We look beyond the standard time-average approach and investigate optical forces in the time domain. The formalism is developed for both the Abraham and Minkowski momenta, which appear to converge in the time domain. We unveil an extremely rich - and by far unexplored - physics associated with the dynamics of the optical forces, which can even attain negative values over short time intervals or produce low frequency dynamics that can excite mechanical oscillations in macroscopic objects under polychromatic illumination. The magnitude of this beating force is tightly linked to the average one. Implications of this work for transient optomechanics are discussed. (C) 2022 Optica Publishing Group under the terms of the Optica Open Access Publishing Agreement