10 Huge Historical Inaccuracies In Chris Nolan's Dunkirk

Aside from a few black faces glimpsed among the French troops, there are only white characters in Dunkirk and a stink emerged shortly after the film's release about the lack of representation of non-white troops in the BEF being evacuated.

In particular, the movie has no soldiers from India, which at the time was yet to be partitioned into India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Around 1,000 men in four divisions of animal handlers from the Royal Indian Army Service Corps were present at Dunkirk. Not a huge percentage of the British soldiers, perhaps, but they were definitely there.

The lack of French representation has also kicked up a fuss. French soldiers are hardly represented in a positive light when they turn up, which isn't much. While the movie focuses on the evacuation, not the battle where British and French soldiers fought to hold the perimeter around Dunkirk, the French are still given a very small role to play in depicting events of which they were a pretty big part.

Over 120,000 French soldiers were evacuated in much the same manner as the Brits, but we don't see it.