Recently Christopher Nolan became the director with the highest number of films in IMDB’s Top 250 (with eight movies), a fact that is unsurprising when you consider that the list is based on user ratings, and that no modern director is more popular or associated with a level of quality to the general public than Nolan. For example, while the release of Barbie had the built-in brand of the Mattel toy behind it, Oppenheimer’s continued box office success has more to do with Nolan’s unique brand of filmmaking than the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer—an incredible life story, to be sure, as accounted in the extensive biography American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin.
Because Oppenheimer continues to break records and because each of his films are a massive theatrical event, I thought it would be a good time to rank his entire filmography. As a fan who likes something about all of these films—and have revisited each of them several times over the years—ranking them is a difficult task, especially when Nolan has the most passionate fanbase next to the Zack Snyder and Marvel bros, so just a quick reminder: A film you feel should be #1 might be close to the bottom here, and vice-versa. That’s okay! These lists are fun exercises meant to spark discussion; just be respectful while doing so. Alright, with all that out of the way, here are my rankings of all twelve of Christopher Nolan’s features!
12. Following (1998)
“That’s what it’s all about – interrupting someone’s life, making them see all the things they took for granted…You take it away and show them what they had.” | Zeitgeist Films
It’s a little unfair to rank the shoestring-budget Following next to Nolan’s other projects, but every artist has to start somewhere. Shot over a year in black-and-white 16-millimeter film on weekends because of their full-time jobs, Following captures the life of a struggling writer who finds inspiration by following random strangers on the street. After following a burglar who robs people to give their lives meaning, the protagonist (Jeremy Theobald) begins to get a taste for the criminal lifestyle and attempts to use it to save a beautiful blonde woman he just met. The concept is signature Nolan (the burglar is even named Cobb, the lead’s name in Inception), but the final product is clearly an artist still attempting to find his voice and style. It’s still worth checking out for hardcore Nolan aficionados to see that even in his first movie, he was interested in guys in suits, criminal underworlds, nonlinear storytelling, and mind-blowing endings.
11. Tenet (2020)
“Does your head hurt yet? Try to get some sleep.” | Warner Bros.
“Don’t try to understand it. Feel it.” One character tells the nameless “The Protagonist” early on in the film, a direction Nolan seems to be lobbing directly at confused audiences. But having watched the behind-the-scenes footage on the Blu-ray, it’s clear that everyone who worked on the film was just as confused. It’s a spy movie that only Nolan could convolute to the point of exhaustion where every scene requires a level of overanalysis just to try to understand what is happening until there is no room left to feel anything at all. Even if you decided to tune out entirely and strictly admire the film for its artistic merits (something I’ve tried to do), you are stuck with an uncharismatic performance from John David Washington and action that is incomprehensible to the eye because of the mixing of objects/people going forward and backward. Cinematographer Hoyte Von Hoytema uses IMAX cameras to capture exceedingly gorgeous locations around the globe that add real world authenticity to the espionage. Additionally, action scenes where The Protagonist shaves a goon’s face with a cheese grater or scales a tall building in Mumbai are a few bright spots; everything else feels like James Bond minus the fun.
10. The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
“I was wondering what would break first…Your spirit or your body?” | Warner Bros. Pictures
The conclusion to Nolan’s Batman trilogy went out with a whimper instead of a bang—even if the plot revolves around a massive bomb. Tom Hardy’s Bane physically overpowered Batman throughout the movie, but his muffled voice and high-pitched delivery made it hard to take him seriously and inspired countless memes and parodies. The main issue here, though, is the script: While some of it can be attributed to Heath Ledger’s untimely passing, trying to squeeze in Robin, Catwoman, Talia al Ghul, and the Dark Knight Returns story, proved that more doesn’t always equal better. Much has already been written about the many leaps in logic and how this features one of the worst death scenes of all time, but that doesn’t stop this from being extremely well-regarded amongst critics and fans, something I can only attribute to leftover goodwill from The Dark Knight and Christopher Nolan’s name being in the credits. The opening airplane stunt and football stadium sequence are both captivating, but this continues to be Nolan’s most overrated film.
9. Insomnia (2002)
“A good cop can’t sleep because he’s missing a piece of the puzzle. And a bad cop can’t sleep because his conscience won’t let him.” | Warner Bros.
We go from Nolan’s most overrated movie to his most underrated. A remake of the 1997 Norwegian crime thriller of the same name, Insomnia is about detective Will Dormer (Al Pacino), who is sent to a small town in Alaska where the sun doesn’t set to investigate the murder of a local teen. Of course, this being a Nolan movie, the protagonist is an insomniac haunted by flashbacks tied to him killing his partner, who was about to make a deal with internal affairs. Was it a tragic accident, or was he trying to protect his reputation?
