All Christopher Nolan Films Ranked!!

hello everyone welcome back to the channel and today I will be giving you guys my ranking of all of Christopher Nolan's films if you could hit the Subscribe button and give the video a thumbs up that would be a great help Christopher Nolan is without question my favorite film director super original and unique opinion I'm I'm well aware he was one of the first filmmakers where just his name drew me to want to go see the film prior to Interstellar coming out I had very little interest in seeing the film until I saw that Nolan was dired it and that was nearly 10 years ago at this point what even is time anymore I simply love the way in which Nolan tells his stories and the way he makes his films look all of his movies have a very strong feeling of authenticity and feeling real and when I say feeling real I don't mean avoiding CGI entirely or only using practical effects because he doesn't I mean that he uses both CGI and practical effects at the same time to create the best possible visuals he also has very clear Fascinations and topics that he likes to explore with all of his movies time being the obvious one but he also loves adding in other topics about things like radiation and utilizing nonlinear storytelling to create the largest impact for an audience Nolan also has a great dedication to making the theater experience as immersive as possible he's one of the big Pioneers in using IMAX film for wide relase movies and while he often makes very complicated are hard to follow movies he never comes across as pretentious or wanting to crap all over different genres of film I love you Martin sesi but I'm looking at you some of this list might include some unpopular opinions but for the most part A lot of my my thoughts on Nolan's work don't really stray too far from a consensus so to try and set myself apart a little bit from every other ranking on the internet I'm going to try and add my own interpretations on his use of time some of those films are a bit more complex with the use of time and others are much more simplistic so in last place is his very first film which is following despite Following being Christopher Nolan's first film it is quite impressive especially considering the very small budget of only $6,000 it is quite short and doesn't explore all the ideas that could have been presented but it is fairly intriguing basically it's a simple story of a guy who becomes obsessed with following random people just to learn about their lives without interfering but he eventually follows a guy who catches on to him the two sort of join together and become burglar who steal for money and who also learn additional things about random people the story gets a bit more complex towards the end of the film but the film still manages to be engaging with no one's first use of nonlinear storytelling the story is out of order but each time a sequence connects later on in the film it gives the audience a pretty nice feeling of satisfaction because they were able to connect the pieces of the story without anything being overt it obviously has a much more amateur and lowbudget quality to the film and it doesn't reach anywhere near the heights of his best films but following is very impressive for a debut movie in 11th place is Dunkirk now before you crucify me in the comments section I think Dunkirk is an amazing film it truly is an experiential event to witness the main reason why this is my least favorite of Nolan's larger budget films is because it doesn't really have the same level of repeat value that the other movies do it almost exclusively focuses on the experiences of the soldiers trying to survive rather than focusing on the soldiers as characters ultimately this means that the emotional connection to the film isn't quite as high because there isn't as much of a connection to the characters all that being said Christopher Nolan basically uses this movie as a giant Flex on his talents as a filmmaker because it showcases his ability to make absurdly intense and well-crafted War sequences with some truly stunning cinematography it is also kind of a short movie it's a little over an hour and 40 minutes so even though the rewatch value isn't the best it always keeps me engaged every time I do watch the movie another impressive aspect of Dunkirk is how Nolan incorporates his fascination with time he seamlessly implements three different timelines that converge at the end of the film The Soldier Story takes place over a week the boat story takes place over a day and the fighter pilot story takes place over the course of an hour so even though the character development is pretty much non-existent the film very smartly uses other methods to keep the audience engaged in my number 10 spot is insomnia insomnia is the least Nolan of all of his movies it is pretty much just a straightforward mystery thriller that happens to be very good I believe that this is the only film that Nolan has directed where he wasn't involved with writing the script at all and that's kind of obvious in the final product it's not a bad thing but it is obvious in a lot of ways it feels like a test from the studio before willing to let him direct Batman just so they could see what he could do as a director it doesn't really stand out as much in