Hero 1983

Local Hero is a 1983 British comedy-drama film written and directed by Bill Forsyth and produced by David Puttnam. It stars Peter Riegert, Burt Lancaster, Denis Lawson, Peter Capaldi, and Fulton Mackay. Riegert plays an American oil company representative who is sent to the fictional village of Ferness on the west coast of Scotland to purchase the town and surrounding property to build an oil refinery. The musical score was composed by Mark Knopfler. The film premiered on 17 February 1983. It received critical acclaim, and holds a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. At the 37th British Academy Film Awards, the film was nominated for seven BAFTA Awards and won Best Direction for Forsyth. In 1999, the British Film Institute ranked the film as one of the Top 100 British films of the 20th century. A stage musical adaptation of the same name, written by Forsyth and Knopfler, premiered in 2019.