Epic war film about the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of troops from northern France stars Tom Hardy and Mark Rylance

After the 60-second teaser in August, the first full trailer for Christopher Nolan’s new war film Dunkirk has been released onto the internet.

Nolan’s film is the first since 1958 to focus on the “miracle of the little ships”, the evacuation whereby over 300,000 Allied soldiers were rescued from Dunkirk’s harbour and beaches in 1940, after they had been cut off by the rapid German invasion of northern France.

From the trailer, Nolan looks to have pitched his film midway between the ferocious ordeal-sequence of Saving Private Ryan and the large-scale, downbeat beach sequence in Atonement. The cast includes Tom Hardy, Mark Rylance, Kenneth Branagh and Harry Styles, and is The Dark Knight director’s first feature since the 2014 sci-fi epic Interstellar. Dunkirk will be released in UK and US cinemas on 21 July.

•This article was amended on 14 December 2016 to remove an error over the Dunkirk scene in Atonement.