Christopher Nolan always knew he wanted to be a filmmaker ever since he began experimenting with his dad’s Super 8 camera at the age of seven. Nolan made his feature film debut in 1998 with the neo-noir thriller Following, about an aspiring writer who stalks strangers for writing material. The film would greatly influence his breakout film Memento, released in 2000. The British-American filmmaker has since made a name for himself as one of Hollywood’s most influential directors and has received numerous awards throughout his career.

Nolan is well known for his distinct cinematic style and complex conceptual narratives. Over the years, he has often discussed his favorite films and which movies have influenced his work. His upcoming film Oppenheimer draws inspiration from some of his earlier work. Here are some of his earlier examples: the black and white filming in Memento, the IMAX camera technique used in Batman Begins, and his propensity to tell stories based on history. Below, we examine some of the movies the famed director holds in high esteem, whether for the love of film or as inspiration to his own body of work. Here are 12 of Christopher Nolan’s favorite movies.

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12 Heat

     Warner Bros. 

Shortly after the 20th anniversary of Michael Mann’s action-packed heist film Heat, Nolan moderated a post-screening question-and-answer segment with the cast and crew for Variety Magazine, revealing, “I’ve drawn inspiration from it in my own work.” Nolan would later elaborate on how the iconic film inspired his blockbuster hit Batman Begins. In interviews for the 2020 Tom Stone book The Nolan Variations (via No Film School), Nolan said, “Batman Begins had been as big as we could make it. So you have to look at the scale in a different way. What I wound up doing is looking at it differently in terms of storytelling and cinematography. One of the biggest epic films I have ever seen is Michael Mann’s Heat. That is a true Los Angeles story, just wall-to-wall within the city. Okay, we’ll make it a city story.”

MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY

MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY

MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY

11 Speed

     The Mark Gordon Company

Nolan has previously stated that one of the movies he drew inspiration from when creating his tense war-epic Dunkirk was Jan De Bont’s 1994 action-thriller Speed, starring Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock. Nolan was impressed with the intensity and pacing of the film and referred to it as a “ticking-clock nail-biter.”

10 2001: A Space Odyssey

     Metro Goldwyn Mayer

In a 2013 Entertainment Weekly article, Nolan recalled his experience watching 2001: A Space Odyssey in theaters with his dad in his youth: “My dad took my brother and me to Leicester Square, which is where you’d find the biggest theaters in London. I remember very clearly just the experience of being transported to another world. I was a huge Star Wars fan at the time. But this was a completely different way of experiencing science fiction. I was seven years old, so I couldn’t claim to have understood the film. I still can’t claim that. But as a seven-year-old, I didn’t care about understanding the film. I just felt this extraordinary experience of being taken to another world. You didn’t doubt this world for an instant. It had a larger-than-life quality.” Nolan has previously revealed that 2001: A Space Odyssey was one of the movies that inspired his otherworldly hit Interstellar.

9 12 Angry Men

     Orion-Nova Productions

12 Angry Men is included on the list of films highly recommended by Nolan, and it’s not hard to see why. With its focus on character archetypes, a strong story, and relentless conflict, Sydney Lumet’s taut courtroom drama, about a jury deliberating over the fate of a Hispanic boy accused of killing his father, has earned its place in cinema history as a timeless classic even 65 years later.

8 Chariots of Fire

     Allied Stars Ltd.

In collaboration with British Film Institute, Nolan revealed in a special event screening titled “Christopher Nolan Presents” that Chariots of Fire was one of many films that he drew inspiration from for his historical war epic Dunkirk. He further stated, “The visual splendor, intertwined narratives, and aggressively anachronistic music of Hugh Hudson’s Chariots of Fire combined to create a masterpiece of British understatement whose popularity rapidly obscured its radical nature.”

7 Alien

     20th Century Fox

One of Nolan’s biggest directorial influences throughout his lifetime is the work of Ridley Scott. Nolan tells Media Factory, “I have always been a huge fan of Ridley Scott and certainly when I was a kid. Alien and Blade Runner just blew me away because they created these extraordinary worlds that were just completely immersive. The lauded director also cited the 1979 science fiction horror film Alien as a point of inspiration for his work on Dunkirk, revering the sci-fi classic as an “established classic of tension” to IndieWire.

6 Blade Runner

     The Ladd Company

Nolan once again drew inspiration from Scott’s Blade Runner while working on Batman Begins, telling Farout Magazine, “From a pragmatic point of view, Blade Runner is actually one of the most successful films of all time in terms of constructing that reality using sets. On Batman Begins, unlike The Dark Knight, we found ourselves having to build the streets of Gotham in large part. So I immediately gravitated toward the visual treatment that Ridley Scott had come up with, in terms of how you shoot these massive sets to make them feel real and not like impressive sets.”

5 The Right Stuff

When making Interstellar, Nolan drew inspiration from two of his favorite movies: the previously mentioned 2001: A Space Odyssey, and The Right Stuff. In an interview with IndieWire, Nolan stated, “You can’t pretend 2001 doesn’t exist when you’re making Interstellar. But the other film I’d have to point to is The Right Stuff. I screened a print of it for the crew before we started because that’s a film that not enough people have seen on the big screen. It’s an almost perfectly made film. It’s one of the great American movies and people don’t quite realize how great it is — probably because it’s four hours long!”

4 Metropolis

     UFA

Among his favorite directors Ridley Scott and Stanley Kubrick, Nolan also highly recommends German Expressionist director Fritz Lang. Not only is Nolan a fan of the iconic 1927 film Metropolis, which is often dubbed one of the greatest sci-fi movies of all time, but he is also a fan of The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, calling the former a “key touchstone” in cinematic history and the latter as “essential research for anyone attempting to write a supervillain.”

3 Lawrence of Arabia

     Horizon Pictures

In 2005, Nolan told LA Times that, when shooting his superhero blockbuster Batman Begins, he took more cinematic inspiration from Lawrence of Arabia than from any graphic novel. The film is among Nolan’s favorites. In 2015, he further cited the film as proof of why shooting on celluloid film is superior to shooting digitally, stating, “the very subtle shadow detail and the particular tonality of skies” pop out to the audience far sooner on celluloid.

2 Greed

Erich von Stroheim’s 1924 silent film Greed follows housewife Treena McTeague and the aftermath of her winning the lottery win, which ultimately brings on the turmoil between her, her husband, and a devious friend. The lost original version of the film was 10 hours long. Nolan has described the film as a “lost work of absolute genius.”

1 Star Wars

Star Wars was one of the movies that inspired Nolan to become a filmmaker. In an interview with Business Insider, Nolan admits that after he saw Star Wars at the age of eight, he became obsessed with creating movies about space. “That came out in the 70s, and I’d been experimenting using Super 8 films and stuff,” Nolan recalled. “And then from the second I saw Star Wars, everything was spaceships and science-fiction.”