Chris Nolan's Movies Ranked Worst To Best
5. Dunkirk
Depending on who you ask, this is the greatest film that Christopher Nolan has made, or it is a beautiful, if hollow, telling of the events of May-June 1940. This reviewer comes down somewhere in the middle.
Visually, this film deserves all of the awards that can be thrown at it. Its stunning, with IMAX and standard shots mixing together with less jarring splits than in previous films. Tom Hardy's Farrier gets many of the more beautiful passages, while much of the action on the beach is stark and frightening. Kenneth Brannagh gets some of the best reaction moments, while Fionn Whitehead delivers a strong, shellshocked performance.
However.
For all of the film's intensity, beauty and stark realism, there is very little in the way of story. That is not a deal breaker - odds are, everyone knows that the British forces were indeed rescued from Dunkirk - but from a cinematic standpoint, it leaves the film with a little more style over substance. It is however intensely rewatchable, with a paltry runtime of less than two hours (something highly unusual for a Nolan film!).
It is a masterclass on how to make a film gorgeous on screen. It may be a class one could skip when it comes to screenplays!