Returning to the Second World War for the first time since Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, Brad Pitt will close the London Film Festival with Fury, in which he stars as a sergeant, leading a tank crew behind enemy lines in April 1945.

Fury is directed by David Ayer, whose End of Watch screened at the festival in 2012, and it co-stars Shia LaBeouf, Logan Lerman, Michael Peña, Jon Bernthal and Jason Isaacs.

It was filmed in Oxfordshire and Hertfordshire and caused controversy when scenes featuring extras in Nazi uniforms were shot on Remembrance Sunday.

Ayer said it was a great honour for Fury to be chosen as the “Closing Night celebration of … one of the leading festivals in Europe.” He said it was a true pleasure to be returning to England. “The fields of Oxfordshire and Bovingdon Airfield in Hertfordshire were our home for 12 weeks last year, so it’s something of a homecoming for us to present the movie at its European premiere,” he enthused.

The festival’s director Clare Stewart described Fury as “a resounding cinematic achievement” that would bring this year’s event “to a monumental close.” In a statement, she said, “Rarely is a film so successful at balancing the human drama of war with such thrilling action sequences.”

Both Pitt and Ayer will attend the film’s screening at the Odeon Leicester Square on 19th October. Fury will be shown simultaneously at cinemas across the UK.