Sunday Best: Christopher Nolan Movies Ranked (update 2023)

It's been been many years since I've ranked the films of Christopher Nolan.  To my mind he is one of the best directors working in the industry today.  With Oppenheimer being another enormous hit for him, I thought it would be a good idea to look back at his filmography.

The man has not made a bad movie in his entire directorial career.  It helps that he is very selective about his films and he has incredible personal control over all of the stories he's ever filmed.

So below are all 12 of Nolan's movies ranked in order from least to greatest.

12.  Insomnia

Of all Nolan's movies, this one is the one that feels the least Nolan-y.  And as far as I know it is the only one that is a remake of another film.  But it is still very dark and moody with some excellent performances.  Pacino's guilt is so visibly felt throughout the film and Robin William's turn as a mastermind killer showed a bold choice.  And the film still deals with big ideas about truth and conscience.

11.  Following

I caught this one on Netflix and it is a fascinating noir film about a man who becomes obsessed with following random people that he sees in public.  This could have easily devolved into some kind of psycho-sexual nonsense.  But he sets out early on that it about this a man who cannot connect to people who is drawn into a strange world of pulling the curtain back on people's lives.  It also is the first film that shows Nolan's funky use of chronology.

10.  Tenet

There is a line in this movie where someone tells the protagonist something along the lines of "feel it, don't think it."  This is the way you are supposed to watch the film.  However, Nolan's movies tend to lack the strong emotional core that would allow for this.  Tenet is technically a brilliant film.  The use of reverse time is fascinating.  But the story is so convoluted that it sounds smarter than it actually is.  

9.  Dunkirk

Again, I don't think anyone can criticize Nolan's technical mastery of cinema.  All of his powers behind the camera are on full display in this movie.  The film draws you into the harrowing life of the men who went through that horrible battle.  But there is an emotional distance that keeps this movie from forming a permanent bond in your memory the way something like Saving Private Ryan does.

8.  Oppenheimer

I will have a full review for this up soon.  The main problem with Oppenheimer is that Nolan's wants to do too much in one movie so that the movie feels too long and too short at the same time.  Having said that, it highlights some of his best cinematic work.  Many will point to the Trinity test, but I would look at Oppenheimer's post Trinity speech, where Nolan shows you visually what the main character is feeling in a unique way.

7.  The Prestige

This is a movie that will mess with your head.  Even when you figure out one twist (which I did a bit too early), when the film finishes and you understand the implications of what the last 5 minutes reveals about obsession… it sticks with you long after the movie is over.  This is a movie that gets better with every subsequent re-watch.

6.  Batman Begins

Nolan modeled this film after Richard Donner's Superman and it shows.  He tells a story that is epic in its scope and takes us on Bruce Wayne's journey in a way that no other cinematic Batman has.  In many ways this is very different than most Nolan films.  You can almost feel him trying to adapt his style to the comic book genre.  But even within those constraints, he gave us a great Batman movie.

5.  Interstellar

This is easily Nolan's most emotional movie.  It is not that his other movies are cold or are not moving.  But this was the first time I ever saw him reach deep and pull at the heartstrings while once again wrestling with the big ideas of life.  While the ending does stumble a bit, the emotional themes carry through all the way to the end.  On top of this you have some real edge-of-your-seat moments that hold your attention all the way through to the end.

4.  The Dark Knight Rises

Unlike many of its detractors, I think the final chapter of Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy is fantastic.  He does an excellent job of drawing elements from the previous movies and weaving them into a film that feels like a definitive goodbye to his story.  To this day I get chills when Selina Kyle tries to get Bruce to leave with her saying that he doesn't owe anything to people of Gotham and that he already gave them everything, to which he responds: "Not everything.  Not yet."

3.  Inception

I have seen this movie over and over and I find it fascinating every time.  The layers that stack upon layers never suffocate the action through line of the story that holds you up until the very last second.  I love the way the movie keeps you enthralled and fascinated.  It lays out the plan so meticulously and then throws the plan out right away.  Someone pointed out how the movie is partially an allegory for film-making itself.  Usually I find these kind of analyses reductive.  But in this case, it makes the movie all the more enjoyable for me, since it gives me a glance into Nolan's artistic process.

2.  The Dark Knight

Arguably the greatest super hero film ever made, Nolan understood that he could make a film that transcends traditional genre walls and talk about something deep about human nature.   People often play up the violent and dark nature of the Joker, but it shouldn't overlook Nolan's ultimate message which is that people are naturally decent.  That is a radical message in today's cinema.  You can see the evolution of his style between this and Batman Begins.  If I didn't know better, I would have said two different directors were used for each film because of how different they look.  But Nolan's insistence of grounding The Dark Knight in the real world makes it all the more terrifying and engaging all the way until the final line.

1.  Memento

I have never seen a movie like this.  The level of complexity, artistry, execution, and transcendence continues to blow me away more than a decade later.  When I used to teach film, I would show this movie to my students to walk them through how a great director plans his shots and what they mean.  The movie has Nolan's trademark sense of intelligence, but it also has at its heart the primal desire for retribution, which marries the logical with the emotional.  When people see this movie they rethink what movies can be.  And that is why this is his best film.

Thoughts?