his filmography because it doesn't really have the big huge ideas and crazy mindbending concepts of some of his other movies or even the audience draw of stuff like Oppenheimer or The Dark Knight all that said the movie is quite terrific alucino alucino it's not Al anymore it's duck dunino don't mind if I do what's my name dunino is great as this character who is filled with guilt and slowly losing his mind due to a lack of sleep in a rare villainous performance Robin Williams is amazing and he can be quite subtle in the performance but he's also equally Insidious the movie follows a detective who goes to Alaska to investigate a murder things obviously start to get more complicated as Robin Williams starts to be incorporated into the story and Pacino's character slowly loses his grip on reality due to his inability to sleep because of the Sun not going down at night so even with less input on the script than usual Nolan still gets in a bit of his time Obsession Alaska's son doesn't go down in the summer and this drastically affects the lead character he can't find a way to sleep and it makes the days feel like they're going on endlessly overall insomnia is a really solid Thriller and a great way for Christopher Nolan to Showcase his directing abilities with a pretty simple story my number nine is tenant this movie was quite a bit higher a few years ago but now I've rewatched some of these other films and just by proxy it made tenant go down a little bit does tenet make any sense I honestly have no idea do I love tenant anyway absolutely from here on out on the list I would give pretty much every movie at least a n out of 10 yeah I really like Christopher Nolan's movies if you haven't noticed yet as far as Nolan's obsession with time this movie is pretty overt with things going backwards and forwards and things inverting and reverting it's pretty nuts tenant swings for the fences with its concepts of time inversion and it does a lot with those Concepts it can be extremely overwhelming even on a rewatch as soon as I think I finally figured out how the movie Works something comes up like 5 minutes later and almost entirely invalidates my previous thought so why do I love this movie even if I have a hard time understanding it because cool things happen since Nolan swings for the fences there is a huge emphasis on a lot of just really sweet cool looking things happening normally I'm not the type of guy to emphasize cool looking stuff and fun action over story and characters and while the story and characters are still quite good in this movie The Cool imagery and bombastic action really Trump everything else if I had one genuine complaint about tenant it would be the way the dialogue is done in the audio mix this is the only movie where I have to put subtitles on because the dialogue can quite literally be unintelligible in a lot of scenes some of the cool things that happen in tennet include the entire opening Opera Siege the scene where the scien explains the inverted objects and tells the audience to just feel it noan crashing a real plane because why not the protagonist fights his inverted self which makes for an awesome yet super weird fight scene the car chase and tyin is pretty sweet and the entire finale well pretty hard to follow L lots of cool stuff happens including a building that blows up forwards and backwards this film works because of Christopher Nan's dedication to unique and exciting action sequences along with a pretty fun dynamic between John David Washington and Robert patson oh and lud Vic Goron's score is absolutely incredible my number eightth spot is momento this was by far the toughest movie to place in this ranking because I absolutely adore it but I have to begrudgingly place this in eighth position even after over 20 years this still might be Nolan's most unique movie I have never seen a movie that does what momento does this movie is quite literally backwards every scene starts and ends and then it cuts to a black and white scene then the next color scene starts and ends where the previous in color scene ended it repeats this process until the black and white and in color timelines converge at the end of the movie which is actually the midpoint of the story it is truly mind-blowing when you put all the pieces together while watching it for the first time and the second watch is even better too because now you know how the story flows so you can sort of sit back and see how everything fits together like a a perfect puzzle piece alongside the bizarre structure of the movie it's also just a fascinating mystery the lead character has no short-term memory so the unique structure actually helps to get you into the minds of Leonard the movie also brilliantly manages to slowly reveal information to the audience like any typical mystery film but in the reverse order so even though it's backwards you still feel like you're watching a straightforward narrative my number seven spot is The Dark Knight Rises okay I'll admit momento is definitely the better movie over Dark Knight Rises but Rises is such a satisfying conclusion to an amazing Trilogy and it's a film that I tend to watch a lot more than momento and also Batman The Dark Knight Rises might be Nan's most flawed movie but a lot of those so-called flaws can be so easily