Back in 1998, Christopher Nolan debuted his first writer/director feature effort, Following, a mystery/crime thriller about a struggling writer who crosses paths with a charismatic thief. That story unfolded over the course of only 1 hour and 9 minutes, making it Nolan's shortest feature film to date. Fast-forward to 2014 and you'll find his longest, the space-based sci-fi flick, Interstellar, which took nearly three hours from start to finish.

Now, the runtime of Nolan's World War II-era film Dunkirk has been revealed and it skews much closer to the shorter side of his filmography. THR reports that it'll come in at 1 hour and 47 minutes, nearly a half an hour longer than Following, but approximately 6 minutes shorter than even Memento. Fans can likely expect a tightly plotted narrative for the film which has been described more as a story of survival than a traditional war movie. There's also the added wrinkle that Nolan's film will carve out arcs for the land, sea, and air campaigns, so it'll be interesting to see how they're divvied up over the 107 available minutes.

dunkirk-fionn-whitehead
Image via Warner Bros.

Nolan’s Dunkirk stars Fionn Whitehead, Tom Hardy, Kenneth Branagh, Mark Rylance, Cillian Murphy, Aneurin Barnard, James D’Arcy, Jack Lowden, Barry Keoghan, Tom Glynn-Carney, and Harry Styles and opens in theaters on July 21st.

Here's the official synopsis for Dunkirk:

“Dunkirk” opens as hundreds of thousands of British and Allied troops are surrounded by enemy forces.  Trapped on the beach with their backs to the sea they face an impossible situation as the enemy closes in.

And for more on Dunkirk, be sure to check out our recent coverage provided at the links below:

dunkirk-runtime
Image via Warner Bros.
dunkirk-runtime
Image via Warner Bros.
dunkirk-poster-official