The first trailer-length footage for Christopher Nolan‘s (The Dark Knight series, Interstellar, Inception) WWII epic Dunkirk is both beautiful and disturbing. The scenes takes audiences into the desolation left by the death toll taken during the battle of Dunkirk on the shores of France in 1940.

The trailer teases the plot that will follow one of the war’s most famous and successful rescue missions. After suffering enormous losses and with the threat of being flanked on all sides, the Allied troops were given a small reprieve when a German Halt Order allowed the Allies to evacuate 330,000 troops and build a defensive line at Dunkirk.

The film stars Cillian Murphy, Tom Hardy, James D’Arcy, Mark Rylance, Kenneth Branagh, and Harry Styles. Nolan wrote the film on his own without his usual partner, his brother Jonathan. His Interstellar director of photography, Hoyte van Hoytema, shot the film.

Dunkirk hits theaters on July 21, 2017.