ignored by how engrossing and engaging the movie is on a character and film making level so even though I have some issues with this movie I love it with all of my heart it is the first movie that I can remember being hyped for not just excited but hyped my pre-teen self was so excited that I can remember losing sleep in the days prior to its release and I can remember it was my favorite movie for quite a while as well it obviously isn't my favorite movie by a long shot anymore but I have a ton of nostalgia for it and like I said earlier even though it is flawed it doesn't really affect my viewing experience at all some of these flaws may include clude nearly all of Ben Mendelson's dialogue The Magic knee brace the magic back healing ghost Rosal ghoul and Batman's hallucination or dream Bruce getting back to Gotham miraculously though this one I don't really see as a flaw he's Batman he can easily figure out a way back the Ty reveal is also kind of weird and Mary and card's performance becomes weirdly flat after that and her death scene is unintentionally hilarious that all said it is all outweighed by how engrossing the story is and by how satisfying the character character arcs are it's a super satisfying Trilogy Ender with some of Christopher Nolan's most ambitious film making to date even to this day his explorations of time are a bit more subtle than usual the most literal use is the timer that's on the atomic bomb that Bane uses to terrorize the city which also in turn creates a huge sense of suspense and Stakes because Gotham's time is running out I also feel that the movie explores a bit how the passage of time can affect people particularly with Bruce he leaves Batman behind and he doesn't really try to live beyond that and he loses himself in the process and when he fully becomes Batman again it isn't until after he escapes Bane's prison speaking of Bane's prison I love this interpretation of the Lazarus Pit instead of being a literal Rejuvenation pool it's more of a metaphorical Rejuvenation by Conquering the climb Bruce finds his motivation again another thing I really love about this movie is how Christopher Nolan uses a ton of IMAX footage it gives the movie a truly epic feeling and while the hand toand combat is still isn't the best compared to some other Batman films it is significantly better than the previous two movies and the Batman versus Bane fight about halfway through the movie is still great in my opinion Han Zimmer also gives one of his best scores that he's ever done my number six is the prestige The Prestige is a movie that needs to be rewatched especially after the final 10 minutes the entire perspective of the movie is completely altered upon a second watch it Mak certain weird details make perfect sense every detail in the film feels purposeful and intricately placed in the story which makes the final 10 minutes just so satisfying to watch basically the movie is about two talented magicians whose Feud continuously escalates and brings them both into very dark places Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman's characters are some of Christopher Nolan's most intricate and nuanced characters I think neither of them are good people at all but throughout the course of the film they keep doing things that make you question who is the worst person and it never definitively answers who is actually worse as far as the use of time it's very similar to how Nolan uses time in Batman Begins where the structure is slightly out of order to emphasize the importance of certain events within the story what the prestige does that is so genius is that it is a literal magic trick the First Act establishes everything that we need to know about the characters and the story setup the second act is an escalation of the story and ends with a disappearing act and the Final Act is the prestige where everything comes back together and blows your mind if you were paying extremely close attention you might have caught the trick which in this case is the twist but you probably weren't so you don't really pay attention in that specific way until a second viewing it is a genius film with some great performances in characters my number five spot is Batman Begins Batman Begins might be my favorite superhero origin story film it reestablished Batman in the culture as a character to take seriously and is filled with depth unlike the Joel schacher films it explores Bruce Wayne's deep sadness and anger along with his desire to help the innocent while inflicting his own fears onto his enemies one of my favorite shots in any Batman film is such a simple one it's at the trial of Joe Chill and Bruce is just staring at him full of sadness and contempt Christian Bale's performance is subtle here but it's so brilliant and it represents a lot of the deep-seated anger that Batman has I also love how meticulous this movie is with his origin as well Bruce in costume doesn't appear until like halfway through the movie it shows his exploration of the world where he gains an understanding of criminals his training as a literal ninja flashbacks placed at various points in the First Act of how he got to that point and his eventual return to Gotham and there it still continues to build his origin because he doesn't have his gear yet Batman Begins