Must-watchWorld War II · Film · 2017
Dunkirk
Trapped on the beaches of Dunkirk, British and French soldiers wait for rescue while a civilian sailor crosses the Channel in his small boat and three Spitfire pilots fight to keep the Luftwaffe off the evacuation.
Where it happened
Follow the story across 4 places.
Stop 1: Streets of Dunkirk
A young British private runs through the empty streets under German fire and reaches the sea, where thousands of men stand in lines waiting for a ship.
Stop 2: Dunkirk beach and East Mole
Key location
On the long wooden mole, soldiers crowd onto ships that are bombed and torpedoed, and every attempt to get home seems to end back in the water.
Stop 3: Weymouth harbour
Rather than hand his pleasure yacht to the Navy, a civilian sailor casts off with his son and a teenage deckhand to cross the Channel himself.
Stop 4: Skies over the English Channel
Three Spitfires fly out with an hour of fuel to hunt the bombers and fighters attacking the ships below.
What really happened
In May 1940 the German breakthrough at Sedan and the race to the Channel cut off the British Expeditionary Force and much of the French First Army in a shrinking pocket around Dunkirk. Operation Dynamo, launched on 26 May, was expected to save perhaps 45,000 men; by 4 June more than 800 vessels, from destroyers to the famous 'little ships', had carried about 338,000 British and French troops to England.
Christopher Nolan tells the story in three interlocking timelines of a week, a day and an hour, with almost no dialogue and invented characters. The beaches look far emptier than the real ones, only a handful of ships and aircraft appear, and the French rearguard that held the perimeter while the British embarked is barely seen, although its sacrifice made the evacuation possible.
Where to watch
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Full details
- Original title
- Dunkirk
- Directed by
- Christopher Nolan
- Countries
- United Kingdom, United States, France, Netherlands
- Languages
- English, French
- Released
- 2017
- Period
- –
- Theaters of war
- Western Europe
- Themes
- Combat
- Naval
- Air war
