Dunkirk

New York Times Bestseller

The epic true story of Dunkirk—now a major motion picture, written and directed by Christopher Nolan, and starring Kenneth Branagh, Tom Hardy, and Mark Rylance

In 1940, the Allies had been beaten back by the Nazis across France to the northern port of Dunkirk. In the ultimate race against time, more than 300,000 Allied soldiers were daringly evacuated across the Channel. This moment of German aggression was used by Winston Churchill as a call to Franklin Roosevelt to enter the war. Now, Joshua Levine, the film's official historian, explores the real lives of those soldiers, bombed and strafed on the beaches for days on end, without food or ammunition; the civilians whose boats were overloaded; the airmen who risked their lives to buy their companions on the ground precious time; and those who did not escape.

Christopher Nolan's previous films have reflected the uncertainties of the twentieth-first century. With Dunkirk, Nolan has gone back into the past and brought to life one of the momentous events of the twentieth-century - the evacuation of British troops from Dunkirk, telling the tale by land, sea, and sky.
Dunkirk opens as hundreds of thousands of British and Allied troops are surrounded by enemy forces. Trapped on the beach with their backs to the sea, they face an impossible situation as the enemy closes in.
The film features a prestigious cast, including Kenneth Branagh, Cillian Murphy, and newcomer Fionn Whitehead, with Mark Rylance and Tom Hardy.
The screenplay is accompanied by a conversation about the film between Christopher Nolan and Jonathan Nolan, as well as selected storyboards.