Time Is Running Out In New Dunkirk TV Spot

The enemy keeps pushing closer in the new TV spot for Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk. The highly-anticipated film tells the story of the 1940 evacuation of the French city of Dunkirk, where thousands of soldiers were left stranded on a beach surrounded by enemy forces. Trapped on the beach as the enemy closes in, they have to find a way to get out of the impossible situation.

The teaser goes mostly wordless, using the ticking of a clock to add to the intensity of the action-heavy scenes it shows. This fits with the importance of the film, which writer/director Nolan says shows a "decisive moment" in the war. "It is a true point of rupture in war and in history of the world," he previously said to Premiere. "The success of the evacuation allowed Churchill to impose the idea of a moral victory, which allowed him to galvanize his troops like civilians and to impose a spirit of resistance while the logic of this sequence should have been surrender. Militarily it is a defeat; on the human plane it is a colossal victory."

The film is told from three perspectives: that of the soldiers on land, some of whom were stuck there for a full week; the British pilots in the air, coming to try and rescue them; and the boats, from both the Navy and civilians, coming to their aid by sea. Fionn Whitehead, Kenneth Branagh, Cillian Murphy, Mark Rylance, Tom Hardy, James D'Arcy, Harry Styles, Jack Lowden, Tom Glynn-Carney, and Aneurin Barnard star in the ambitious film. Dunkirk, one of many that will blow you away this summer, is set for a July 21 release.