Christopher Nolan Movies, Ranked

Thirteen films, several timelines, one man who will not stop buying film stock.

Entries
13
Category
Film
Updated
  1. A jumbo jet nosed into a smashed airport hangar, with spent bullets rising back up off the tarmac toward a gun.

    13. Tenet

    Christopher Nolan · 2020

    Time runs backwards, a real Boeing 747 gets wrecked for the cameras, and the sound mix keeps the dialogue behind glass. The first blockbuster released into the pandemic and an Oscar winner for effects. Gorgeous, bold and allergic to being understood.

  2. A black-and-white London street at night, a shoebox of stolen keepsakes sitting open on a doorstep.

    12. Following

    Christopher Nolan · 1998

    Shot on Saturdays over a year, in 16mm black and white, for about $6,000. A writer follows strangers and meets a burglar named Cobb, a name Nolan liked enough to reuse in Inception. Everything he'd do later is here, only cheaper.

  3. A football field cracking open and collapsing into the ground, the stadium lights still on and the stands empty.

    11. The Dark Knight Rises

    Christopher Nolan · 2012

    Bane's voice, a football field collapsing and a city under siege for months. Overstuffed and leaky on logic, but a finale with real scale that made $1 billion. Tom Hardy acting with only his eyebrows is a craft achievement.

  4. A motel room in Alaska with blackout curtains failing against bright midnight sun, an untouched bed in the glare.

    10. Insomnia

    Christopher Nolan · 2002

    A remake of a 1997 Norwegian thriller, with Al Pacino unable to sleep under the Alaskan midnight sun and Robin Williams as a calm, polite murderer. The only Nolan feature he has no writing credit on, and his most underrated.

  5. A cave full of bats swirling around a matte-black armored vehicle, light spilling in from above.

    09. Batman Begins

    Christopher Nolan · 2005

    The reboot that turned 'gritty origin story' into a studio genre. Christian Bale, a Tumbler that is basically a tank, and Liam Neeson training Bruce Wayne on a glacier. Every franchise since has asked for the Begins treatment.

  6. A dusty farmhouse bookshelf with books spilling to the floor, a glowing ring-shaped black hole visible through the window.

    08. Interstellar

    Christopher Nolan · 2014

    Matthew McConaughey weeping at decades of video messages is the best acting in any Nolan film, and physicist Kip Thorne helped render a black hole accurate enough to publish science papers about. Won the Oscar for visual effects.

  7. A long wooden pier stretching into grey surf, empty helmets lined along it, a single fighter plane low over the horizon.

    07. Dunkirk

    Christopher Nolan · 2017

    A war movie with almost no dialogue, three timelines and a ticking watch built into the score. At 106 minutes it's his shortest since Following, and it won three Oscars. Harry Styles is fine, actually.

  8. A small silver spinning top whirling on a wooden table while a city street folds up into the sky behind it.

    06. Inception

    Christopher Nolan · 2010

    Dreams inside dreams, a spinning top, and a hallway fight shot in a real rotating set. Four Oscars, and that BRAAAM horn every trailer copied for a decade. Still the most fun anyone has had explaining a movie in a parking lot.

  9. A lone wooden Greek ship on a vast wine-dark sea, sail torn, with a massive storm wall and a single eye of lightning above.

    05. The Odyssey

    Christopher Nolan · 2026

    Homer, Matt Damon as Odysseus, and the first feature shot entirely on IMAX film cameras. It crossed $1 billion and became Nolan's biggest hit. Too new to rank on rewatches, so it's ranked on reviews and receipts. Give it time to climb.

  10. A scattered pile of instant photos with handwritten captions on a motel bed, a single polaroid fading as it develops.

    04. Memento

    Christopher Nolan · 2000

    A man with no short-term memory hunts his wife's killer, told backwards, so the audience has no short-term memory either. Two Oscar nominations, one heavily tattooed Guy Pearce, and the most-copied structure of the 2000s.

  11. A lone porkpie hat on a wooden table in the New Mexico desert, a towering fireball rising on the horizon.

    03. Oppenheimer

    Christopher Nolan · 2023

    Three hours of physics and security hearings that plays like a thriller. Seven Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director for Nolan and Best Actor for Cillian Murphy. The Trinity test is the loudest silence in movies.

  12. A top hat on a Victorian stage with a birdcage beside it, electric arcs crackling from a tall coil in the wings.

    02. The Prestige

    Christopher Nolan · 2006

    Two magicians ruin their lives trying to beat each other, and the film itself is built like a trick: pledge, turn, prestige. David Bowie plays Nikola Tesla. It is better the second time, which is the whole point.

  13. A playing card with a smeared blank face lying on wet pavement in a dark city alley, a bat-shaped shadow on the wall.

    01. The Dark Knight

    Christopher Nolan · 2008

    A superhero movie that is really a crime epic about a city negotiating with chaos. Heath Ledger's Joker won a posthumous Oscar and permanently changed what a villain is allowed to be. That truck flip is a real truck.

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