 As the tide of the Second World War turns against the allies, British soldiers are pinned with their backs to the English Channel, by the Nazis. As British forces retreat, Photographer Charles races to stay out of harms way, but is drawn to the front line by his internal need to snap the picture that captures the perfect moment, and will live on forever. Arrogant and selfish, Charles is shunned by his fellow soldiers, who view him with disdain because he wields a camera in place of a rifle. When the group he is traveling with is decimated in battle, Charles and his last surviving comrade, a courageous soldier named Arthur, flee across the French countryside, but are overtaken by the Nazi blitzkrieg, and forced to deal with the impossibilities of being apart from reinforcements in the midst of the greatest offensive the world has ever seen. When Arthur and Charles are separated inside Dunkirk, Charles is forced to fend for himself. He finds a young orphaned girl, Lilly , taking her under his wing. When Nazis surround the city, the aesthetically obsessed artist is forced to deeply examine his own inability to care for the objects, events and people he so passionately photographs. As bombs demolish the city of Dunkirk,the most involved evacuation of soldiers in history takes place on the beach. Within, Charles wrestles with what it truly means to be an artist, and whether to get involved in the art he frames so poignantly with his lens. As he snaps shots of the crumbling world around him there is but one lesson that our intelligent hero has yet to learn: There is life outside the viewfinder