FILM · 2017 · UK
Dunkirk
- Directed by
- Christopher Nolan
- Runtime
- 107 min
- Studio
- Warner Bros. Pictures, Syncopy, RatPac Entertainment
127 archived facts 8 topics 1 source Last reviewed Sep 2026
The story of the miraculous evacuation of Allied soldiers from Belgium, Britain, Canada and France, who were cut off and surrounded by the German army from the beaches and harbour of Dunkirk between May 26th and June 4th 1940 during World War II.
Summary: TMDB
98 Interesting Facts About Dunkirk
- #001
According to Sir Kenneth Branagh, about thirty Dunkirk survivors, then in their mid-nineties, attended the London premiere. When asked about the film, they felt it accurately depicted the events but that the score was louder than the real bombardment, a comment that greatly amused writer, producer and director Sir Christopher Nolan.
- #002
Contains a major spoiler — show
The ticking clock in the score does not stop at any point during the film until Alex and Tommy are sitting safely on the train.
- #004
After first-hand accounts of the Dunkirk evacuation revealed how young and inexperienced the soldiers were, writer, producer and director Sir Christopher Nolan decided to cast young, unknown actors for the beach setting.
- #005
Writer, producer and director Sir Christopher Nolan, together with his wife, producer Dame Emma Thomas, and a friend, crossed by boat from England to Dunkirk, just as civilians did during the original evacuation. Nolan said the crossing took 19 hours because of the sea conditions.
- #006
The closing section of the film notes that twelve of the original small boats that took part in the Dunkirk evacuation appear in the film, re-enacting their presence in 1940.
- #007
Contains a major spoiler — show
Dawson (Sir Mark Rylance) is based on Charles Lightoller, the second officer of RMS Titanic, who took his yacht "Sundowner" to Dunkirk at the age of 66. Like Lightoller, Dawson refuses to let the Navy crew his boat — "If anyone takes her, it will be me" — and takes one of his sons with him. Like Lightoller, Dawson had lost a son who had taught him in the Royal Air Force how to evade air attacks (Brian was shot down in a Wellington bomber on the second day of the war). Also like Lightoller, he had loaded the boat so full (four men were standing in the bathtub) that the landing officer could not believe there were more than 55 men aboard (Lightoller managed to fit more than 130 men onto the "Sundowner").
- #009
The scene in which Farrier's (Tom Hardy's) Spitfire lands on the Dunkirk beach was real, filmed on location with an actual Spitfire in flight, and was the first time an aircraft had landed on that beach since 1940. After the scene was completed, however, the Spitfire became stuck in the sand. A frantic effort followed to get the valuable Spitfire off the beach before the incoming tide damaged it.
- #011
The film was shot on the real beach at Dunkirk where the evacuation took place. While researching the film, Christopher Nolan found a button from a British military uniform in the sand.
- #012
Although the Germans shell and bomb the Allied forces throughout the film, no German soldier is seen until the final shots, and even then they are out of focus and in shadow.
- #013
Sir Christopher Nolan focused on every aspect of "realism". For most of the cockpit shots, he had a two-seat aircraft modified so that the front canopy and cockpit looked like a real Spitfire, but the flight controls did not work and the real pilot flew the plane from the rear cockpit, allowing the actor to play the pilot while the aircraft was actually flying. He also mounted forward- and rear-facing cameras on a restored Spitfire. There were also cameramen floating in the water alongside the actors.
- #014
In the film, many soldiers curse the Royal Air Force for not protecting them from Luftwaffe bombers. What is never mentioned is that the Royal Air Force was already attacking the bombers sent to bomb the soldiers on the beaches, and that only the bombers able to get past the fighters carried out the attacks. These dogfights took place further inland from Dunkirk, which is why the soldiers on the beaches saw so few fighters during the evacuation and why they thought the Royal Air Force had abandoned them.
- #015
The aircraft bombing the beach were Junkers Ju-87 Sturzkampfflugzeug "Stuka" dive bombers, and the distinctive sound they made came not from their engine or propeller but from sirens mounted on the leading edges of their fixed main landing gear, called the Jericho Trompete ("Jericho trumpet"), which terrorized ground troops and became a propaganda tool trumpeting German air power during World War II. Although the Stukas were the only aircraft equipped with such a siren system, the sound became characteristic of diving, attacking aircraft.
