Goofs

When the platoon come under air attack at the farm (and their officer is killed), the aircraft attacking them seen head on is a Blenheim, an RAF light bomber, where as the aircraft shown flying away is a German Junkers 88.

When the British squad retreats from the farm house, the back window changes from broken, to intact and back to broken.

Near the beginning where the soldiers are watching he news real there's a blatant jump cut. The a cut in the film the are watching the soldiers positions in the seat all jump to a different position.

Some of the actors were wearing helmets which weren't issued until 3 years after the evacuation.

Shortly before Bernard Lee's character is shot on the beach someone with a harmonica plays "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square". The song was written in 1939 but not published until 1940 and the first recordings were after the date of the evacuation. Not a goof: the song had in fact been introduced to the London public at the Eric Maschwitz's New Faces Revue in April, 1940, which was before the action shown.

The Vickers gun being fired by the Dunkirk rearguard is just having a belt of ammunition fed through it. Cartridges are still in the belt coming out of the gun (they would be ejected separately).

When the squad reach the deserted farmhouse, Corporal Binns (John Mills) approaches the door and attempts to kick it open. He clearly doesn't get enough purchase on it and the door barely moves, however it continues to open on its own. Mills actually realises whats happening and pushes his rifle into the door in an attempt to disguise that the door is being pulled open from the inside.

During the artillery action early in the film, a tree falls over a few seconds before it is "hit" by a shell.

When the soldiers and crew are picked up towards the end of the film the ship that rescues them is a Royal Navy ship. At the dock side they seem to disembark from a paddle steamer.

The opening title sequence shows a newsreel about a visit of the Foreign Press Association to British air forces on the Western Front. This cuts to a cinema where soldiers are watching the newsreel. The corner of the newsreel frame is visible "through" the head of one of the soldiers.

The section showing a Corvette sinking having left the mole is actually footage borrowed from The Cruel Sea (1953) and shows HMS Compass Rose sinking bow down at a steep angle that would not be possible in the shallow waters in the channel.

At the end the officer orders the parade to 'move to the right in 3s' but the second last row has only 2 men in it.

The proper spelling is 'Dunkerque' not 'Dunkirk'.

Approx fifteen minutes into the film there is a montage of shots to represent the German attack on Belgium and France; May 1940. One shot shows a German Tiger Tank. The first Tigers didn't see action until late 1942.

Near the start of the film, Ju87 dive bombers are seen taking off from an airstrip. These are the "D" variant with the backward sloping canopy; the "B"model would have been used in 1940. The wheel spats are also removed, which was done in Russia to stop them being clogged up by mud.

As Corporal 'Tubby' Binns (John Mills) leads his squad through the sand dunes of Dunkirk where army soldiers are sitting and lying about awaiting evacuation, he pauses to ask a sitting soldier how lots of army soldiers left days ago. As Tubby asks this question and the shot begins to move to the left, the shadow of the camera and camera crane platform is clearly visible passing over the backs of the sitting soldiers in the foreground for several feet.

When the soldiers spot the French farmhouse it has oast houses which only appear in Kent.

In the shot when the small boats leave the boatyard, they are actually heading upstream from London, towards Teddington Weir, and not downstream towards the North Sea and the English Channel.

In the London street scene early on, a naval officer is seen in the background returning a salute. The salute is the Army/RAF variety, with an open hand facing forwards, rather than a naval one, with the palm facing downwards.