Christopher Nolan is in the rarified air of directors like Steven Spielberg and James Cameron where his name alone is enough to get audiences to theaters.
Since his first feature film Following in 1998, the English-born, Chicago-raised director has successfully cultivated his own brand of cinematic auteurship. Whether it’s new ideas springing from the deep recesses of his dreams (Inception) to his own takes on comic book icons (Batman trilogy) and figures from history, you can expect elite filmmaking. But that doesn’t mean the director isn’t capable of surprises.
Across his illustrious body of work that includes two Academy Awards, a Golden Globe, and billions at the box office, Nolan’s movies typically deal with damaged and haunted individuals who develop borderline unhealthy obsessions, and his stories encompass ideas like time, memory, perception, and sometimes most of all, guilt. These are often reflected in the meticulously methodical structure of his movies; most of Nolan’s movies are plotted all over the place, breathlessly zig-zagging between past and present. But, like the insides of a Swiss watch, every piece plays a part that contributes to a unified whole.
All of this results in a director who doesn’t seem to have a capital-B Bad movie in his career of two and a half decades. You can debate preferences and question his creative choices, but there aretsi few filmmakers alive whose output is as consistent as Nolan. With news of a new Nolan joint now in the works, let’s look back and rank the director’s movies from “worst” (a relative term, admittedly) to best.