- #018
Contains a major spoiler — show
When Farrier (Tom Hardy) lands his Spitfire on the Dunkirk shore, the aircraft's pilot is actually American billionaire Dan Friedkin, who lent the plane to the film from his personal collection.
- #019
Contains a major spoiler — show
Charles Herbert Lightoller, the most senior surviving officer of RMS Titanic, took part in the Dunkirk evacuation with his private motor yacht "The Sundowner". He was accompanied by his son Roger and an 18-year-old Sea Scout named Gerald Ashcroft. The vessel is preserved by the Ramsgate Maritime Museum in England.
- #020
The city of Dunkirk wanted parts of the film shot on location, so the city administration set up a film department to encourage and organize productions in the city. In its first eighteen months, the department handled two hundred and seven days of shooting for various projects.
- #021
For the film's sound design, Sir Christopher Nolan used a Shepard tone, in which rising notes are skillfully looped to create the impression of an ascent that never ends. He also wanted to write the screenplay according to this principle, so that the audience could bring the three storylines together and their constant anxiety and tension would build: as one story reaches its peak, another is still being constructed and the third is entering its final stage.
- #022
The production had only a forty-five-minute window to get the shot of Farrier's plane landing on the Dunkirk beach, because the incoming tide would make the sand too unstable for a plane to land on.
- #023
More than 50 boats were used at sea in this film, and more than 10 on the beach.
- #024
Asked why he cast Harry Styles in this film, writer, producer and director Sir Christopher Nolan said: "I auditioned literally thousands of young men with different combinations of young men, and he had it."
- #025
Writer, producer and director Sir Christopher Nolan, a continued advocate of film over digital formats, chose to shoot this film with a combination of 65/70mm IMAX film and Super Panavision 65mm film to achieve the maximum possible image quality. After The Master (2012) and The Hateful Eight (2015), this was the third major film of the 2010s to be shot and shown in cinemas in 70 mm. Months after Dunkirk's premiere, it emerged that Sir Kenneth Branagh's own film Murder on the Orient Express (2017) had also been shot in 65 mm and, compared with the other three films, received a limited 70 mm release.
- #027
Contains a major spoiler — show
According to Sir Christopher Nolan, the original ending was supposed to be the shot of the Spitfire burning on the beach. Nolan changed his mind after watching Fionn Whitehead's (Tommy) daily newspapers. In an interview with his brother Jonathan, he said, "In the end, (Fionn) did it and I don't even know what he did, but you want to end this quiet moment with him, with nobody paying attention to him and Alex eating and drinking the things the girls are holding out of the window. It brings you back to this personal moment. He's trying to process the words he has just read from this very powerful politician and trying to reconcile it with himself. I hope the audience tries to do the same thing through his eyes. So we come back to something very small."
- #028
Sir Winston Churchill had been prime minister of Britain for only 16 days when the evacuation began. On 26 May 1940, after Lord Halifax proposed using the still-neutral Italian dictator Benito Mussolini to broker a negotiated end to the war, Churchill replied: "I would like to get out of our present difficulties on such terms, provided we retain the essentials and elements of our vital strength, even at the cost of some territory." He said that "if we could get out of this impasse by giving up Malta, Gibraltar and some African colonies, he would jump at it. But the only safe way was to convince Hitler that he could not beat us."
- #029
This is the third film written entirely by Sir Christopher Nolan himself; the others were Follow (1998) and Inception (2010). Memento (2000) was based on a short story by his brother Jonathan Nolan. The Dark Knight (2008), The Prestige (2006), The Dark Knight Rises (2012) and Interstellar (2014) were all co-written by Jonathan Nolan. Batman Begins (2005) was co-written by David S. Goyer. Nolan's only film not in the credits is Insomnia (2002), whose final shooting script Nolan wrote.
- #030
Large numbers of cardboard cut-out soldiers and a thousand extras were placed to create the illusion of a great many men during the evacuation.
- #032
Near the end of the film, a fuel-less Spitfire is seen shooting down a Stuka dive bomber. This is historically accurate. Stukas were known as easy targets for fighter aircraft (especially while preparing to dive), and a significant portion of them were shot down in the subsequent Battle of Britain.
