May 1940: hundreds of thousands of Allied soldiers are cornered by the German army on the beaches of Dunkirk, the sea at their backs and the enemy closing in. Nolan tells the evacuation from three intertwined fronts of different durations: a week on the sand, a day at sea aboard the civilian boats coming to the rescue, and an hour in the air with the RAF fighters. With barely any dialogue or context, the film becomes a sensory experience of pure tension, timed by Hans Zimmer's score. A war tale about survival and the dignity of a defeat that was also a miracle.