Christopher Nolan gets the same notes from every one of his actors in interviews. He never sits down for a single second on set, he comes to filming in a three-piece suit, demands that elaborate practical effects be emphasized over CGI, and ensures that his films not only stun visually but mentally. In many ways, Nolan’s ingenuity and painstaking work ethic helped the thinking movie become a commercial darling.
Updated October 13th, 2022: To keep the article fresh and relevant, more information has been added to this list of every great Christopher Nolan film.
Whether it’s the dreamscapes of Inception, the chaotic planning of The Dark Knight, or the mental gymnastics of Memento, Nolan’s films are blockbuster Trojan Horses that hide puzzles for their plentiful viewers. Where many filmmakers can try and fail to copy the impact of a Nolan-esque plot twist, Nolan’s fluency in how difficult and tedious a twist is to successfully execute shows his understanding that a twist can’t come from what can throw the audience, but rather what can ground them. To celebrate the uniqueness and prestige that Nolan brings to the screen, and to get hyped for his upcoming film Oppenheimer, these are all of Christopher Nolan’s movies, ranked.
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11 Following (1998)
Momentum Pictures
Christopher Nolan made his directorial debut with the 1998 neo-noir crime thriller Following, which centers on a struggling yet gifted writer who takes to the streets of London in search of inspiration, tailing strangers on his quest to create his first novel. Known as “The Young Man” (Jeremy Theobald), the restless character is taken under the wing of the cunning-yet-dangerous serial burglar Cobb, leading to a twisted and tragic series of events for the writer.
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Nolan shot the independent film on just a $6,000 budget and in black-and-white, using a non-linear plot structure that the filmmaker would once again utilize in future pictures Memento, Batman Begins and The Prestige. The innovative director’s promising talent and distinct aesthetic is on full display in the thriller, though he would go on to fully master his storytelling skills in his later cinematic triumphs.
10 Insomnia (2002)
Warner Bros. Pictures
A remake of the 1997 Norwegian masterpiece of the same name, Insomnia follows a corrupt, sleepless detective who tries to solve a murder while being investigated for repeatedly falsifying evidence. As the only Nolan film that he himself didn’t have any hand in writing, one can spot similarities in style, but vast differences in plot from other Nolan flicks. The acting is fantastic, and the story is layered, but it does lack a certain magical quality of shock and awe Nolan is known for. Insomnia does boast an incredible cast, including Al Pacino, Hilary Swank, and a rare villainous role from Robin Williams.
9 Batman Begins (2005)
Warner Bros. Pictures
The introduction to the Nolanverse provides all the best hits of a Bruce Wayne origin story: parents are loaded, parents are loaded with bullets, child becomes a bat. Like the other Nolan Batman movies, Batman Begins gives us two villains — Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy) and Ra’s al Ghul (Liam Neeson) — both giving Wayne (Christian Bale) a run for his billions and ego in being Gotham’s supercop.
Unlike the other Nolan Batman movies, the movie carries a bit too much comic and not enough Nolan. It’s clear the director is dealing with his first-ever blockbuster and does not yet know how to fully incorporate his own style into the actual philosophies that the movie contains. However, his camera skills translated well as Batman Begins was nominated for an Oscar in Best Cinematography.
8 Tenet (2020)
Tenet isn’t as so-so of a movie as many have made it out to be, but its legacy remains playfully plagued as the time people felt Warner Brothers was trying to kill everyone. In fact, Tenet is a great, puzzling, and convoluted mismatch of time travel and entropy adding up to a sprint down Nolan lane; and eventually, it may be recognized as such.
But for popular culture today, given the memorial and viral persistence of COVID-19, the controversy of WB demanding the film be released in theaters before the pandemic was under control at any capacity, has become the only commercial recognition of this mostly unseen Nolan treat. As a result, this film has to be judged according to not just its merits but its lack of positive cultural impact. Critically, it was well-liked, being nominated for two Academy Awards, and taking the win in Best Visual Effects.
7 The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Image via Warner Bros. Pictures
From its start, The Dark Knight Rises had to deal with two titanic issues. One, the Joker could no longer exist, and two, the Joker existed. Trying to recapture the world-stopping impact that Heath Ledger’s Joker had on society wasn’t just impossible, it was a theatrically demanded suicide mission.
For the film to still somewhat succeed in its conclusion, offering Batman and Catwoman (Anne Hathaway) against Bane (Tom Hardy) and a surprise villain, was like landing on the moon. While it didn’t and likely couldn’t impact viewers in the way The Dark Knight did, and, like Begins, has now all but vanished into The Dark Knight’s shadow, its exploration of Batman’s aging, abstinence, and legacy made for a solid superhero story.