Al Pacino reminds us that he can play a subdued character once in a while (even though his sleepy delivery does start to affect the plot’s urgency after a time), and Robin Williams plays an author who also goes against type as the murder suspect. Hilary Swank plays a fresh-faced rookie who does everything by the book—which is a nice foil to Pacino’s shady cop—and the scenes with Pacino and Williams show what can happen when you put two titans of acting together in a scene. The main problem is that once Detective Dormer’s partner dies, he doesn’t get much interaction with anyone else and is forced to mostly react to the action and people of the case alone—and even then, his main priority seems to be to sleep. Luckily, a few action scenes and set pieces create some suspense. This is a thriller, after all.
But because the story reveals its cards early on, there isn’t anywhere left for the story to go, so when the final act comes, it’s not as memorable as other endings Nolan would become famous for. It’s still a solid movie, but Insomnia is perhaps most significant for proving that Nolan could work with big-name actors within the studio system at Warner Brothers and started his tenure with them that would continue for the next two decades.
8. Interstellar (2014)
“Mankind was born on Earth. It was never meant to die here.” | Paramount Pictures
One thing to know about me is that I love space movies. Because the galaxy is so vast and unknowable to the average person, I enjoy it when films attempt to depict it in a tangible manner. And even though Nolan is dedicated to filming everything in-camera, he is just as passionate about exploring unknowable mysteries and futuristic concepts. Featuring a stellar performance from Matthew McConaughey in the lead role, the video communication scene where he is confronted with the fact that he has missed a large chunk of his children’s lives is always heartwrenching. Hans Zimmer’s score, one of the best in modern memory, also contributes to the spectrum of emotion conveying wonderous adventure and existential fear.
What drags this one to the bottom half of the list is the third act which introduces a confounding Matt Damon cameo and nonsensical actions from the characters. For example, McConaughey spends the entirety of the movie trying to reconnect with his daughter Murph (Murph!), only for him to immediately leave when they ultimately cross paths again. The movie’s science is also called into question once human love is talked about as an observable element because it’s oversentimental and unnecessary: the audience is already rooting for our hero to get back home to his daughter and save the world. Still, the incredible set designs and space exploration make this a technical marvel you will not want to miss.
7. Batman Begins (2005)
“Why do we fall, Bruce? So that we can learn to pick ourselves up.” | Warner Bros. Pictures
With so many superhero films coming out today, it’s easy to forget just how bad this period was for the genre: Elektra and Fantastic Four are just two examples of the forgetful fare that came out in 2005. But that summer, Batman’s reputation was rekindled with the general public after the disastrous Batman and Robin gave him nipples and turned him into a punchline. Christopher Nolan went in the opposite direction by grounding Bruce Wayne and Gotham, leading to Hollywood chasing the “gritty reboot” trend for years afterward.
What makes the grounded approach to Batman Begins still work is the caliber of the cast led by Christian Bale, the most overqualified actor to step into the role of a billionaire playboy superhero years before Iron Man hit screens. Others that are a delight to watch include Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox, Michael Caine as Alfred, Liam Neeson as Ra’s al Ghul, and Cillian Murphy as The Scarecrow. Even Tom Wilkinson shows up to chew up a few scenes as mob boss Carmine Falcone (“No gun? I’m insulted.”).
Bruce’s transformation into Batman, including crafting his gadgets and vehicles (“Does it come in black?”) is captivating in itself, and the script leans into some of the humor that inherently comes with a grown man dressing up as a bat with comic book dialogue to contrast its gothic aesthetic. Gotham feels as cold and unpleasant a place to live as everyone talks about, making Batman’s presence feel necessary against villains trying to poison the city with fear gas to tear the town apart. I wish Guhl had appeared earlier to confront Batman, and Katie Holmes is woefully miscast as an idealistic lawyer, but this is still the template for how to make a damn good superhero origin story.
6. Oppenheimer (2023)
“Theory will take you only so far.” | Universal Pictures
After being one half of the summer blockbuster sensation that was “Barbenheimer,” Oppenheimer is now the highest-grossing World War II movie of all time—a record previously held by Christopher Nolan’s other World War II movie Dunkirk—which is a significant feat for a 3-hour-long biopic that might finally garner Nolan an Oscar (it’s wild that he doesn’t have one yet).
The film features an Avengers-level collection of great actors that includes Iron Man himself, Robert Downey Jr., Matt Damon, Cillian Murphy, Florence Pugh, Emily Blunt, Josh Hartnett, and Casey Affleck, to name a few. Some of these actors only appear for a few scenes or only have a couple of lines of dialogue, which shows just how in demand Nolan is as a director that he can pull all of these big names into his orbit. The emphasis on the dialogue and the reaction shots from the actors make lines like General Groves’ (Matt Damon) “This is the most important fucking thing to happen in the history of the world!” hit with maximum impact. Robert Downey Jr.’s performance also reminds us of what he can do when given a good script. He and Cillian Murphy will undoubtedly be in the Best Actor/Supporting Actor race at The Oscars next year.
