Christopher Nolan’s World War II thriller Dunkirk is his best movie, and it’s now on Netflix
Christopher Nolan’s only a few weeks away from premiering his newest movie, Oppenheimer, which means it’s the perfect chance to catch up on his best one: Dunkirk, which is now streaming on Netflix.
Dunkirk tells the true story of the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of British soldiers stranded on the French beaches of Dunkirk toward the beginning of the second World War. With Nazis encroaching from every side, most of the British army seemed hopelessly trapped, and the war doomed — after all, how could England defend itself without an army, let alone fight to help liberate the rest of Europe? But in the eleventh hour, a daring rescue plan came through to save the continent when hundreds of civilians sailed the channel to help rescue their boys.
Because, it seems, he’ll never tell another story straight on, Nolan breaks the rescue narrative up, showing it from different perspectives and different time periods. We follow soldiers (Fionn Whitehead and Harry Styles) stranded on the beach for days, a pilot (an excellent Tom Hardy) who arrives for the climactic last few hours, and the home-boating crew of Mr. Dawson (Mark Rylance), his son Peter (Tom Glynn-Carney), and Peter’s friend George (Barry Keoghan).
The story of the rescue at Dunkirk is already one of the most incredible, fascinating, and miraculous moments in modern history, but in the hands of Nolan, it’s equal parts panicked and inspiring. Nolan’s true trick with Dunkirk, and the advantage of the multiple perspectives he employs, is to show all the ways the operation was a massive logistical undertaking and impressive feat of coordination, while at the same time an absolute horror show and chaotic mess.
In Nolan’s vision of Dunkirk, the focus never leaves the
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