Christopher Nolan Movies Ranked - Power Ranking Thursday
- Luke Loew
- 1 day ago
- 12 min read
Following the release of his 13th film, The Odyssey, a couple weeks ago -- which is on pace to make over $1 Billion and be the highest-grossing R-rated film of all time -- Christopher Nolan is in a class of his own among filmmakers (if he wasn't already). His films are not only commercially successful, they're incredibly well-made, entertaining, diverse films that span genres and vary from originals to adaptations to comic book movies. Even the average person who goes to one movie a year has probably seen 5+ Christopher Nolan movies, making him one of the most accessible directors in the game right now, as well as the most successful.
Since my social media feed is still covered in discourse around The Odyssey -- and the rest of Nolan's filmography for that matter -- I decided I wanted to sit down and put together my own ranking of Nolan movies. And what better day to do a ranking blog than Power Ranking Thursday?
While the ranking below will be my personal rankings -- I've also decided to poll my peers that are movie-ball-knowers. Specifically, Nolan-Knowers -- and asking them for their rankings of the Nolan films they've seen. I will compile their rankings and create their aggregate ranking of Nolan's filmography to accompany my personal rankings. So if you think I'm way too high on X movie -- you'll see how the average movie fan would rank it compared to mine (or at least how the average 20-something male would rank it -- and shoutout to all those who contributed their rankings for this blog).
As for my background/qualifications on the subject matter for today's blog -- I'm a big Nolan guy, but there were some gaps in my viewing that had to be filled in the last week+. I was first introduced during his Batman Trilogy and Inception -- missed a couple in the mid-late 2010's -- and got back on the horse in College-Present from Tenet to The Odyssey. I only just now saw Interstellar for the first time this past week -- arguably my biggest movie blind-spot. The one movie I haven't seen -- and respectfully don't plan to watch any time soon -- is Following.
Enough preamble -- let's rank some fucking bangers.
#13: Following
Aggregate Ranking: #13
Unseen -- but to complete the ranking, it gets #13.
#12: Insomnia
Aggregate Ranking: #12
Right off the bat -- I like every single movie in this ranking list, so just because something's down this far, doesn't make it a bad movie. I hadn't seen Insomnia but watched in preparation of this blog -- and I came away a little surprised it's not more well-known. A psychological murder mystery set in a unique location (Alaska in a town where the "Midnight Sun" causes perpetual daylight 24 hours a day). A really good Robin Williams performance that's different than what you're used to seeing, not my favorite Pacino performance but solid enough (I'm not a Hillary Swank guy either, so she wasn't my favorite part of it). Just a solid early-career film from Nolan, but lacks the identity his later films have (and moves pretty slow for my taste).
#11: Batman Begins
Aggregate Ranking: #11
My friend Louis, who was polled for the aggregate rankings, asked if he could leave the 3 Batman movies out because it's hard to compare them to the rest of Nolan's filmography. And while building the blueprint for this -- I definitely see his point. It's kind of apples to oranges comparing Batman Begins to his other films. I like a good comic book origin story, and this is one of his early movies where you see trademark Nolan shots come into play. It's visually great, but when I put it up next to his other Batman movies -- it lacks juice to me. I do like Cillian Murphy's Scarecrow villain and how he's used, and Liam Neeson is good as Ra's al Gul -- but the villains pale in comparison to the next 2 of the trilogy. It's a good introduction to Christian Bale's Batman, but I don't love the 3rd act, and while it's still a very good hero origin story -- it's my least favorite of the 3 Batman movies.
#10: Dark Knight Rises
Aggregate Ranking: #8
Speaking of Batman movies, next is Dark Knight Rises -- the 3rd and final of Nolan's Batman trilogy. This movie's difficult for me to rank because it has the widest spectrum of all his Batman films -- maybe of all his movies in general. What I love in this movie, I REALLY love -- the first sequence introducing Bane, the football stadium demo, Bane breaking Batman, and even the ending (while a little cheesy, I love Alfred too much for it not to work). There's also a lot that doesn't work at all for me -- it feels overloaded with side characters, the final battle's anticlimactic, lots of exposition-dumping, not enough Batman being Batman, the twist (and meme-able death scene) of "Miranda Tate." I do absolutely love me some Tom Hardy and think Bane is a fucking awesome villain -- but this movie is way too inconsistent for me to rank it among Nolan's best.
#9: Tenet
Aggregate Ranking: #10
First watch of Tenet, I imagine I was in the same boat as many others in saying I -- 1) wasn't a huge fan, and 2) didn't quite understand what I had just watched. Nolan is no stranger to the sci-fi genre or a deeply complex plot, but this one was a head-scratcher for me. Upon a rewatch this past week, my opinion on the plot hasn't changed -- but I did have way more fun with it. Not because things all of a sudden started making sense -- but because I stopped trying to make it make sense. "Don't try to understand it. Feel it"
When you let go of trying to understand it, it's a really fun and wild ride with an ending I've come to love. Some of the best visuals and practical effects of any Nolan movie, the score is insane, the action is great (best hand-to-hand action in a Nolan movie). The reason it doesn't rank higher for me are compounding variables of my specific taste -- sci-fi is a genre I don't love and have trouble buying in on, I'm a dialogue guy and you can barely hear 50% of the dialogue in this film, and I'm a substance over spectacle guy -- and Tenet to me is more spectacle.
