I saw the movie with my brother & nephew in Imax the weekend it came out. My brother and I are retired military and fond of history. Half way through the movie we both felt we wanted our money back. My young nephew, however, was a little more positive. We hated that the movie never reveals the significant impact this event had in Britain's survival and war effort. More important today's generation has little knowledge of significant WWII events and this movie did little to enlighten them. I read some rave reviews for its artistic effort, but even Roger Elberg though raving it said he would not see it again. We hated that artistic value trumped the basic historical element of Dunkirk; The largest military evacuation, roughly 400,000 men with their backs to the sea, was represented in the film by no more than a few thousand men all lined up as if they were on a bread line. The lack of dialogue also did not help give any historical background, and the contribution by British civilian merchants was minimize to the actions on one ship. While Nolan's creative choice to take a week, a day, and an hour ws may be a creative novel approach, it only helped to diminish the grand scope of Operation Dynamo. What about the 80,000 soldiers left behind and the approximate 10,000 that were summarily executed by the Germans rather than take them as POWs. Yes War is not pretty, but this film came far short of depicting the situation that May and June in 1940. We were totally disappointed, and I would rank it as one of my 5 worst military war films. I don't if I would want to call it a historical film.