The 2017 film Dunkirk is directed by Christopher Nolan and it stars Fionn Whitehead as Tommy, Tom Glynn-Carney as Peter, Barry Keoghan as George, Mark Rylance as Mr. Dawson, Kenneth Branagh as Commander Bolton, James D’Arcy as Colonel Winnant and Aneurin Barnard as Gibson.
The film begins in 1940 during the Second World War when the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill orders Operation Dynamo and the evacuation of thousands of Allied troops stranded on the beaches of Dunkirk in Northern France. It opens with a young soldier, Tommy rushing a critically wounded soldier on a stretcher to a waiting ship along with another soldier. The film portrays the despair of the trapped soldiers and the horrors of war.
The film has very little dialogue but visualises the events that took place during Operation Dynamo and the evacuation of Allied troops from Dunkirk. The Dunkirk evacuation is also known as the Miracle of Dunkirk, because the rescue of about 300,000 Allied troops, a seemingly impossible task, was achieved by mobilising hundreds of small, civilian boats on a dangerous, harrowing journey.