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Lean and ambitious, unsentimental and bombastic, overwhelmingly guy-centric, Christopher Nolan's World War II epic "Dunkirk" showcases the best and worst of the director's tendencies. The best win out and the worst recede in memory when you think back on the experience—provided that you want to remember "Dunkirk," a movie that's supposed to be grueling and succeeds. Less of a war film and more of a disaster (or survival) picture, it's an ensemble work that chronicles the evacuation of British soldiers who got trapped in the harbor and on the beaches of Dunkirk, France, in late May and early June of 1940, with the Germans, who had driven Allied forces practically out to sea, closing in for one last sweep.

If you were to make a list of every phobia you can think of, you'd have to tick off a lot of boxes after seeing this film. Fear of heights, fire, drowning, confined spaces, darkness, abandonment—you name it, it's represented in cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema's nightmarishly clear images. And if you see the movie in one of the handful of theaters showing it in 70mm IMAX format, the experience will feel even more constricting and oppressive because of the image's unusual shape. It's close to the old-fashioned "Academy" ratio common to films made in cinema's early decades: squarish, tall instead of wide. That means that when you're in the cockpit of a fighter  diving towards the water, or running behind an infantryman dodging German snipers, the idea of "tunnel vision," a phrase spoken by many a catastrophe survivor, comes to life onscreen.

The film will be shown in a wider format in most cinemas, but I doubt this will lessen the overall effect: this is a pile-driver of a movie, dropping one visual or aural bomb after another, with barely a pause to contemplate what it's just shown you. To watch it is to feel beleaguered.  This was a period in which German military power was ascendant and hope for the United Kingdom's survival was starting to ebb. The story of Dunkirk has been told on film before, notably in Leslie Norman's same-titled 1958 feature, and there has been no shortage of other films about other battlefield rescues; but this one feels different, mainly because of how it's made. 

Nolan, who also wrote the film's script, drops you into the middle of the action from frame one and keeps you there. This is an ensemble movie that doesn't just fail to delineate most of its characters through exposition but seems to take perverse pride in letting them scamper anonymously across the screen at flyspeck distance, getting lost amid crowds or merging with smoke or water. Scenes sometimes play out for minutes without audible dialogue, a rarity in commercial cinema made at this budget level; it's even rarer in Nolan's own films, which tend to clarify narrative via massive verbal exposition dumps. Nolan and van Hoytema hold shots longer than the Nolan norm, sometimes long enough to let you consider everything in the frame and decide where to let your eye settle.

Like a more restless cousin of Terrence Malick , who infused the combat picture with Transcendental philosophy in " The Thin Red Line ," or Robert Altman , who painted microcosmic panoramas of civilization in such films as " Nashville " and " Short Cuts ," "Dunkirk" treats every person on that beach and in assorted nearby planes and boats as part of a collective organism, less interesting for their biographical details than for the roles they play in the drama of history, however large or small they may be. "Dunkirk" is what I like to call an Ant Farm Picture: it's a portrait of a society, or a species, fighting for its life. It's not hugely interested in the plight of individuals, unless they're trying to save themselves or others. If you get confused about who's who and what's what from time to time, you can rest assured that this is a feature of Nolan's methods, not a bug (pun intended). 

Tom Hardy plays a fighter pilot trying to blast German pilots out of the sky before they can strafe soldiers on the ground and sink boats in the harbor. He has maybe a dozen lines and spends much of the film behind a mask, as he did in his last collaboration with Nolan, " The Dark Knight Rises "; but he makes a strong impression anyway by treating the character as the sum total of his actions. Mark Rylance plays a civilian with teenage sons who is determined to pilot his small yacht to Dunkirk and rescue as many people as he can; there are lots of these self-appointed rescuers around Dunkirk; their ultimate organization into one of the twentieth century's boldest non-military flotillas is as inspiring as you imagine it to be. A trio of soldiers, one of whom is played by Harry Styles , rushes from the town to the beach and onto a long dock that stretches into the ocean; this is the only way that big boats can get close enough to shore to pick up the stranded. The would-be passengers pray that they can pile onto a ship and get out before more German planes shred them with bullets or bombs. Some of the characters, including Hardy's Farrier and Rylance's Mark Dawson or Kenneth Branagh's Commander Bolton, the highest ranking English officer on the scene, are given names. Others are identified only by their general appearance or actions, such as Cillian Murphy , known only as "Shivering Soldier"; he's pulled from the icy sea by Rylance's captain and strongly urges the crew to sail away from Dunkirk, not toward it.

The film has its share of stumbling blocks. One is the persistent anonymity of the characters; just because a gambit is a conscious part of the film's design doesn't mean it always works, and there are moments you may wonder whether treating supporting players as something other than glorified cannon fodder might have resulted in a film as emotionally powerful as it is viscerally overwhelming. Another miscalculation is the score, by Hans Zimmer ,  a Jungian din of booming drums, bum-vibrating synth chords, and cawing string effects that loses much of its power by refusing to shut up, even when silence or ambient war noise might have been just as effective, or more so. The overuse of Zimmer's music has been an issue throughout Nolan's career, but here may become an object of debate. The situations and images are so vivid that the score often seems to be trying to rescue a film that doesn't need its help.

I was more on-the-fence about the movie's intricate narrative construction, but once the film's visceral impact had faded, it was there that my mind wandered. Like most of Nolan's films, "Dunkirk" is obsessed by the relative perception of time. This is emphasized here by the cross-cutting of Lee Smith . Smith has edited all of Nolan's movies since " Batman Begins "—including " Interstellar ," which is explicitly about the idea of time passing more quickly or slowly depending on where you are. "Dunkirk" tells us in its chapter-like opening titles that one major subplot takes place over a week, another in a day, and yet another in one hour. Then the movie hops between them in ways that compress and expand time for poetic effect—making, say, a plane's run that probably took thirty seconds seem to take exactly as long as a sea rescue that lasted hours.

One could make a case that this amounts to over-intellectualization of a strong, simple tale. But that's been Nolan's m.o. from "Following" and " Memento " onward, and I'd be lying if I said it didn't fascinate me, even if a particular film isn't doing much for me scene-to-scene. It has often been said that trauma wreaks havoc with one's perceptions of time. This is one of the few works I can think of that considers that idea over the course of a whole feature, not just in self-contained sequences. (The backbone of Zimmer's score, appropriately, is a ticking clock.)

If somebody were to ask me if I liked this film, I would tell them no. I loathed parts of it and found other parts repetitious or half-baked. But, maybe paradoxically, I admired it throughout, and have been thinking about it constantly since I saw it. Even the aspects of "Dunkirk" that didn't sit right with me are all of a piece. This is a movie of vision and integrity made on an epic scale, a series of propositions dramatized with machines, bodies, seawater and fire. It deserves to be seen and argued about. They don't make them like this anymore. Never did, really. 

Matt Zoller Seitz

Matt Zoller Seitz is the Editor at Large of RogerEbert.com, TV critic for New York Magazine and Vulture.com, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism.

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Dunkirk (2017)

Rated PG-13 for intense war experience and some language.

106 minutes

Kenneth Branagh as Commander Bolton of the Royal Navy

Fionn Whitehead as Tommy

Mark Rylance as Captain of the Moonstone

Tom Hardy as Farrier

Cillian Murphy as BEF Officer

Harry Styles as Alex

• Christopher Nolan

Cinematographer

• Hoyte van Hoytema
• Hans Zimmer

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Review: ‘Dunkirk’ Is a Tour de Force War Movie, Both Sweeping and Intimate

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By Manohla Dargis

• July 20, 2017

One of the most indelible images in “Dunkirk,” Christopher Nolan’s brilliant new film, is of a British plane in flames. The movie recounts an early, harrowing campaign in World War II that took place months after Germany invaded Poland and weeks after Hitler’s forces started rolling into the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and France. The plane, having glided to a stop, has been defiantly set ablaze by the pilot to avoid its being captured. It’s an image of unambiguous defeat but also an emblem of resistance and a portent of the ghastly conflagrations still to come.

It’s a characteristically complex and condensed vision of war in a movie that is insistently humanizing despite its monumentality, a balance that is as much a political choice as an aesthetic one. And “Dunkirk” is big — in subject, reach, emotion and image. Mr. Nolan shot and mostly finished it on large-format film (unusual in our digital era), which allows details to emerge in great scale. Overhead shots of soldiers scattered across a beach convey an unnerving isolation — as if these were the last souls on earth, terminally alone, deserted. (Seen on a television, they would look like ants.) Film also enriches the texture of the image; it draws you to it, which is crucial given the minimalist dialogue.

The movie is based on a campaign that began in late May 1940 in the French port city of Dunkirk, where some 400,000 Allied soldiers — including more than 200,000 members of the British Expeditionary Force, the British army in Western Europe — were penned in by the Germans. The British, faced with the capture or possible annihilation of their troops, initiated a seemingly impossible rescue. Named Operation Dynamo , this mission has assumed near-mythic status in British history and been revisited in books and onscreen; it shows up in “Mrs. Miniver,” a 1942 Hollywood weepie about British pain and perseverance in the war meant to encourage American support for the Allies.

War movies tend to play out along familiar lines, including lump-in-the throat home-front tales like “Mrs. Miniver.” “Dunkirk” takes place in battle, but it, too, is a story of suffering and survival. Mr. Nolan largely avoids the bigger historical picture (among other things, the reason these men are fighting is a given) as well as the strategizing on the front and in London, where the new prime minister, Winston Churchill, was facing the horrifying possibility of diminished military muscle. Churchill is heard from, in a fashion, but never seen. Mr. Nolan instead narrows in on a handful of men who are scrambling and white-knuckling their way into history on the sea, in the air and on the ground.

By turns intimate and sweeping, the film opens with six soldiers walking away from the camera down a spookily deserted street. Their bodies are shown in full, head to toe, and they are flanked by low buildings, the sort that now look so charming in touristic photographs. Slips of paper swirl around the men like autumn leaves. A few grab at the papers. One tries slurping water from a nearby garden hose; another pokes a hand through an open window, searching for a smoke. Still another reads one of the papers, which shows a map of the surrounding area encircled by arrows and ominous words of warning in English. He then crumples it, unbuckles his belt and begins to squat.

It’s a somewhat perplexing, awkwardly funny moment — this is a manifestly serious situation, and you’re about to watch a man defecate. You don’t know whether to laugh, but before you decide, shots ring out and the soldiers start running, the camera quickly following. The haunted emptiness is suddenly filled with the sounds of frantic escape and whizzing bullets. And then the men begin falling, one, two, three, until just the unbuckling one remains, scrambling first over a gate and soon onto a beach where thousands of other soldiers are massed and waiting. He silently takes in the extraordinary scene and then hustles over to a dune to begin undoing his belt again.

Scarcely a word has been uttered up to this point, yet much has been expressed: isolation; danger; desperation; fear; relief; and sheer, extreme bodily need and effort. Throughout this de facto prologue, Mr. Nolan emphasizes the concrete details, making you acutely aware of the fine-grained textures — the sores and embedded dirt on a man’s hands — and every resonant sound: the dribbling of water, the fluttering of paper, and the sharp crack and mechanical buzzing of rifle fire that turns into muffled thuds when bullets enter bodies. By the time the surviving soldier reaches the beach, you are already closely acquainted with his heavy breathing, wild fumbling and clumsy, chaotic running.

Soon, the scene switches to another port, where a British teenager, George (Barry Keoghan), is helping a father and son (Mark Rylance and Tom Glynn-Carney) unload a small yacht that’s been requisitioned for the Dunkirk mission. The three men instead set sail on their own, joining a civilian fleet — a rousing, motley armada of tugs, steamers, ferries and so on — that’s racing across the Channel. A third, astounding narrative section soon opens in the air, where three British Spitfire planes are quickly engaged in battle against German planes headed for Dunkirk, racing through the vast canopy and bobbing under clouds as the sun flashes, temporarily blinding them.

Mr. Nolan’s elastic approach to narrative works beautifully in “Dunkirk,” which oscillates among its three sections, each largely taking place in distinct locations in different time frames. The events on the beach — called the Mole for the breakwater that’s used as a dock — unfold during one week. The events on the sea occur in one day, while the air scenes transpire in an hour. The locations and the time periods are announced onscreen. At first the dividing lines aren’t always obvious as Mr. Nolan cuts from daytime scenes on the ground to those in the sea and in the air, a slight merging of space and especially of time that underlines the enormity of a fight seemingly without end.

Once Mr. Nolan begins switching between day and night, the lines dividing the three narrative segments mostly sharpen. Even as each section — with its individual dramas and perils — comes closer into view, Mr. Nolan keeps them all in dynamic play with one another. Some of this he achieves with stark visual echoes, as when water rushing into a downed Spitfire engulfs the pilot and elsewhere a soldier nearly drowns. (Tom Hardy plays the most critically important pilot, while a sympathetic Jack Lowden takes on a critical support role.) At one point, Mr. Nolan pulls the three narrative strands tightly together, creating a tremendous, enveloping sense of bone-deep dread.

“Dunkirk” is a World War II movie, one told through soldiers, their lived and near-death experiences and their bodies under siege. Names are generally irrelevant here; on the beach — and in the sea and air — what counts are rank, unit, skill and the operation, although more important is survival, making it through another attack and somehow avoiding exploding bombs. Mr. Nolan’s emphasis on the visceral reality of Dunkirk leaves much unsaid; even in some opening explanatory text, the enemy isn’t identified as Nazi Germany. The soldiers, of course, know exactly who they are fighting and perhaps even why, but in the field the enemy is finally the unnamed stranger trying to kill them.

The soldier who scrambles over the gate and onto the beach is called Tommy (Fionn Whitehead) in the credits, but I don’t remember hearing or reading his name. Mostly, I just thought of him as Our Boy, less because of his youth than because of the vulnerability communicated through Mr. Whitehead’s slight figure and tangible physical performance, his small and large gestures and moves: the darting, panicked eyes; the nervous, abrupt gestures; the hunched shoulders. In time, Tommy is joined by other soldiers waiting and running and ducking on the beach, the most important played by the equally fine Aneurin Barnard and the singer Harry Styles.

Mr. Nolan’s unyielding emphasis on the soldiers — and on war as it is experienced rather than on how it is strategized — blurs history even as it brings the present and its wars startlingly into view. “Dunkirk” is a tour de force of cinematic craft and technique, but one that is unambiguously in the service of a sober, sincere, profoundly moral story that closes the distance between yesterday’s fights and today’s. Mr. Nolan closes that distance cinematically with visual sweep and emotional intimacy, with images of warfare and huddled, frightened survivors that together with Hans Zimmer’s score reverberate through your body. By the time that plane is burning — and a young man is looking searchingly into the future — you are reminded that the fight against fascism continues.

Dunkirk Rated PG-13 for intense and realistic war violence. Running time: 1 hour 46 minutes.

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Allied soldiers from Belgium, the British Commonwealth and Empire, and France are surrounded by the German Army and evacuated during a fierce battle in World War II. Allied soldiers from Belgium, the British Commonwealth and Empire, and France are surrounded by the German Army and evacuated during a fierce battle in World War II. Allied soldiers from Belgium, the British Commonwealth and Empire, and France are surrounded by the German Army and evacuated during a fierce battle in World War II.

