Thank your for the review. Just saw the film and thought it was very good. It is NOT a typical war film. It is not about a triumph or victory, nor is it about individual heroics. Your inclusion of the Nolan interview is important because the inclusions and omissions were particular choices and not happenstance and not constraints because of budget or plot. Agree with your positive review - just a few thoughts: 1. The Germans for example (not a spoiler) are actually not visualized except for the planes and a very fuzzy vague scene at the end - you do see and hear the shells, bombs and bullets. It is very much about the experiences of the individual soldier, sailors, airmen and civilians felt. 2. The time scale is different for the air, naval and land scenes. It had to be in order to contrast and compare the point of views from the different participants. It also shows the different time scales of warfare - on land, measured in days, at sea (due to the short distance in hours) and in the air (in minutes of flight time). 3. What about two other recent war films that covered a major world war 2 battle? There was Terrence Mallick's Thin Red Line which was actually about the latter phase of the Guadalcanal campaign, specifically a big part about the attck on the Japanese stronghold, the Gifu. And of course there is Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan that covered D-Day and the immediate few days afterwards. Spielberg is more conventional in design and approach and deservedly famous for setting the very high standard for realistic war scenes. It does go exactly where Nolan avoids. As you noted in the film clip of Nolan discussing his choices, Spielberg makes the conscious decision to show the higher command and the leadership decisions. He makes the discussion of actions and decisions part of the dialog. In Nolan's film, a lot of big and small decisions are internalized - Farrier the Spitfire pilot has to quickly decide to stay and help risking having to ditch or land in enemy territory, the soldiers on the sinking ships (twice) have to decide to save themselves or help each other, and the father and son on the boat have to weigh the risks of going on - Nolan let the actors show their worries in their faces; not a lot of emotive scenes - there is only scene like that and ironically it feels out of place (when the soldiers turn and backbite each other) Mallick had a very beautifully photographed film and caught the very scary and uncertain nature of fighting where one doesn't often see the enemy and death can appear suddenly Nolan's film is as beautifully filmed as Mallick but sticks more to the historical point. Mallick's film is also very philosophical and was based loosely on the work by James Jones (from his novel, The Thin Red Line, he also wrote From Here to Eternity - arguably one of the early great war films from the B&W era). Fun trivia - Hans Zimmer did the music for this film as well as for many of Nolan's films. It is a great film, but not for everyone. If you don't understand the broad strokes about Dunkirk and where it falls into the historical timeline this film like Mallick's film won't help. Viewer would honestly be well served to look up the old BBC documentary The World at War to get a quick update. Nolan is of an age that he grew up with the whole story of WW2 and its mythology and no doubt heard the story of Dunkirk many times. This familiarity may not be present in many audiences especially those outside of Europe and the UK, so they may not understand the film as well but ironically because they aren't tied to a memory of history, they might just be able to enjoy the film as a character study. I suspect this will be a film studied by film students but won't be as loved by general audiences like say Inception or The Dark Knight.