Christopher Nolan Top Ten

With the release of Tenet, I thought I might rip off many film mags/websites and do a top ten of Nolan's films. For the sake of cleanliness, I've forgone his first feature, Following (assume it's 11th) and all his shorts. Let's go.

10. Insomnia (2002)

This is a remake of a 1997 Norwegian film starring Stellan Skarsgard in the Pacino role. Williams and Pacino are great and this is a pretty good film, but I prefer the others.

9. The Dark Knight (2008)

This might be an unpopular choice but, again, I actually liked this film, just not as much as the first or third in this Batman series. Ledger is spectacular and the set pieces are fantastic but it lost me with the Harvey Dent subplot and the ferry sequence was too portentous.

8. The Prestige (2006)

Clever, well-paced thriller, stacked with big names putting in sterling performances. I'm actually going to watch it again soon to try and figure out why so many people rate it as Nolan's best. It's very good but the best? Not for me.

7. Memento (2000)

This was Nolan's second feature after Following, and his first step into the US film industry, though he was still a few years off supreme leader type power. Memento is the beginning of Nolan's dalliance with time and his experiments to confuse his audience with fractured narratives and timelines. This works, as I needed to see it about three times to 'get it'. Pretty amazing stuff.

6. The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

Many folk have this as the weakest of Nolan's Batman trilogy but I quite liked the high stakes and the rug-pulls and the anarchic idea of forcing a city to sever itself from the rest of society. Tom Hardy's Bane was fun and an infinite amount of Marion Cotillard would still be scrimping.

5. Batman Begins (2005)

Never a fan of the Burton & Schumacher Batmans (Batmen?), nor the campy shite from the 60s, not to mention the latest DC crud, Nolan's first crack at the job was a gritty rejig, a rebirth of the character. Lashings of confident style and Christian Bale had an easy charm as well. Best of the bunch.

4. Tenet (2020)

See previous blog entry for thoughts on this gem. It's just about the most Nolany you can get, quite the melon-twister, but he pulls off the neat trick of not having it matter so much if you can't follow proceedings. Film-making summed up with this line - "Bold I'm fine with, I thought you were going to say nuts."

3. Interstellar (2014)

For all its faults (iffy dialogue, questionable politics and sentimentality) this packs a punch like none of Nolan's other work. I'm not on the best terms with McConaughey or Hathaway and yet, Interstellar had me in bits, weeping like an infant. Add a few magnificent set-pieces and you're onto a winner.

2. Inception (2010)

Career peaks galore here - DiCaprio, Page, Hardy, Gordon-Levitt - in the film that has become a throw-away term for inferior copies "Oh, it's kind of Inception-y." High stakes, complex set-ups and tension-building in spades, Inception is a ball-tearer of an experience. And a glorious, 'choose your own' final shot. Supreme film-making.

1. Dunkirk (2017)

When I left the cinema after seeing this I, maybe rashly, suggested to myself that Dunkirk was the best film I'd seen for around a decade. Still not sure I'd disagree with 2017 me. It's bloody amazing. The concentric story threads meeting at a pivot point in the ocean could be a gimmick in other hands, but Nolan barely brings our attention to this aspect, instead focussing on the lives of the desperate characters. Excellent work.

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