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I’d never heard of Sir Nicholas "Nicky" Winton before I saw “One Life,� the new film that tells the story of the London stockbroker who became the “British Schindler,� leading efforts to save Czech children from the Nazis at the beginning of World War II.

After seeing the film, based on a biography written by Winton’s daughter, it’s clear that Winton, who died in 2015 at age 106, was a remarkable man, a humble humanitarian who did what he could to get the children to England before the Germans took Czechoslovakia.

The solidly crafted film from British TV director James Hawes frames Winton’s story by having him played by Sir Anthony Hopkins as an octogenarian, cleaning up a lifetime of papers and memorabilia in the home he shares with his wife, and by Johnny Flynn as the young man who flies to Prague and sees the children — often without parents — living outside and struggling to survive amid the Nazi invasion.

As the older Winton unearths the scrapbook he made of the photos of the children that were rescued, the story flashes back four decades to follow the young Winton as he learns of the obstacles that must be overcome to get the children on trains out of the country.

Those start with the British bureaucracy, which requires visas for each of the kids and a 50-pound guarantee from sponsors and processes requests slowly. That challenge is taken up in London by his mother, Babi (the great Helena Bonham Carter in taut, tough mode).

In Czechoslovakia, Flynn works with Doreen Warriner (Romola Garai), who’s in charge of the effort to get adults out of the country, Trevor Chadwick (Alex Sharp) and Hana Hejdukova (Juliana Moska), a Jewish woman who serves as his interpreter with the kids.

To reveal more of the details of the operation, and why it continued to haunt Winton, would spoil much of the movie. Suffice it to say that Winton and his team rescued 669 children before the Nazis took Czechoslovakia and the British entered the war.

The old-and-young framing, and Hopkins’ as-always superb performance set “One Life� apart from the biopic standard.

The Czechoslovakian portion of the film, shot on location, is a more common, by-the-numbers take on the rescue efforts. But it is well enough crafted that it's tense and dramatic without any explicit violence, allowing the picture to get a PG rating.

"One Life� has been called, somewhat flippantly, a “feel-good Holocaust film.� It’s not exactly that. But the film’s ending, literally reproducing Winton’s appearance on a British TV program, packs an uplifting, tear-inducing punch as he, at last, realizes the impact of his efforts on, what is now, thousands of lives.

As with many biopics, stick around at the end where text explains what happened with Winton and the other organizers, a film clip shows him being knighted by Queen Elizabeth and photographs show Winton old (Hopkins looks very much like him) and holding a child during the rescue.