#8: Memento
Aggregate Ranking: #9
Memento was another late entry to my Nolan Checklist as I watched it on a plane ride not long ago. Not an ideal setting for any movie, but even through the turbulence, it was easy to tell why this one's revered as early-Nolan's best movie. This movie was the breakout for Nolan's signature style and how he likes to play around with Time in his story-telling -- telling the story in two concurrent timelines using black and white vs color. The premise is incredible -- a man with amnesia that can't sustain new memories trying to connect the dots behind his wife's murder. Guy Pearce is excellent in the lead role as Teddy, Joey Pants plays a classic Joey Pants role to perfection, and I love the way the story unfolds. Doesn't hit with you the big-time visuals and sound you get in his later work -- but excels as more of a street-level thriller/mystery with a compelling premise.
#7: The Prestige
Aggregate Ranking: #5
Of a similar vain to Memento, The Prestige is a movie that takes an ultra-unique premise -- a period-piece about two rival magicians -- and turns it into one of the more entertaining and sleek thrillers you'll see. Criminally underrated for years, The Prestige now has a cult of fans praising it as one of Nolan's forgotten masterpieces. Starring Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman as the feuding magicians, they go from partners to enemies after Bale's character pulls off the ultimate trick -- and Jackman's character spirals while trying to uncover the secret and emulate it. (Both are excellent as well).
This movie works so well because we as the audience are trying just as hard as Jackman's character to figure out the trick. This makes the final reveal all the better -- and the twists and turns to get there make for an exciting watch. It's not as tight as other Nolan films -- I think the experimentation aspects drag a bit. Plus all the side characters are pretty under-developed, but a 2-hander from 2 of the best actors in the game with a super enticing premise makes it an enthralling watch.
#6: Interstellar
Aggregate Ranking: #1
As I said in the preamble, for whatever reason, this movie had slipped through the cracks for me. And based on the rankings I've gotten back from the people I polled, was a glaring omission -- ranked #1 for half. So there was a lot of hype going into this over the weekend, and despite what may be considered a low ranking on paper -- it definitely lived up to that hype. I was blown away once again by the visual story-telling he pulls off, found the usage of Time interesting, hits the emotional beats as good if not better than any of his other movies, and is a truly fascinating subject matter. The scene on the water planet, the Matt Damon planet, in the blackhole tesseract -- all of it is not only beautiful visually, but just enthralling and intense. It's also one of the better McConaughey performances I've seen in a long time, and I always love me some Anne Hathaway.
I think part of what doesn't push this movie into the Top-5 for me can be attributed to my slight aversion to Sci-Fi mentioned earlier. I don't find the action sequences in this movie to be great (the Matt Damon character twist worked incredible -- the following fight in spacesuits did not), the best moment of the movie (McConaughey in the blackhole tesseract seeing Murph) gets undercut right after with a huge exposition dump, and there were some plot points/motivations I took issue with.
These are minor complaints -- this movie absolutely fucking rips, and if I saw it 12 years ago when it first came out on an IMAX screen, I'd probably piss myself and rank it #1. I have no problem with anyone that ranks it high -- it's a great movie, just not my preferred taste, even when done extremely well.
#5: Dunkirk
Aggregate Ranking: #7
Something about me is I absolutely love a war movie -- I'm a history buff and a movie buff, so it's a match made in heaven. I wasn't completely blown away by Dunkirk the first time I saw it -- it's a starkly different movie than what I had become accustom to seeing from Christopher Nolan, but I rewatched it recently and it shot back up my rankings when I did. In a lot of Nolan movies, he conveys what he thinks and how he feels about real world elements into his film -- which broadly, I think is a good thing. But in Dunkirk, he isn't trying to get a point across. It's all show, no tell -- which in this genre, I fucking love.
The story of Dunkirk is not something I was familiar with, so I enjoyed learning about it through this film. The aerial fights are incredible, the pure scale of seeing that many soldiers on screen is staggering, the explosions and naval elements are great. And once again, the element of time is always played with in Nolan movies -- and to me, it is extremely effective, especially on a second viewing (I think it got lost on me on 1st viewing, but going into it again knowing how it aligns and crescendos at the end is such a great pay-off). Super tight run-time, excellent sound and visuals, and extremely under-rated in Nolan's filmography.