- #034
American billionaire Dan Friedkin, a passionate collector of vintage military aviation, allowed the production to use two Mk1 Spitfires from his collection for this film. Each of the aircraft is worth five million dollars, and his collection is so large that the only person who owns more Spitfires than he does is the Queen.
- #035
The idea for this film first came to Sir Christopher Nolan in 1992 while he was sailing to Dunkirk with his girlfriend (later his wife), Dame Emma Thomas.
- #036
If you look at the location on Google Maps (Street View), you can see that they built the first side road on the Dunkirk beach where Tommy runs to reach the beach. Barriers with "film" signs added can be seen. When you zoom in, you can see that most of the background details are the same as in this film. Only the road signs were removed; the 1920s-style glass ball-shaded light was there in the original. 15 Digue de Mer 59240 Dunkerque France.
- #037
Actual veterans of the Battle of Dunkirk — Robert Halliday (who spent six days on the beach and saved many lives), Arthur Taylor (who survived Dunkirk and attacked the Normandy beach on D-Day) and Vic Viner (who spent six days on a Navy ship evacuating soldiers) — were consulted during the writing and production of this film.
- #039
Mr. Dawson's boat flies a blue flag (because he was a member of a yacht club and/or retired from the Royal Navy); most of the other boats fly the red ensign, which denotes a merchant ship.
- #040
Much of Dunkirk focuses on survival rather than heroism, but at the point where the small boats are first sighted approaching Dunkirk, composer Hans Zimmer quotes the main melody of "Nimrod," the ninth variation of Sir Edward Elgar's popular "Enigma Variations." The same piece of music was also featured at the London 2012 Olympics opening ceremony, where Sir Kenneth Branagh recited lines from William Shakespeare's "The Tempest."
- #041
As the voice of the Royal Air Force flight leader, this marks the seventh collaboration between Sir Christopher Nolan and Caine, following Batman Begins (2005), The Prestige (2006), The Dark Knight (2008), Inception (2010), The Dark Knight Rises (2012) and Interstellar (2014). Caine had previously played an RAF pilot in Battle of Britain (1969).
- #042
It was initially stated that the German tanks were halted because "why waste precious tanks when they can pick us off from the air." In reality, the tanks urgently needed maintenance and fuel, and were also waiting for the slower-moving German infantry and the other reinforcements that were miles, sometimes dozens of miles, behind them.
- #043
Until the Fall of Singapore in 1942, the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk was regarded as the worst defeat in British history.
- #044
It is the first Sir Christopher Nolan film based on historical events. All of his other films were either original screenplays, remakes, novel/short story adaptations or comic book adaptations.
- #045
To imitate the effect of military uniforms that had been visibly worn and used, the costume designers poured water over the wool garments, dried them immediately with a hairdryer and then brushed them with a brush. This was done repeatedly to achieve the desired effect.
- #046
The hospital ship that is prominently seen at the beginning was portrayed by the M/S Rogaland, a 1929 Norwegian passenger ship that entered service in World War II and was sunk in 1944. It was later enlarged and rebuilt and still regularly serves as a passenger ship in Stavanger, Norway.
- #048
According to writer, producer and director Sir Christopher Nolan, the tension he felt while watching Saving Private Ryan (1998) was not the tension he wanted for this film.
- #050
Contains a major spoiler — show
The voice of Fortis Leader (the first Spitfire to be shot down) is that of Sir Michael Caine, a tribute to his role as Squadron Leader Canfield in the 1969 film "Battle of Britain."
- #051
The soldiers evacuated from Dunkirk made up only one tenth of the British armed forces in 1940.
- #052
It marks the fifth collaboration between Cillian Murphy and Sir Christopher Nolan.
- #053
In several shots, port cranes as well as houses that do not look very old are clearly visible. This is in fact historically accurate. At the time, Dunkirk had dock cranes, and the houses along the beach looked more like three- or four-storey "modernized" apartment blocks.
