1.Dunkirk

Another great film by Christopher Nolan, the plot is simple. Eight months into World War II, following a series of setbacks, British troops find themselves stranded on the shores of Northern France. Behind them, Nazis are closing in. Bombs fall from the sky, torpedoes from U-boats in the sea, soldiers waiting for a boat to come to their rescue.

Dunkirk is first and foremost a mood-piece, and a really effective one. The movie’s set-up is basic, but its narrative structure is anything but. Nolan applies the temporal trickiness he pioneered with Inception, intercutting three timelines that move at different speeds. We follow young soldier Tommy (Fionn Whitehead) on the land for a week, Ramsgate yachter Dawson (Mark Rylance) on the sea for a day, and faced covered and hard to recognize RAF pilot Farrier (Tom Hardy) in the sky for an hour. The result, as the crisis hurtles towards its climax and the three stories converge and overtake each other, it is meticulous and mesmerizing. There have been many World War II epics but there’s never been one like this.