6 Memento (2000)
Newmarket
Basically acting as Tenet before Tenet, Memento follows a man (Guy Pearce) trying to find who killed his wife, with one major setback, he’s unable to create short-term memories. As a result, we can only decipher his perspective in disjointed directions, one starting at the beginning of the story and moving forward, the other starting at the end and moving backward, and the final minutes of the film having these timelines intersect at the middle. Memento is unlike anything else you’ll ever see, launching Nolan into the forefront of puzzle-based filmmaking and setting the tone for a Nolan film requiring some level of pretending to understand it the first or fifth time around.
5 The Prestige (2006)
Buena Vista Pictures Distribution
Nolan films will have a great twist at the end, but The Prestige has a handful. Two 1890s magicians (Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman) are in a cutthroat competition for London’s recognition as being the best, willing to not just sabotage one another but sabotage themselves, their relationships, and their tickets to the Pearly Gates. As the two duke it out for the ultimate trick, teleporting from one end of the stage to the other in a flash, they realize real magic requires a blood sacrifice. For its lack of popular recognition, The Prestige is one of Nolan’s absolute finest, showcasing exceptional performances, brilliant surprises, and philosophical devastation.
4 Inception (2010)
Warner Bros.
Nolan’s second-most impactful film for its pop culture footprint, Inception took the world by storm in its 2010 release. Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is an information thief, using a military experiment to enter victims’ dreams and steal secrets for a fee. When given the opportunity to clear his name for allegedly killing his wife, Cobb has to agree to the impossible: “inception,” or the act of inserting an idea into a victim’s mind via their dreams — like say, dissolving one’s father’s company.
Where Inception earns a myriad of brownie points for taking complex ideas and turning them into tangible and accessible beats, it does have to pay penance for its laundry list of plot holes. If you’re willing to overlook them, the film contains some of the most original action sequences ever, a brilliant story about loss and grief, and one of the best 2010s scores you’ll find outside Reznor & Ross’ soundtrack work on David Fincher films. Inception was a huge critical success, being nominated for eight Academy Awards, and winning four.
3 Dunkirk (2017)
Nominated alongside Darkest Hour for Best 2017 Movie About Britain’s War Strategy at Dunkirk, Dunkirk had the crucial advantage of being a good movie. Initially disregarded as Nolan’s most uninspired premise, Dunkirk celebrates those that fought to save Britain’s chances in World War II, and what it lacks in time travel or totems for Nolan fans it makes up in intensity and quality.
Looking at the battle from land, sea, and air, we see time running out, with the literal sound of a clock ticking, and leaving audiences with no room to breathe or to undo the knots in their stomachs. Dunkirk also has a great cast including Fionn Whitehead, Mark Rylance, and Tom Hardy. For Nolan fans, as unexpectedly as it may seem given the realism, he absolutely 100% delivers in this.
2 Interstellar (2014)
Paramount Pictures
This film is sometimes regarded as a controversial contender in Nolan’s filmography given that some aspects of its ending go far off the deep end, but if those can be overlooked or even enjoyed, Interstellar is a knockout. In the near future, as Earth is dying, a pilot-turned-farmer has to return to the skies for NASA, the mission being to scope out three potentially hospitable worlds in other solar systems.
The music scrapes at Hans Zimmer’s zenith, Matthew McConaughey gives arguably an even better performance than Oscar-winning his role in Dallas Buyers Club, the visuals are beyond anything put on screen before, literally generating two scientific papers about the insights that these 100 hours per frame render times gave about the visual interiors of black holes, and the story will simultaneously emotionally devastate and uplift you in ways no other Nolan film ever has.
1 The Dark Knight (2008)
Since the genesis of Batman, there’s been debate over his validity as the ultimate good Samaritan or as someone who could have stopped crime by financially investing in his community, but chose instead to beat up the mentally ill and sleep with Catwoman. While The Dark Knight has been heralded for over a decade for giving pop culture Heath Ledger’s Joker, what makes the Joker such an incredible villain isn’t bastardized philosophy, an unpredictable appetite, and a beautiful performance, but that the entity was in harmonious conflict with its opposite: Batman.
Nolan’s Batman had to realize that the seemingly regular cultivation of masked outlaws would only stop if he did, and to do the responsible, anti-egoist thing was antithetical to playing dress-up. To claim Batman was generous with his duties while Wayne hoarded billions becomes impossible; to claim a fascist desire for control of Gotham both as the financial Wayne and the militant Batman becomes autocracy.
In the end, The Dark Knight is Nolan’s greatest film and arguably the greatest superhero film of all time because it proposes that humanity as a whole is good; see the citizens and prisoners on the ferries collectively sacrificing their lives rather than harming the other, but the individual hero will devour power whenever idolized. If The Dark Knight becomes most beneficial to Gotham when he relinquishes idolatry and control over it, then Batman’s greatest villain is Batman.
