Here is a video version of this list if you prefer to watch me count down the top 5. If not, you can continue reading below.
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 filmmaker 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 French beaches of Dunkirk, 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.
