Please don't spend money on this.

A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

I couldn't watch this program all the way through. It's an important subject, the performances are decent, the reenactments convincing, the interior monologues touching, and the budget was adequate.But it's ruined by the directorial style. The camera seems to be held by a drunk. It wobbles all over the place. There are zip pans from one face to another, and multiple closeups of faces. One pivotal figure, Tennant of the RN, muses over the task he's faced with. And what does the screen show us? A safety razor placidly plowing through a cream-coated face, leaving some ugly black stubble in its wake.I think this fad -- the cinema of hypermania -- may have begun with MTV because, after all, you can't expect an audience of fourteen year olds to sit quietly and watch a static shot of Elton John playing the piano. You must keep their attention prisoner by cutting rapidly from his face to his fingers to his feet to his shades and when you run out of that, you introduce a display of fireworks.Maybe it's my fault because I'm too tired or too old. I was very disappointed.

Having recently watched this again, for a third time, I must strongly disagree with a previous reviewer who described this as meretricious rubbish.It's true, some of the camera work was a little intrusive, and sometimes the music also got in the way, but these are minor irritations. On the whole, I thought the filmmakers told the story very well. Bearing in mind that at the time the incidents displayed were over over sixty years old, it must have been very difficult to tell the stories of so many men - from the government down to a private on the ground - with complete balance and historical accuracy, but overall I found everything very believable. The acting was top notch, with some well known faces, and Timothy Dalton's narration was also top drawer.I would recommend this series wholeheartedly.

Curious programme as it seems to almost deliberately and consciously write the Merchant Navy out of the evacuation of the BEF from Dunkirk. Even when what is clearly a Merchant ship is being attacked by Stukas, in contemporary black and white film, the narrator refers to Royal Navy destroyers! When Merchant ships are referred to they are almost invariably called personnel ships or supply ships, almost never Merchant ships. The only actual reference to a Merchant ship is where one is on fire and a group of Royal Navy people go onboard to fight the fire. Even then there don't seem to be any Merchant Navy people present. Is this a deliberate omission, or one based on ignorance?

After seeing the BBC Adverts for "Dunkirk" i was honestly looking forward to seeing this Docu-Drama showing us the events leading up to and the evacuation of over 300,000 British,Belgian and French troops from the beaches at "Dunkirk".It must have only been 10 minutes into the first episode of the Three part series that i began to feel let down by a programme that at best i can only describe as OK.With the BBC's experience of helping to make "Band of Brothers" and resources that should have been made available for such a project,OK just isnt good enough. Did the BBC not think that showing black and white stock footage of Stuka dive bombers and German soldiers might impede the viewers ability to actually feel like they were there with there soldiers.The whole thing contradicted itself,make a Docu-Drama for realism then show old footage(in black and white!) Germans Aircraft and Troops? Just as i found myself getting into "Dunkirk" some stock footage would pop up,presumedly just to remind the viewer that the non black and white images arent actually real,which of course is true but thats not the point. The use of stock footage only showed me that this is a Low budget programme and it didnt take long before my thoughts were confirmed. As in one of the so called "Action" scenes a dozen or so British soldiers are attacked by around 7 German troops and some Tank Tracks.Bizarrly as soon as the Officer sees those Tank Tracks he orders his men to surrender giving the impression that they fought for around 2 mins before giving up.Now this is annoying(even if you do ignore the lack of an actual Tank) because in reality one of the reasons those men were taken to the barn and executed was because they had fought stubbornly and inflicted heavy casualties on the SS soldiers they faced.The German Commander(Moltke) was annoyed by this and the British troops payed a terrible price for their stubborn fighting.Overall i thought "Dunkirk" was badly let down by its (obviously)Low budget.As it was made by the BBC it really shouldnt have been so cheaply made,is this all our Veterans deserved?. The BBC might do well to bare this in mind for future projects,if youre not going to do it properly then dont do it at all.