Director Christopher Nolan brings us a new movie all about the events in Dunkirk in 1940. With the British and French troops backed against the sea and cut off by the Nazis, it became a desperate race against time to save as many troops as possible. And thanks to civilian help, a legend was born..

If you don't know all that, then you should have paid attention during history lessons. But very brief opening captions do quickly set the scene.

Right after that, the bullets start to fly.

The focus of the movie is both the human survival instinct. And the urge to do what you can to help others. There are several main narrative strands. We follows what happens to ordinary British soldier Tommy. We follow the efforts of a naval commodore [Kenneth Branagh] to coordinate the evacuation, and watch as things go wrong constantly.

We follow a determined Spitfire pilot [Tom Hardy]

Also equally determined is Mr Dawson [Mark Rylance] owner of small boat the Moonstone, who has put to sea to get there to help.

Those on the beach are under attack from a powerful and largely unseen enemy, and helpless in the face of this. Which is something the film conveys superbly from the moment those bullets start flying.

Those in the air and those at sea face other obstacles. And it becomes a race against time for all.

The film plays tricks with time. Since those on the beach had to wait up to a week. And those in the air could get there in an hour. And those in the little ships could get there in a day, the experience was different for all concerned. Thus the land, sea and air narratives do move at different paces. But they cross over at points.

So what you get isn't entirely linear at times. But once you realise this conceit is going on, it works. It does make you use your brain. But there's nothing wrong with film making like that.

The score tries to enhance the mood and add to the tension. It will be perhaps an acquired taste. But those who get it will love it, and find it really works.

The visuals are nearly all done for real rather than with special effects. Resulting in very convincing air and sea battles, and some of the best aerial action you will ever see in a movie. It tries so hard for realism that the dialogue of the pilots is not easy to hear. But that's the way it was. So it's how it should be.

Characterisation is minimal, but this isn't a film about character development. And all the main characters are perfectly well rounded anyhow and very easy to follow and sympathise with.

Some are brave. Some do things you might find morally tricky, as a result of their urge to survive. But given what they are going through, you can't judge them for it. So the film does make you think about how you might handle similar circumstances.

And if you have seen on the big screen, it's worth seeing again on the small screen. Because even without the bigger screen and stereo sound, it's no less gripping a watch. And seeing it a second time means you notice, once you know the structure, lots of little details that you will not have spotted before.

Superb film making. and a memorable movie experience.

The disc has the following language and subtitle options:

Languages: English.

Subtitles: English.

It goes straight into the main menu with no adverts or trailers.

And it's a dvd like they used to be. With a second disc of extras all about the making of the film.

These are split into five sections. They can be watched individually. You can watch all the section in a row. Or all five in a row.

This second disc has the following language and subtitle options:

Languages: English.
Subtitles: English. Czech. Hungarian. Polish. Portugese.. Turkish.

Extras are:

Creation: Revisiting The Miracle (Featurette) 7:44
Creation: Dunkerque (Featurette) 4:53
Creation: Expanding the Frame (Featurette) 3:22
Creation: The In-Camera Approach (Featurette) 5:47
Land: Rebuilding the Mole (Featurette) 5:55
Land: The Army On the Beach (Featurette) 5:13
Land: Uniform Approach (Featurette) 5:16
Air: Taking to the Air (Featurette) 12:27
Air: Inside the Cockpit (Featurette) 5:53
Sea: Assembling the Naval Fleet (Featurette) 3:34
Sea: Launching the Moonstone (Featurette) 5:49
Sea: Taking to the Sea (Featurette) 13:37
Sea: Sinking the Ships (Featurette) 7:22
Sea: The Little Ships (Featurette) 5:51
Conclusion: Turning Up the Tension (Featurette) 7:10
Conclusion: The Dunkirk Spirit (Featurette) 7:47

for those who are interested in film production, these are all essential viewing, as the detail they get into is fascinating.
For absolutely anyone, I strongly recommended The Little Ships, which details how, in a quest for realism, some of the little ships used in the film were actual ones from 1940. This might cause something to get stuck in your eye that makes water come out of it. Same for the Dunkirk Spirit, which looks at what that phrase means. But as a whole, it's a superb making of documentary which tells you so much.

It does also have the usual flyer with a code to use to get a digital copy of the film onto a digital device.

A great film. And a great disc of extras A five star dvd.

Unfortunately there are a lot of negative comments about this film but I want to deter you from believing such comments. The lack of CGI creates a more realistic setting and there are actually not many historical inaccuracies (despite what some comments say) and this is backed up by when a Dunkirk veteran watched the film and was astonished by how accurate and real the film was to the true event. It is expertly filmed and is very exciting, and what's not to love when real spitfires are used?

One of my favorite war movies.

A wonderful tribute film to those involved in bringing this together on the screen. To realize what my father went through in returning home, is a miracle at Dunkirk. Through the portrayal of survival in this film enables me to understand his life and to appreciate my place here today.

