Christopher Nolan Ranked

Following the release of "Dunkirk" in July 2017, I was sparked with the desire to rank Christopher Nolan's films. I had been so negative towards Nolan with his recent few films that I wanted to throw in some positivity to the mix. I didn't like the idea that I was being labeled as a Nolan hater. Perhaps that was a title I kinda deserved after railing hard in my "Dunkirk" review on Nolan fanboys who worship the ground he walks on and will never accept the fact that he's capable of making anything less than a masterpiece. While I stand by my statements there of being annoyed with said fans who have that mindset, the man has also made some of my all-time favorite films, which is why I wanted to figure out a way to throw in some positive vibes towards Nolan. When I was brainstorming how to do that, I somehow noticed that "Dunkirk" was his 10th movie. That's perfect timing for a ranking of his films because 10 is the magic number when it comes to these lists. Since making that decision to do this, I've put a lot of time and effort into figuring out exactly how I would rank these movies. After what ended up being two years of this, I decided that the announcement of his 11th film, titled "Tenet," coming in Summer 2020, was as good of a time as any to get this out. So here we are.

10- Dunkirk

In order to get to the good movies that I'm excited to praise, especially since I haven't talked about many of them on this blog, we have to first wade through a few of the more disappointing entries from Nolan. Given how harsh I was on "Dunkirk" in 2017, it should come as no surprise that this is on the bottom of the list. It's the easiest decision I had to make when putting this list together. A Nolan film about the battle of Dunkirk was one that sounded really interesting. I ended up doing myself a disservice by purposely not researching this event because I wanted the movie to teach me about what happened. As it turns out, Nolan made this movie with the expectation that his audience knew all of those details because this gave zero historical context. Instead, it was a war movie that showcased what it was like to be an average Joe soldier during these events. And that was a fascinating concept that worked really well... for about 20 minutes. After that, the lack of a central protagonist to follow, the lack of a story arc, and the lack of historical context made for a really boring movie that I had a hard time attaching myself to. In a strange turn of events, Hollywood ended up giving me the "Dunkirk" movie I wanted later that year. It's called "Darkest Hour" and I loved it.

9- Interstellar

Perhaps the most impressive thing about "Interstellar," in my opinion, is that Nolan managed to create arguably one of the most divisive movies ever. By that I mean that this wasn't just a polarizing film with a lot of love and a lot of hate. It was that plus about every opinion in between. Like, seriously. Put five random people in a room and I can almost guarantee that they will have five drastically different opinions. I find that astounding. As far as my personal opinion, I often have to remind myself that I really enjoyed this movie for about two-thirds of it. I have found it real easy to just rant about how awful it is and throw the whole thing in the trash. But no, I thought the first two acts of the film were excellent and had a lot of solid emotion. It's when Matt Damon shows up that the movie falls off a cliff. It's certainly not Matt Damon's fault. I actually loved his character so much that I would've preferred we follow him instead. But then he basically committed suicide and our main characters went into a black hole. When they went into said black hole, so did the quality of the movie. I don't have room in this paragraph to elaborate on all of the details, but I can touch on them later if you want me to. Short version is that Nolan tried to make this a modern "2001: A Space Odyssey" and failed.

8- The Dark Knight Rises

"The Dark Knight Rises" was probably one of the most anticipated movies in the history of... ever. Following "Batman Begins" and "The Dark Knight," the hype behind this final chapter was insane and I totally got caught up in that. If you go dig through the archives of this blog and find my initial thoughts, I believe I praised this to the high heavens and included it as one of my top movies of 2012. But in the seven years since, my opinion of this movie has slowly faded downwards. I re-watched the entire Dark Knight trilogy two weeks ago and "The Dark Knight Rises" had a hard time capturing my attention. Now I don't want to call this a bad movie, but I will say that this is a movie where Bane tricks the entire police force of Gotham into one tunnel and then reigns in anarchy while Batman doesn't really show up in his own movie until the third act. He's depressed Bruce Wayne for the first act and trapped in a pit for the second act. There's also so many plot holes in the narrative that the excuse of "because I'm Batman" isn't quite good enough to resolve all of them for me. In researching this movie's production, Nolan didn't initially want to make this movie, thus in hindsight this almost feels more like a contractual obligation rather than a thoughtfully planned out finale.

7- The Prestige

Magic is a fascinating thing. The appeal of it is witnessing what appears to be a feat pulled off that is physically impossible. In reality it's mostly just misdirection or a slight of hand. The reason why it's often said that a magician never reveals his tricks is that when you realize what the magician actually did, it often becomes less impressive. Thus is the case for me with "The Prestige." It's one of Nolan's more crazy and twisted films, thus it takes you on a bizarre journey that's rather dark and emotional, but when the movie reveals its secrets, it's really not that impressive. It's a movie that I've tried my hardest to love over the years as I've wanted to understand why everyone thinks this is so great, but a re-watch last week forced me to resign those feelings and finally admit to myself that I think this is an extremely overrated film. If you untwist the movie, the plot isn't that engaging. The motivations of our two main characters are really hard for me to understand and certain decisions made seem so baffling and unrealistic, which is hard for me considering how dark and grounded in reality the tone of the movie is. On that note, the fantasy/sci-fi elements stick out like a sore thumb. I know I'm going to hear it from the angry masses on this one, but so be it. It's not bad by any means. It's just overrated.