#4: Inception
Aggregate Ranking: #6
Is it possible that Inception has sneakily become Nolan's most under-rated film? I think it has based on the polling and discussions I hear about the movie. This was really Nolan's first swing at an ultra-complex, original screenplay in the Sci-Fi genre. I think there are a lot of comparisons to Interstellar and Tenet with this movie -- time being a massive theme, deeply complex and confusing premise, putting us in uncharted waters for setting and location. I share the same nitpick about Interstellar with this, that I think there's a lot of exposition-dumping to get the audience up to speed with what's happening. Where I think Inception works better is they load that exposition up in the early-middle parts of the film, so you know enough to make the final act a non-stop rollercoaster ride. Which is also why this movie -- as well as many other Nolan movies -- is so rewarding upon rewatch.
This is also a nostalgic movie for me as it was the first mind-bender of Nolan's that I watched. It also features one of my favorite actors Leo DiCaprio -- plus Tom Hardy and Cillian Murphy throwing fast-balls in side roles (Not a big Joseph Gordon-Leavitt fan, but like him in this movie). I think every dream sequence in this movie looks incredible -- from the Paris dream to the snowy mountains to the rotating hallway fight. It's in the upper echelon of Nolan for me in terms of sound design, visuals, emotional beats, practical effects, ending, action, and callbacks. If the dialogue was a little less clunky/exposition-forward, this would be #1 on my list.
#3: The Odyssey
Aggregate Ranking: #3
I've already written at length about The Odyssey, so I'm going to keep this tight. This is the biggest story Nolan's ever told, his biggest cinematic achievement ever, and an absolute banger of a movie (despite what the dorks say on Twitter). Since I couldn't get into specifics last time around, the particular scenes I'm still thinking about 2 weeks after seeing it are the Great Hall fight, Odysseus' stops with the Cyclops, Circe, on Hades, the Laestrygonians, and the long-cut scene of The Battle of Troy. There really wasn't a single performance I didn't like, there was no dead-time in it's almost 3-hour-run-time, and I'd happily go back to the theater tomorrow to see it again. Call it recency bias if you want, but I think there's a good chance in 5/10 years this could be #1 on my list, and the list of many others as well.
#2: The Dark Knight
Aggregate Ranking: #4
From the first time I watched The Dark Knight up until I started writing this blog, I would have had it ranked #1. And it's flipped back and forth from 1 to 2 multiple times while writing -- but I've landed on #2 for TDK. A factor that can't be overlooked in why I love it so much is Nostalgia -- this was the first Nolan movie I ever saw (saw it before Batman Begins even), first Batman movie I saw, and is without a doubt the movie I've rewatched the most (Probably encroaching on 30+ viewings). I love comic book movies, I love Nolan movies, and I love a psychological thriller -- and this is all 3 at the highest quality.
For my money, the best acting performance in any Nolan movie is Heath Ledger as the Joker -- a generational performance that's still in the highest regard 15+ years later. Elite action set-pieces from the bank heist to the armored car/Bat mobile chase to the Hospital explosion. Elite psychological warfare with the Rachel/Harvey dilemma and the citizen/prisoners' boat dilemma. A rapid pace that never lets up, and solid dialogue for a comic book movie. I think the 3rd act is weaker than the first 2, but more because the 1st 2 are closer to perfect than the 3rd is to bad. It's Nolan doing what he does best in the setting of the most popular type of movie at the time -- which is why it was such a phenomenon then, and why it's stood the test of time today.
#1: Opppenheimer
Aggregate Ranking: #2
What do you get when you take one of the greatest living directors, one of the most famous people in US History as the subject, make an equal parts thriller/courtroom drama/historical biopic, cast my favorite actor in the world in Cillian Murphy, populate the movie with tons of my other favorite actors, add in the best score (in my opinion) in 21st century movies, elite practical effects, and the best dialogue of that director's filmography? You get Bean's Blogs' #1 Nolan Movie.
The components of this movie are right in my Q-zone -- so this was always gonna work for me subjectively. I can see how people would get more enjoyment out of watching one of Nolan's more fun/trippy Sci-Fi movies, but for me, getting to see this incredible cast at the incredible scale Nolan builds out with Oppenheimer is everything I can hope for when I see a movie. Cillian Murphy is perfect, I love Matt Damon, Josh Hartnett, Robert Downey Jr., Emily Blunt -- all the main supporting cast. I REALLY love the Casey Affleck, Gary Oldman as Truman, Kenneth Branagh, etc quick-hit scenes, and just seeing so many familiar movie faces scattered throughout the film. The scale of Los Alamos really breathed life into the movie, the amount of time-jumping worked for me (but can see how others wouldn't love it) because of how it all comes together. The Trinity Test itself is about as blown away as I've ever been in a movie theater, and knowing Nolan filmed it practically makes it all the more impressive.
I've rewatched this movie 5 times since it came out, and I love it even more every time. I think the first 2 hours are a perfect movie, and I think the last hour is a 95/100 movie. There are no wrong answers at #1 when it comes to Christopher Nolan movies -- but for me, it was always gonna be Oppenheimer.
Unreal stuff. Keep it coming!