Here we are a week after the unprecedented “Barbieheimer” social media / societal blitzkrieg, and I couldn’t help but to try and make my tiny contribution in the best way I know how.
For the sixth chapter of this series, I want to cover a person who is quite possibly the heir apparent to Steven Spielberg himself. A man whose name is so synonymous with large-scale tentpole-like IMAX-infused practical effects using shenanigans that one could say a filmgoing generation of imitators of his will soon be descending upon us…
CHRISTOPHER EDWARD NOLAN
Every single solitary film director that you can classify as an absolute legend tends to have 4 phases in their career:
1. The “who the f*** is this person” moment. This usually comes with a breakout film AND the equally dope follow-up to what you can’t help but pay serious attention to.
2. The run of consistency of above-average / great movies that make the person a household name.
3. The Apex film is followed by a sort of Apex epoch in which not only makes the filmmaker a household name, but a household name that starts to sell the movie just as much as the actors that are in the films…which can lead to…
4. Elite status, creative license, name brand recognition, regular eight to 9 figure paychecks, and debates and conversations involving the filmmaker amongst the true greats to have ever directed films.
That 4th part only happens to a select few, and we are staring right down the barrel with that when it comes to Nolan. I find, more often than not, that people who have always claimed to have loved his work are now starting to get super nit-picky with it for the sake of contrarianism. There are justifiable complaints about things getting a little bit too complicated when it comes to Nolan flicks, but he’s still a Hall of Famer, no? Well, I just want to go over things to make sure.
But first, something notable to mention…
The first movie that Christopher Nolan ever made was a movie called Following. It’s a decent enough film. It is pretty entertaining. However, it is a film that has virtually no impact on any discussions of his legacy. The reason why I’ve started this series is to discuss the films that really matter when discussing the legacy of someone, and following just ain’t that. So it’s not going to be on this list.
Anywho, without further Ado here, is….
THE CHRISTOPHER NOLAN TIER LIST!!!!
| 🌟CINEMATIC HALL OF FAME🌟 |  |
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|---|---|---|---|---|
| Greatness 🤩 |  |
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| Greatness Adjacent |  |
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| Goodness 😊 |  |
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| Meh... |  |
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| What the f*** is this garbage? 🤮 |
🌟CINEMATIC HALL OF FAME🌟
THE DARK KNIGHT
The most culturally relevant single film of the entirety of the 2000s. You don't think so? Let me just throw a couple of lines out here for you:
"You know how I got these scars?"
"Why so serious?"
"Some men just want to watch the world burn."
"Do I look like someone who has a plan? I'm a dog chasing cars."
"You either become a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain."
There is a slight chance that upon hearing these quotes, you know exactly what SECTION of the film I'm talking about. Also, almost none of those quotes have to deal with:
*The interrogation scene...
*The Joker congratulates Jim Gordon on becoming commissioner...
*The hospital explosion...
*Joker burning all that money...
*The "magic trick" by the Joker at the beginning of the film...
......or the cinematic apogee of Christopher Nolan's entire career. (Which I will get to later)
ALL of these are iconic moments and quotes. All of them. This is combined with a Christian Bale performance solidifying him as AT LEAST the second-best Batman ever (I respect the Keaton fanboys enough not to want any smoke in that debate) and what is UN-F******-QUESTIONABLY one of the greatest movie villains ever put to screen.
One would think that we as a society could all agree on this being the best Batman movie. But hey, shout out to those people (who absolutely, totally do not have recency bias for the sake of contrarianism) who truly feel that THE BATMAN is a better film, though...even though I'd bet the people involved in THAT film wouldn't even tell you that THEIR film is better than the dark Knight.
(Even though THE BATMAN IS PRETTY F****** SPECTACULAR in and of itself)
INCEPTION
If inception were made by anybody outside of maybe four or five active super-legendary directors, we would probably believe that this film was their Magnum Opus. Though it does not have nearly as many memorable or quotable moments as The dark Knight, it does hold claim to some really Smithsonian-level type stuff as well:
*Folding the city of Paris onto itself
*Joseph Gordon-Levitt fight in the rotating hallway
*The ending shot of the spinning top beginning to wobble before it cuts to black
And most notably....the BRRRRAAAAM!
(Hans Zimmer took 10 bass players, put them around a piano, and had them play the same note as loud as they could so the piano strings could vibrate, and that's what you got. If you didn't know that up until this point...you're welcome. I think that's the story on how it was made, anyway...)
Of all the Christopher Nolan "IMAX viewing experiences," this is the silver medal, and it was only the second time he went for the gusto with it.
GREATNESS 🤩
MEMENTO
Memento has one of the greatest scripts ever written. Anybody who's seen this film, and liked this film, should probably acknowledge that. It's a somewhat radical concept told in a straightforward way that is easy to follow, which is kind of a miracle within itself. If Christopher Nolan were to do a film like this these days, it would be considered a radical change, of course, from what we know him to do.
This is a top-five film of his.
BATMAN BEGINS
Nolan understood that the best way to revive the faith in the Batman franchise was to ground it and put it in the real world. This movie goes out of its way to explain Batman's functionality, how the Bat-gadgets work, why the costume is what it is, and why his Batmobile makes more sense as a small tank. This is the second greatest superhero origin story ever put to film. Go ahead and challenge me on that if you dare.
GREATNESS ADJACENT
OPPENHEIMER
THE PRESTIGE
This is Nolan's most rewatchable Non-Batman film. If you just so happen to be on a treadmill at the gym and you're watching this movie on mute, you might do it for a little bit longer than you expected to. This is a movie with one of the more brilliant and f***** up endings of the decade it was in. Almost every Christopher Nolan movie has had dark emotional undertones, but this film is a lot more grim than you might remember.