• Christopher Nolan
• Fionn Whitehead
• Barry Keoghan
• Mark Rylance
• 2.7K User reviews
• 575 Critic reviews
• 94 Metascore
• 66 wins & 236 nominations total

• French Soldier

• Irate Soldier

• Warrant Officer

• French Soldier 2
• French Soldier 3

• Petty Officer

• Stretcher Bearer

• Soldier at the Gap

• Able Seaman
• All cast & crew
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Did you know

• Trivia According to Sir Kenneth Branagh , roughly thirty Dunkirk survivors, who were in their mid-90s, attended the premiere in London, England. When asked about the movie, they felt that it accurately captured the event, but that the soundtrack was louder than the actual bombardment, a comment that greatly amused writer, producer, and director Sir Christopher Nolan .
• Goofs The Luftwaffe did not start painting fighter aircraft nose cones yellow until later in 1940. However Christopher Nolan has admitted this was done deliberately to make the German aircraft easier to identify by the audience.

Blind Man : Well done, lads. Well done.

Alex : All we did is survive.

Blind Man : That's enough.

• Crazy credits "The following Dunkirk little ships recreated their courageous and historic journey for this film: Caronia, Elvin, Endeavour, Hilfranor, Mary Jane, Mimosa, MTB 102, New Britannic, Nyula, Papillon, Princess Elizabeth, RIIS I"
• Alternate versions In Spain, the film was projected on 2.35:1 screens in the 2.20:1 aspect ratio. But the film was finally projected with black bars on the four sides of the screen. This same situation happened with Jurassic World (2015) and just before the film started a text appeared on the screen explaining the 2.00:1 aspect ratio fitting on the 2.35:1 screen adding black bars up an down. Dunkirk (2017) didn't show any explanation before the film.
• Connections Featured in Film '72: Episode #46.1 (2017)
• Soundtracks Variation 15 (Dunkirk) by Benjamin Wallfisch Produced by Hans Zimmer Based on a theme by Edward Elgar

User reviews 2.7K

• Jul 22, 2017
• How long is Dunkirk? Powered by Alexa
• If there were literally 1000's of armed soldiers on the beach, why wasn't it possible to all shoot at one plane at a time as it approached? Out of a few thousand bullets surely the chances of hitting the plane would be high?
• What does "The Mole: One Week, The Sea: One Day and The Air: One Hour" mean?
• Is the story line based on the real-life experiences of Commander Charles Lightoller at Dunkirk?
• July 21, 2017 (United States)
• United Kingdom
• Netherlands
• United States
• Official Facebook
• Official Instagram
• Urk, Flevoland, Netherlands
• Warner Bros.
• Dombey Street Productions
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• $100,000,000 (estimated)
• $189,740,665
• $50,513,488
• Jul 23, 2017
• $530,432,122

Technical specs

• Runtime 1 hour 46 minutes
• Dolby Digital

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Dunkirk Reviews

As technically proficient and respectful to history as Dunkirk is, no substantial human anchors of emotion emerge in this film that wants to be seen as an inspiring rescue saga before a war film or historical epic.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 7, 2024

Dunkirk, like Interstellar before it, fails not because it errs too far in one direction, but because of the same fundamental flaw — Nolan is not a gifted enough filmmaker to justify these films' more demanding conceits.

Full Review | Dec 6, 2023

With Dunkirk, we finally have a magnum opus from Nolan that's set in a real, identifiable world; and it raises questions about the worst side of humankind – war.

Full Review | Oct 23, 2023

Immerses you in war because it’s so stripped down, with Nolan wanting you to feel what the British soldiers are going through.

Full Review | Oct 17, 2023

Perhaps Nolan’s most precise effort, Dunkirk is all at once a rousing testament to heroism and an unforgiving reminder of how the horrors of war unfold on the innocent.

Full Review | Jul 20, 2023

I contend that not only has Nolan grown as an auteur, but that he has perfectly captured a universal truth to which all may relate and celebrate.

Full Review | Jun 22, 2023

Dunkirk was a well-made film that really made me understand just how dire the entire situation was. It opened my eyes to the horrors of what those troops went through.

Full Review | Apr 26, 2023

Dunkirk was a pivotal early moment in World War 2 and the Dunkirk spirit is something that has lived on through those most closely affected by it. Christopher Nolan brings it to the screen through an incredibly immersive and propulsive experience.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Aug 20, 2022

Audiences are quite understandably going to consider Dunkirk a war film, quite possibly one of the great war films of our age. Christopher Nolan's tenth picture is possibly an even better survival horror movie.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Mar 23, 2022

Nolan has crafted an impressive tribute to the survivors and the grand-scale efforts of the British people, resulting in the essential film about Dunkirk yet made.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 23, 2022

Director Christopher Nolan moves us from the epic to the intimate, giving us a sense of the scope of this event and then diving into the sensory experience of our dramatic representatives.

Full Review | Mar 19, 2022

At 106 minutes, Dunkirk is one of the shortest films of Nolans career but on par with The Dark Knight as his best.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Feb 18, 2022

Pausing the cacophony for thirty seconds to let the strings swell while Kenneth Branagh's eyes moisten does not an emotional experience make

Full Review | Jan 10, 2022

A film that vindicates the struggle of the anonymous heroes, solidarity, and highlights the importance of not giving up in the most adverse moments, where everything seems to be lost. A very necessary message for the times we live [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Jan 2, 2022

Nolan's strength here is his ability to place audiences right into the thick of the various struggles taking place by air, land and sea.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Aug 10, 2021

One of the best films of the decade... leaves no doubt about Nolan's genius and his position within the pantheon of legendary directors. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Apr 28, 2021

Packing heart, visual flair and the acting debut of a certain Harry Styles, war movies don't get more gripping than this Christopher Nolan epic.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Apr 27, 2021

Previous Christopher Nolan films have been marred by overexplaining the premise. This film breaks free of such cumbersomeness, with many moments being sparse of dialogue.

Full Review | Apr 13, 2021

Unseriousness about history combines with lack of knowledge, all of it justified on the grounds that only individual, subjective perceptions of reality are possible.

Full Review | Feb 11, 2021

It's true that it's themes are a little on the nose - the film's tagline is "Hope is a weapon. Survival is victory" - but Christopher Nolan makes it work with a sense of immediacy not often found in movies.

Full Review | Dec 23, 2020

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Dunkirk review – utterly immersive account of Allied retreat

Christopher Nolan is back to his best with this spectacular second world war action epic

“Y ou can practically see it from here… ” Kenneth Branagh’s stoical naval commander is talking about “home”, the word that recurs throughout Christopher Nolan’s long-nurtured epic of wartime retreat. Yet he could equally have been referring to the Imax 70mm presentation in which I saw Dunkirk , and which was also probably visible from France – a jaw-dropping spectacle in which the picture for the most part stretched beyond my field of vision, both vertically and horizontally. “We have a big love for the big format,” says cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema, who works agile wonders with the bulky film cameras used to capture such stunning images. Available in a dizzying array of projection formats (digital, 35mm, 70mm etc), Dunkirk hits our screens with aspect ratios ranging from square to oblong and all points in between, depending upon which version you choose to see. But see it you must.

The story of the Dunkirk evacuation, which saw a flotilla of small civilian vessels assist in the rescue of stranded troops from France in 1940, has been addressed before on screen. As early as 1942, William Wyler’s Oscar-winner Mrs Miniver was painting a morale-boosting portrait of ordinary people volunteering to make the cross-channel crusade, while in 1958’s Dunkirk Leslie Norman (father of Barry) gave us John Mills and Richard Attenborough exhibiting British pluck.

More recently we’ve had the astonishingly choreographed beach scene of Joe Wright’s Atonement (2007), and the larkiness of Bill Nighy bumbling through a wartime film shoot (“Can someone please get Mr Hilliard out of Dunkirk!”) in Lone Scherfig’s Their Finest . Yet despite such diverse precedents, writer/director Nolan makes this land his own with a film that will doubtless become the definitive cinematic depiction of this remarkable chapter of history.

We open with a street skirmish, as Fionn Whitehead’s young Tommy scurries toward the Dunkirk seafront, dodging bullets and falling leaflets that threateningly declare “We surround you!” Intertitles tell us that British and French troops are “hoping for deliverance… for a miracle”, while the Bergman-esque spectre of death haunts the beach. Entitled “The Mole” (after the jutting stone and wood structure from which marine evacuation beckons), this land-based narrative strand is one of three. A second, “The Sea”, finds Mark Rylance’s determined Mr Dawson piloting his “pleasure craft” across the Channel, picking up Cillian Murphy’s shellshocked soldier en route. A third, “The Air”, follows Tom Hardy’s Spitfire pilot Farrier as he battles with the Luftwaffe.

Ingeniously, these strands play out over three different time periods; one week, one day and one hour respectively. As the stories interlace, with boats, boots and planes converging at Dunkirk, so time itself is variously compressed and elongated in Inception -like loops, conjuring shifts and reversals as complex – yet still crucially as clear – as those of Nolan’s 2000 psychological thriller Memento . For all its visual splendour, Dunkirk is a masterclass in dextrous temporal elasticity, a recurrent theme for Nolan, sparked by his love of Graham Swift’s novel Waterland and explored most recently in Interstellar .

With its thunderous sound design, Dunkirk assaults our senses. Yet minimal dialogue means that large sections of the film play like classic silent cinema, owing more of a debt to Abel Gance’s Napoleon (1927) than to Guy Hamilton’s The Battle of Britain (1969). As for the dogfights, they rival Howard Hughes’s 1930 Hell’s Angels in terms of audience impact, placing us right there in the cockpit amid breathtaking expanses of sky. It’s an utterly immersive experience that fulfils Nolan’s promise of creating “virtual reality without the goggles”.

Beneath it all is Hans Zimmer’s devastating score, a blend of regret, tension and expectation that rises like the tide, moving from metronomic staccato stabs through growling bass beats to ethereal elegiac suspensions that bizarrely bridge the gap between Elgar and Angelo Badalamenti. Even the most nail-biting sequences have a mournful quality – Nolan cites All Quiet on the Western Front ( 1930) as a tonal inspiration – with which Zimmer is perfectly in tune.

There are a few false notes. Although structurally immaculate, Nolan’s script requires former One Direction star Harry Styles to deliver a line about someone having “an accent thicker than sauerkraut sauce”, a challenge even for an accomplished actor. But such quibbles aside, I was left marvelling that a film of such scale was ultimately defined not by its action sequences, but by quieter visions – of a man walking hopelessly into the sea (towards home?), or the expression on Branagh’s face as he stares out into the lost horizon. These are the things that stayed with me and that will stand the test of time.

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• Ambitious and Harrowing, Christopher Nolan’s <em>Dunkirk</em> Is a Masterpiece

Ambitious and Harrowing, Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk Is a Masterpiece

M ost days we appear to live in a world gone mad, a time and place in which ignorance of history is treated as a kind of virtuous purity. But sometimes, cosmically, the right movie arrives at just the right time: right now Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk feels like a salve. Its visual and sound effects are elaborate and impressive. This is a grand spectacle, not an empty one, a rare example of the Hollywood blockbuster dollar well spent. Dunkirk is extraordinary not just because it’s ambitious and beautifully executed, but because Nolan , who both wrote and directed it, has put so much care into its emotional details—and has asked so much of, and trusted, his actors. As great filmmakers before him—Lewis Milestone, Sam Fuller, Brian De Palma—knew, you can’t tell a story of war without faces. Faces carry history. They’re genetic maps, but they’re vessels of spiritual memory too. Dunkirk , set against events that happened more than 75 years ago, is like a message from a lost world. If the setting feels unfamiliar to you, don’t worry, trust the faces.

Dunkirk, in theaters July 21, is a fictional story set amid real events of late May and early June 1940. The capitulation of Belgium left Allied troops trapped between German forces and the French coast. America, still in the grip of isolationism, would not enter the Second World War until the following year. Driven back by the enemy, Allied soldiers became stranded on the beaches of Dunkirk. And, against all odds, some 338,000 were rescued. The backbone of Operation Dynamo , as the mission was called, was a flotilla of around 700 small fishing and pleasure boats, many of them captained by their owners, private British citizens who made the treacherous English Channel crossing to assist military vessels in bringing the troops home. That rescue came to be known as the Miracle of Dunkirk .

Any historical event can take on a sheen of nostalgic sentimentality with the passage of time, particularly when it’s dramatized on the big screen. History demands a degree of shaping to make sense on film. But if the Dunkirk evacuation is a sturdy, made-for-the-movies heroic narrative, it’s also one that’s both humble and humbling. This is a story of regular people who took action without hesitation, joining forces, at great personal risk, to form an invincible whole. These were big men in little boats.

Dunkirk is also the story of the soldiers they rescued, young men who weren’t prepared for the war they’d just entered, and not just because of their youth. Their training had been constructed around the lessons Great Britain learned in World War I, when bayonets and trenches dominated. Meanwhile, the German enemy had been aggressively and effectively trained. The men Nolan shows us in Dunkirk have already been forced to retreat—they’re exhausted from a battle we never even see—and in the early minutes of the film, they’re lined up on the beach in impossibly large numbers. A screen title tells us that they’re “hoping for deliverance.” Another title amends that with “for a miracle.”

One of those men is Tommy, an English soldier who, in the movie’s opening, narrowly escapes being killed by his own countrymen, men so desperate they’ll shoot at anything that moves. (Tommy is played by Fionn Whitehead , a new young actor who gives a superb, nearly wordless performance.) He makes his way to the beach, where he sees those throngs of exhausted, forsaken soldiers. Though the French have been fighting side by side with the English, there are far too few transports for so many men. Only the English soldiers will be evacuated; the French will be left behind. On that beach, Tommy sees another soldier crouched in the sand near a half-buried body. The exchange between them is a kind of mind­reading, a language of quizzical glances and shrugs. The other soldier ( Aneurin Barnard ) will come to be called Gibson.

MORE: Director Christopher Nolan on Why He Made Dunkirk Now

Later, the two men run across the beach together, each clinging to the handles of a stretcher bearing a wounded man. At this point the music, by Hans Zimmer, is a virtual cricket field of violins, the most anxious of all instruments. Nolan and his cinematographer, Hoyte van Hoytema, shoot the men and their stretcher from the back, from the side, from the front on the diagonal—the sequence is jangly and kinetic, almost like an experimental minifilm about teamwork and animal survival.

Tommy, Gibson and their stretcher will eventually make their way to, and across, the Mole, a long jetty stretching out into the water. In real life, as in the movie, it was the somewhat fragile-looking concrete and wood finger from which most of the Dunkirk men were rescued. But if the soldiers’ story, at this point, represents what’s happening on land, there are other stories unfolding in the air and on the water, and Nolan connects them all with nearly invisible stitches. Mr. Dawson ( Mark Rylance , in one of the finest performances we’re likely to see this year) sets out on his small, fine beauty of a boat, the Moonstone, the minute he hears help is needed. His son Peter ( Tom Glynn-Carney , looking, with his blond forelock, like an English Troy Donahue) is with him, and a neighbor, George ( Barry Keoghan , whose eager, earnest face practically tears a gash in the movie), hops aboard at the last minute, uninvited but welcome enough.

Rylance has the demeanor, the carriage and even the wardrobe of a man who stands by what’s right. When he boards his boat, he’s wearing a full tweed suit, complete with waistcoat. But his sense of what’s right has nothing to do with propriety. It comes, simply, from the heart. In one of the film’s quietest, most astonishing moments, he confirms to his son, with nothing more than a glance, that telling a lie can sometimes be the right thing to do.

Of course, Dunkirk is an action movie. Nolan calls it a “ride,” the kind of cringe-­inducing language encouraged by marketing departments. But he clearly knows it’s more than that. The picture is intense and harrowing in places. Those with fears of claustrophobia and drowning should steel themselves. The movie is also at times assaultively loud, a feature that meshes with eyewitness accounts. Yet it’s so carefully paced and shaped that it never feels like punishment. It is also only 106 min. long—its very economy is an act of boldness. Instead of shrinking from this world, you reach toward it. This is a picture that needs to be seen big, in Imax if you can. (That recommendation comes from a person who normally prefers dentistry to Imax.)