- #054
The Halt Order was accepted by Army Group A commander Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt and Fourth Army commander General Günther von Kluge at the request of panzer unit commander General Paul von Kleist, who had lost half of his armored forces and needed time to regroup. After the war, von Rundstedt tried to pin responsibility for the Halt Order on Adolf Hitler. Von Rundstedt's biographer admitted that this "does not represent the whole truth," because the original impetus for a pause had come from Kleist and von Rundstedt.
- #055
The production used twenty of the ships that took part in the real-life evacuation.
- #057
The production was given twelve weeks to rebuild "The Mole" (the white walkway extending out into the ocean where all the soldiers stand exposed); they built it on top of the real monument at the Dunkirk battlefield and constructed it from the original plans of the original "Mole." It was also built to be coded with the local Harbour Authority.
- #058
It is the film debut of Fionn Whitehead (Tommy) and Harry Styles (Alex).
- #060
Close to a thousand extras were used.
- #061
Two historic fishing boats were used as background dressing: UK 12 and UK 114. However, "UK" does not stand for "United Kingdom." It is the Dutch port code for Urk, where much of the filming took place outside Dunkirk beach and Weymouth harbour.
- #062
Urk, a small Dutch fishing town, served as an operations base for filming on the IJsselmeer. Vessels registered with Urk as their home port carry the 'United Kingdom' registration and a number, two of which can be seen in several scenes. Urk is pronounced exactly like the second part of the film's title: dunkURK. When the film came out, everyone in the town wanted to see it, but since Urk had no cinema of its own, a cinema truck (a mobile cinema with several seats) was set up so that some people in the town could watch the film in their own neighbourhood.
- #063
When soldiers are seen arriving at Woking railway station at the end of the film, the station is actually Swanage railway station in Dorset. The station, including all its signage, was extensively redressed for filming in July 2016. Consistent with Christopher Nolan telling as much of the story as possible from the characters' point of view, the station is only seen through train windows, so almost all of the crew's redressing work is not visible in the final cut.
- #064
It was shot mostly in France under the working title "Bodega Bay," named after the California village where Alfred Hitchcock filmed The Birds (1963).
- #065
Some of the aircraft seen in the film are actually large (two-metre-long) radio-controlled scale models. The production built and used forty accurately scaled models of the Junkers Ju-87 "StuKa" and Messerschmitt 109, particularly for the low-flying and attack scenes.
- #066
The film was criticised for not showing Indian soldiers. During the evacuation, four companies of the Royal Indian Army Service Corps, unarmed mule handlers, were present at Dunkirk. They numbered fewer than a thousand out of nearly half a million men. Three were evacuated and one was taken prisoner by the Germans. In September 1939, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi had called on all Indian people not to support the British war effort. He later launched the Quit India campaign in 1942, which was violently suppressed by the British.
- #067
On a podcast, Quentin Tarantino named it his second favourite film of the decade.
- #068
Despite receiving the highest fee, Tom Hardy's face is visible for only a few minutes. He spends most of the film flying and fighting in his Spitfire behind an oxygen mask and goggles.
- #070
This is the third collaboration between Tom Hardy and Sir Christopher Nolan, after Inception (2010) and The Dark Knight Rises (2012).
- #071
Composer Hans Zimmer initially wrote the film's score as a single one-hour-forty-minute piece, something that had never been done before. It was later split into several different pieces for practical reasons, but the ticking-clock theme is the element that links all the pieces together as one.
- #072
The last surviving one of the many destroyers present at Operation Dynamo is the Polish ORP "Blyskawica," a Grom-class destroyer. During Dynamo the ship was under Royal Navy control, although its crew was Polish. Blyskawica went on to serve with distinction in the post-war period and was decommissioned in 1976 after nearly forty years of service. It is also the oldest preserved destroyer in the world and is currently moored in Gdynia, Poland.
- #073
Among the British infantry, only Tommy and a few soldiers firing at German aircraft are shown with rifles. In both cases they hit nothing.
- #074
The film had a five-minute IMAX prologue that played in front of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) and Kong: Skull Island (2017). This was the third time a Sir Christopher Nolan film had a prologue released six months before the film. The other two were the IMAX prologue for The Dark Knight (2008), which played in front of I Am Legend (2007), and the IMAX prologue for The Dark Knight Rises (2012), which played in front of Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011).
- #075
Will Attenborough's grandfather, Sir Richard Attenborough, had appeared in Dunkirk (1958), an earlier version of this historic event.