At one point during this brilliant film someone said that there was no depiction of the bigger picture; in my view, this is what made it so good. We had no idea what was happening elsewhere in the progress of the war; we didn't know anything about the protagonists; we met them for the first time on, around and above the beach, and this added to the sense of intimacy. They were all plunged into positions of terrible peril, and, typical of human beings, some reacted with courage and selflessness, some didn't. But then why should we expect every man (and boy) to be a hero? Old-style Hollywood divided people into goodies and baddies, but (good) modern film makers know better.
I loved the fact that quite a lot was left to the viewer's imagination: what had happened to the Cilian Murphy character to throw him into such a fugue state? Why was the young boy who jumped on to the Moonstone at the last moment so determined to prove himself? What was the lead-up to the soldier trying so hard to queue-jump? Also, there was a moving moment of the supernatural when the Mark Rylance character made his comment about 'He was one of you, and I knew he'd look after us'. I think it's significant that I can't remember anybody's names: in a sense they act as symbols/representatives of everyone who was there, and so their identities don't really matter.
I'm not sure what to make of Hans Zimmer's soundtrack. All that I can remember of it the morning after watching the film is the slowed-down 'Nimrod' theme and the repetitive, insistent four-beat rhythm (representing a battleship's pop-pom gun?). My initial impression is that it's not one of his best, but maybe it will improve on a second experience of the film. And on the subject of the soundtrack, I found the dialogue almost inaudible at times. Since this was't really a plot-driven film, however, I don't think it mattered very much.
I was caught up in the drama from start to finish. It made a change not to have swathes of CGI, which certainly added to the sense of having been right there amid the danger. No stiff upper lips and barely a touch of jingoism (although I could have done with one less shot of Kenneth Brannagh looking wistfully across the Channel towards 'home'; still, that's Kenneth Brannagh for you).
Recommended.

The movie is really well made. IMAX 70mm gives it a very realistic feel. However in true Nolan style he overcomplicates things. 3 interwoven storylines is complex enough for many people but Nolan likes to break up the timeline with a hammer, pass it through a sieve, and then just roll it out. Nothing, NOTHING makes sense until near the end. And the individual storylines were, again as usual, predictable. I worked out the mute guys story in about 10 seconds and Tom Hardy's charcters outcome. I'm usually rubbish at figuring out such things - except in Nolan movies!

So although beautiful, the movie is neither enjoyable nor emotive. Band of Brothers made me ball my eys out beginning to end. I must've watched it ten times and it still does it. This got nothing from me. As a natural watering pot, that says a lot about how far short this movie is in capturing the horror and trauma that those people went through. The soundtrack is entirely unsupportive, unemotive, and adds beauty but no substance. As a movie that was supposed to be capturing the realism of those days, it fails miserably.

As for the second disc of 'special features' - I'm not sure it's worth spending your money on. The good bits: they cardboard cut-outs used to mimic the thousands of men on the beach (actually interesting), the work they did on the costumes with printing and blowtorches (fascinating), and what they did to get the aerial scenes of the Blenheim Bomber, Spitfires, Heinkels, Stukers and Messerschmidts, how they flew for the shots - and faked it with a Yak in the air and on the ground. Probably the most interesting section of the features. There really is a lot of detail into the mechanics of scene arrangement and filming though and that was educational.

Unfortunately, all the rest shows is that it's mostly done without digital cgi, Nolan spoke to some real Dunkirk Veterans and got into the water himself, and you see the size of the imax cameras they had to alter for all weather/scenario conditions. But mostly people just talking without saying anything at all.

What WOULD have been interesting to have is interviews with the actual veterans, showing the documents that enabled the story to be written, and far more focus, both in the movie and in the features, on the 'little ships'. You never really get the impression of the armada of 800 rescue vessels, the people that volunteered etc. I live on the Thames and have seen many more boats on Barge race days and Tall Ships days than were used in the movie (62 one day). So that, for me, was disappointing, though the histories of some of the original Dunkirk boats that took part was lovely.

I enjoyed quite a lot of the special features disc but can't believe I will ever watch it again. That may go for the movie too. So if you like beauty over substance and emotion, you'll enjoy it. If not, just wait for the movie to appear on tv.

Im not a historian so i am not too sure how much of the film was historically accurate and based on eyewitness accounts and how much was made up to make the film more dramatic. However, whilst I imagine that the historical event is a miraculous story amongst utter devastation and dire circumstances, i didnt get that sense from the film. Reading some of the online reviews, I understand that much of the film was symbolic rather than true to life, e.g., there were some small boats in the film but nowhere near the over 300 that apparently took part, but some of those small boats in the film were the same small boats that actually took part in the historical event. I also found the division of the film into asynchronous storylines quite irritating and it didn't seem to add anything to the film. Some of the acting was also a bit odd. Overall, whilst i was really looking forward to this film at the start, at the end i was largely disappointed...

The stories of two young soldiers among too many desperately trying to escape back to England, fighter pilots trying to protect them and the father and son crew of one of the 'small boats' are cleverly interwoven. At times unbearably tense and perilousy twisting and turning with action scenes that are utterly convincing. There is some clunky expositional dialogue (mainly involving senior officer Kenneth Branagh) and some rather dubious 'this is what we're fighting for' stuff - a maybe deliberate homage to / parody of British war films of the late forties and fifties. In any event don't let that put you off.