It’s impossible to deny that Sir Christopher Nolan is among the greatest and most influential filmmakers of all time, especially in the 21st century. His interest in complex and compelling stories, mastery of blockbuster spectacle, and insistence on practical effects have conjured a litany of dazzling and distinguished masterpieces that have largely defined must-see cinematic events in recent decades. In the eyes of many, the 2008 groundbreaking superhero classic The Dark Knight is his magnum opus. The engrossing story of Batman’s (Christian Bale) stand against the Joker’s (Heath Ledger) reign of terror over Gotham City strikes a faultless marriage between superhero grandiosity and pulsating psychological suspense. Today, it is widely viewed as one of the best Hollywood blockbusters of the century so far, if not the outright greatest.
Nolan’s pristine filmography—which consists of five Academy Award-winning pictures, multiple pop-culture-defining instant classics, and some of the highest-grossing movies of all time—has produced a number of incredible movies. Indeed, many of those triumphs could easily lay claim to being the director’s grandest triumph instead of The Dark Knight. Maybe it’s an early psychological thriller that showcases his penchant for time-bending drama at its absolute best. Maybe it’s a sci-fi epic heralded by many as the greatest picture the genre has ever seen, or even a brilliant biopic that secured Nolan his first Oscar for Best Director. The fact remains that each of these exceptional films could understandably surpass The Dark Knight as the best movie Christopher Nolan has directed thus far.
‘Memento’ (2000)
Interestingly, despite its enduring brilliance, strong performances, commanding direction, and genius screenwriting, Memento is not included among the five Christopher Nolan movies that have gone on to win at the Academy Awards. In fact, it was only nominated for two Oscars at the 74th Academy Awards—Best Original Screenplay for Christopher and Jonathan Nolan and Best Editing for Dody Dorn. Yet, it is universally viewed by critics and audiences alike as being among the very best psychological thrillers of the century, and even of all time. Taut and tense, and laced with a ceaseless sense of suspenseful intrigue, it follows anterograde amnesiac Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce) as he strives to track down the man who murdered his wife. While he uses a Polaroid camera and tattoos to keep track of the clues he unearths, Lenny’s condition also makes him susceptible to manipulation from those around him.
The precision and complexity of the screenplay is undoubtedly Memento’s masterstroke, with the story unfurling in reverse chronological order to immerse viewers in Lenny’s confused headspace. The movie opens with Lenny killing his target, but it builds incredible tension as it goes on by showing how he has been manipulated by those he trusts. Furthermore, despite this backwards structuring, the screenplay still excels at giving a sharp and succinct introduction in the first act, building the suspense through act two, and culminating in a shocking and rewarding climax at the end of act three. Also buoyed by sublime performances, outstanding editing, and a gritty low-budget aesthetic that proves that Nolan doesn’t need a monumental budget to produce a masterpiece, Memento is an exceptional triumph of tense thrills and evocative drama. It was instrumental in Nolan’s career as it jettisoned him from being a relative unknown in the industry to one of the most exciting emerging names of the early 2000s. To make his achievement all the more astounding, Memento was only his second feature film in Nolan’s career.
‘Interstellar’ (2014)
When any movie is favorably compared to Stanley Kubrick’s immortal classic 2001: A Space Odyssey, its standing in the annals of sci-fi cinema history is beyond repute. That is certainly the case for Interstellar, an epic adventure of high-stakes survival that bolsters its hard science-fiction concept with powerful emotional beats, intricate storytelling, and perhaps the greatest visual feat that the genre has ever seen. The ravishing blockbuster takes place in a near-future where blight is devastating the world’s crops, bringing humanity to the brink of extinction and seeing the remnants of NASA enact a desperate plan to find a new home world for mankind. When a former NASA test pilot is led to the agency’s coordinates by an unseen force, he is tasked with piloting the mission, flying through a wormhole near Saturn, and examining the livability of three promising planets with a small crew of scientists.
There is hardly an element of the film that isn’t handled with perfection and majesty, be it Hans Zimmer’s enrapturing score, the meticulous realization of a black hole, the profoundly powerful performances, or Nolan’s commanding direction. The space travel story is particularly brilliant for how it tethers the intensity of humanity’s fight for survival to Cooper’s (Matthew McConaughey) beautiful relationship with his daughter. Indeed, their love serves as the beating heart of the movie, imbuing every success with an air of triumph and every detrimental twist with poignant tragedy. Moreover, it makes exceptional use of essential Nolan tropes like groundbreaking practical effects, time-bending storytelling, and rich yet accessible high-concept complexity. In the end, Interstellar is easy to regard as being not only the greatest movie Nolan has made thus far, but the one that best defines his strengths as a director and storyteller as well.
‘Oppenheimer’ (2023)
A departure from the tone of action excess and violent intensity that were a mainstay of his filmography since his work on The Dark Knight trilogy, Oppenheimer is possibly Nolan’s most singular movie thus far. Of course, it maintains several of the filmmaker’s defining tropes — interest in non-linear narratives, utilization of practical effects, an astounding sense of scope — but it applies them to an intense biographical drama rather than a fantastical action blockbuster. The result is simply incredible. Oppenheimer became an instant pop-culture phenomenon that garnered seven Academy Award wins, including Best Director for Nolan and Best Picture. It immediately enshrined itself as one of the most important movies of the 21st century so far with its pressing thematic exploration of the burden of genius, mankind’s appetite for mass destruction, the ethical responsibilities of scientific discovery, and even America’s murky history of political persecution through McCarthyism.
The three-hour epic depicts the scientific career of J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy), covering the theoretical physicist’s education and left-wing political sympathies in his youth to his appointment as the scientific director of the Manhattan Project. As the U.S. enters a desperate race against Nazi Germany to develop an atomic bomb, the film captures Oppenheimer’s increasing desperation and inner turmoil. Crucially, it also covers the defamation and retrospective criticism he faces in the wake of WWII and America’s bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A stunning technical triumph that excels at realizing historically significant events with intensity, Oppenheimer is an overwhelming tour de force from Christopher Nolan. The sporadic yet precise narrative structure, the overlapping thematic ideas of power and accountability, the highly anticipated recreation of the Trinity test, and the narrative’s overall pressing nature all implore viewers to consider its depiction of nuclear war and international conflict in the modern world.