INTERSTELLAR
In just taking a step back and looking at what the "McConaissance" was, I often find that this was the crown jewel of that period of time, even over his Oscar-winning performance in DALLAS BUYERS CLUB. This is the top 3 performance from Matthew McConaughey, if nothing else. Interstellar is often overlooked because of way more hyped Nolan flicks, and in my opinion, is his most underappreciated film. The ship reconnection sequence towards the end of the second act is absolutely f****** stunning. Tentpole-type films don't get more underappreciated than this.
GOODNESS 😊
DUNKIRK
Would easily be a better film had it served its storylines in chronological order and probably stayed with just one or two perspectives instead of going all over the place. That's very easy to see.
What is also VERY easy to see is that this is the most comprehensive 70MM IMAX experience ever put to film. EVER. This is a film so visually stunning in the 70mm IMAX format that you kind of forgive its storytelling flaws. I cannot stress this enough. Quite literally, everybody that I've met that does not like this film did not see it in the way it was meant to be seen...and that's a real shame.
THE DARK KNIGHT RISES..............
*STEPS ON SOAPBOX*
Y'all are just mean.
Looking back all these years later, are you guys aware of how much this movie had going against it? Sure, it was practically guaranteed to make a billion dollars worldwide, but we're not talking about money. The common complaint against this movie is that it wasn't as good as The Dark Knight. A movie that was outright proclaimed by general consensus to be the GREATEST SUPERHERO MOVIE EVER MADE in that period of time, and quite possibly even to this day. Y'all were really expecting the follow-up to outdo or even match that?
I understand the viable complaint about the plot hole involving Bruce Wayne finding his way back into a quarantined Gotham City overran by Bane's military with no money and no Bat-gear. I hear you. Truly, I do. However, that's the MAIN thing You jabronis tend to point out when it comes to why this movie is so "bad". Y'all are just out here in denial of Tom Hardy's performance of Bane, which is only gotten more and more legendary over time? Y'all just going to ignore how great that ending sequence was?
Furthermore, are y'all just going to ignore what kind of superhero movies we've gotten from Warner Bros since the dark Knight rises? Tdkr looks like the godfather next to some of those Phase One MCU films and DAMN NEAR every dceu movie in existence, and you know it. Y'all were harsh on this movie when it was released, and you didn't know what you had when you had it.
I felt like a lawyer for those years when I was defending the quality of this film. I am appalled by you jabronis.
*Steps off Soapbox*
MEH...
TENET
Tenet is as visually stunning as all Nolan films tend to be, but quite possibly might be the most over-f******-complicated plot then I have seen in many moons. This is a movie that requires more than one viewing to catch little nuances that are vital to the plot that you undoubtedly WILL NOT CATCH IN THE FIRST VIEWING. I've seen this movie twice, and I'm still kind of foggy about how the ending scene of this film came to be. Technically speaking, it gets everything else right, though, besides the story, and is the bronze medal in terms of Nolan IMAX experiences.
INSOMNIA
This is a rock-solid thriller that would be very impressive by the standards of 90% of the field outside of Nolan and a handful of other directors. Technically it's done very well, but it is a movie that is carried by the actors more than any flashy Christopher Nolan stuff that he'd done up until that point. Pacino and Hilary Swank are very good, and Robin Williams was absolutely f****** fantastic...as he often was. I miss that guy.
WHAT THE F*** IS THIS GARBAGE?? 🤮
NOLAN'S CINEMATIC APOGEE
Even when someone lives in Seattle, Washington, they could not ignore the hype surrounding IMAX sequences that were to be in the dark night in the year of 2008. Between the trades, commercials, and interviews with cast members, it was clear that the IMAX sequences, along with Heath Ledger's (believed to be final) performance were the selling point for this film.
So you buy a seat in the one true IMAX theater in the entire state (shout out to the Pacific Science Center...or whatever it's called now), you're sitting dead center, the movie comes on, and it opens with that bank robbery sequence, and it is good. The movie continues in normal format, though, and it does for the entirety of the first act outside of a few establishing shots. The second act goes pretty much the same way up until the Joker steals a big rig truck...and the format changes once again. You get to a shot of Batman struggling to activate his bat cycle....
AND THEN THIS S*** RIGHT HERE HAPPENS.
The audience that you're watching the film with doesn't cheer. What ends up happening instead is a...loud consistent murmur. The kind of loud murmur that strongly insinuates that, like myself, people were leaning over to whoever they were seeing this movie with and saying something along the lines of...
The loud murmuring continued into the next scene before everybody finally calmed themselves down and watched the movie as normal. There was another IMAX sequence where the Joker blows up the hospital that did not nearly get that kind of a response as amazing as THAT sequence was. The Ledger performance, mixed with the truck flip, mixed with the Gordon reveal at the end of the sequence made this one of the very greatest action sequences EVER PUT TO FILM.
I'll stand on that.
**************
Christopher Nolan haters will point out that the IMAX format has carried him in making his films more important than what they are. If you've heard that argument, please understand that the people who are making that argument have NO F****** IDEA WHAT THEY'RE TALKING ABOUT. Discredit their opinions immediately, lose respect for their taste in film, and know that you have a justifiable option in disrespectfully doing so as you go along.
Not being on any fanboy s***, one can only observe that Christopher Nolan has not made a bad film. He is a master filmmaker of the highest order. He's on almost this LeBron James level of setting the bar so high enough for himself that most people don't compare him to what the rest of the field produces, they compare his films to the resume that he's already given us, and they base their disappointment of his films on THAT bar.
People tend to only do that to a handful of other transcendent generational filmmakers. Spielberg, Tarantino, Scorsese.... And Christopher Nolan. I think that's it. That's the list. Just sayin.
