Acclaimed auteur Christopher Nolan directs this World War II thriller about the evacuation of Allied troops from the French city of Dunkirk before Nazi forces can take hold. Tom Hardy, Kenneth Branagh and Mark Rylance co-star, with longtime Nolan collaborator Hans Zimmer providing the score.
There are very few Hollywood film-makers who could have made Dunkirk. The cinemagoing public is not crying out for an epic war film about the desperate evacuation of Allied troops at the peak of Hitler’s hold on Europe in May and June 1940. But Christopher Nolan doesn’t make turkeys: this is the director of the Dark Knight trilogy, of brain-bamboozling sci-fi thriller Inception, and of the equally far out space adventure Interstellar. His movies make money – more than $4.2bn (£3.3bn) at the global box office – and studio Warner Bros has duly stumped up the cash for what is expected to be the most ambitious historical war movie since the glory years of Steven Spielberg and Oliver Stone. Nolan was even reportedly given $5m to spend on a vintage Nazi war plane, which he is said to have cheerfully smashed to smithereens for the film’s denouement.
Dunkirk stars a cavalcade of British and Irish talent, from Tom Hardy and Mark Rylance to Kenneth Branagh, Cillian Murphy and ... ahem ... Harry Styles from One Direction. Here are five takeaways from the first trailer proper.
As if it were not bad enough for the allied troops to be surrounded by the armies of the Third Reich in a small corner of northern France, the Nazi blighters are scattering leaflets highlighting the end of all hope over the once-picturesque villages and towns of Normandy, then bombing our chaps as they sit helpless on the beach awaiting rescue. Thankfully, the propaganda artists responsible have foolishly also included the gleaming shores of Albion on their nasty little map, thereby giving hope to both the poor doomed soldiers of Blighty, not to mention Nolan’s audience.