Operation: Daybreak

In 1942 Czechoslovakia, a small group of resistance fighters plans a high risk operation to eliminate SS-General Reinhard Heydrich, the Nazi official terrorizing Prague. Two trained operatives, Jan Kubis and Jozef Gabcik, arrive and train with local contacts while civilian supporters provide safe houses and forged papers. They balance the need for secrecy with growing pressure from collaborators and increased German crackdowns. Personal relationships and moral choices complicate their mission, and the cell copes with fear, betrayal, and unexpected setbacks as they move toward a single violent act intended to change the occupation's course. The film tracks planning, the assassination attempt, and the immediate fallout without revealing later historical consequences. Tension stays steady as loyalties are tested at every turn.

Released in 1975, Operation: Daybreak was directed by Lewis Gilbert, with a screenplay credited to Ronald Harwood. The film adapts the historical operation known as Anthropoid, and stars Timothy Bottoms, Martin Shaw, Joss Ackland, Nicola Pagett, and Anthony Andrews prominently.

Contemporary box office records for Operation: Daybreak are sparse, and no widely reported worldwide gross exists. The film received modest theatrical exposure in Europe and North America, attracting niche audiences interested in wartime dramas rather than big commercial returns overall.

Operation: Daybreak belongs to a small set of films that dramatize the real Operation Anthropoid, and it helped keep the story of Czech resistance visible to English speaking audiences. Its realistic street-level sequences and focus on ordinary courage have been referenced by historians and filmmakers working on wartime portrayals regularly.

Critics gave mixed reactions, noting solid performances from Timothy Bottoms and Joss Ackland while pointing to a restrained tone and period pacing that some viewers find slow. The film emphasizes sacrifice, loyalty, and the moral cost of violent resistance, presenting heroism as quiet, human and costly rather than glamorous today.