It also comes, by the way, from a person who has gotten little enjoyment from most of Nolan’s movies, with the exception of the observant and deeply affectionate 2015 documentary short Quay , about experimental animators Stephen and Timothy Quay . Nolan is perhaps best known for his trilogy of Batman films, particularly The Dark Knight (2008), which characterizes the Gotham superhero as a reclusive, reluctant loner with a bruised soul. But the movie’s alleged darkness is of the calculated sort. Like most of Nolan’s pictures—especially the elaborate puzzle movie Inception (2010), a densely plotted dazzler that adds up to nothing—it’s heavy on flashy technique that strives to persuade us it’s great filmmaking.

Dunkirk , grand and ambitious as it is, is different from any other Nolan movie. It’s different from any other war movie, period. Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan (1998) is often hailed as a great war picture, and its Normandy-invasion sequence is brutally effective. But its intensity practically burns the rest of the story away. Nolan sustains Dunkirk ’s dramatic tension from start to finish. This is a supreme achievement made from small strokes, a kind of Seurat painting constructed with dark, glittering bits of history. Nolan filmed largely on location, at Dunkirk Beach. (In certain scenes, a calm lake in the Netherlands stood in for the bulldoggishly choppy English Channel.) The flying scenes, taut and thrilling, feature real vintage Spitfires. When the small boats arrive, many of them are the actual Dunkirk Little Ships, venerable, elderly, lovingly preserved boats that were part of the rescue in 1940. They have names like Elvin and Caronia, Endeavour and Mary Jane. In a terrifying scene, soldiers traveling safely and happily on a large transport ship, eating jam on bread and drinking mugs of tea as they look forward to reaching home shores, suddenly and brutally face death by drowning. One man struggles underwater, and the moment would be like any other terror-at-sea image except for a staggering, barely glimpsed detail: he does not let go of his tin mug.

Dunkirk is about both suffering and bravery, about individuals who care less about themselves than about a greater good. To them, isolationism would be an affront. One of the movie’s most heroic faces is one we barely see: Tom Hardy plays RAF pilot Farrier. He spends most of the movie with an aviator helmet clamped on his head and a mask drawn across his mouth. The intensity of his performance is built almost completely with gestures. He waves or nods to his colleagues as they skim by in their Spitfires, and even when they seem too far away to possibly read his meaning, you’re sure that they do. He casts an apprehensive glance at his busted fuel gauge. (He makes chalk marks on the dashboard to keep track of how much juice he has left.) Somehow his eyes, even though we can’t always see them clearly, betray worry for his colleagues but little for himself. We can read his mind, even though it’s protected by layers of leather and shearling. And his ultimate act is a doozy—no less than we expect from this man we hardly know.

The casting of Dunkirk is near perfect. From Hardy to Keoghan, from Rylance to Harry Styles , the pop star who plays one of the young soldiers, the picture is filled with great English faces. But to call them characteristically English faces is wrong. Remember, they’re supposed to be the faces of men who lived more than 75 years ago. Today, the face of England—like that of France or any other European country—is much more racially mixed. Love of country comes with no color or birthplace attached. Nolan doesn’t address that idea directly—the story of Dunkirk is almost exclusively about white men, something that can’t be changed after the fact. But his approach opens out to it implicitly. Late in the film, a British commander played by a stalwart Kenneth Branagh , knowing that nearly all of his own men have been rescued, makes an executive pronouncement: He will not leave stranded French soldiers behind. His England, even then, was part of a greater whole, and that made him no less English.

If you see Dunkirk for no other reason, see it for its vision of the faces of men who took action, without having any idea what the world would become. All they knew was that they wanted the best for it.

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Film Review: ‘Dunkirk’

Christopher Nolan recreates the World War II evacuation from land, sea and air, interweaving events in a bravura virtual-eyewitness account.

By Peter Debruge

Peter Debruge

Chief Film Critic

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Steven Spielberg laid claim to the Normandy beach landing, Clint Eastwood owns Iwo Jima, and now, Christopher Nolan has authored the definitive cinematic version of Dunkirk . Unlike those other battles, however, this last was not a conventional victory, but more of a salvaged retreat, as the German offensive forced a massive evacuation of English troops early in World War II. And unlike those other two directors, Nolan is only nominally interested in the human side of the story as he puts his stamp on the heroic rescue operation, offering a bravura virtual-eyewitness account from multiple perspectives — one that fragments and then craftily interweaves events as seen from land, sea and air.

Take away the film’s prismatic structure and this could be a classic war picture for the likes of Lee Marvin or John Wayne. And yet, there’s no question that the star here is Nolan himself, whose attention-grabbing approach alternates among three strands, chronological but not concurrent, while withholding until quite late the intricate way they all fit together. Though the subject matter is leagues (and decades) removed from the likes of “Inception” and “The Dark Knight,” the result is so clearly “a Christopher Nolan film” — from its immersive, full-body suspense to the sophisticated way he manipulates time and space — that his fans will eagerly follow en masse to witness the achievement. And what an achievement it is!

From the opening scene, “Dunkirk” places us in a state of jeopardy as German sharpshooters pick off a group of British soldiers just yards from the embattled beachhead. Not that things are any safer on the other side of the French-defended barricade. “We surround you,” reads an air-dropped leaflet that accurately represents the Allies’ ever-shrinking position. Backed against the sea, what remains of the British Expeditionary Force can practically see their homeland a mere 26 miles away, but are vulnerable to attacks from the air.

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The first fly-by bombing catches us just as much off-guard as it does Tommy (Fionn Whitehead), thin, handsome and hardly more than a child. His dash to the beach could be a game, if the gunshots that fell his comrades and explode inches from his head weren’t so lethal or so loud (as always with Nolan, sound design dramatically heightens the intensity of the experience, which already feels extraordinary given his use of massive-scale Imax cameras).

Driven by a mix of naïveté and survival instinct, Tommy makes an ideal guide through the week-long ordeal, allowing us to experience the strange, almost random way that cowardice blossoms into courage on the battlefield. His storyline, labeled “The Mole” (possibly a play on words, seeing as how it’s set primarily on Dunkirk’s pier-like projection, or mole, but also introduces a somewhat unnecessary subplot involving a non-British infiltrator, or mole), is the most audacious: It features hardly any dialogue, relying instead on our ability to adapt to the unrelentingly harrowing situation, as when Tommy and another low-ranking soldier (Aneurin Barnard) grab a stretcher and use the injured man to board a hospital ship, only to be ordered off moments before it sinks.

No fewer than four British ships go down in “Dunkirk” — not counting the one from which Cillian Murphy ’s nameless “shivering soldier” is rescued — and each capsizes alarmingly quickly. This isn’t “Titanic,” in which miniature melodramas had time to unfold as the boat slowly sank, either. Whereas air battles are drawn out and repeated for effect, Nolan and editor Lee Smith compress the doomed-boat scenes for ruthless efficiency, turning the water into a place of high-stakes peril.

While big military ships make massive targets for German bombers and U-boat attacks, Dunkirk’s rough waves and shallow coastline demanded a different approach, and so Operation Dynamo was born: an all-hands call to civilian sailors, asking that they steer any vessel they can, from fishing trawlers to pleasure yachts, across the English Channel to rescue as many of the stranded soldiers as possible. Labeled “The Sea,” this segment feels more traditional, emotionally manipulative enough to match the almost-corny 1940s British propaganda film in this year’s “Their Finest.” (Even in Imax, in which most of the movie fills the massive, nearly-square aspect ratio, this portion is presented in a relatively constrained 2.40:1 format — the same dimensions to which the entire film will be cropped in traditional theaters.)

During this sea-rescue segment, the characters are familiar archetypes, from duty-bound captain Mr. Dawson ( Mark Rylance ) to determined teenage tagalong George (Barry Keoghan), and their predictable behavior is elevated by the actors’ fine performances. Rylance in particular speaks volumes even when saying very little, and several of the movie’s most poignant moments are conveyed almost entirely without words, via his expressions alone — as when Dawson realizes the likely death that awaits them just beyond the horizon.

Dunkirk’s beaches represent a special kind of hell in the film, a danger zone where the British are frightfully exposed to attacks from above — and where fate, in all its grim absurdity, forces a few of the characters to return multiple times. Just when the soldiers think they’ve escaped, the tide pulls them back in.

Though much of the Royal Air Force was ordered not to engage, a third strand called “The Air” focuses on two Spitfire pilots (Tom Hardy and Jack Lowden) determined to protect, as best they can, the rescue vessels from airborne German attack. Hilariously enough, the role finds Hardy once again in Bane mode, his mouth covered and his dialogue all but inaudible — and yet, the heroism shows through his actions and the determined glint in his eyes.

Both Murphy and Hardy have worked with Nolan before (each as Batman villains), but he uses them in character-actor mode here, treating these marquee talents as equals among a cast of newcomers (including Harry Styles, looking every bit the 1940s matinee idol). Playing the highest-ranking Navy officer on the beach, Kenneth Branagh provides the film’s only star performance, and even then, it all comes down to a meaningful salute delivered in “Dunkirk’s” final minutes.

By this point in the film, Nolan has tied the three storylines together. While unnecessarily confusing at times (and not especially satisfying as a puzzle — at least not in the way the ingenious backward-logic of “Memento” was back in the day), by splintering these three storylines, the director allows us to experience the Dunkirk evacuation from multiple perspectives. In his extensive pre-production research, Nolan pored over survivors’ firsthand accounts and inevitably found inconsistencies among them — a phenomenon he ingeniously incorporates into his screenplay. In “Dunkirk,” subjectivity is not merely a tool for in-the-moment suspense, but also for suggesting the innumerable different ways people both lived and remembered the week’s events: One moment, a Spitfire pilot might be swooping in to save a Navy ship, and the next, he’s the one in need of rescuing as his seatbelt jams and his cockpit fills with water.

And yet, Nolan never once privileges the German p.o.v. (a bold departure from most war movies, including “Tora! Tora! Tora!,” which showed both sides, or Michael Bay’s “Pearl Harbor,” which famously offered a Japanese bomb’s-eye-view of the attack). Nolan’s goal is to give an exclusively British account of events, zeroing in on how it must have felt to the everyday heroes who lived it, as opposed to the leaders calling the shots. When Winston Churchill is finally heard, his words are being read aloud from the pages of a newspaper by an ordinary soldier, rather than delivered by the prime minister himself.

And in that nuance is the great accomplishment of Nolan’s feat: On one hand, he has delivered all the spectacle of a big-screen tentpole, ratcheting up both the tension and heroism through his intricate and occasionally overwhelming sound design, which blends a nearly omnipresent ticking stopwatch with Hans Zimmer’s bombastic score — not so much music as atmospheric noise, so bassy you can feel it rattling your vertebrae. But at the same time, he’s found a way to harness that technique in service of a kind of heightened reality, one that feels more immersive and immediate than whatever concerns we check at the door when entering the cinema. This is what audiences want from a Nolan movie, of course, as a master of the fantastic leaves his mark on historical events for the first time.

Reviewed at Universal CityWalk IMAX, July 14, 2017. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 107 MIN.

• Production: A Warner Bros. Pictures release and presentation of a Syncopy production. Producers: Emma Thomas, Christopher Nolan. Executive producer: Jake Myers.
• Crew: Director, writer: Christopher Nolan. Camera (color, IMAX/65mm): Hoyte van Hoytema. Editor: Lee Smith. Music: Hans Zimmer.
• With: Fionn Whitehead, Tom Glynn-Carney, Jack Lowden, Harry Styles, Aneurin Barnard, James D’Arcy and Barry Keoghan, Kenneth Branagh, Cillian Murphy, Mark Rylance, Tom Hardy.

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Dunkirk is easily the best movie of the year so far: EW review

It was still just the early months of World War II, but it was beginning to look like the end. In the last week of May 1940, more than 300,000 British soldiers along with French, Belgian, and Canadian troops were beaten back to the beaches of Dunkirk by the Germans. A small coastal town at the northernmost point of France, Dunkirk was an especially unfortunate place to be pinned down. The harbor was so shallow that large British naval ships couldn’t get close enough for a rescue. The men on the beach were stranded with nowhere to go. Lined up in columns on the sand, they were sitting ducks waiting for either deliverance or, more likely, death. Perhaps the cruelest irony of all was that they could actually see the coast of England just 26 miles across the channel. Salvation was so close, yet so far.

From that seemingly hopeless situation sprang one of Britain’s finest moments of the war. Had all of those soldiers been slaughtered or taken prisoner, Britain would have, in all likelihood, been forced to surrender to Hitler. The history books wouldn’t just look very different today, they’d also be printed in German. But thanks to countless civilian sailors who assembled a flotilla of small, non-military ships and pleasure boats to cross the channel and evacuate their boys, the country stayed alive to fight another day. In the decades since that death-defying turning point in the war (codename: Operation Dynamo), Dunkirk has become synonymous with stiff-upper-lip British resolve—a shining example of how to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

This race-against-the-clock rescue operation (and the tense days leading up to it) is the subject of Christopher Nolan’s miraculous new massive-canvas epic, Dunkirk . Nolan has for all intents and purposes conjured the British response to Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan . If you can imagine that film’s kinetic, nerve-wracking 29-minute opening D-Day invasion stretched out to feature length, this is what it would look like. It’s a towering achievement, not just of the sort of drum-tight storytelling we’ve come to expect from the director of Memento , The Dark Knight , and Inception , but also of old-school, handmade filmmaking.

I don’t think the director would mind being called “old school.” I certainly don’t mean it as a backhanded compliment. Like Quentin Tarantino and Paul Thomas Anderson, he’s a throwback and cinema purist who’s messianic in his belief in celluloid. He argues (convincingly, I’d say, from the evidence on display) that something ineffable gets lost in all of those cold ones and zeroes of digital technology: the warmth, grain, and poetry of actual film stock. Shot in 65 mm and IMAX film (if you live near an IMAX theater, spring for the upgrade), Dunkirk is a totally immersive experience. For two hours, all of your senses are taken over.

Nolan, who also wrote the film, tells his story from three different perspectives: land, sea, and air. And he weaves his three narrative threads together seamlessly. On the ground, the story zooms in on a young, scared baby-faced infantryman named Tommy (newcomer Fionn Whitehead), who scrambles amidst the falling bombs and chaos to stay alive until he can be rescued. He doesn’t say much. He doesn’t have to. You can read the fear and confusion on his face. On the sea, we’re on board a sailboat called Moonstone with its stoic captain (Mark Rylance) and his teenage son and his son’s best friend. As they motor across the channel to do what they believe is their duty and shepherd the boys out of harm’s way, they take on a shell-shocked survivor of a torpedo attack (Cillian Murphy) who protests going back to the hell he just escaped from. And in the air, we are in the cockpit of a Spitfire with a cool-under-pressure RAF pilot (Tom Hardy), who’s flying on fumes and dogfighting against German planes providing cover to the doomed men on the ground.

