Which 1981 Best Picture winner follows runners Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams?

The 1981 Best Picture winner following runners Eric Liddell and Harold Abrahams is Chariots of Fire. The British historical sports drama dramatizes the contrasting journeys of two athletes preparing for the 1924 Paris Olympics.

Liddell, a devout Scottish Christian, refuses to run his Olympic heat on a Sunday and instead competes in the 400 metres. Abrahams, an English Jewish sprinter, pursues victory partly as a challenge to the antisemitism and class barriers he faces at Cambridge. Their stories are connected by ambition but shaped by very different motivations.

Directed by Hugh Hudson, the film won four Oscars at the 54th Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Original Screenplay, Costume Design, and Vangelis’s electronic score. The famous slow-motion beach-running sequence is often associated with the real athletes, but it was created for the film rather than being a literal Olympic event.