also has a perfect structure it doesn't have a threea structure it has a four act structure each Act has a distinct villain and concentrated story act one's villain is the fake razal ghoul and is all about the flashbacks of Bruce's childhood and his training act two's villain is Carmine Falcone and is about Bruce acquiring his gear to become Batman act three's villain is scarecrow and follows the Fallout of Falcone's arrest along with the police going after Batman and act for's villain is the real razal ghoul returning and making Bruce face all of the consequences of the previous three acts while also seamlessly connecting the entire movie into one excellent story Nolan's use of time in this film is not very prominent but he uses it for mostly nonlinear flashbacks in the first third of the movie I adore Batman Begins it's my second favorite of The Dark Knight trilogy in fourth place is inception Inception is a film that completely blew my mind the first time I saw it I hadn't ever seen anything like it at that point and it has stuck with me ever since what Christopher Nolan does with Inception is completely genius on many levels on the surface Inception is a really awesome mind-bending Heist movie with a bunch of really sweet action scenes that take place within dreams it is both really confusing yet kind of easy to follow at the same time however all that cool stuff is really just a front to the true story of inception Inception at its core is about a man who is filled with grief guilt and regret throughout the course of the story Cobb is forced to face his own demons and allow himself to return home this especially ties to the ending of inception which is one of the greatest endings of all time it sparked a debate that still continues to this day over whether or not the top falls down or if Cobb is still in the dream but what ultimately makes the ending of inception so genius is that none of that matters because Cobb has finally accepted his reality and has faced his own guilt which in turn allows himself to return home and be with his kids aside from Cobb's story there is also another fascinating yet very human story in Inception Killian Murphy's character is the centerpiece of the dream Heist but this film also tells his story which is about a son coming to terms with his relationship with his father Nolan's use of time in Inception is extremely prevalent each layer of the dream has different ways in which time is perceived it is 8 hours in real life which is a week in the first layer of the dream 6 months in the second and 10 years in the third this presents a fascinating sense of stakes in the heist because if the characters get stuck they could spend what feels like years wasting away or end up in limbo there is also the obvious literal use of time which is the final piece of music which is titled time and it also happens to be one of hanmer's best pieces of music time is also used in a bit of a more metaphorical way with Cobb constantly living in the past rather than moving forward his wife being the physical representation of living in the past and a representation of his guilt and regret Inception is one of the best science fiction movies ever made and among my favorite films done by Christopher Nolan my number three is Nolan's most recent film Oppenheimer Oppenheimer was my second favorite movie of last year and is an astonishing achievement in every manner of film making this is a movie that hasn't left my mind since I saw it in theaters back in July nearly everything about it is meticulously perfect everything from the performances the writing the cinematography the directing and the music as well it is perfect Cinema who would have guessed that an R-rated 3-hour long historical drama that consists of 99% dialogue would end up making $950 million at the box office unlike a lot of other biopics this movie feels like it actually has something to say about our world and the impact that Oppenheimer has had on our society the movie seamlessly weaves between different parts of the timeline represented in classic Nolan Fashion we have two perspectives oppenheimer's perspective being in color and st's perspective in black and white each perspective weaves in and out of the Court hearings which end up going back to the relevant events that are necessary that ultimately makes the story have the perfect impact at every moment this movie could have just been about the making of the atomic bomb and it would have been great but it also deals with the ram ifications of such a weapon and the guilt that it brought upon its creator all of oppenheimer's narrative strength Crescendo into one of the most impactful and Dread inducing final scenes that I have ever seen in my life I get full body chills every time I have seen the movie of course this movie wouldn't work as well as it does without the performances and Killian Murphy gives the performance of a lifetime he is simply masterful in this film I loved Paul Giamatti and the holdovers but if I'm being honest I'm going to be rather upset if he wins the Oscar over Killian Killian I think deserves it a million times more Oppenheimer is a devastating Masterpiece that also manages to be relentlessly entertaining and somehow extremely rewatchable I hope it wins all of the awards in second place is