Nolan cuts between these there arenas of combat slowly at first, then faster and faster, heightening the sense of urgency and danger. His editing is like a metronome, picking up speed and nail-biting suspense. We’ve come to expect the exceptional from Nolan as a visualist over the years, but what sets Dunkirk apart from his previous films is how his visual language is heightened by what we’re hearing. A pulsing, pounding beat on the soundtrack feels like the blood rushing into your eardrums during a panic attack. The sound of a stopwatch ticking adds a sense of ratcheting tension until you almost can’t take it anymore. Layered on top of it all is Hans Zimmer’s propulsive score. Zimmer, an A-list composer who has provided some of the more bombastic scores to the past decade’s biggest blockbusters, has dialed down the orchestral shock and awe here and has gone for something more harrowing and unrelenting (in a good way). As fine as some of the performances are (especially Rylance’s and Hardy’s), this isn’t a film of big, dramatic, for-your-consideration moments. (For the One Direction fans wondering, Harry Styles is also solid, seamlessly blending into the ensemble.) It’s a full-body sensory experience that sweeps you up in its thrall and places you directly into the fog of war. It leaves you emotionally exhausted by the time the end credits roll.

By the end of Dunkirk , what stands out the most isn’t its inspirational message or everyday heroism. It’s the small indelible, unshakeable images that accumulate like the details in the corner of a mural. A PTSD soldier walking into the surf to his death. The sight of a hit German plane silently pinwheeling down into the sea like a paper airplane. The female nurses handing out tea and comforting words to the haunted men when they’re rescued. This is visceral, big-budget filmmaking that can be called Art. It’s also, hands down, the best motion picture of the year so far. A

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• DVD & Streaming
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In Theaters

• July 21, 2017
• Fionn Whitehead as Tommy; Aneurin Barnard as Gibson; Mark Rylance as Mr. Dawson; Tom Glynn-Carney as Peter; Barry Keoghan as George; Tom Hardy as Farrier; Jack Lowden as Collins; Cillian Murphy as Shivering Soldier; Harry Styles as Alex; Kenneth Branagh as Commander Bolton

Home Release Date

• December 19, 2017
• Christopher Nolan

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• Warner Bros.

Movie Review

They were trapped.

British soldiers. French. Belgian. Dutch. Nearly 400,000 men pinned to the beach like a bug, squirming and helpless.

They had expected to fight together along France’s formidable Maginot Line, an alliance of soldiers from free nations battling Nazi Germany toe to toe. Instead, the Germans swung wide and plowed into the Netherlands, sweeping into Belgium and finally punching into France itself. The Allied forces, outnumbered two to one, collapsed in the face of that onslaught. They were pushed to the beaches around the seaside resort of Dunkirk, their backs to the ocean.

Belgium was conquered. France was collapsing. And most of the soldiers at Dunkirk were British—the bulk of its army. Nazi forces prepared to deliver the coup de grâce, a German matador poised to pierce the heart of the British bull. The Nazi flag might fly over London before the end of the summer. Western Europe would be German.

Britain had just one hope: to stave off the German attacks long enough to evacuate at least a portion of its army. England was fewer than 50 miles away, after all—almost within sight. But the British destroyers were too big to sail close enough to the French shore to gather their soldiers in, and piers out to deeper waters were being torn apart. There weren’t enough smaller boats to handle the need, and the few Britain had were sinking. Meanwhile, the unrelenting German Luftwaffe screamed overhead, dropping bombs and shooting down soldiers.

But the game isn’t over. Not yet.

Across the channel, Mr. Dawson loads life jackets into his small pleasure yacht, preparing to sail into war. He and his son, Peter, will go to Dunkirk and rescue as many soldiers as their little boat will carry. And before they shove off, Peter’s friend, George, hops aboard, too.

“I’ll be useful, sir,” he says.

Above, a trio of British Spitfire pilots slice through the air, hunting Luftwaffe bombers. They’ll do what they can to help clear the way for the English ships—their small part to bring a few boys back home.

And on the beach, the soldiers wait.

Positive Elements

When Mr. Dawson plucks a shell-shocked soldier from the waters on his way to Dunkirk, the soldier insists that they not return to the French coastal town. They’ll die if they do, he warns. (And he has a point). He’s implores his rescuers to take him home.

“There won’t be any home if we allow a slaughter across the Channel,” Mr. Dawson tells him. And he has a point, too.

Dunkirk gives us a look at perhaps World War II’s most desperate juncture, an ongoing engagement that spanned late May and early June of 1940. This was before Pearl Harbor, remember, and the United States was officially neutral. The Soviet Union was allied with Germany at the moment. France was clearly overwhelmed once the fabled Maginot Line was breached. Britain was the only power left that could possibly stand up to Nazi Germany and its Axis allies—and it looked as if its army was done for.

The fact that that didn’t happen is a tribute to the gumption and heroism of the British army, air force and plain ol’ civilian boaters like Mr. Dawson, who answered the call of duty and possibly saved a nation. That British saying, “Keep Calm and Carry On?” Dunkirk is Exhibit A.

Airmen and civilian sea captains risk their lives for their fellow man. That’s practically a given in any war pic, particularly one about Dunkirk. But we also see plenty of plain human decency, too: Dawson’s care and consideration for the shell-shocked soldier; the food and blankets given to soldiers in times of respite; the appreciation British soldiers are shown when they come home safely.

“Well done,” someone tells a soldier.

“All we did is survive,” the soldier replies. He doesn’t feel like a hero at all.

“That’s enough,” the man tells him. And so, in this moment, it is.

Spiritual Elements

Before the movie begins, onscreen slides describe just what’s at stake at Dunkirk. They conclude by saying that the soldiers “await their fate, hoping for deliverance. For a miracle.” (Indeed, what transpires was coined “The Miracle of Dunkirk” shortly thereafter.)

A Winston Churchill speech (read by a soldier) includes the phrase, “In God’s good time.” A British commander closes his eyes at a critical juncture—perhaps reflecting, or perhaps saying a silent prayer.

Sexual Content

Violent content.

Dunkirk is, obviously, a war movie. And it has all the violence one would expect.

There’s very little blood in this PG-13 film, but death is everywhere. When a German dive bomber drops its payload on the beach, a man flies upward in the ensuing explosion. Another combatant falls down screaming after getting shot in the face. In the opening sequence, six soldiers run frantically from German gunfire; five are eventually gunned down in the street. Corpses line beaches and float in the water, from sunken ships all the way back to the beach.

Many soldiers, even when rescued, are disinclined to go below, into the hull of a ship. We see why: It’s much harder to get off a sinking ship from down below than when you’re on deck. We witness ships being bombed and sunk by torpedoes, the listing, sinking crafts taking many soldiers down with them into the briny deep. Men fight desperately to get out of these sinking boats, and many simply don’t make it. A few other soldiers get caught between the water below and a burning slick of oil above. When one soldier can no longer hold his breath, he’s forced to the surface; we see him in the flames, screaming. Another soldier hits his head and dies a slow death. Someone’s legs are apparently crushed between two ships. (We don’t glimpse the incident, but we do hear the man’s cries of pain.)

It’s suggested that a man burying a deceased soldier also stole that dead man’s clothes. (The evacuation procedure gives priority to British soldiers, so a British uniform is the ticket to an earlier evacuation.) Fires, explosions and smoke from the battle smudge the air.

Wounded soldiers are carried aboard a ship, some wearing bloody bandages. Officers discuss the grim arithmetic of war: one tells another that he’ll need to rethink how many wounded soldiers he wants to evacuate, given that one stretcher takes the space of seven standing men.

Crude or Profane Language

It’s difficult to pick out profanities precisely in this film’s often panicked and very British dialogue, but there are at least two f-words, three s-words and four uses of the British profanity “bloody.” We also hear “d–n,” “h—,” one misuse of God’s name and two abuses of Jesus’s name.

Drug and Alcohol Content

A couple of soldiers are given beer. Another fishes around in a butt-filled ashtray, looking for a half-used cigarette to smoke.

Other Negative Elements

While the film confirms that the stress of war can sometimes bring out the best in people, it can also bring out the worst in them. And so it is here at times. Soldiers sometimes cower and lash out in fear; other times they hurl undeserved insults and slights. Some are willing to sacrifice their peers if it means reaching safety themselves.

A soldier defecates on a beach.

They call it the Miracle of Dunkirk for a reason.

When the film opens, a commander expresses his hope that if all goes well, perhaps 30,000 soldiers can be saved. Maybe 45,000, if they’re lucky.

By the time the operation concluded, some 330,000 troops had made it safely off Dunkirk’s beaches. Though that battle was the culmination of an unmitigated military disaster, it’s one of the most inspiring “defeats” in the annals of history. Churchill’s famous “never surrender” speech was given in the wake of Dunkirk, one that’s still capable of stirring hearts and minds nearly 80 years later:

“We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”

British director Christopher Nolan has made some fine movies in the past, but Dunkirk is being hailed by some as his masterpiece. I might not go that far, but it is indeed a powerful story. Dunkirk dramatizes the complexity of war—both its horrors and heroism—while admirably not straying beyond the boundaries of a PG-13 rating. The film even gives us moments of pure beauty: a British Spitfire, out of gas, silently gliding over the beach as British soldiers shout a salute from below.

Dunkirk doesn’t make for easy viewing. But it tells a story well worth the telling.

Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.

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Dunkirk (UK/US/France, 2017)

The Battle of Dunkirk holds a unique position in the roster of World War 2 conflicts. By any normal measure, it was a crushing defeat for the Allies, a conflict that resulted in mass casualties and equipment loss. Nevertheless, the engagement is often referred to triumphantly by the vanquished, who perceive the evacuation of more than 300,000 soldiers as a testimonial to British resolve. What happened at Dunkirk was so extraordinary that Winston Churchill had to speak out against celebratory notions, cautioning: “We must be very careful not to assign to this deliverance the attributes of a victory. Wars are not won by evacuations.”

According to Nolan, two films he studied before making Dunkirk were Wages of Fear and Speed . Their influence is apparent. Both excelled in a slow build-up of tension and Dunkirk is unrelenting in that aspect. The way scenes are edited contributes to this, with Nolan cutting, for example, from a tense moment in a plane to an equally tense moment on the beach. He moves slightly backward and forward in time to knit everything together. Hans Zimmer’s score, which is constructed around the ticking of a clock, abets the burgeoning suspense.

The members of the ensemble cast acquit themselves admirably, although no individual performer monopolizes the screen time. This is neither a character-based nor actor-centric movie. The largest number of scenes belong to the relative unknown Fionn Whitehead, whose Tommy represents the everyday soldier stuck on the beach, desperate to find a way home. Mark Rylance, whose Mr. Dawson is driven by patriotic fervor, steers his small yacht Moonstone across the channel. Spitfire pilot Tom Hardy (Farrier) engages in dogfights with German planes to erode Nazi air superiority over western France. Notable supporting performances include pop icon Harry Styles as one of Tommy’s compatriots, Cillian Murphy as a shell-shocked soldier, and Kenneth Branagh as Commander Bolton, the highest ranking British officer on the ground in Dunkirk.  

Since Saving Private Ryan , there has been a shift in the degree of carnage presented in World War 2 movies. Prior to 1997, the “average” film was relatively bloodless; Spielberg changed that. One reason the first 30 minutes of Private Ryan had such an impact was because we were unaccustomed to such raw images in a World War 2 production. The trend has continued; 2016’s Hacksaw Ridge was as bloody and brutal as it was inspirational. Dunkirk , however, does away with close-ups of dead bodies and lingering shots of viscera. That’s not to say there aren’t hard-to-watch scenes but Nolan doesn’t linger on them. His reasoning is straightforward: Dunkirk is about using tension to bolster the narrative; a focus on horror movie aspects could distract. I didn’t find the film to be any less “real” because of the self-imposed limitations on gore.

Dunkirk is less of an epic than Interstellar or the Dark Knight movies – it’s more tightly focused with no fat on the bones. The experience is primal yet satisfies intellectually and emotionally. It’s the whole package and fulfills the expectations of those who predicted this might be one of 2017’s strongest releases. With every new film, Nolan expands his reputation as a filmmaker willing to take any risk. Dunkirk is another success and a welcome addition to what has been a surprisingly strong season for movies of power and substance.

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Common sense media reviewers.

Intense, challenging story shows the horrors of war.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Even though the battle at Dunkirk resulted in many

Mr. Dawson is perhaps the most recognizable charac

Takes place during an intense, terrible WWII battl

At least two uses of "f--k." Plus "

Returning soldiers are rewarded with bottles of co

Parents need to know that Dunkirk is director Christopher Nolan's World War II movie about the real-life incident in which Allied forces were surrounded and trapped on Dunkirk beach -- and everyday heroes helped rescue them, despite the risk of danger and death. The movie's war violence is realistic…

Positive Messages

Even though the battle at Dunkirk resulted in many deaths, it also represents a triumph in heroism and courage: countless people worked together, risking their lives to help strangers.

Positive Role Models

Mr. Dawson is perhaps the most recognizable character -- and the one most noted for his bravery and his sacrifices. While most other characters are deliberately stripped down (and, as a result, are somewhat thin), there's no question that many of them exhibit strengths like courage and teamwork.

Violence & Scariness

Takes place during an intense, terrible WWII battle. Tons of realistic bombing and shooting. Not much blood shown, but countless soldiers die, often drowning or being swept into the sea. Soldiers burn in an oil fire on the water's surface. A teen has a fatal fall and dies. In the distance, a man walks into the ocean, presumably to commit suicide. Frequent peril/tension; many characters put themselves in danger to help others.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

At least two uses of "f--k." Plus "hell," "damn," a use of "Christ" (as an exclamation), and a possible use of "s--t" (hard to hear).

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Returning soldiers are rewarded with bottles of cold beer.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Dunkirk is director Christopher Nolan 's World War II movie about the real-life incident in which Allied forces were surrounded and trapped on Dunkirk beach -- and everyday heroes helped rescue them, despite the risk of danger and death. The movie's war violence is realistic and intense, with heavy bombing and shooting and many deaths (though very little blood). Planes crash in the ocean, ships fill with water and sink, and an oil slick catches fire, burning many soldiers. A teen civilian is injured, and a man walks into the ocean, presumably to commit suicide. Language includes two uses of "f--k" and one "Christ" (as an exclamation), and there's one scene with beer. Kenneth Branagh , Tom Hardy , and Cillian Murphy co-star, but there are many characters, some of whom aren't clearly distinguished from others. That, plus Nolan's time-twisting technique, can make the story challenging to follow. But it has messages of bravery, teamwork, and sacrifice, and persistent teens and adults will be rewarded with a powerful, visceral experience. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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• Parents say (57)
• Kids say (153)

Based on 57 parent reviews

You People Dont Understand This Movie

What's the story.

In DUNKIRK, it's 1940, and Allied soldiers in France are surrounded and forced onto the beach at Dunkirk. Amid the chaos, several English soldiers await some kind of transport back to England; at one point, they discover an abandoned, beached boat and hide inside to await high tide. Meanwhile, private English citizens who own boats have volunteered to cross the channel and pick up as many soldiers as they can carry. Mr. Dawson ( Mark Rylance ) is one of them; along with two boys, he rescues a downed fighter pilot ( Cillian Murphy ). But tragedy awaits. Then another fighter pilot ( Tom Hardy ) crosses the channel, carefully conserving his fuel, when an enemy plane attacks. Back at the beach, Commander Bolton ( Kenneth Branagh ) waits on the dock for help to arrive.

Is It Any Good?

Christopher Nolan 's first history movie is bold, visceral, and powerful, with many moving sequences -- though some of his filmmaking choices can be challenging. As with some of Nolan's other movies (especially his great Memento ), Dunkirk experiments with time. The story's three sections are told at different rates; the beach sequences take place over one week, the boat sequence takes one day, and the plane sequences take one hour. But unlike in Memento , here, this technique lacks clarity, mainly because Nolan doesn't visually distinguish between many of the aircrafts or ships, nor does he make it easy to tell many of the young soldiers apart.