Having seen the movie twice, it’s truly amazing how quickly the three-hour runtime flies by. This movie mainly consists of men talking to each other in rooms about theoretical physics, and yet it’s packaged with all of the moral qualms and impending doom that Nolan is famous for. The main setpiece hyped up in the marketing is the infamous Trinity test of the atomic bomb, and while that sequence is worth the price of admission alone, the real surprise is how much is not shown. No blown-up cities. No mass destruction. Only a microscopic view of what Oppenheimer is seeing, feeling, and imagining. That sort of restraint is a sign of a mature filmmaker who knows the power of withholding and respects his audience.
Other technical achievements worthy of praise would be the editing from Jennifer Lame, who has been with Nolan since Tenet and has a firm grasp on how vital cross-cutting and nonlinear jumps are to him. She gives the film its breakneck pace and jumbled pieces that mirror Oppenheimer’s restless conscience, as does Ludwig Görranson’s score. The movie itself feels like a culmination of everything Nolan has focused on throughout his career: tortured geniuses, the role of science in society, grand setpieces, and ensemble casts. Like all of Nolan’s films, you will not want to miss this one in theaters.
5. The Prestige (2006)
“Making something disappear isn’t enough; you have to bring it back.” | Touchstone Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures
“Are you watching closely?” is the first line uttered in The Prestige, a movie about two dueling magicians who make it their mission to ruin the others’ life. This line can be applied to all of Christopher Nolan’s films with their intricate stories that usually require sharp focus and multiple viewings to understand fully. Next, we are told that there are three parts to every magic trick: The Pledge, The Turn, and the Prestige. The brilliant part about The Prestige is that in its three-act structure, it plays its own magic trick on the audience with red herrings, plot twists, and a nagging uncertainty about which protagonist will have the last laugh.
Christian Bale reunites with Nolan once again as street magician Alfred Borden against Hugh Jackman’s Robert Angier, and our allegiance shifts several times between the two. They initially work together until a trick goes wrong leading to Angier’s wife dying in the process. We never get a definitive answer on if Borden is to blame for the accident, but Angier blames him anyway, and the two become solo acts who continually sabotage each other’s routines
Rebecca Hall (The Town) and Scarlett Johansson play two of the love interests that eventually end up taking a back seat to their obsessive rivalry, Michael Caine plays a mentor/manager (basically Alfred 2.0), and David Bowie has a brief cameo as Nikola Tesla, making for another impressive cast that brings Nolan’s script to life. Not all of the twists work, but it’s hard not to be dazzled by what he accomplishes here.
4. Dunkirk (2017)
“We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall never surrender.” | Warner Bros.
Dunkirk is distinctive in Nolan’s filmography in that it took a while for me to appreciate it. But before you accuse me of changing my mind to fit the consensus, another excellent writer/director Quentin Tarantino talks about having a similar experience. As I said above, Nolan makes movies meant to be watched multiple times. It was easy to get lulled in by the spectacle in the theater, but because there are so many characters and the film never stops to introduce any of them or give you a chance to catch your breath amidst the action, it’s hard to digest in a single sitting. Not to mention I couldn’t understand any of Tom Hardy’s dialogue behind his mask and the plane he was piloting, a critique that has plagued many Nolan’s films and their sound mixes. Having seen it at least three times since its initial run (twice with subtitles), it continues to rise in my rankings.
Set on the beaches of Dunkirk, France, Germany pushed the Allied forces to the sea, leaving 400,000 young soldiers anxiously waiting to be evacuated with the water to their backs. Nolan captures the claustrophobia through the fearful eyes of a young soldier named Tommy, played by newcomer Fionn Whitehead (Black Mirror: Bandersnatch) in his big-screen debut. He also splits the narrative cleanly into three parts that cover the ground, air, and sea and jumps between them at different moments in time.
There are so many breathtaking shots in Dunkirk from the miles of helpless soldiers packed together on the harbor like sardines on the pier as they look toward the sky at the sound of incoming German planes about to bomb them; Farrier (Tom Hardy) receiving a rousing ovation from the thousands of fellow soldiers before standing in front of his burning plane and being taken as a prisoner of war; or being trapped inside of a sinking ship as it flips over under the weight of the sea.
There are no jingoistic speeches, stories about what life was like back home, or unbelievable acts of heroism, just a filmmaker capturing a miraculous mission that saved over 400,000 soldiers when all was said and done. Most would point to Interstellar as Nolan’s most heartwarming or personal film, but the British pride mixed with Mr. Dawson (Mark Rylance) and his son representing the hundreds of ordinary citizens who sailed their personal boats to rescue all of those soldiers make this one take that title for me.