6- Following

If there's one Nolan film you haven't seen, I'm willing to bet that this is the one. This was his very first film. And it's not one that broke out or got people's attention. It was a very small film that only made $48,482 domestically and just over $240,000 worldwide. Yet it was also only made for a very minuscule $6,000. So yeah, not many people saw this initially. It's one that people have come back to once they were introduced to Nolan with some of his later films. Yet even then, when comparing IMDb votes or reviews counted on Rotten Tomatoes, this is arguably one that not many people have seen. If you are one who hasn't seen it, I'd strongly recommend you find a copy somehow and give it a watch. The movie is far from perfect. It feels very raw and unrefined, like Nolan was experimenting with his craft, but didn't quite have things nailed down. But it's fascinating to see the movie that set the groundwork for everything he would do later in his career. It was released in 1999, but it's a black and white neo-noir thriller that feels like it was made in the 70's. It's about a guy who likes following people in a very "Rear Window" sort of way, yet that gets him into quite a bit of trouble. It's a little more broken and twisted than it needs to be for this genre, but it's still a fun watch.

5- Insomnia

This is the point of this list where the quality skyrockets. While the first five are various levels of disappointing or not super impressive, the final five on this list are Nolan's masterpieces. And we begin the high praise with the curious case of "Insomnia," which is ranked by both IMDb users and the Rotten Tomatoes audience section as Nolan's worst film. My personal theory as to why that's the case is that this is Nolan's most normal film. Usually when you put on a Nolan film, you expect a twisted plot or an unconventional narrative structure with perhaps some super dark themes. This does not follow that. It's a normal crime thriller and that's why I think a lot of hardcore Nolan fans just don't connect to this normal movie. But when judged not as a Nolan film, but as a crime thriller, this is one of the best there is from that genre. Al Pacino goes up to a town in Alaska to solve a murder case when he ends up playing this mind game with Robin Williams, who also takes advantage of Pacino's lack of sleep due to it not getting dark in Alaska. It's a powerfully acted, intense thriller that keeps you on the edge of your seat for the entire run time. Given how much I love crime thrillers, this one really speaks to me as a movie from that genre that simply does everything right. 

4- Batman Begins

And this is where Nolan became a household name. Yes, he had his fans after "Memento" and "Insomnia," but giving him the keys to the car for the Batman franchise not only completely revived the Batman franchise that was pretty much dead after "Batman and Robin," but it helped pioneer the modern superhero era and put DC Comics back on the board. Batman himself is often portrayed as a very troubled, conflicted character, which is why Nolan taking over the franchise was a match made in heaven with his dark, gritty, realistic style. It's a movie that transcends the superhero genre by being an excellent character study on someone who has experienced a traumatic past, yet is able to face his fears and use all of his awful experiences to his advantage by becoming the best version of himself. Unlike some other origin stories, you're not just sitting around waiting for Bruce Wayne to become Batman so you can see some entertaining action sequences. You become deeply invested in his journey thanks to some profound themes and beautiful story arcs. The action is just the frosting on the cake. That's why the movie in my eyes is the gold standard for origin stories. It's probably the best pure Batman movie given that "The Dark Knight" is more of a Joker movie.

3- Memento

When it comes to movies with non-linear narratives or twisted themes I often like to ask myself what the movie would look like if it was untwisted and linear. Along with that, the other thing I like to do is ask why the movie decided to go with an unconventional structure so I can fall in love with the movie itself rather than just being entertained by a gimmick. When it comes to "Memento," this is a non-linear, twisted narrative that absolutely blows my mind. If we untwist "Memento," what we have is a dark, crime thriller about a man trying to figure out who killed his wife after suffering a traumatic accident that left him with no short term memory. All he has to help him are notes that he left himself. So yeah, if told in a linear way, this is still a great movie. But the movie is actually told backwards, starting from the end and progressing towards the beginning. What makes this much more than a gimmick is that this puts the audience into the shoes of this man who has lost his short term memory. We wake up with him having no idea what's going on. Like him, all we have to go by is the notes he's left. Thus as the movie progresses, we slowly learn what's going on as he is learning what's going on. It's one of the most creative and brilliant movies I've seen. 

2- The Dark Knight

It feels gross to have a list where "The Dark Knight" is eligible and not have it at No. 1. Like "Batman Begins" before it, it's a movie that transcends the superhero genre as it becomes an intense psychological thriller that stands on its own as one of the greatest films ever made, not just the best comic book or superhero movie. The themes here are so deep and the character arcs so fascinating, all this held up by one of the greatest performances ever in a comic book film with Heath Ledger's portrayal of the Joker. Did Heath Ledger win the Oscar because he died prior to the film's release? Probably. I mean, the Academy hates this genre and didn't even nominate it for best picture despite it being head and shoulders above the competition in terms of quality. Despite that, Heath Ledger certainly deserved that win. There's also a lot of performances around him that are nearly equally as good. Now my personal experience with this movie is too long to include in one short paragraph, but the very short version is that I didn't immediately gravitate towards this when I first watched it. But as my love for films grew, so did my love for this movie. There's only one small nitpick that caused me to put this at No. 2. Rachel. I didn't like what they did with her character. 

1- Inception

And then there was one. It was honestly a tough choice between this and "The Dark Knight." Once I had the idea to create this list, I spent weeks and months stressing over which one I was going to put at No. 1. "Inception" won out by the very slightest of margins. It's a movie that has become deeply ingrained into our culture. And for great reason. I don't put this at No. 1 just because of the cultural significance. It blew my mind the very first time I saw it and continues to this day to be one of the most entertaining and rewatchable films. After my second theatrical viewing, my friends and I sat down at a Taco Bell and spent hours talking about the movie, mainly just talking about what the heck we just watched. When I rewatched it last week, I was glued to the screen and couldn't turn away. And it's a movie that can still be talked about and discussed without having a clear consensus on what everything means. Because of that, it's a gift that keeps on giving. Each viewing is a new experience. I mean, have you ever heard the wedding ring theory? Exactly. And when it comes to Nolan's films, this feels like the accumulation of everything he worked towards. He spent years honing his craft and in 2010 he finally created his perfect masterpiece that gives you everything you expect from him.