Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk runs 107 minutes and wastes none of them. It is a war film told from three positions at once: men on the beach, a civilian boat on the sea, and a single hour of air combat. The result is the best work of Nolan’s career, and it earns a 9.4 of 10.
Trailer, via Warner Bros..
One Week on the Beach
The film opens in the summer of 1940. Tommy, played by Fionn Whitehead, loses his squadmates and flees to the beach at Dunkirk, where thousands of Allied soldiers wait. He helps another soldier, Gibson, bury a body. They carry a wounded man onto a hospital ship at the mole, overseen by Commander Bolton, and are ordered off again. The ship sinks.
A Destroyer and a U-boat
Tommy saves a Highlander, Alex, from the wreck. He and Gibson pass as survivors to board a destroyer. A U-boat torpedo hits it before it departs. Gibson opens the door below deck and gets them out. They return to the beach.
The Moonstone Crosses the Channel
In Weymouth, sailor Dawson and his son Peter take the boat Moonstone rather than let the Royal Navy requisition her. George, their teenage hand, joins on impulse. In the channel they pull a shell-shocked officer from the water. Realizing Dawson means to sail for Dunkirk, the officer panics. Peter locks him up.
One Hour in the Air
The air strand gives the film its clock. Nolan builds suspense through cinematography and music rather than talk, and the film runs on very little dialogue. It is the right choice.
Rylance, Branagh and Hardy
Mark Rylance piloted his character’s boat daily and read accounts of men like Dawson. Kenneth Branagh’s Bolton and James D’Arcy’s Winnant give the audience context. Tom Hardy flies. Harry Styles, in his feature debut, plays Alex, cast for what Nolan called his “old fashioned face.”
Historic Boats and Period Aeroplanes
Hoyte van Hoytema shot Dunkirk on IMAX 65 mm and 65 mm large-format film stock. The film used thousands of extras, historic evacuation boats and period aeroplanes.
Why the Structure Works
The three timelines — a week, a day, an hour — look like a stunt. They are not. They let Nolan cut between scales without ever explaining the war. Ranked against the great war films, here is what Dunkirk does better than almost all of them:
- It never shows the enemy.
- It treats survival, not battle, as the subject.
- It trusts silence over exposition.
What Holds After the Money
Dunkirk grossed over $530 million worldwide and was the highest-grossing World War II film until Nolan’s Oppenheimer surpassed it in 2023. The money is noise. What holds is the 107 minutes: a film about getting home that refuses to sentimentalize home. 9.4 of 10.
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