Interstellar I remember seeing Interstellar back in 2014 when it released and simultaneously being blown away and also really confused by the final 20 minutes and then for some reason I didn't watch it again until 2020 I don't know why I didn't see it again but since 2020 I've seen the film at least once a year I think that Interstellar is a modern science fiction classic it is easily Christopher Nolan's most emotional film that he's ever made a lot of people seem to like to accuse him of being cold in his film making but I feel like this movie directly disproves that claim Interstellar wears its heart on its sleeve and it simply would not work without the emotional connection that Nolan gives the characters the film gives such a strong feeling of pathos to Cooper and murf that you can't help but deeply care about their connection and the outcomes of their stories the movie doesn't make me SOB like it seems to do for a lot of people but the emotional stuff still hits me like a truck yeah the story and characters of interstellar make me love it but it also helps that Interstellar is full of some of the most gorgeous visuals that I've ever seen in a film and it has some of no one's strongest set pieces that he's ever done the no time for caution scene and the black hole scene are iconic for a reason it is a very long movie and not particularly fast-paced but it is so engrossing that I become so sucked into the story that I don't end up paying attention to anything else around me and of course all of the performances are fantastic Matthew MCC is stunning in the film and personally I think that this performance is a little better than his Oscar winning role but that's just me and Jessica chestin is just as great as she usually is every time I watch Interstellar I am completely blown away by how real Everything feels there are obviously a ton of visual effects and a ton of CGI but it all seamlessly blends with the Practical effects and it makes the visuals near perfect Han Zimmer score is also a masterpiece it's iconic for a reason the themes of time are also pretty overt in this movie the main theme of the movie is that love transcends space and time so Nolan almost does that literally in the story Cooper's love for his daughter is what ultimately saves Humanity in the end even though he's millions of light years away and hasn't aged a bit due to time dilation a lot of the science in the movie is also surprisingly accurate so even when it becomes very Fantastical in the final 20 minutes it still ultimately feels authentic Interstellar is simply an experience to behold and my number one favorite Christopher Nolan movie couldn't be anything else it's the Dark Knight super unpopular opinion I know honestly what can I say about the Dark Knight that hasn't been said a million times already it is a Relentless heart pounding action thriller that has stood the test of time we live in a world full of great comic book movies now yet this movie still stands above a lot of them as a unique film and it is still one of the best comic book films even after nearly 16 years now it isn't n't quite my favorite comic book movie it's my second favorite but that's for me to discuss later down the road if I want to Heath Ledger as the Joker is my all-time favorite movie villain and my all-time favorite acting performance there is so much to his performance both in the overtly intense aspects and the more subtle things he completely commands every scene he's in and clearly steals the movie Ledger is so good in this movie that we kind of forget how great everyone else is Aaron eart as Harvey Den is truly underrated he plays this descent into a tragic character so perfectly both from a acting perspective and a character perspective we completely understand why Harvey loses it by the end of the film there are just so many iconic moments in this movie that it's almost impossible to list them all off from the opening bank heist to the why so serious scene the truck flip the interrogation scene and so much more pretty much every scene in this movie is Iconic and perfectly hand handled and H Zimmer once again delivers an incredible score if I had any criticism of The Dark Knight it would be that I don't think that Maggie Gyllenhaal was the best choice to play Rachel I think she's fine in the movie but not among the better performances to cap off my analysis of time throughout this video The Dark Knight is filled with ultimatums and timers The Joker constantly puts timers on his threats whether it be requesting Batman to reveal his identity or the hospital bomb or the boats in the finale there is also the recurring theme of how we spend our time with our loved ones this theme is particularly important for Bruce and Harvey how they spent their time before and after Rachel's death defines their character's Fates overall The Dark Knight is Iconic for so many reasons and still stands as my favorite of Christopher Nolan's filmography thanks for watching this overly long video about me fanboying over my favorite filmmaker if you could hit that subscribe button and like the video that would be great okay bye if it is to be said so it be so it is

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Length: 27min 5sec (1625 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 18 2024