the song "Another Man's Cause" featuring the lyrics "Your daddy well he died in the Falklands." • Manchester group
The Fall released the single "Marquis Cha-Cha" (1983), which tells the story of a
Lord Haw-Haw type figure who broadcasts from Argentina but meets a sticky end. • The song "Diego Paz wor nüngzehn" by German rock band
BAP is about the Falklands War. • British heavy metal band
Iron Maiden recorded for their album
Virtual XI (1998) a song called "Como Estais Amigos", about the Falklands War. • Scottish anarcho-punk band
Oi Polloi's song about one of the victims
Simon Weston is also a clear condemnation of the war. •
Joe Jackson's song "Tango Atlantico" (from the 1986 album
Big World) represents a look back at the Falklands War. • The title track of
The Exploited's album ''
Let's Start a War'' (1983) directly addresses the Falklands War, implying Margaret Thatcher started it almost on a whim, for her own benefit and to take the focus away from other problems Britain was facing at the time, such as unemployment. • On their album
From Here to Eternity: Live (1999),
The Clash substitute a line in the song "
Career Opportunities" for "I don't wanna die, fighting in the Falkland Strait" which was a common
ad-lib during their set at the time. • Some people in Britain took the song "
Six Months in a Leaky Boat" by the New Zealand pop group
Split Enz to be a criticism of the war, and the song was banned by the
BBC. The group denied that this was the song's intent particularly because the song was recorded earlier in 1982. • "
Fields of Fire" by
Big Country, is about the Falklands War. • The
Dire Straits song "
Brothers in Arms", written by
Mark Knopfler, is about the Falklands War. •
Vampire Weekend's song "
Mansard Roof" on their 2008
eponymous album references the conflict in the second verse of the song. • John Cale's album,
Words for the Dying, was written in 1982 as a response to the Anglo-Argentinian Falklands War, using poems written by fellow Welshman
Dylan Thomas. •
The Fixx song "Liner" from the 1983 album "
Reach the Beach" was heavily influenced by the
Falklands War. "Island in a forgotten latitude and with colonial attitude they took the chance for repossession" • Danish singer-songwriter
C.V. Jørgensen included the song "Postkort fra Port Stanley" ("
Postcard from Port Stanley") on his 1982 album "Lediggang a go go", lambasting Margaret Thatcher. •
The Clash song
"This is England" mentions the overlook of social and economic major issues plaguing the UK due to the rise of British patriotism from the Falklands War, with the line, "I see no glory, when will we be free". • On 2021, the Argentine pianist and composer Gabriel Lococo and the British musician
Mark Slater created the album "Temas Unidos", an anti-war conceptual album about the
Falklands War whose royalties went to the families who lost their homes in Patagonia due to a forest fire.
Theatre • British playwright
Steven Berkoff wrote the highly critical satirical play
Sink the Belgrano! (1986) about the British decision to go to war and the sinking of the Argentine cruiser
General Belgrano. • Lola Arias' play
Minefield (2016) is a form of
verbatim theatre project that brings together real soldiers from the war to perform and reimagine their experiences, exploring "what is left of [the Falklands/Malvinas war] in their heads 34 years later".
Visual arts Linda Kitson was the official
war artist accompanying British troops during the
Falklands Conflict. She created over 400 drawings of the troops' daily life, many of which are now part of the
Imperial War Museum's art collection and were exhibited to the general public in November 1982. They were featured again in the Museum's exhibition
Women War Artists, in 2011–2012. All of Kitson's drawings which were not retained by the Museum were sold. ==Football==