Director Christopher Nolan filming The Dark Knight Rises in 2020.
Director Christopher Nolan filming The Dark Knight Rises in 2020.
Following Christopher Nolan’s big Oscar wins for Oppenheimer — the latest in his award-winning film career — our entertainment expert takes a look at the director’s back catalogue of blockbuster films and ambitious twists of logic to rank the best of the bunch.
Christopher Nolan is undoubtedly cinema’s man of the moment. The writer-director’s latest film, Oppenheimer,caused a bang at Monday’s Academy Awards ceremony taking home seven awards, including the two biggies, Best Picture and Best Director.
Nolan has long been celebrated for his cerebral take on genres. Whether turning his hand to sci-fi (2014′s Interstellar), comic book (2005′s Batman Begins) or cop thriller (2002′s Insomnia), he injects an intelligent complexity into proceedings and shows a skill for creating memorably hair-raising action scenes. It’s proved a winning combo.
With that in mind, here are our picks of Christopher Nolan’s top six flicks. We’ve also dived into the archives to see what our NZHerald critics thought of these films at the time.
Dunkirk is intense and brutal with explosions shaking your chair and bullets whizzing all around. Photo / Melinda Sue Gordon
Of all Nolan’s films, his World War II action-thriller is the least suited to watching at home. It’s truly a big-screen epic that drops you on to the beaches of Dunkirk and then drops bombs, artillery, enemy fire and the full horrors of war on you as you anxiously wait with the British soldiers for their rescue and evacuation. The action is intense and brutal and the sound is incredible, with explosions shaking your chair and bullets whizzing all around. But the most terrifying is the high-pitched, ear-piercing roar of approaching enemy planes that signals another incoming attack. War is hell and Dunkirk shows you exactly why.
NZ Herald review: Classic and innovative in equal measure.
5: The Prestige (2006)
This dark, psychological thriller about rival magicians in Victorian-era London is often unfairly overlooked in Nolan’s oeuvre, but it’s a thoroughly enjoyable head-scratcher. Nolan again teams up with Christian Bale, casting him as a magician whose prestige trick The Transporting Man makes him the toast of London town. This dismays his bitter rival Robert, played by Hugh Jackman, who obsessively tries to uncover the secret of the trick and ends up revealing something much more macabre. It’s a wonderfully grimy period piece that keeps you guessing until its big reveal. Bonus points awarded for David Bowie’s electrifying cameo as Nikola Tesla.
Nolan’s inventive and innovative special effects are truly something to behold as he defies and ridicules the laws of physics. Photo / Supplied
4: Inception (2010)
Reality literally folds in on itself in this eye-popping, mind-boggling sci-fi flick that people are still puzzling — and arguing over — to this day. It stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a corporate thief who steals info by entering people’s dreams and burrowing into their subconscious. It’s a risky business and Nolan’s inventive and innovative special effects are truly something to behold as he defies and ridicules the laws of physics to present some visually astounding action set-pieces that were unlike anything seen before. The movie is, essentially, a play on the tired old soap opera trope of “but it was all a dream”. But Nolan throws in enough “or was it?” to keep you guessing long after the credits roll.
NZ Herald review: Engaging all the way to its note-perfect ending.
3: The Dark Knight (2008)
Nolan had brought an auteur’s eye to the comic book genre with 2005′s Batman Begins, but this sequel elevated the entire genre and ushered in the age of the superhero. The whole thing rests on Heath Ledger’s unhinged performance as the Joker. His startling take on the iconic character is less clown prince of crime and more punk rock anarchist. Nolan and his Imax camera wisely allow Ledger plenty of screen time to burn if not the world, at least good chunks of Gotham, down. It may be Batman’s movie, but The Dark Knight is the Joker’s show.
NZ Herald review: Undoubtedly the best thing you’ll see this year. Go see it!
2: Memento (2001)
Nolan’s breakthrough feature is an unforgettable film about an amnesiac attempting to hunt down his wife’s murderer. It’s assured and confident and does not betray the fact that it’s only the director’s second feature. Indeed, many of his signature traits are fully formed and displayed in this neo-noir mystery. It’s thrillingly complex and ambitious as its mind-bending story unravels in reverse order across two timelines. Nolan gives all the clues to puzzle out the answer along with Guy Pearce’s forgetful protagonist, but as trusts are betrayed and true motives are revealed, the chances are you’ll remain as bamboozled and desperate for answers as our hero.
NZ Herald review: Compelling and absorbing.
Oppenheimer may be a historical biopic about a scientist, but it plays out with all the excitement, intrigue and intensity of a thriller. Photo / AP
1: Oppenheimer (2023)
Of course, the No 1 Nolan film you should watch is the one everyone is talking about. Oppenheimer may be a historical biopic about a scientist, but it plays out with all the excitement, intrigue and edge-of-your-seat intensity of a thriller. It’s a heavy film about the heaviest of subjects; creating the potential to end our world.
Nolan again plays with time, jumping back and forth through J. Robert Oppenheimer’s life as he creates and then repulses away from the atom bomb.
At three hours long it’s an epic in every sense of the word, and one of the rare films that rocks you to your core. But perhaps its most terrifying revelation is that horrifying mass destruction is simply another item to be shuffled through mundane administrative processes.
NZ Herald review: He [Nolan] overreaches and underdelivers.
