The movie was written by Rodney Ackland and Emeric Pressburger, and was directed by Michael Powell. The music was written by Ralph Vaughan Williams and was the first film score he wrote. It won the Academy Award for Best Story and was nominated for Best Picture and Best Writing, Screenplay.

The film was made in the period during the Second World War when the United States was still neutral it was funded by the British Ministry of Information as a propaganda film to boost British confidence, improve the morale of the colonies, and encourage the United States to join the conflict. Despite this the film takes a measured approach, and the Nazis are not all vilanous enemies.

The film has a somewhat laughable conception of Canada that draws on many stereotypes that persist to the present. Including Mounties, decorated First Nations, and an especially bizarre cameo by Laurence Olivier as an overwrought French-Canadian. The Nazis also travel, mostly by foot, from Hudson Bay, to Newfoundland, to Niagara Falls and then to British Columbia.