Dunkirk wants us to follow two of the soldiers in particular, but that becomes increasingly difficult, especially as they get covered in dirt and grime. Many characters also have thick English accents (to a U.S. ear, anyway), and the sound mixing and Hans Zimmer's heavy score often drown out the dialogue. All this can make the movie tricky to follow, especially if you don't have the option of subtitles. Sometimes it seems that Nolan is deliberately trying to strip his story of traditional character arcs and dialogue, perhaps to find its essence. This doesn't always work, but Dunkirk is such an immediate horrors-of-war experience, throwing the viewer so vividly into the picture, that it's difficult to dismiss.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about Dunkirk 's violence . How does this kind of violence compare to what you might see in a superhero movie? Which feels more intense/has a bigger impact ? Why? Does the fact that it's not especially bloody/gory affect your reaction?

Does the movie make war look heroic? Horrifying? How? Which of the characters are role models ? Why? How do they demonstrate courage and teamwork ? Why are those important character strengths ?

How does Dunkirk compare to other war movies you've seen? Is it more realistic? If so, how does it achieve that?

Were you able to tell all the characters and their sea crafts apart? Do you think the fact that many were similar was a specific choice? If so, what do you think the purpose of that choice was? (Some say that it parallels the chaos of actual war.)

Movie Details

• In theaters : July 21, 2017
• On DVD or streaming : December 19, 2017
• Cast : Tom Hardy , Cillian Murphy , Kenneth Branagh , Mark Rylance
• Director : Christopher Nolan
• Studio : Warner Bros.
• Genre : Action/Adventure
• Topics : History
• Character Strengths : Courage , Teamwork
• Run time : 106 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG-13
• MPAA explanation : intense war experience and some language
• Award : Academy Award
• Last updated : May 12, 2024

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Dunkirk (2017) Review

WE SHALL NEVER SURRENDER.

A cinematic achievement..

Director Christopher Nolan is an acclaimed film director that many, including myself, have found to be exceptional in the execution of the films that he directs. While he’s been around for quite some time, developing several short films (both released unreleased), several first noticed Nolan’s work as a director in his sophomore film Memento . Released in 2000, Nolan’s Memento was a complex film of dueling narratives story threads, which meet at the end of the film, producing one whole and cohesive narrative storyline. Even if you didn’t have Memento on your “movie radar”, many (and I do mean many) recognized Nolan’s directorial work after successful taking the DC superhero “cape crusader” (i.e. Batman) and created the celebrated Dark Knight trilogy ( Batman Begins , The Dark Knight , and The Dark Knight Rises ). From there, Nolan went on becoming a much-respected director from critics and the public of moviegoers, with his other films like The Prestige , Inception and Interstellar . Nolan’s approach to crafting a feature film is what makes him truly stand out, rooting his pictures with sociological, ethical, and philosophical concepts / ideas, the explanation and constructs of time, and the nature of personal identity and memory. Additionally, Nolan, who usually also writes the screenplay for most of his movies, also weaves very complex narratives, with some nonlinear storytelling and a tendency to emphasis characters (and their cinematic journey) rather than making the feature’s primary focus on its visual effects and other nuances. Now, director Christopher Nolan (and Warner Bros. Pictures) his newest film Dunkirk . Does Nolan masterful translate well into this WWII period piece or does something get lost within its historical backdrop?

Set between May 26 th , and June 4 th , 1940, Allied soldiers fighting in WWII (both British and French armies) are sounded on all sides in Dunkirk, France by German Army Forces. With the enemy closing in on them, the soldiers (roughly 400,000 of them) are ordered to evacuate on the beaches, by way of an operation known as “Operation Dynamo”. On the ground, British Army privates Tommy (Fionn Whitehead) and Alex (Harry Styles) are among those desperately fighting to stay alive and get off the beach, by whatever means available to them. Elsewhere, across the sea, local mariners such as Mr. Dawson and his son Peter (Tom Glynn-Carney), and Peter’s friend George (Barry Keoghan) are recruited by the British Royal Navy to help with the Dunkirk evacuation. Meanwhile Royal Air Force pilots like Farrier (Tom Hardy) and Collins (Jack Lowden) do battle with the German bombers, in order to help the Allied soldiers in their evacuation efforts of leaving Dunkirk. With the narratives comprising of land, sea, and air, it ultimately becomes clear that time is of essence for everyone and, in the face of overwhelming odds, that the retreating from Dunkirk is far more dangerous than any ever expected it to be.

THE GOOD / THE BAD

As I stated above, Christopher Nolan has become a very successful and widely-known film director over the past several years in Hollywood moviemaking. Whenever he announces his newest film to direct, the internet newsfeeds light up as many moviegoers and critics eagerly start counting down the days to its release. I do remember first seeing Memento and, at first glance, found it to be confusing, but I learned to appreciate its complexity and unconventional narrative over time (I definitely had to watch that movie several times to fully get it). And of course, I, like many, fell in love with Nolan’s The Dark Knight trilogy, especially with The Dark Knight , and how Nolan’s take on the infamous DC comic book character changed the ultimate direction of superhero movies (for the better). Then came Nolan’s mind-bending feature of Inception and blew me away (probably one of my favorite Christopher Nolan movies) with its actors / characters of the movie (my first introduction to actor Tom Hardy) and within its intricate storytelling of individuals entering a person’s subconscious dreamscape. Nolan’s last film Interstellar , however, was a bit of tossup. Sure, it had all the flairs and nuances of Nolan’s works as well as being well-acted and delivering a very intriguing story, but it was way too drawn out and a bit confusing in trying to decipher all the scientific techno-babble for all non-master degree in quantum physics individuals.

This, of course, brings me to this review for Christopher Nolan’s newest film Dunkirk . Like I said, when it was first announced, the entire internet was abuzz with anticipation of its release. Nolan has tackled complexed fictional storylines, superhero features, mind-bending films, and even braved the realm of outer space. However, Nolan has never tackled the world of non-fiction in his movies, which makes Dunkirk , a WWII period piece, his first feature film in that category. Naturally, hearing of the actors that were going to be in the movie (Hardy, Rylance, Murphy, etc.) made me excited to see the film as well as seeing the movie’s various trailers (some of them I saw many times in my weekly outings at my local movie theater). Suffice to say, the movie Dunkirk was definitely on my mind to see when it got released. So…. what did I think of it? Nolan’s newest film achieves greatness, finding Dunkirk to be his most nerve-racking thriller feature yet, while also producing a quality film that’s quite intriguing and explosive to watch. In short, if you were slightly disappointed with Interstellar , then Dunkirk is the remedy for that disappointment.

Perhaps one of the most interesting things about the film Dunkirk is the movie’s actually story being told. Let’s be honest…. how many people (honestly) knew of either Operation Dynamo and / or the evacuation of Dunkirk (let alone where Dunkirk is actually located in France)? Recalling history classes from high school, mostly everyone knows about the major events that took place in Europe during WWII, including The Holocaust, D-Day, Operation Market Garden, The Battle of the Bulge, and “The Blitz” over London, but chances are that many didn’t know about the events that transpired between May 26 th to June 4 th , 1940 in Dunkirk France. This, of course, gives Nolan a fresh opportunity to inform us (the film’s viewers) of such events that happened during the evacuation of Dunkirk (albeit through a cinematic depiction). It’s also a bit of an unconventional WWII story to tell in as a film, for the actual tale of Dunkirk is not a decisive battle been fought or a promising victory to won. In truth, the story of Dunkirk (both in real-life and in the film) is about glorious retreat from an encroaching enemy and miracles that saved thousands of lives from certain doom. Just think about this, if the retreat from Dunkirk did actually fail, then the overall outcome of WWII (at least in Europe) might be different from what actually happened several years later.

The written / spoken dialogue in Dunkirk is also quite an interesting element, which certain does set it apart from his previous work, let along any other WWII feature out there. What do I mean? Nolan takes a very minimalistic dialogue approach in the film, with much less talking and / or conversation between its various characters. It’s definitely a bold move to do, but this so-called “gamble” works within the context of the film greatly, finding the toned-down dialogue to be beneficial to the story at hand as the movie’s visuals (what’s happening on-screen) do majority of the Dunkirk’s talking instead. Thus, admits Dunkirk’s sound and fury of war, there’s a quietness to the feature, allowing us (the viewers) to absorb the sheer gravity of situation rather than characters telling us about it.

In fact, while most Nolan’s characters in his other films focus on self-identity or face / pose philosophical meaning and understanding within their overarching development, Dunkirk takes a vastly different approach, with the director choosing to focus on the characters during their current situation (i.e. the evacuation of Dunkirk). There’s no flashback sequences of a time before the war or rousing and poetic speeches from a company commander, or solders sitting around and regaling to their fellow comrades of “tales from home” and / or what battle they fought in earlier. As I said, Dunkirk is about the actually exodus from the Dunkirk beaches and keeps the film’s perspective in the present / current situation, with thousands of young men, who are scared and are desperately trying to leave the beaches of Dunkirk, away from the approaching enemy, and to safety by any means unnecessary. Also, Dunkirk , which is only 107 minutes long (roughly the standard time for an animated feature or comedy fllm), moves at brisk pace and keeps the action / tense moments high for the feature, which helps engage its viewers into the picture. In addition (because I don’t know where to put this in my review), Nolan doesn’t really focus hard on the showcasing of the approaching enemy (aka the Nazi Germany forces). Yes, there present and are constantly causing trouble for the Allied soldiers, including the ones the movie follows, but Nolan never lingers on them like other WWII films do. So, don’t expect scowling Nazi commanders, or grim-faced German soldiers, or any Nazi party nuances (i.e. Swastikas or the ill-treatment of Jewish individuals). Again, Nolan keeps the focus on the current situation at hand.

Just like with Memento , Inception , and Interstellar , Nolan has showcased the construct of time in both understanding it and utilizing it as a storytelling feature. Dunkirk is no different as Nolan uses the constructs of time to frame the picture of the excavation / rescue of the soldiers in Dunkirk. For the most part, narratives of WWII war movies usually follow a soldier or a company of men through their journey on the battlefield, but Dunkirk as several storylines (three to be exact) going on at the same time. Well, it’s not exactly the same time as the film follows the three narrative threads (on land, at sea, and in the air) with each one given a respective time (i.e. one week, one day, and one hour). Sounds confusing? It was at first, especially during the first act of the movie, but the narrative threads slowly start to come together as Dunkirk reaches its third act. It can be a bit jarring at first to see several scenes over again (albeit from a different point-of-views), but the splicing of these story threads is quite ingenious from Nolan’s directorial work, which makes Dunkirk that much more fascinating to see (and it ultimately connects to the events of the three stories). Adding to the unconventional way of storytelling, Dunkirk never goes into that category of being violent with blood ang guts. Unlike other WWII war movies like Saving Private Ryan or Hacksaw Ridge (both of which I love), which showcases the brutal violence and horrific carnage of war (i.e. gory blood, severed limbs, and gruesome deaths), Nolan doesn’t fall prey to that stereotypical wartime depiction, but does present Dunkirk with the sheer amount of terror that all the young men (on all fronts) face with the mass exodus of Dunkirk. From onset to conclusion, Nolan keeps up the suspense up and at full throttle with plenty of nerve racking scenes and shows the amount of genuine fear that these individuals face without resorting to blood and guts. So, yes, despite the film being rated only PG-13, Dunkirk doesn’t shy away being one of the most nerve-racking films of the year.

On a technical level, Dunkirk is truly amazing to see. Nolan’s past films have always been crafted extremely well and intricately detailed, with Dunkirk being the latest one in that respective category.  In front of the camera, Nolan has always used more practical effects than CGI based ones, finding Dunkirk to be a marvel to look at, with its expansive beachhead and the various boats and seafaring vessels that are utilized in the feature, which carries the hefty cast (major, minor, and extras) throughout the feature. Thus, the heads of the various film departments of production design (Nathan Crowley), costume design (Jeffery Kurland), and even the storyboard department, with Nolan writing the film’s screenplay), must be commended for their achievement in Dunkirk. The movie also sees Nolan reunite with cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema (who collaborated with Nolan on Interstellar ) does impressive work on Dunkirk, providing plenty of cinematic shots for the feature, including its aerial dogfights to the naval warfare sequences. For most of the film, Dunkirk’s visual display is indeed incredible to see, especially those who see the film in theaters on either IMAX or large format screens.

Behind the camera, the film’s editor Lee Smith has a daunting task (and pulls it off) by interweaving the three storyline threads together as well as “cutting” several various shots together throughout the film. However, one of the most impressive things about Dunkirk (on its technical filmmaking side) is the sound editing / mixing for the movie/ Dunkirk’s overall tone and mood is energized by the its sharp and rattling sound effects (i.e. gunfire, explosions, etc.). I know really…sound editing / mixing in a film being noteworthy. I was little bit shocked by it too, but it truly does standout in Dunkirk and aides to the overall cinematic movie experience that Nolan wants to convey to its viewers. So, I have to give a big thanks to the whole sound editing / mixing team that worked on Dunkirk . Lastly, legendary composer (and frequent collaborator with Nolan) Hans Zimmer provides the score for the film. Much like sound editing / mixing team, Zimmer’s music helps add to the Dunkirk’s overall tone and feel, with good helping of musical undertones and scores that play up the more tense and nerve-racking scenes.

Due to Nolan’s framework of the feature, the movie, which is essentially a nerve-racking race against time that focuses on the here and now situation with its three respective storylines, doesn’t allow that much time for character development. If I had to choose a negative point about the movie, it would be that. On the other hand, however, given the fact that this decision by Nolan was sort of “by design” in the overall direction of the film, then it’s just a minor negative quibble. Although, I do have feeling that some people will be turned off by this decision. So, while the characters aren’t as fully-rounded and wholesome as some will like them to be, the main cast members in Dunkirk are strong across the board and are greatly effective in their respective roles, allowing them to be more “human” (aka real people) in the feature rather than stoic cinematic portrayals of soldiers. Of course, standout performances include Mark Rylance ( Bridge of Spies and The BFG ) as the civilian mariner Mr. Dawson and frequent collaborator with Nolan Cillian Murphy ( Batman Begins and Inception ) as the unnamed shell-shocked soldier (dubbed “Shivering Soldier), Jack Lowden ( Wolfhall and ’71 ) as the RAF pilot Collins, and Tom Hardy ( The Dark Knight Rises , Warrior , and Lawless ), who, much like his role as Bane in The Dark Knight Rises , still can deliver an expressive facial performance, even with most of his face obscured from most of the film, as the RAF pilot Farrier. Additionally, relatively newcomers like Fionn Whitehead ( Him ) and ex-One Direction member Harry Styles both give compelling and naturalistic performances as the young British soldiers Tommy and Alex. Each one of these characters are kind of sort of like the main characters / players of Dunkirk, with some like Whitehead’s Tommy, and Hardy’s Farrier, getting a satisfying story arc for their characters.

Much like the main characters, Dunkirk’s supporting cast members are as clearly defined in the character development, but prove effective in their roles that are assigned and their limited screen-time to make them noteworthy in their performances and memorable in the feature. This ranges from young actors like Tom Glynn-Carney ( Casualty and The Last Post ) and Barry Keoghan ( ’71 and Traders ) as Mr. Dawson’s son Peter and friend George to Aneurin Barnard ( Cilla and Citadel ) as the soldier Gibson (who befriends Whitehead’s Tommy), to more seasoned character actors like James D’Arcy ( Cloud Atlas and Marvel’s Agent Carter ) and Sir Kenneth Branagh ( Hamlet and Henry V ) who play high-ranking Allied Officers Colonel Winnant and Commander Bolton. Additional, I must commend the nameless cast of thousands of extras that appear in the background of Dunkirk. They might not be important as the characters mentioned above (their just there to fill in the backdrop of scenes), but it’s definitely attribute to them on much they had to endure throughout the film’s production, which is highly commendable. Lastly, it wouldn’t be a Christopher Nolan without having veteran actor Michael Caine ( Zulu , The Dark Knight trilogy, and Inception ) make an appearance in the film. However, while he doesn’t appear in the flesh in Dunkirk , Caine does provide a “audio” cameo as radio communication to the Royal Air Force.

