The Films of Christopher Nolan

Christopher Nolan has become one of the defining filmmakers of the 21st century, with a filmography marked by critical acclaim, major box office success and lasting cultural influence. His work is now instantly recognisable for its non-linear narratives, themes of memory, identity and time, striking practical effects, vast sense of scale, intense scores and protagonists consumed by a singular obsession. These qualities have made Nolan a brand in his own right, a status reinforced by Oppenheimer’s box office performance and The Odyssey’s historic IMAX run, with screenings reportedly sold out around the world until September. The Odyssey is also expected to become Nolan’s biggest-earning film, making him one of the few directors to have three films earn over $1 billion.

Just like with Steven Spielberg, I have a different answer for what I consider Christopher Nolan’s best film and what my favourite film of Nolan’s is. To me, Oppenheimer is Nolan’s magnum opus and the film that won him Best Director and Best Picture at the Oscars for the first time. Oppenheimer showed that Nolan could create a 3-hour talky biopic about the creation and aftermath of the atomic bomb and make it an intense and enthralling masterpiece.

The film contains one of the best acting ensembles I have ever seen, with numerous masterful performances and some of the best dialogue in a Christopher Nolan film. The film also contains some of the best editing and scores in a Nolan film that, despite the complicated science and politics, keeps you on the edge of your seat throughout. Oppenheimer and Dune Part 2 are the two best big-budget films of the 2020s to me.

However, my favourite Christopher Nolan film is still The Dark Knight. As a lifelong Batman and Nolan fan, it felt like the perfect combination, and it became a film I grew up loving.

It also changed how people viewed comic book films, proving they could be serious, prestigious cinema. Its controversial omission from the Best Picture category is widely seen as one reason the Academy expanded the number of nominees from five to ten. The Dark Knight was also one of the first major films to use IMAX cameras for selected sequences. The film turns the Batman story into a gripping thriller, using Batman, the Joker and Harvey Dent to explore terrorism, fear and the limits of human morality. Heath Ledger’s Joker remains one of cinema’s greatest villains, thanks both to the writing and to Ledger’s performance, which I consider one of the best of all time.

For James, Nolan’s strongest by about a mile is, conventionally enough, the film for which he claimed Best Picture at the Academy Awards. There’s an argument to be made that Oppenheimer is the definitive Hollywood movie of the 2020s. Not necessarily in terms of ‘quality’ – although it’s certainly a masterpiece – but in terms of contemporary Hollywood machinery (or what’s left of it) being operated at its most effective.

There are many comparisons to be made here between this WW2 biopic and another Best Picture Winner: 1997’s Titanic (with Cameron being a previous podcast focus of James and Callum’s). Each – for their respective eras and focuses – utilise the biggest stars of the time to tell a story which is emotionally revealing and visually spectacular. And both, despite being about truly horrific historic events, manage to reach the biggest audiences and strike a chord with the current moment.

The magic of Oppenheimer is the screenplay. It’s pretty fascinating that maybe Nolan’s crowning achievement – despite being viewed as a purely technical creative – is a written work of adaptation about the conflicting nature of guilt, self and legacy; a stunningly operatic build-up of tension elevated by his always ambitious structural rearrangement, then elevated even further by some of the most charismatic performances of the decade. James’ favourite supporting performance is David Krumholtz as the orange-slice-offering Isidor Rabi. “Eat,” he says. “If you get any skinnier, we’re gonna lose you between the seat cushions.”

Tenet is an easy pick for me to be Nolan’s weakest film, although I still like it and find the creative idea and action set pieces to be magnificent. It also holds a special place in my heart for being the first film I watched back in cinemas during the pandemic, as it came out in August 2020. The film can also be traced back as one of the earliest controversies between Nolan and Warner Brothers that ended their long relationship and caused Nolan to produce Oppenheimer and The Odyssey with Universal. The main reason why I find Tenet to be Nolan’s weakest is that I struggle to understand what is going on. I enjoy the complexity that Nolan puts in his films, but Interstellar, Inception, and Memento are all more engaging despite their complex narratives. Tenet is too messy and complicated to the point where I do not care about the characters or about what is driving the plot forward.

As an opposite to Oppenheimer, the film contains the weakest dialogue in Nolan’s filmography, with too much on-the-nose exposition. Despite Nolan being a leading filmmaker who has changed the cinematic landscape, a couple of rookie errors still appear in his filmmaking even in his best films. While his large-scale action set pieces are wondrous, his close combat choreography is not the best, with shaky cam constantly being used. His main problem, however, is that the sound mixing in some of his films is all over the place. The worst culprit is Tenet, with already complicated dialogue and plotting being made worse by the fact that it is hard to hear. I still like Tenet, but as Clemence Poesy says to the protagonist in the film— “don’t try to understand it. Feel it.” I certainly do that while watching Tenet, as I witness a building blown up in reverse and then blowing up again while listening to another amazing Ludwig Göransson score. As for what happens in the film, I still have no idea.

It would be quite unfair, despite its many shortcomings, to label Following as Nolan’s weakest. It’s a film that just doesn’t quite work; but for a debut feature, it’s got a great concept and wonderful texture. The opposite of Following, in more ways than one, is The Dark Knight Rises, which is James’ pick for his worst film to date. Unlike Following, The Dark Knight Rises feels humongous, has about five different concepts operating in tandem (maybe one of which works), and holds little to no texture to speak of. Is the action impressive? Often, yes. One must concede, it’s cool to see a plane do that for real, and the man can handle individual moments of spectacle. Yet all of his worst characteristics as a director are on clear display: the cutting back and forth between multiple locations to attempt to form the illusion of tension and connection, with no success; characters used as paper-thin plot devices to bridge between set-pieces with no clear intentionality; score overuse to the point of distraction. And the character of Batman has never been less interesting. Give me Schumacher over this any day.

A remake of the 1997 Norwegian film, it is the least typical Christopher Nolan film in his career, which makes it a refreshing change from the complex, large-scale films he became known for later. It was also Nolan’s first collaboration with Warner Bros. and remains the only film he directed without a writing credit, with the screenplay written by Hillary Seitz.

The story unfolds in chronological order and uses minimal action, focusing instead on the tense relationship between Al Pacino and Robin Williams as their characters play a cat-and-mouse game. One of the film’s strongest elements is its Alaskan setting, where the constant natural light becomes central to the story. Because the sun barely sets, Pacino’s character develops insomnia, and the film captures that harsh brightness so effectively that the audience can feel his exhaustion and disorientation.

It is refreshing to see Nolan make this kind of film, proving he does not need a huge budget to create something gripping. I love his current era, and no one is making blockbusters better right now, except perhaps Denis Villeneuve, but part of me would still like to see him return to a smaller-scale project. Would anyone else be interested in a low-budget Christopher Nolan horror film?

Dunkirk is James’ pick for most underrated. People don’t give Nolan enough credit for this one; for having the utter restraint to eliminate all baggage, all excess, and use his technical abilities and fascination with a clockwork multi-chronology to craft a story that feels genuinely stripped down. It’s a shame that the film has dropped out of the public consciousness slightly in the last decade, so you may forget that it was Nolan’s biggest critical success at the time, with five-star reviews across the board. Here, the director plays to his strengths and gets rid of the fat. James feels that a mention should also go to Tenet – a movie which is incredibly difficult to get on with. By design, it’s polarising. But it’s also Nolan’s most unusual release. The fact that he allowed himself to produce something so uncompromisingly him, without regard for the viewer’s patience (slightly backhanded, I know), means that this misunderstood expression deserves some recognition.

13. The Dark Knight Rises