- #076
Of the more than forty thousand British soldiers captured while fighting the rearguard, more than ten thousand were Scottish. However, in this adaptation the 51st Highlanders have only one notable mention.
- #078
Some of the real boats from the Battle of Dunkirk used in the film are Nyula, Hilfranor, Elvyn, Endeavour, Mary Jane, Caronia, New Britannic and Princess Elizabeth.
- #079
Toward the end of the film, composer Hans Zimmer wrote a long, extended version of "Nimrod" from Edward Elgar's "Enigma Variations." Elgar is the English composer of the famous "Pomp and Circumstance" theme used at graduation ceremonies. "Nimrod" is meant to express musically a tremendous triumph over unspeakable tragedy, which suits this film because Dunkirk was a disaster, and yet its strategic retreat would change the course of World War II. Elgar's work was also chosen by the New York Philharmonic shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
- #081
Harry Styles had personal security on set because of unwanted attention.
- #082
The strength of the British army was just under three million in 1940, and only three hundred and thirty thousand people were rescued from Dunkirk. About twenty percent of those three hundred and thirty thousand were French troops. Britain needed to train and arm new soldiers during Dunkirk, but had no troops to spare. Even if Germany had captured the troops at Dunkirk, they were not ready to invade Britain. The Royal Navy still controlled the Channel, and the Kriegsmarine had lost too many ships in Norway. Since the German High Command began preparations in early July 1940 for the invasion of the Soviet Union, it is debatable whether Hitler truly intended to invade the United Kingdom. Had the Axis powers succeeded in invading the United Kingdom, the Royal Navy would have continued the war from Canada.
- #085
When the British Expeditionary Force was felt to be lost, the British government had decided to continue the war. On 26 May 1940, the War Cabinet discussed an offer by the still-neutral Benito Mussolini to mediate a negotiated end to the war. Two days later, Sir Winston Churchill persuaded all members of the cabinet to keep fighting whatever the cost. Nevertheless, the general importance of returning at least two hundred thousand British fighters cannot be overlooked, since this amounted to at least seventy-five percent of the entire British Expeditionary Force in northern France.
- #088
The "ME-109" is actually a Buchon Hispano HA-1112-M1L built for the Spanish Air Force after the war. It has a Rolls-Royce Merlin engine, the same as the Spitfire.
- #089
Christopher Nolan said that Ron Howard, who had just finished In the Heart of the Sea, gave him advice on filming ships on water. Nolan found the most useful advice to be to shoot the night scenes in a tank while shooting the daytime scenes on the open sea.
- #090
The style of this film resembles silent-era war dramas such as The Big Parade (1925), as it is told largely in visual terms and uses only very little dialogue.
- #092
Before starting work on this film, Sir Christopher Nolan consulted Steven Spielberg, particularly regarding Saving Private Ryan (1998). Spielberg recalled: "Knowing and respecting that Chris is one of the world's most creative filmmakers, my advice to him was to let his imagination take a back seat to the research he did to truly honor this historical drama, as I did with Ryan."
- #093
Tom Glynn-Carney (Peter) commented on how exciting the shoot was, saying, "It will make every job I do after this boring."
- #094
Unusual for a World War II story, this film is about civilians rescuing military personnel; the reverse is also true.
- #095
When the evacuation began, the Royal Air Force had been bombing German cities for sixteen days. The first raid was on Dortmund on 10 May 1940, and Mönchengladbach was bombed the following night.
- #096
The fuel used by the Germans was supplied by the Soviet Union under the German-Soviet Commercial Agreement signed in February 1940.
- #097
One of the newspaper headlines shown in the final scene reads "Spirited raid on oil tanks at Ghent." Fighting between Belgian and German forces was still ongoing along the defensive lines of the Scheldt and Lys rivers between the cities of Ghent and Kortrijk. King Leopold managed to postpone the surrender of the Belgian Armed Forces until 28 May.
- #101
It is the fifth film by writer, producer and director Sir Christopher Nolan to feature a character delivering a monologue during a montage of multiple events, and it closes the film.
- #102
Only two women have speaking roles.
