The Films of Christopher Nolan, Ranked

He reinvented Batman, he broke into our dreams, he traversed spacetime through the power of gravity, and he built the atomic bomb. It’s impossible to participate in the contemporary film scene and not have encountered Christopher Nolan. Since his indie hit Following (1998) and subsequent mainstream debut with Memento (2000), Nolan has been one of the most exciting and innovative filmmakers of the contemporary era. Beloved by Film Bros everywhere, his films are famous for their intricate concepts, massive scale, and visual excellence. With the release of Oppenheimer, we are now 25 years and 12 films into Nolan’s career. Here are the films of Christopher Nolan, ranked.

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12. The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

“I was wondering what would break first: your spirit or your body?”

With The Dark Knight Rises, Christopher Nolan was given an impossible task — following up on The Dark Knight. Even just four years after its release, The Dark Knight was already being cemented by Film Bros everywhere as a contemporary classic. It was a major commercial success, was one of the most acclaimed movies in the year of its release, and became legendary for Heath Ledger’s performance as The Joker. Was it ever going to be possible to reach that level of success again? On a thematic level, I think that The Dark Knight Rises is pretty successful. Nolan has a great understanding of this iteration of Batman/Bruce Wayne and is able to dig into the heart of the character quite well. This movie is definitely more Bruce-focused which helps uncover the humanity of the character. The actual filmmaking is a little bit more haphazard. There are some really stunning set pieces but also some more poorly executed set pieces. There are some unfortunate logical gaps in the story and some strange editing and sound mixing choices. There are some great performances (easily Bale’s best in the trilogy) which are undercut by some less-than-stellar ones (Marion Cotillard’s Talia Al Ghul for example). Thankfully, it begins and ends with two stellar scenes. It mostly works, but it’s certainly not the best expression of Nolan’s talent.

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11. Following (1998)

“The following is my explanation. Well, more of an account of what happened.”

Nolan’s first time, Following, is his least refined work, but is such a fascinating piece to encounter, especially since we’re 25 years into his filmmaking career. With Following, we can start to see the hallmarks of Nolan’s style already begin to emerge. It utilizes narrative twists, carefully chosen perspectives, men looking for purpose, and a reliance on score. The film is far from flawless. There are some awkward camera moves here and there, some underwritten characters, and a few lacklustre performances. But it does show immense promise and its main premise and twist are particularly great. What this film does highlight is how much a talented filmmaker can do with minimal resources. Despite a budget of only $6000, the film is surprisingly effective and memorable, even if it’s only a foretaste of what Nolan will later achieve.

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10. Insomnia (2002)

“Let me sleep.”

The late Robin Williams might be best remembered for his comedic performances and loud personality, but in Insomnia, Williams plays Walter Finch, a child murderer and pedophile. Fun for the whole family! A remake of a 1997 Swedish film of the same name, Insomnia is Nolan’s most “simplistic” film, although that’s not to say it’s not good. The film doesn’t have any of the narrative tricks, spectacle, or concepts that his other movies do. It’s a straight-forward, linearly-told police procedural — ironically the most bold narrative choice Nolan has made. Al Pacino and Williams are at the top of their game here delivering some extremely strong performances that truly carry the film. It’s a good movie, just not a great one.

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9. Tenet (2020)

“I’ll see you in the beginning, friend.”

In 2020, Christopher Nolan and Warner Bros. convinced themselves that they could single-handedly end the COVID-19 pandemic and bring audiences back to movie theatres if they released a big-budget blockbuster. Unfortunately, their plan didn’t work out too well. Tenet flopped at the box office but still managed to be the fifth-highest-grossing film of that year (for, you know, being one of the only new movies released that year). Despite failing to cure COVID, Tenet is pretty great. The movie looks excellent featuring all of the visual hallmarks of Nolan’s visual sensibilities. The whole narrative conceit of objects moving backwards in time makes for some visually stunning action sequences and creative visual effects. In an era where it seems like VFX work is only becoming worse thanks to insane studio demands, it’s refreshing that Nolan consistently puts in the same amount of care to every project. Sure, there are some . . . strong choices made with the sound mixing which makes it pretty easy to lose the narrative, but the film looks good enough and with interesting enough action scenes to kind of make up for it. Crashing a plane into a building? The man’s insane! This is, however, the first movie in Nolan’s filmography that feels like “just another Christopher Nolan movie.” It definitely won’t win over any new converts, but it’ll impress fans enough.

You can read my full review here.

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8. Batman Begins (2005)

“Why do we fall, Bruce?”

Less than ten years after the disastrous Batman & Robin (1997) put the Bat franchise on ice, Nolan was tasked with breathing new life into the character. And breathe he did. With a darker tone, a more grounded universe, and a muscle-bound Christian Bale in the lead role, Batman Begins was Batman like never before. Christian Bale makes a strong first impression as Bruce Wayne but is not entirely at home in the cowl here. Liam Neeson is excellent as Ra’s Al Ghul, Bruce’s mentor-turned-enemy and Michael Caine is rock solid as Alfred. Cillian Murphy’s Scarecrow, however, is the real gem of the cast. Looking back on it now, Batman Begins is an interesting aesthetic bridge between the Burton films and what the Nolan films will progress into. It’s not nearly as fantastical or gothic as its predecessors, but it has some significantly more heightened and stylized visuals than its sequels. It’s a very distinct Batman film from what came before and what would follow, but it’s solid nonetheless.

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7. Dunkirk (2017)

“Wars are not won by evacuation.”