3. The Dark Knight (2008)
“You either die the hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” | Warner Bros. Pictures
It’s hard to separate this movie because of its iconic status in pop culture. This movie was EVERYWHERE. Hell, I even dressed up as the Joker that Halloween…like every other boy my age at the time. Heath Ledger’s dynamic performance makes even simple lines like “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen” feel sinister. The opening heist scene sets the epic tone for the rest of the film, and the set pieces continue from there and don’t stop until the very end. To that end, The Dark Knight was the first film where Nolan utilized IMAX cameras, and in his words, “he hasn’t looked back ever since.”
After the success of Batman Begins and that Joker tease at the end, Nolan expanded the scope of the crime element, with Joker not only wreaking havoc on Gotham but on the mobs that have been in disarray since Batman became a threat to their enterprises. Maggie Gyllenhaal steps in for Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes—Bruce’s childhood friend and love interest—who is dating the young hotshot district attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), someone locking up mobsters using the law. Backed into a corner, the mobsters turn to The Joker, who terrorizes Gotham with a series of sadistic games to test its citizens and call out Batman in the process. How do you reason with a psychopath whose end goal is chaos and who “just wants to watch the world burn”?
The stakes in this sequel feel significantly higher than its predecessor: Batman jumps in and out of a plane, Joker puts a pencil through someone’s face, and a semi-truck does a front flip after the Batmobile turns into a Batcycle. Need I say more? Sure, the Two-Face turn feels like a fourth act, but it absolutely fits into the central theme of anyone being corruptible under the right circumstances (even the “White Knight” of Gotham). Between this and Iron Man coming out within months of each other, superhero movies proved they were no longer just for children but could be Oscar-winning entertainment for the masses that would dominate box offices for the next decade to come.
2. Inception (2010)
“An idea is like a virus, resilient, highly contagious. The smallest seed of an idea can grow. It can grow to define or destroy you.” | Warner Bros.
The elevator pitch of “a heist movie inside of someone’s dreams” is equal parts simple and ingenious. Christopher Nolan had a blank check to make anything after the massive success of The Dark Knight, and he decided to cash in and make his most ambitious project to date. Nolan’s imagination is on full display with spectacular work from his VFX team and cinematographer Wally Pfister, who created distinctive looks for each video game-type level of the dreams and were both awarded Oscars for their hard work.
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Elliot Page, and Ken Watanabe as the specialized team that has to inversely plant an idea in the mind of a CEO (Cillian Murphy), the rules of the dream world are explained through real-time when Ariadne (Page) gets recruited to be the architect to design the dream worlds they are navigating through. The problem is that Cobb’s (DiCaprio) dead wife Mal (Marion Cotiard), who haunts his subconscious, is bleeding through and trying to disrupt their mission at every turn. Much like his other movies, Cobb goes through hell and back to get back to his children, but when the line between reality and dreams is blurred like it is in Inception, that’s not as simple as it seems.
From the zero-gravity fight in the hotel to the snow compound shootout, the action is constant, wholly original, and a thrill to watch. And it’s all backed by the mental turmoil that Cobb is going through in trying to let go of his past and find a new meaning in life. The conclusion is emotionally satisfying, and the last shot, in particular, is still hotly debated to this day.
1. Memento (2000)
“If we can’t make memories, we can’t heal.” | Rex Features
Memento is the indie hit that put Nolan on the map. A modern noir that follows the life of an amnesiac named Leonard (Guy Pierce), he tries to solve the murder of his wife using Polaroid pictures (remember, this is pre-iPhone) and tattoos on his body to guide his investigation because he can’t create new memories. The ongoing themes of Nolan’s career started here, but none married concept and story better than Memento.
The performances are top-tier from top to bottom, with Joe Pantoliano playing Teddy, a cop that always appears happy to see Leonard (Lenny!), although one of Leonard’s Polaroids advises him not to trust him. Leonard also meets Natalie (Carrie Anne-Moss), an empathetic bartender who promises to help give him information. Natalie and Teddy claim to want to help, but both take advantage of his condition for their own interests. Even Leonard himself is an unreliable narrator stuck in a neverending loop of grief over his wife’s death.
Which brings us to the movie’s claim to fame: The film is told in two different ways, mirroring the disorientation of Leonard’s condition. The scenes in color are in reverse chronological order, and the black-and-white scenes are shown in linear order. The film cuts back and forth between the two timelines creating a puzzle of fragments that forces you to put them together to make conclusions about the events and characters. It’s lean and mean, and there has never been another crime thriller like it. Added to the National Film Registry in 2017, Memento perfectly encapsulates all of Nolan’s interests as an auteur. What’s more, it serves as a reminder of the distinctive power of film to tell intricately resonant stories.