FINAL THOUGHTS

With the enemy surrounding them (land, seas, and air), 400,000 stranded Allied Soldiers are hoping for a miracle in their excavation efforts in the film Dunkirk . Director Christopher Nolan newest films marks his first attempt in a non-fictional feature film and works wonders within its 107 runtime. From start to finish, Dunkirk is a crowning achievement in moviemaking history, thanks to Nolan’s masterful directorial work, cleaver storytelling, technical marks (sound editing / mixing and film score), its cinematic visuals, and its solid actors. While it may lack well-rounded characterizations with its main players and is mostly a bloodless feature, the film’s overall positives outshine, outmaneuver, and overcome those minor negative quibbles. To me, I loved this movie. As a movie buff / cinematic savant, I thoroughly enjoyed it and found it to be quite engaging as a cinematic movie experience (something of which Nolan’s movies usually do) and the creative decisions on Nolan’s part. While it may not beat out The Dark Knight or Inception as my personal favorite Christopher Nolan movies, Dunkirk comes in third place behind those two films. Thus, my recommendation for this movie is definitely a “highly recommended” stamp of approval. If you’re fan of WWII films or of Nolan movies, then this is film for you as it’s a “must see” for all to see in theaters, especially to see in IMAX or large format screens (the bigger, the better). With so much to like and with all its achievement, Dunkirk is one of those feature films that will stand and proud for many years to come as well as director Christopher Nolan, who I suspect will now have plenty of movie deal offers from various studio execs to direct their next big picture. I guess all I have to say left is the quote that Winston Churchill publicly said in the aftermath of Dunkirk’s excavation (speaking to Hitler’s armies) that resonates at the end of Dunkirk … “We shall defend our island whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall never surrender.”

4.5 Out of 5 (Highly Recommended)

Released on: July 21st, 2017

Reviewed on: July 22nd, 2017

Dunkirk   is 107 minutes long and is rated PG-13 for intense war experience and some language

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I was actually not going to watch this movie at first but Harry Style’s in it so I guess I have to right? No but it does sound like a movie worth watching, even for a person who’s not the biggest fan of WW2 movies.

Haha…..I guess if you’re a fan of Harry Styles, then you got to see Dunkirk. Even if you aren’t a fan of WWII movies, Dunkirk is definitely a cinematic experience, especially to see in theaters.

Nice write up.

My only counter is that, in terms of character development, I think Nolan was very intentional here. This is about the event, not necessarily the people involved. Normally, characters drive the event (plot), but it’s flipped in Dunkirk. These people are helpless, and that’s really all we need to know. And Nolan even goes as far as to not introduce anyone by name because we don’t need their names– much like we don’t remember the name of any solider in WWII (unless they’re our grandpa/dad).

All in all, Dunkirk is a must-see, and I hardly ever say that.

Hey there….thanks reading my review and commenting. As I said in my review, it didn’t bother me as much of the character development in Dunkirk since it was “by design” what Nolan did (focusing more on the event rather than its characters). Also, with the film only being 107 minutes rather than his normal 2+ hour film, I kind of figured it.

So happy that this was under 2 hours. More films need to follow suit.

It was just another war movie for me. The plane scenes were the most memorable. If people go for the actors/acting, they will be disappointed. I’m glad you liked it though, you give good reasons. I don’t see it as much of an achievement but it is a completed thought and some fans will go in with a pro Nolan mindset I’m finding and completely disregard anything to counter it. I don’t think you are one of those.

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Movie Review: Dunkirk (2017)

• Carlos Cuevas
• Movie Reviews
• 9 responses
• --> July 20, 2017

In 1940, more than 300,000 Allied soldiers were trapped and surrounded by German forces in Dunkirk, France. It was a devastating blow and a key victory in the Battle of France; Hitler would not be stopped for five more years. However, the evacuation and rescue of the troops by British destroyers and other smaller vessels, including fishing and merchant boats, was nothing short of remarkable. In the end, Winston Churchill proclaimed it a miracle in the midst of sheer military disaster.

English writer/director Christopher Nolan (“ The Dark Knight Trilogy ”) brings us his vision of the event in Dunkirk , concentrating on three separate storylines. In “The Mole,” we follow Tommy (Fionn Whitehead, “Him” TV series), a young, terrified British Army private trying to escape what seems like certain death: Fly-by bombs explode all around him, bullets narrowly escape him, and drowning is just one breath away. In “The Sea,” a sailor by the name of Dawson (Mark Rylance, “ Bridge of Spies ”), his son (Tom Glynn-Carney, “The Last Post” TV series) and his teenage friend (Barry Keoghan, “ ’71 ”) attempt to reach the beach in order to save whoever they can. And in “The Air,” Spitfire pilot Farrier (Tom Hardy, “ Mad Max: Fury Road ”) and two other airmen scramble to protect the rescue vessels from enemy planes.

All of this is orchestrated, as we’ve come to expect from Nolan, in a highly authentic fashion: Dunkirk was filmed on large format 65mm by ace cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema, and it looks incredible. Even more impressive, there’s virtually no CGI, instead opting for practical effects that include real images of battleships going under and planes crashing; an image of men trying to escape from an ocean engulfed by oil and fire feels as claustrophobic and horrific as it sounds. Also on display is Nolan’s fascination with time, each story living in different chronologies — a week, a day, an hour — that eventually come together and overlap. Technically speaking, Dunkirk is as impressive as they come.

But impeccable skill does not a great movie make, and just like in some of his previous work, something is missing. And that something may just be believable characters you care for. Both “ Inception ” and “ Interstellar ” suffered from dialogue that over-explained the plot without seeming to come from real people. Dunkirk goes the opposite way: There isn’t enough dialogue, and therefore we don’t build sympathy with any of the soldiers or civilians fighting to survive. Nolan focuses instead on the more visceral aspects of the plot, be it a cockpit slowly filling with water or a torpedo approaching at full speed. Sure, it’s exciting, but what’s the point?

Moreover, Nolan lets composer Hans Zimmer take full reign over the mood of Dunkirk , with a frenzied score of drones and synthesizer effects that never lets up. And I mean NEVER — it’s two hours of incessant sonic bombardment meant to evoke the cacophony of war, but instead coming off as overkill. It’s a big mistake. I can just imagine how much more impactful it would’ve been to have no score at all.

You could argue that Stanley Kubrick — one of Nolan’s main influences — had a similar clinical approach to craft over feeling, which still resulted in films widely regarded as the finest in cinema . . . and you’d be right. But Kubrick still approached emotional engagement through characterization and dark humor: Colonel Dax’s idealism in “Paths of Glory”; Alex’s degrading behavior in “A Clockwork Orange”; Jack’s derangement in “The Shining”; Pyle trying, and failing, to survive Hartman’s abuse in “Full Metal Jacket.” He understood that drama came from the exploration of human desires and imperfections, and his filmography is rightfully ingrained in the memories of cinephiles all over the world.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not as if Nolan hasn’t done it himself before: Both “Memento” and his remake of “Insomnia” featured complex, fleshed-out characters. But it seems like in the last few years, big concepts and spectacle have taken a more prominent role in his often mathematical approach to directing. Dunkirk may be an extraordinary technical achievement, full of jaw-dropping moments. Yet as I walked out of the theater, I immediately forgot it. It needs a soul.

Tagged: battle , France , pilot , rescue , soldier , WWII

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'Movie Review: Dunkirk (2017)' have 9 comments

July 20, 2017 @ 3:52 pm mardiblog

This film is far and away above the average rating you assigned it.

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July 20, 2017 @ 4:18 pm Furious Oliver

I hear so many good things about this movie that I’m really fooking forward to watching it. I love realism in war films, specially the emotional impact, and noone captures that better than Christopher Nolan.

July 20, 2017 @ 4:31 pm agebasedasset

You don’t need to build sympathy with the characters from what they’re saying – you build sympathy from the situations they’re in. Their actions and their non-verbal communication – looks, gestures, body position – convey everything you need to get into their shoes.

July 20, 2017 @ 5:09 pm Brian

So excited, Spider-Man ain’t got nothing on this!

July 22, 2017 @ 6:25 am Rupert Harvey

I fully agree with your criticisms, particularly with regard to Zimmer’s score, which almost rendered the film unwatchable for me. It’s a very handsome and well-made picture overall, but pretty ordinary (and strangely bloodless) when compared with the great “war experience” films.

July 25, 2017 @ 3:06 am 8o.8o

“Dunkirk” is a war movie, unusual in not having any of that stressful tension; normally building through continuity and a comprehensible plot related to that which is taking place onscreen.

Curiously, the usual staples of war movies, namely mass visceral terror of an impending violent death, mayhem and loss of control, with unavoidable bloodshed, were generally avoided; there could be no confusion about having stumbled into a screening of “Saving Private Ryan”. Oh that war could be so clean and tidy.

In summary, on the one hand, it makes the movie less stressful for those of a delicate disposition, and is probably suitable (with minimal editing) for academic viewing, in the PG-13 category; and on the other hand, if “Dunkirk” was a beer, it would be Kaliber, for anyone expecting Guinness.

July 25, 2017 @ 9:15 pm mike

Dunkirk sucked. Not historically accurate, no dialogue, no plot. Beaches were as clean as a summer day. Not believable. Waste of money. A plane runs out of a gas and shoots down a German pilot. Still flying on fumes at the end of the movie. Where was the Luftwaffe????? Don’t listen to the critics on this one saying it is a blockbuster. Worst movie I have seen in 25 years.

January 25, 2018 @ 12:36 am Chief

Just Saw it on my Netflix and you are right worst film I’ve seen all year.

February 1, 2018 @ 1:25 am Brit in oz

Much of this film is not real as others have said to clean,the focus on men trying to jump the Q/line is unfair to the hundreds of thousands who did not do this and please remember the men Brits French and others who held the line so others got away my father being one of them,40,000 brits ended up as pows my dad was on the death march at the end of the war also not covered in any film yet!

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Movie Review – Dunkirk (2017)

July 18, 2017 by Amie Cranswick

Dunkirk , 2017.

Written and directed by Christopher Nolan. Starring Fionn Whitehead, Tom Hardy, Cillian Murphy, Mark Rylance, Kenneth Branagh, Harry Styles, Aneurin Barnard, Jack Lowden, James D’Arcy, Barry Keoghan, and Tom Glynn-Carney.

Allied soldiers from Belgium, the British Empire and France are surrounded by the German army and evacuated during a fierce battle in World War II.

Of the many, many remarkable things about Christopher Nolan’s jaw-dropping Dunkirk is its run time. At just 104 minutes, it’s Nolan’s shortest since his debut Following , yet, it feels as if far denser. Time frames intertwine, moving through one another in a manner that bewilders and bewitches. As if a personal joke, a ticking clock can be heard throughout, through the score, through every hellish set piece, a literal and metaphorical countdown that, when it finally comes to a close, leaves a deafening silence that hits like a freight train.

In fact, all previous press-the runtime, the 12 certification, the seemingly provocative casting of boy band heartthrob Harry Styles-now seem entirely futile. Every decision, be it micro or larger, plays out with such immaculate precision. The rating, thus abandoning all possible gore, is a godsend to Nolan, who placates any Saving Private Ryan -esque violence for a sustained tension far, far more harrowing.

Nolan tells the horrors of war through three intertwining tales: land, air and sea. The first finds Fionn Whitehead escaping a sudden ambush to find himself on the beaches of Dunkirk, a duck amidst hundreds of thousands more lead by Commander Bolton (Kenneth Branagh). A lame attempt to escape leaves him in the company of further young soldiers, of which includes Harry Styles “alpha” Alex.

Air, the most streamlined of the three and the most cinematic, finds fighter pilots Farrier (Tom Hardy, almost mute) and Collins (Jack Lowden) valiantly protecting the soldiers trying so hard to escape.

Whilst on sea and on their way to Dunkirk, civilians Mr. Dawson (Mark Rylance), his son Peter (Tom Glynn-Carney) and friend George (Barry Keoghan) rescue Cillian Murphy, an unnamed soldier stranded atop a sunken U-boat.

Structurally, the film twists and turns, time-although only ever-moving forward-never feels truly linear, each story overlapping creating a dizzying, woozy like state with which to heighten the horrors the characters suffer. Moments of respite are few and far between and this narrative structure, a nightmarish mille-feuille of interconnected set-pieces, only places further emphasis on the silence with which the audience are finally greeted to following the shattering, exhausting finale.

There’s a smart anonymity to the characters (not to downplay the performances, all of which are universally impressive). We are given little time to know each of them as if thrown headfirst into war ourselves. Characters, for the most part, stay unnamed, their paths crossing for brief moments.

The action is also stunning and of such vivid nightmares. Whilst on land, bodies are thrown and muddied by anonymous German fighter pilots dropping bombs from above whilst on sea; the action becomes far more claustrophobic. Tights shots of soldiers huddled on the deck of boats awaiting a torpedo or drowning amidst hundreds of others are horribly nail bitingly tense.

But Nolan saves the best for the air, utilizing the IMAX cameras and 70mm film like no other filmmaker. Vast vistas are broken up by screaming bullets and dipping fighter jets, and on an IMAX screen, it’s a frankly overpowering experience. To see it on a screen smaller would be of disservice to Nolan and his film.

For all the noise of Dunkirk , it’s a film that relies on silence, be it of hushed commanders or the forced silence of those awaiting their fate. Over his illustrious career, Nolan has crafted blockbusters intelligent, but never this sparse, yet Dunkirk may be his finest.

It’s a shattering, exhausting, experience; a study of the futility and hopelessness of war that shocks and awes in equal measure. It’s a jaw dropping, singular achievement.

Flickering Myth Rating  – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Thomas Harris

About Amie Cranswick

Amie Cranswick has been part of Flickering Myth’s editorial and management team for over a decade. She has a background in publishing and copyediting and has served as Editor-in-Chief of FlickeringMyth.com since 2023.

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Dunkirk Is a Great War Movie Marred by Christopher Nolan’s Usual Tricks

In Dunkirk , Christopher Nolan has made a stark and harrowing war movie muddled by his signature “Nolan Time,” that arty temporal scramble that he thinks is more illuminating than it is. Briefly, Nolan Time consists of several (in this case three) parallel temporal lines that appear to be out of sync but prove, in the end, to conform to a Higher Synchronization — not the work of God or Fate but of steadfast individuals bravely exercising free will. My own free will is exercised by not falling in line with the many and vocal Nolanoids, but I’ll credit him in Dunkirk with getting many of the externals dead right.

His springboard is an event that is cherished by Brits and less familiar to Americans, who tend to think of World War II as beginning with Pearl Harbor and the belated entry of the United States. It happens to be one of the most triumphant military retreats in the history of the world. By mid-1940, the Nazis had swept across Europe and pushed at least a quarter-million Brits (at minimum) to the beaches of northern France, the edge of the continent — almost close enough, as the characters in Dunkirk wishfully insist, to see the Mother Country across the channel. What was nowhere near in sight was help. By then, the Royal Navy had lost nearly 30 big ships, the Luftwaffe dominated the skies, and the waters teemed with U-boats. Churchill and company couldn’t afford to lose many more warships with the looming German invasion of the homeland — Operation Sea Lion.

