Probably no other name in the film industry generates as much hype, anticipation and controversy as the name of Christopher Nolan. In a business where nearly one in two creators is permanently addicted to streaming platforms, the Londoner is the closest thing to a “superstar” that remains today. He belongs to a dying breed of filmmakers who can demand gigantic budgets and yet complete creative freedom from any studio – and he can get away with it.
Tenet (2020)
Nolan has always been a concept director first and foremost, but alas, that’s not the case with Tenet. In his latest puzzle, he seems determined to outdo himself and cram as much information into the timeline as possible to create the most bulletproof plot. As a result, by the end credits, the viewer becomes so emotionally insensitive to what is happening that, despite all the efforts expended on the film, he does not understand why he should care.
The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
The Dark Knight Rises has not stood the test of time, and is worth little on its own. Expectations were higher than ever in 2012, and Christopher Nolan faced perhaps the biggest challenge of his career – to do something as big as the huge cultural phenomenon that The Dark Knight had become and bring the most influential superhero saga of all time to a close with power. from the time of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man. Spoiler alert – it didn’t work.
Following (1998)
The opportunity to look at the work of great directors in retrospect is an underestimated experience of analyzing their gradual evolution, the development of artistic traits that have been revealed in subsequent years. Christopher Nolan’s directorial debut is no exception. Overall, it’s definitely worth a look if you want to see Nolan’s first steps towards fame.
The Dark Knight (2008)
When writing about one of the most carefully considered and hundred times chewed phenomena – in the broad sense of the word – over the past twenty years, any attempt to add something new to the discourse risks being left out. Is there anything more to be said about this era-defining colossus? It would not be an exaggeration to say that this is one of the most dynamic blockbusters that can generally be remembered offhand. It lasts about two and a half hours, but the story never sags and unfolds at a rapid pace.
Insomnia (2002)
If there is a work in Nolan’s work that even his most devoted fans did not go through, then this is “Insomnia”. There are several reasons – some more justified, some less – why this film is being swept under the carpet with the “minor” label.
Memento (2000)
Nolan’s “Magnum opus”, the film “Memento”, which uses one of the usual Nolan tropes, the image of a dead wife, and sends us along with the hero to find out who is to blame for her rape and murder. What’s the catch? The fact that he has to do all this in conditions where only short-term memory is available to him, which makes it impossible to acquire new memories. Unlike other Nolan puzzles, this one does not lose sight of the emotional component.
Inception (2010)
In all likelihood, Inception was and still is Christopher Nolan’s finest work. It happened at an ideal stage in his career, right after the amazing The Dark Knight, when his reputation was at its highest point. This is also the creation of a director who has fully revealed his potential and the quintessence of all the themes that he cherished throughout his career.
Prestige (2006)
If there is a movie made specifically for an audience that grew up on IMDb forums and YouTube reaction videos, it’s The Prestige. It is filled with Easter eggs that are easy to miss if you relax your attention for a second, hints are skillfully scattered there, and the main raft-twist stuns like a fallen wardrobe: perhaps no other Nolan film is reviewed so many times and does not breed such caustic discussions around it as this.
Oppenheimer (2023)
The film is based on the book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography. The protagonist is an American physicist, under whose leadership the atomic bomb was created during World War II.
Batman Begins (2005)
With the current state of shameless corporate speculation, endless MCUs and sequels designed to avoid financial risk, it’s easy to take this 2005 film’s innovation for granted. Long before the dark era of Kevin Feige’s dominance of the biggest pop culture monopoly of modern times, Christopher Nolan breathed new life into, and in a sense, reintroduced reckoning with the comic book adaptation, which had previously been a genre worthy of only contemptuous glances.
Interstellar (2014)
Christopher Nolan becomes a superstar, he awakens the inner Kubrick and creates his own reading of “Space Odyssey 2001”. But while the latter is still considered the gold standard of visual storytelling, which relies not on dialogue but on imagery to convey emotions and thoughts, Interstellar makes a whole bunch of critical mistakes in the same field. In a film that makes its main bet on the rather banal slogan “love overcomes time and space”, he reveals the theme of love with complacency and almost callousness.
Dunkirk (2017)
For Nolan, it was a way out of his comfort zone, for sure. Dunkirk was touted as an unparalleled visual marvel – a unique experience that can only be experienced when viewed on the biggest screen in IMAX. One of the best war films.