- #103
"Xylonite" was the name of one of the rescue sailboats seen in the fragment. It is open to visitors and is located in Maldon, Essex.
- #104
It is the fifth Sir Christopher Nolan film to make the AFI's Top 10 Films list.
- #105
One of the civilians serving on one of the small boats was Mr Lightoller, an officer who survived the Titanic disaster.
- #107
It is Sir Christopher Nolan's first war film.
- #108
After Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) and The Dark Knight Rises (2012), it is the third blockbuster in which Tom Hardy wears a mask or covers his face for a long stretch.
- #109
It is the seventh Sir Christopher Nolan film to be distributed by Warner Bros.
- #110
It is the third film released in 2016-2017 focusing on the evacuation of Dunkirk. Lone Scherfig's Their Finest (2016) tells of a film crew making a film about the Dunkirk evacuation, while Joe Wright's Darkest Hour (2017) covers Winston Churchill's first 40 days as British Prime Minister. The Dunkirk evacuation took place less than a month after Churchill came to power.
- #111
Early in the film, the trio of Spitfires flies over a yacht at the centre of one of the three levels. Its owner, Mr Dawson, says, "The Rolls-Royce Merlin engine. The best sound you can hear out there," something to the effect that the Spitfires are powered by Merlins. German Bf 109s of the period would have had Daimler-Benz engines. However, the Messerschmitts used in this film were not 1940-period aircraft but Hispano Bf 109s built in Spain under contract for the Spanish Air Force in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Instead of the sleek nose profile of the original Bf 109s, these aircraft have a "chin" to accommodate their new engines, which were Rolls-Royce Merlins. An inside joke? For this reason, whichever fighters were flying, the real actors, not the characters they played, would have heard the sound of Rolls-Royce Merlin engines.
- #112
The film contains the most footage ever shot on 65 mm IMAX film stock to date; one hour and nineteen minutes of the final cut consists of footage shot on IMAX film stock. This surpasses the previous Christopher Nolan film, The Dark Knight Rises (2012), whose final cut consists of one hour and twelve minutes of footage shot on IMAX film stock. Nolan would later far exceed this record with The Odyssey (2026), shot entirely in 70 mm IMAX and using roughly 2.1 million feet of film.
- #115
This is the first Sir Christopher Nolan film based on real events.
- #116
The prominent small boat was designed after the Sundowner, captained by Charles Lightoller, who had been Second Officer on the Titanic, with a crew made up of his son Roger and Sea Scout Gerald Ashcroft. The Sundowner brought back more than a hundred men. Unlike in the film, the entire crew survived Dunkirk.
- #117
This is Sir Christopher Nolan's first period film since The Prestige (2006).
- #118
This was Tom Hardy's third World War II project, after Colditz (2005) and Band of Brothers (2001).
- #119
Tom Hardy is the only Spitfire pilot who wears flip-up tinted goggles. These are the same goggles worn by Bruce Spence, who played the Gyro Captain in Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981) and Jedediah the Pilot in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome (1985). Hardy played "Mad" Max Rockatansky in Mad Max: Fury Road (2015).
- #120
Sir Christopher Nolan cited The Battle of Algiers (1966) as a major influence on this film, describing it as "a timeless and affecting vérité narrative that forces you to empathize with its characters in the least theatrical way imaginable. We care about the people in the film because we feel immersed in their reality and the odds they face."
- #121
Sir Christopher Nolan stated that Chariots of Fire (1981) was a major influence on this film, saying: "Visual grandeur, interwoven narratives and aggressively anachronistic music… came together to create an unassuming British masterpiece whose popularity quickly obscured its radical nature."
- #122
This is Sir Christopher Nolan's first film since Insomnia (2002), and generally his third, apart from Follow (1998), in which no American character is played by a non-American actor.
- #125
Christopher Nolan and his cousin Miranda Nolan, who plays a nurse, share the same paternal grandfather, who served as an RAF pilot and died during the war. He partly inspired Farrier.
- #126
This is Christopher Nolan's first film to use only a 2.20:1 aspect ratio instead of the 2.39:1 aspect ratio for digital projection, owing to the shift to DCP.
- #127
When shown on British TV, a version that remains entirely in 16:9 throughout is broadcast instead of the original cinema version, which switches between 3 different ratios.
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