I saw Dunkirk in IMAX, where the combination of size and a fat, square frame made even the panoramas seem like close-ups. Nolan and director of photography Hoyte Van Hoytema (my new favorite name) contrive one of the most vivid opening shots I’ve seen. A group of soldiers moves warily along a street, away from the camera, surrounded by falling leaflets — warnings dropped from German planes to surrender or die. A moment later, all but one of them is, in fact, dead. The survivor, Tommy (Fionn Whitehead), is identified in one of Nolan’s ambiguous titles as “the Mole,” which is easy to remember since he has a big one where his cheek meets his chin. Identifying himself as English, he moves past French defenses and onto the beach, where the Brits are queued up with characteristic patience. He wastes no time in picking up a stretcher and trying to get onto a medical boat carrying the wounded.

Here, Nolan and his editor Lee Smith begin their crosscutting song and dance. In the skies above, Spitfire pilots Tom Hardy and Jack Lowden take off to protect the fleet by shooting down Luftwaffe planes — ever mindful in the ticking-clock way of most thrillers of their limited fuel supplies. (Hardy wears an oxygen mask for at least 90 percent of his screen time — it seems to be a running joke that directors insist on covering his great face.) Across the (small) pond in England, Mark Rylance loads his small pleasure boat with life vests, aided by two teenage boys, his son (Tom Glynn-Carney, a handsome blond lad who looks as if he’s on leave from Slytherin) and his son’s mate (Barry Keoghan) — steps ahead of soldiers attempting to requisition the craft. Rylance isn’t heading out on holiday. He wants to make the rescue run to Dunkirk himself. He will later say, “Men my age dictate this war, why should we not fight it?” And he has one other, more predictable reason.

Over his many films, Nolan has shown little talent for staging and editing action, but he’s marvelous at designing single shots, in this case the vertiginous plunges of planes and a series of terrifying beach bombardments. The explosions come in a line, moving toward a protagonist (and the camera) at near-precise intervals, all but vaporizing the next man over. (The soldiers rise from the ground, briefly survey the damage, and get back in their queues, as Brits are wont to do.)

Nolan has pointedly omitted the showers of gore and viscera that have become so common (in many cases thanks to CGI) in recent war films. There are a few dried, brick-red stains on the wounded, but I don’t recall a drop of flowing blood. It turns out that Nolan doesn’t need explicit carnage to make you sick over the loss of life. The horror is reflected in the face of Kenneth Branagh as the naval commander who stations himself on a pier at the water’s edge and watches some of his men die, the rest perhaps on the verge of death. If Dunkirk has a fulcrum, it’s Branagh, to whom all narrative threads lead.

What we don’t know at first about the crossing threads is that the cutting is not just among different locations but different time periods. That hits us forcefully when Cillian Murphy, whom we’ve met as a shivering, shell-shocked soldier helped from a mid-channel wreck by Rylance, appears in a subsequent scene as a forceful boat commander — so forceful that he’s capable of telling desperate survivors of another sunken boat that there’s no more room and they have to keep swimming.

There’s a great deal to hold in our heads: connections to make, holes to fill, people to keep straight. ( One Direction’s Harry Styles is in there somewhere , another smudged face with good cheekbones.) Tying the disparate scenes together is Hans Zimmer’s score, which keeps a steady 4/4 beat while never resolving a chord. The brass is muffled, the strings saw but don’t cut. The churning soundscape serves as a reminder that time is running out but that the soldiers (and the audience) is stuck in a kind of void. As the gray waves become even more unruly (Branagh’s commander says he’d rather face them than the dive bombers), the vision of a cruel and implacable nature approaches real tragedy.

The problem is when Nolan turns upbeat, when narrative threads begin to merge and cold fear is replaced by warm sap. The appearance of England’s small boats is appropriately heart-swelling, testament to the bravery and resourcefulness of “the common man” that makes Dunkirk one of the few bright spots in a war whose barbarity still eats into the mind. But Rylance’s firm but moist determination at the helm and Hardy’s stoic Spitfire maneuvers are another matter. For all Nolan’s modernist techniques, his cavalry-is-coming cliff-hangers are eye-rollers — overlong, corny, and clunkily edited. When the structure of Dunkirk becomes visible, when it stands as a mathematical demonstration of brave individual choices lining up in a tidy row, you might realize that you’ve been had.

Or maybe not. Although I find most of Nolan’s work to be pulp bloated by pomposity, a good many intelligent people love his films. Apart from its philosophical heft, Nolan Time has the benefit of psyching audiences out, keeping them so busy trying to make linear sense of what they’re watching that they miss the obviousness of the plotting. Nolanoids I know talk about needing to go back and see the movies again as if to demonstrate how challenging he is. But needing to rewatch something because you can’t make sense of it the first time isn’t exactly a testament to a director’s skills as a storyteller.

What Nolan plus IMAX can do is go big . Spitfire swerving, boat tippings, men dropping to the sand as planes scream by — it doesn’t get any better. That first shot of men on a street in a shower of paper on which their deaths are foretold — brilliant. Somewhere inside the mess that is Dunkirk is a terrific linear movie.

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The 13 Best War Movies That Are Also Thrillers, Ranked

"Bored? Huh, what is it good for?"

There’s always a risk involved with making a war movie thrilling, given that many great war movies aim to show the tedium, horror, and uselessness of conflict by making things grim and oftentimes not very entertaining. The thriller genre, on the other hand, is one that tends to succeed by providing excitement and suspense , with thrillers generally – though not always – being fun films, to some extent.

The following war movies can also be categorized as thrillers, with many being the darker sorts of thrillers that can be suspenseful, sure, but might not necessarily be entertaining. Tonally, however, some of these movies do lean toward having a bit more fun, all the while not shying away from the death and destruction present in all wars. These war/thriller hybrid movies are ranked below, starting with the good and ending with the great.

13 'Where Eagles Dare' (1968)

Directed by brian g. hutton.

Where Eagles Fly stars late classic Hollywood legend Richard Burton opposite a then-38-year-old Clint Eastwood . The film centers on a Special Operations Executive team trying to save an American general from the fictional Schloß Adler fortress, only to discover there's more to their mission than they previously thought.

A favorite of Academy Award-winning director Steven Spielberg , Where Eagles Fly remains a seminal entry in the war genre. The film is narratively challenging to the point of being slightly confusing, which only adds to its enthralling quality, yet it never forgets to be entertaining, thanks to a perfect cast and assured direction. Unlike other war movies, Where Eagles Fly is more about the courage of men in war than war itself , giving it a timeless and inspiring tone that contributes to its legacy.

Where Eagles Dare

Rent on Amazon

12 'Das Boot' (1981)

Directed by wolfgang petersen.

The West German war thriller Das Boot is among the most thrilling and claustrophobic depictions of wartime in cinema. Set during World War II, the plot follows the crew of the German submarine U-96 during their patrol in the Battle of the Atlantic.

Das Boot presents a nuanced view of these men , acknowledging their allegiance without subscribing to traditional good-versus-evil tropes. Instead, it focuses on the human aspect of warfare, depicting the crew's sentiments of excitement, anticipation, anxiety, fear, and disappointment. Nominated for six Oscars, Das Boot is one of the best World War II movies , presenting another side to a conflict that shaped world history and adding layers to what is already a complex situation.

11 'Dunkirk' (2017)

Directed by christopher nolan.

Oscar-winner Christopher Nolan is behind some of the best thrillers in the 21st century. 2017's Dunkirk centers on the Dunkirk evacuation during World War II, following several characters and showing perspectives of the event from land, sea, and air.

Like every Nolan movie, Dunkirk is thrilling, tense, action-packed, and technically dazzling. The film throws the audience into the middle of the grueling action, and Nolan's camera expertly captures every detail. Dunkirk is the perfect mix of jaw-dropping spectacle and emotionally resonant storytelling ; it's chaotic and harrowing, never shying away from the horrors of war, yet still moving and cathartic, a true modern masterpiece in the war and thriller genres.

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10 'Eye in the Sky' (2015)

Director: gavin hood.

More of a political thriller than a traditional war movie, Eye in the Sky does, nevertheless, revolve around warfare, and a particularly contemporary version of it at that. It’s all about the complicated nature of combat that involves the use of drones, showing the various people waging war from afar and exploring what happens when civilian casualties become a possibility, dividing individuals and causing debate.

It's a fairly bleak movie, but does succeed in being suspenseful and even quite nail-biting in parts, which is what ultimately makes Eye in the Sky feel partly like a thriller and partly like a war movie. It’s a somewhat overlooked movie overall, exploring its complex themes with a straightforward story well, and boasting very good performances from a talented cast that includes Helen Mirren , Aaron Paul , and Alan Rickman .

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9 'Civil War' (2024)

Director: alex garland.

Though there’s fear the events depicted in Civil War could come true, at least for now, this 2024 release is about a fictional conflict. Effectively, it shows what a modern-day civil war in the U.S. may look like, depicting it through the eyes of a group of journalists who undertake a risky mission over hundreds of miles to cover the inevitable overthrow of the President in Washington D.C.

Civil War is a slow-burn movie, but builds in intensity well and has some genuinely intense action/suspense sequences as it progresses . Cashing in on what feels like a particularly divided time in history (and coming out in an election year, no less), Civil War has proven quite successful financially and critically, and is up there with the most gripping war movies in recent memory.

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8 'Joint Security Area' (2000)

Director: park chan-wook.

Joint Security Area is a movie that explores how, even though the Korean War has officially ended , North Korea and South Korea are still engaged in a tense conflict of sorts. It takes place in and around the demilitarized zone that separates North and South Korea, with the narrative principally being about a South Korean soldier being accused of murdering two North Korean soldiers.

There’s an element of mystery to Joint Security Area that drives much of the story, with an inventive structure that also works to build suspense, intrigue, and emotion. It’s a unique spin on the war genre and a very engaging movie all around, being another winner found within the varied and surprisingly consistent filmography of Park Chan-wook (and being released several years before his most acclaimed film, Oldboy ).

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7 'The Train' (1964)

Director: john frankenheimer.

A classic 1960s war movie , The Train takes place during World War II, and revolves around a German Colonel’s plans to steal valuable artwork from France and transport it back to Germany. Naturally, a group of French resistance fighters aren’t too thrilled by that idea, setting in motion a conflict that feels like a microcosm of the war as a whole, and succeeds in being generally entertaining and exciting.

The Train has aged remarkably well for a movie that’s now 60 years old, standing as something that’s likely to prove engaging for contemporary viewers in much the same way it would’ve been for audiences decades ago. It’s a movie that understands how surprisingly cinematic trains are ( particularly when it comes to action ) , and it’s an overall undeniably gripping World War II film.

6 'Bullet in the Head' (1990)

Director: john woo.

John Woo is well known for his action/thriller/crime movies , with Bullet in the Head being something of a change of pace for the filmmaker, released at a time when Woo was one of the best filmmakers working in Hong Kong. It does contain action and the main characters are wrapped up in a life of crime, but Bullet in the Head also crosses over into becoming a prisoner of war movie , owing to the story involving the Vietnam War.

It's an unpredictable ride of a film, and though it’s very engaging and memorable, it’s also quite grim and shocking in parts . John Woo pulled no punches in showing some of the most unpleasant parts of the conflict fought in Vietnam during the 1960s and ‘70s, with Bullet in the Head ultimately being underrated, not to mention admirably ambitious when it comes to its willingness to blend genres.

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5 '1917' (2019)

Director: sam mendes.

Alongside 2022’s All Quiet on the Western Front and the 2018 documentary They Shall Not Grow Old , 1917 is a movie that’s part of a resurgence of sorts for World War I films . That could well have something to do with the 2010s marking 100 years since the conflict commenced and ended, with the title of 1917 making it obvious that it’s set just over a century before the film’s year of release.

The premise of 1917 is simple, with the film following two young soldiers tasked with carrying out a dangerous and time-sensitive mission that involves crossing no man’s land, with the filmmaking and technical aspects of 1917 providing complexity and spectacle . It’s intended to look like it was filmed in a single take, and therefore mostly feels like it takes place in real-time, which naturally makes the entire thing (and especially the combat scenes) exceedingly tense.

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4 'Army of Shadows' (1969)

Director: jean-pierre melville.

Jean-Pierre Melville’s sensibilities as a filmmaker were perfectly suited to heist/crime movies, with Army of Shadows being something of a change of pace, at least compared to some of his other acclaimed works. It’s a film that’s just as intense as his very best crime movies, but deals with World War II and the plight of a French resistance fighter who escapes a prison camp and continues his desperate battle against Nazi forces.

Army of Shadows is as dark and unnerving as the title suggests it would be, and stands as a World War II movie that manages to feel realistic while also being visually bold and stylish. It’s sometimes regarded as one of the very best movies of the 1960s , and rightly so , blending war and thriller genres more seamlessly than most other films that attempt to do the same.

Army of Shadows

3 'the hurt locker' (2008), director: kathryn bigelow.

Of the numerous war movies that have won Best Picture at the Oscars, there’s an argument to be made that the most nail-biting is The Hurt Locker . It takes place during the Iraq War and centers on a bomb squad unit and the dangerous tasks its members are required to do on a daily basis.

It understandably drives home the danger of such a task, and there are so many sequences in The Hurt Locker that prove more intense and suspenseful than the vast majority of full-blooded thrillers out there. It represents filmmaker Kathryn Bigelow operating at the height of her powers, and is perhaps the definitive film about what’s still a relatively recent conflict. In the 15+ years since its release, it’s lost none of its power, and will likely continue to age well as time marches on.

The Hurt Locker

2 'inglourious basterds' (2009), director: quentin tarantino.

From the opening scene that introduces the instantly iconic villain Colonel Hans Landa , Inglourious Basterds never really lets up when it comes to being a suspenseful, sometimes horrifying, and sometimes quite fun World War II movie. It follows various characters doing what they can to take out Nazi forces in occupied France, not all linked, but each of them ultimately ends up at the same destination by the film’s fiery climax.

As one would expect from a Quentin Tarantino movie, the dialogue is expertly written , the violence is remarkably bloody, and history is bent, warped, and subverted in interesting ways . Inglourious Basterds is overall one of his greatest accomplishments as a filmmaker, and is indeed one of the boldest war movies not just of the 21st century so far, but arguably of all time.

Inglourious Basterds

1 'the great escape' (1963), director: john sturges.

The gold standard when it comes to prisoner-of-war movies and films that focus on escaping from prison , The Great Escape is an epic , a war movie, an action/adventure film, and a thriller all at once. The plot is as straightforward and no-nonsense as the title, following a group of Allied soldiers confined to a high-security POW camp during World War II, and the way they enact an ambitious attempt to escape.

Helping The Great Escape is the fact that it has one of the best casts of the entire 1960s, with Steve McQueen in the lead and supporting performances from the likes of Charles Bronson , Richard Attenborough , Donald Pleasence , and James Coburn . Its runtime clocks in at just a few minutes shy of three hours, but you don’t really feel the length, owing to how gripping, suspenseful, and inevitably entertaining the entire movie ends up being.

The Great Escape

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NEXT: The Best War Documentaries of All Time, Ranked

War History Online

9 Small Details In These War Movies That Show The Directors Know Their History

Posted: May 15, 2024 | Last updated: May 15, 2024

When filmmakers make movies about the military, the majority try to be as accurate as possible in their depiction of combat and those who participate. This can be accomplished in several ways, but it's the small details that often provide the best authenticity. Here are some of the most impressive examples of Hollywood getting it right (for once).

