Dunkirk
From what I've heard about this and compared to what I've heard about other Nolan films, this is criminally underrated. This was soo soo good while being so unique.
Dunkirk as a film really isn't about specific characters, their development, or ther interactions really. It's about themes, things they portray. Mainly, imo, Dunkirk is about hope(or the lack thereof in the first half of the film) aswell as humanity as a whole. The film makes you feel, it has very little dialogue and that's because it can make you feel everything, you just see it in the facial expressions, the body language, the camera shots, the silences themselves. The film, especially in the first half makes you feel the dread, the hopelessness, straight up the feeling of losing. The actual situation at Dunkirk is depicted so well, the movie really makes you feel the completely dire situation on the island so damn well in just the like first 15 minutes it's insane. And then it just continues making you feel, you see war, the hopelessness from war turn into desperation, need, the need to survive. Tommy and Gibson climbing onto the shio even though they weren't allowed where they meet Alex(played by Harry Styles lmao??) who you also see later get desperate. The sheer dread the film makes you feel in scenes like the ship first blowing up from the torpedo, George getting hit in the head is just so insane.
Talking about scenes like it, this movie has just an insane amount of imo absolute masterclass scenes, if i had to pick my favourites: The first 10-15 minutes at the mole, the flashback of shivering soldier(Cilian Murphy) being all strict and being all “manly” with those two boys not letting them on the raft and telling them to just wait in the water, not at all taking them seriously even though they were absolutely shook after getting hit by a torpedo, to then cut to present where he has now been fully affected by war and is scared of even going back near the vicinity of Dunkirk. Then the whole “Hes dead mate” was just insane and so abruptly hard hitting. The entire “target practice” sequence that just keeps you on the edge of your seat the whole time.
This was just the first half of the film, the second half of the film is when it switches from hopelessness and dread to hope and humanity. Dawson and Peter saving Collins when we thought he was dead, Alex helping Gibson escape the sinking ship after he was against him for so long, the small, village boats arriving at Dunkirk at a very needed time, Farrier taking down all the enemies, and probably my favourite scene of the movie, and damn is it a hard hitting scene, Peter not telling the soldier that George is dead. He chose mercy over anger, he could've blamed the soldier, could've hates forever, and to be honest, Peter had every right to do exactly that, but that's not what it's about, he knew and understood what the soldier had been through, what his state was right now and how it would worsen infinitely more if he told him that George actually died, and him telling the soldier that George is gonna be just fine hit so hard.
All of the followed up by an absolute beautiful ending scene as Tommy and Alex make their way back to England, traumatised and ready to get hurt more, anticipating the hate they will get when the reach home because they lost. And they did lose, but it didn't result in hate, because they were celebrated like legends once they arrived there, the hopeful music in the background elevating the scene even more, plus the speech given by tommy(reading the newspaper) was genuinely some of the best dialogue I've seen, for a character that barely even spoke the whole movie, when he read that out it was just beyond.
Overall a film so unique in the way it shows the story from 3 different perspectives at 3 different times and conveying them in a way that they all interconnect perfectly with each other in the end. The entire movie never really being about specific characters but rather about the feeling, the theme, the idea of it all. Just so damn good.
In terms of acting id say there wasn't any like amazing standout perfomance or anything, but nothing was even close to bad either, all actors were consistently great. The music by Hans Zimmer(obviously) was peak. And genuinely as an overall package imo Insanely underrated, masterpiece of a movie.
4.75