After his narratively complex sci-fi drama Interstellar, Nolan dived into history for his follow-up. Dunkirk follows three courses of action (the men on the beaches, the boats at sea, and the air defence) at three different time scales (one week before, one day before, and one hour before the evacuation respectively) all leading up to the miraculous Dunkirk evacuation of June 1940 in the early days of World War II. The film is pretty light on specific character work, instead takes a more sociological approach to tell its story. In craft, the film is excellent with stellar cinematography, excellent production design, and a wonderfully executed narrative. Hans Zimmer’s pulsating score adds so much aggression and tension to the film. If you’re looking for complex characters, this probably isn’t the movie for you. If you’re interested in slice-of-life war epics, Dunkirk is a very excellent movie.

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6. Memento (2000)

“We all lie to ourselves to be happy.”

While Following might have been his first feature film, Nolan truly made a name for himself with Memento. The film follows Leonard Shelby (played by Guy Pierce), a man with short-term memory loss trying to uncover the truth about the murder of his wife. The only thing Leonard has to go off of is the cryptic tattoos he’s given himself to give his future self knowledge of what has happened. To preserve this sense of memory loss and not knowing the past, the film is told in two separate timelines, one of which progresses forward in time and the other regresses. This is the film that really proves Nolan’s prowess as a filmmaker as he delivers a complex and uniquely told narrative on a small scale. The film works as a great introduction to the director’s filmography or a fun step back into his younger days for fans of his newer work.

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5. The Dark Knight (2008)

“Some men just want to see the world burn.”

The Dark Knight was a phenomenon when it was first released in theatres in the summer of 2008 and has remained one of the defining filmic texts of the contemporary era, for better or worse. Rejecting any of the left-over visual stylizations from the Burton era that crept into Batman Begins, The Dark Knight is a gritty, more realistic (I hate using those words) take on the Caped Crusader. And not to sound like a total film bro, but this movie is pretty good. Nolan’s direction is absolutely electric, there are so many great set pieces, and the performances (especially one in particular) are legendary. The narrative gets a little bit too clunky right in the middle with a needlessly intricate subplot about Hong Kong banking, but the highlights are so strong that the awkward bits are easily forgotten by the time the credits roll. And say what you will about Two-Face’s role in this movie, I think the ending scene is great. It’s Batman for post-9/11 America.

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4. Inception (2010)

“You mustn’t be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling.”

At the beginning of 2010, The Dark Knight was Nolan’s most commercially and critically successful film yet. Nolan’s real trial by fire in the public consciousness was with Inception, his first original film made on a blockbuster scale. Nolan poured just about everything he had into this film, crafting a film that still feels ahead of its time thirteen years later. Leonardo DiCaprio leads the film as Cobb, a thief with experimental technology that can allow him to break into the dreams of victims to steal information from their dreams. The visual effects and action are among the most iconic in Nolan’s filmography (the city flip scene? the hallway fight? c’mon!) and there’s a lot of great subtext going on about grief and trauma. Inception made the case that Nolan was able to craft original blockbusters that were not only intellectually engaging but also commercial smashes, a surprisingly difficult feat in our current box office climate.

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3. Oppenheimer (2023)

“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

Oppenheimer, Nolan’s first biopic, tells the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the American physicist. nicknamed the “father of the atomic bomb,” who lead the Manhattan Project during World War II. Set over the course of some three decades of Oppenheimer’s life, the film details his rise to academic fame, post-war controversy, and, at the centre of it all, the creation of the first nuclear weapon. This historical epic is a ferocious tour-de-force, with some stunning moments of spectacle, beautiful cinematography, an outside-the-box narrative structure, and a brilliant lead performance from Cillian Murphy. It’s a haunting, emotionally intense experience.

You can read my full review here.

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2. Interstellar (2014)

“Mankind was born on Earth. It was never meant to die here.”

Nolan is sometimes criticized for being a rather unemotional filmmaker. And to an extent, I think that’s true. He’s often drawn to big narrative ideas rather than to human drama and when he does explore human emotions, he does so in a very intellectual way (for example, Inception). With Interstellar, Nolan achieves his most deft balance of big ideas and tangible human experience. Set in the not-too-distant future where global famines are decimating the Earth, a small team of astronauts leaves everything they know and love behind them for a one-way mission to the stars to find a planet habitable for humans. At the thematic crux of the story is the relationship between Cooper (Matthew McCaughnaghey) and his daughter Murphy (Jessica Chastain) as the two are pulled apart by the vastness of the cosmos. The film features some stunning cinematography, inventive sci-fi design, great visual effects, and a story that transcends space and time as we know it. Interstellar is a supremely beautiful and emotional film that follows in the footsteps of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris (1972).

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1. The Prestige (2006)

“Are you watching closely?”

That’s the first line of dialogue spoken in The Prestige. It’s not spoken to any particular character, but it’s extended toward the viewer — an invitation into what’s to come. The film is built upon the assumption that the audience wants to be fooled, that a clever trick is more enticing than a solution. So, even when all of the pieces are on the table, the film still makes your head spin. Starring Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale as rival 19th-century magicians, The Prestige is a tightly-wound yet sprawling thriller as the two men are driven to extreme measures in a never-ending attempt to one-up each other. It’s a film full of twisted timelines, narrative, fake-outs, and cleverly disguised truths. It doesn’t rely so much on sci-fi mystery or marvel, like some of Nolan’s other head-scratchers, but its magic is in how its story is executed and the subjective perspectives of each of the protagonists. The Prestige might not be Nolan’s best-known or most commercially successful film, but I’ll be damned if it isn’t his best work. Are you watching closely?