Doris 'Dorie' Miller in Pearl Harbor (2001)

The story of Doris "Dorie" Miller , a mess attendant-turned-war hero, was certainly known to people in the 1940s, and a character based on Miller was portrayed by Elven Havard in the film, Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970). He was aboard the USS West Virginia (BB-48) when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and not only did he save his wounded comrades, he also shot down several Japanese aircraft with an anti-aircraft machine gun - with no training!

By 2001, there was a generation of people who'd never heard his story. Filmmaker Michael Bay aimed to change this. Miller was a prominent feature in 2001's Pearl Harbor . While the movie is a heavily fictionalized account of what occurred, Miller, portrayed by Cuba Gooding Jr., sees extended screen time.

A real water buffalo was sacrificed in Apocalypse Now (1979)

Francis Ford Coppola meant to unnerve viewers with his 1979 film, Apocalypse Now . The Vietnam War -era feature is famed for its portrayal of the search by Capt. Benjamin Willard ( Martin Sheen ) for Col. William Kurtz ( Marlon Brando ), who's gone rogue and is accused of murder. Given the gravity of the situation, Willard is tasked with assassinating him.

Kurtz was worshipped by the villagers in Cambodia. At one point, they sacrifice a water buffalo, and while the majority of movies would produce such a scene with CGI or special effects, the slaying of the animal actually occurred. The local indigenous tribe had already planned on doing this and allowed the filmmakers to not only film the act, but use it in the final product.

A recording of Adrian Cronauer plays in Platoon (1986)

Adrian Cronauer was a member of the US Air Force during the Vietnam War. While he was first involved in producing move, he became a radio disc jockey (DJ) for the American Forces Network (AFN). Each morning, he'd yell, "Good Morning, Vietnam!"

While Cronauer's Vietnam legacy is best remembered through Robin Williams ' portrayal of him in 1987's Good Morning Vietnam , an actual recording of him saying his famous catchphrase was used a year earlier, in Oliver Stone 's Platoon .

Gary Sinise wore his brother-in-law's dog tags in Forrest Gump (1994)

The 1994 movie Forrest Gump , as beloved as it is, can't exactly be called realistic. In fact, while it may focus on famous historical events, it goes to great lengths to have its protagonist, portrayed by Tom Hanks , appear as having taken part in them.

At one point, Forrest goes off the fight in Vietnam, under the command of Lt. Dan Taylor , a career military man who believes he's destined to perish in war, as his ancestors did. Gary Sinise , who portrays Taylor, decided to add some realness to his character. In the film, the dog tags he wears are actually those of Sinise's brother-in-law, Jack Treese, who served in Vietnam.

Fury (2014) featured a real Tiger tank

The 2014 film Fury debuted in theaters in 2014 and focused on the tank battles between the Allied forces and Germany during World War II . The movie, starring Brad Pitt and Shia LaBeouf, was a hit, grossing more than $210 million at the box office.

Fury was lauded by critics, who appreciated the movie's accuracy, especially when it came to the tanks. According to Live Science , "the Sherman M4A3E8 and the Tiger 131 - are real, and belong to the Tank Museum in Bovington, England." The inclusion of the Tiger tank is especially notable, as the Tank Museum is in possession of the last running one.

The team behind Full Metal Jacket (1987) hired R. Lee Ermey

R. Lee Ermey , the scene-stealing drill instructor from 1987's Full Metal Jacket , was originally only an adviser on the film. To help the actors, the US Marine Corps veteran created an instructional video. Director Stanley Kubrick was so impressed with the tape that he decided to cast Ermey in the film as Gunnery Sgt. Hartman.

The decision to cast Ermey was soon proven to be the correct one. His performance received rave reviews, and he was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor.

Czech soldiers make an appearance in Saving Private Ryan (1998)

Four brothers from the Niland family went off to fight in World War II. Upon the conflict's conclusion, three were thought to have been killed (one was actually in a prisoner of war camp) and the fourth was sent home to finish his service. The 1998 film, Saving Private Ryan , was inspired by this story.

Saving Private Ryan is one of the most critically-acclaimed war movies of all time. One small decision shows the filmmakers' commitment to authenticity. Toward the beginning, two soldiers surrender to the Allies on Omaha Beach, who execute them. Most assume they're speaking German, but, in reality, the pair are Czech , and they were likely conscripted during Germany's occupation of Czechoslovakia .

Accurate Supermarine Spitfire action in Dunkirk (2017)

As its name suggests, Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk (2017) centers around the Dunkirk evacuation that took place in 1940. While there are many interesting tidbits regarding these sequences, such as the use of Little Ships that actually took part in the rescues, what stands out the most is the rate of fire of the Supermarine Spitfires .

During the dogfight featuring Tom Hardy , the Spitfire he's piloting fires rounds in two-second increments over the course of 15 seconds. This is true to the units manned during the Second World War that had between 15-18 seconds of firing time, which aviators used in two-second bursts.

A Sikh soldier fighting alongside the British in 1917 (2019)

One of the more unique World War I -era movies to be released in recent years, 1917 follows two soldiers - Lance Cpl. Thomas "Tom" Blake and William "Will" Schofield - as they journey to deliver a message to a British garrison, warning them to call off what's forecasted to be a devastating attack.

At one point, a Sikh soldier fighting with the British Army is seen riding in the back of a truck with other troops. While there are some who claim this was the filmmakers wanting to diversify the cast, those with a knowledge of British history will know about 161,000 Sikh troops served with the British during the Great War, despite making up just two percent of the Indian population.

More from us: Kaiser Wilhelm and Tsar Nicholas II Tried (and Failed) to Avert World War I

There are also discussions regarding the man's Lee-Enfield rifle and its appearance, but that topic, in particular, is up for debate.

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10 best IMAX movies ever, ranked

Not too long ago, IMAX movies were seemingly reserved for documentary and nature films at museums and science centers with giant dome movie screens that dwarfed anything available in local theaters. But in the last two decades, filmmakers have gravitated towards using IMAX cameras for even greater images, while moviegoers have shifted to watching mainstream releases in IMAX theaters around the world.

10: Tron: Legacy (2010)

9. avatar: the way of water (2022), 8. dunkirk (2017), 7. avengers: infinity war (2018), 6: gravity (2013), 5. avengers: endgame (2019).

• 4. Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011)

3. The Dark Knight (2008)

2. interstellar (2014), 1. oppenheimer (2023).

Last month, Dune: Part Two  hit theaters, and the critical consensus of the sequel is that it’s best enjoyed on the biggest screens possible. Before you make plans to see the hit sci-fi sequel in IMAX for the second or fifth time, we’re taking a look back at the 10 best IMAX movies ever.

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Unlike many of the films on this list, Tron: Legacy was not filmed with IMAX cameras. But it was converted into an IMAX release, and the visuals of the Grid really lend themselves well to the larger format. Despite the disappointing box office returns of Legacy , director Joseph Kosinski established himself as a top filmmaker. His experience with this movie surely helped guide him on his later films, including Oblivion and Top Gun: Maverick .

Legacy is a sequel to the original Tron from 1982. Garrett Hedlund plays Sam Flynn, the son of Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges), who disappeared into the Grid decades earlier. After unexpectedly following his father into the living computer world that he created, Sam encounters Quorra (Olivia Wilde, director of Don’t Worry Darling ), a sentient isomorphic algorithm. Sam also discovers that Clu (Bridges), an evil duplicate of his father, has taken over the Grid and transformed it in his image.

Watch Tron: Legacy on Disney+ .

The original Avatar was shown in IMAX during its initial 2009 release, but James Cameron went several steps further with the sequel. Avatar: The Way of Water was filmed entirely with IMAX cameras. That made a huge difference when creating a larger canvas for the visuals of Pandora and the expanded scope of the story. One of the reasons why The Way of Water earned $2.320 billion worldwide is that audiences flocked to see it in both IMAX and 3D.

Avatar: The Way of Water picks up a few years after the original, as Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) start a family, including their adoptive daughter, Kiri (Sigourney Weaver), who is more than an ordinary Na’vi or an avatar. When humanity reinvades Pandora, Jake discovers that the armed forces are led by an avatar clone of his old nemesis, Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang). To protect his family, Jake relocates them from the forest and joins a water tribe of Na’vi.

Watch Avatar: The Way of Water on Disney+ .

You’re going to see Christopher Nolan ‘s name come up a lot on this list, and that’s because few filmmakers have so thoroughly embraced IMAX as he has. Nolan’s World War II epic, Dunkirk , was filmed almost entirely in IMAX. In addition to using IMAX cameras to film vintage aircraft and boats, Nolan was also the first theatrical director to utilize handheld IMAX cameras in a mainstream movie.

Dunkirk is based on the true story of what could have been the premature end of World War II. After British and French forces lost the Battle of France, they were pinned down on the shores of Dunkirk by the enemy. It took an extraordinary effort, including British civilian ships, to rescue the troops and allow them to fight another day.

Watch Dunkirk on Peacock .

Almost every superhero movie gets an IMAX release, but Avengers: Infinity War  and its sequel, Avengers: Endgame , have the distinction of being the first major studio movies to be entirely filmed with IMAX digital cameras. Anthony and Joe Russo not only had a larger canvas to fill the screen, they also had the narrative momentum of almost every previous Marvel Studios film to date leading to this crossover event.

Several parts of this movie seem like they were designed to make the audience cheer, especially when Spider-Man (Tom Holland) and the Guardians of the Galaxy show up. But this story belongs to Thanos (Josh Brolin), and his triumph gave the film a truly shocking cliffhanger.

Watch Avengers: Infinity War on Disney+ .

Alfonso Cuarón won an Oscar for Best Director, thanks in no small part to his brilliantly executed use of the IMAX format. Sandra Bullock isn’t actually floating above the Earth during this movie, but Cuarón specifically decided to film Gravity like a documentary so that audiences could buy the illusion of space.

Bullock spends most of the movie onscreen by herself because her character, Ryan Stone, is the only survivor after her space shuttle is destroyed in orbit. And without that ship, Ryan’s chances of survival or rescue are slim to none.

Watch Gravity on Netflix .

How do you top the sheer spectacle of Avengers: Infinity War ? For Avengers: Endgame , the Russo brothers started small as the team was forced to deal with their devastating defeat in the previous film. They also had to dwell on their personal losses as well. With three hours of screen time to play with, there was enough room for those character beats before the Avengers literally dived back into their earlier films for a time heist.

Both Infinity War and Endgame are available to stream on Disney+ in the IMAX ratio. The two films are pretty close in terms of quality, but Endgame gets the edge with its more crowd-pleasing moments and an epic battle between an army of Avengers and Thanos’ forces.

Watch Avengers: Endgame on Disney+ .

4. Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011)

The Mission: Impossible movies have been so successful that it’s easy to forget that the franchise was essentially done after Mission: Impossible III in 2006. It took another five years before The Incredibles director Brad Bird made his live-action directorial debut with Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol . That film revitalized the franchise. And for his first time in the big chair, Bird insisted on using IMAX cameras for key parts of the movie, including a sequence where Tom Cruise climbs the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa, on location in Dubai.

Ghost Protocol finds Cruise’s Ethan Hunt in hot water with both the American government and the Russians after he’s blamed for a terrorist attack in Moscow. That’s why Ethan and his entire IMF team, William Brandt (Jeremy Renner), Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg), and Jane Carter (Paula Patton), have to go rogue to clear their names and save the day.

Watch Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol on Paramount+ .

Nolan’s IMAX journey began in The Dark Knight , which was also the first big Hollywood production to utilize IMAX cameras. Only a few of the film’s sequences were filmed in IMAX, including the opening bank robbery and the thrilling detour to Hong Kong which proved that “Batman has no jurisdiction.” He goes where he wants to go.

The third film, The Dark Knight Rises , featured more IMAX camera work than The Dark Knight . But The Dark Knight earns its place on this list for being one of the all-time great superhero movies, if not the greatest. Batman (Christian Bale) finally met his match in The Joker (Heath Ledger), and the bar was set high for all future cinematic trips to Gotham City.

Watch The Dark Knight on Max .

Nolan significantly ramped up his use of IMAX cameras for Interstellar , his first real venture into science fiction. Space has rarely seemed larger than in this movie or more foreboding. Additionally, Nolan’s preference for practical effects and sets made both the space shuttle interiors and exterior planet shots seem more real.

Matthew McConaughey plays Joseph Cooper, a former NASA pilot who is recruited to join Dr. Amelia Brand ( Anne Hathaway ) and others on a long-term mission in space to find a new home for humanity before Earth becomes unlivable. The price for that journey is that Cooper misses the lives of his children, including his now adult daughter, Murph (Jessica Chastain), who in turn has to figure out a way to get humanity off-world. Late in this film, there’s a sequence where Cooper’s emotional turmoil is joined with spectacular visuals as the solution presents itself.

Watch Interstellar on Paramount+ .

It wasn’t a surprise that Oppenheimer won the Oscar for Best Picture as it was a critical hit and a surprising success at the box office, the latter was driven by the collective need to see it in IMAX. Nolan’s latest film once again extensively uses IMAX cameras. Unlike The Dark Knight , Dunkirk , or Interstellar , the story isn’t driven by action or effects. Instead, it’s about the race to build the atomic bomb, as well as more intimate dramatic scenes like senate confirmation and security hearings that don’t often make for riveting viewing. In this film, they are.

Nolan used black-and-white IMAX film during a few sequences in Oppenheimer , which doesn’t unfold in a typically linear fashion. Instead, the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer ( Cillian Murphy ) is shown before, during, and after his part in The Manhattan Project, as well as flash forwards to a disastrous security hearing that was meant to destroy his reputation. Meanwhile, a separate part of the narrative belongs to Lewis Strauss ( Robert Downey Jr. ) as he pays the price for his efforts to strike back at Oppenheimer. It’s a fantastic movie from start to finish and also the pinnacle of IMAX filmmaking to date.

Watch Oppenheimer on Peacock .

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If you're looking for something to watch this weekend, then Hulu has you covered. Disney's other streaming service doesn't get all of the press that Disney+ does, but Hulu has a much better library of movies, especially for cinema lovers who want to watch more than just Star Wars or Marvel flicks.

This week's selections of the three Hulu movies you need to stream this weekend include an underrated Wes Anderson film, a non-Marvel superhero flick, and a 2023 psychological thriller that didn't get the attention it deserved during its initial release. The Darjeeling Limited (2007)

This weekend, intelligent primates are storming the box office in Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. Kingdom is the latest chapter in the beloved Planet of the Apes saga. Other high-profile movies to watch include The Fall Guy and The Idea of You, two films that premiered last weekend. The Fall Guy is in theaters, and The Idea of You is on Prime Video.

If you want to watch movies and save some money, consider using a FAST service like Tubi and Amazon Freevee. Ads will run while watching movies on a FAST service. However, it's free to sign up, a fair trade-off in the long run. Below, read about three free movies you can stream this weekend. Our selections include a heartwarming coming-of-age tale, an underrated horror film, and a classic 1990s teen comedy. The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)

This week, the most popular movies on Netflix are all about Shrek. Only the first and fourth Shrek films are on Netflix, but they're both in the top 5, and they've helped end the long run of The Super Mario Bros. Movie landing in the top 10. Even the hit rom-com Anyone but You has now been banished from the list.

But if you're not in the mood for Shrek or its final sequel, the action film One More Shot is the latest unheralded movie to rise on Netflix's list. The Peanut Butter Falcon is also a worthy addition, and it would have been enough to get Dakota Johnson out of movie jail if it had come out after Madame Web instead of five years before it.