All Christopher Nolan Movies Ranked from Best to Worst

Nolan's micro-budget debut ($6,000) showcases the narrative complexity and structural experimentation that would become his trademark. Shot on weekends over the course of a year with friends as crew members, this noir-influenced thriller follows a young writer who shadows strangers for creative inspiration, becoming entangled with a burglar who introduces him to a criminal underworld.

While rough around the edges technically, Following contains the DNA of Nolan's later work: non-linear storytelling, exploration of identity, and characters who construct elaborate fictions. Its black-and-white 16mm photography and clever plotting make it an impressive calling card that signaled the arrival of a distinctive filmmaking voice.

Perhaps Nolan's most divisive film, Tenet pushes his fascination with time to its logical extreme with a concept involving "temporal inversion"—objects and people moving backward through time. The film follows a CIA agent (John David Washington) recruited by a mysterious organization to prevent a future apocalypse using this technology.

Visually stunning with mind-bending action sequences featuring both forward and reversed movement simultaneously, Tenet's complexity sometimes works against it. The deliberately muffled dialogue and densely layered plot require multiple viewings to fully comprehend, making it Nolan's most challenging work. While the technical achievement is undeniable, the emotional core that grounds his best films feels somewhat absent here, resulting in an intellectually stimulating but emotionally distant experience.

Nolan's first studio film remains his most straightforward narrative, a remake of the 1997 Norwegian thriller about a detective investigating a murder in an Alaskan town where the sun never sets. Al Pacino stars as the sleep-deprived detective haunted by a past mistake, with Robin Williams cast against type as the primary suspect.

While lacking the structural complexity of his other works, Insomnia excels as a character study of moral compromise and psychological deterioration. Pacino's increasingly hallucinatory perspective as sleep deprivation takes its toll allows Nolan to experiment with subjective reality, a theme he would explore more fully in later films. The perpetual daylight of the Alaskan summer serves as both setting and metaphor—there is nowhere to hide from one's actions in this harsh, exposing light.

Completing his Batman trilogy, Nolan faced the unenviable task of following The Dark Knight and Heath Ledger's iconic Joker performance. Set eight years later, the film introduces Bane (Tom Hardy), a physically imposing revolutionary who forces an aging, reclusive Bruce Wayne back into action while raising questions about wealth inequality and societal collapse.

While ambitious in scope and thematic complexity, The Dark Knight Rises occasionally buckles under the weight of its multiple storylines and character arcs. Nevertheless, it features some of Nolan's most impressive set pieces (particularly the opening plane hijacking) and brings Bruce Wayne's journey to a satisfying conclusion. Anne Hathaway's Catwoman and Hardy's physically commanding Bane (despite controversial sound design choices) add memorable new dimensions to Nolan's Gotham City.

The film that revitalized the superhero genre and established Nolan as a blockbuster filmmaker, Batman Begins rejected the campy excess of previous Batman adaptations in favor of psychological realism and grounded world-building. Christian Bale's portrayal of Bruce Wayne focuses on the character's trauma and the practicalities of becoming a symbol of fear.

By structuring the film around Bruce's training with the League of Shadows and his return to Gotham, Nolan creates a hero's journey that emphasizes character development over spectacle. The film's exploration of fear as both weapon and weakness adds thematic weight, while its supporting cast (including Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, and Liam Neeson) brings gravitas to comic book material. While the third act suffers from somewhat chaotic action sequences, the film's influence on superhero origin stories cannot be overstated.

Nolan's most ambitious historical drama tackles the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the theoretical physicist who led the Manhattan Project. Utilizing his signature non-linear structure, the film alternates between color sequences following Oppenheimer's perspective and black-and-white portions depicting security hearings that destroyed his reputation years later.

Cillian Murphy delivers a mesmerizing performance as the brilliant, conflicted scientist forced to reckon with the moral implications of creating the atomic bomb. The film's technical achievements are breathtaking, particularly the Trinity test sequence depicting the first nuclear detonation without CGI. While some supporting characters receive limited development due to the sprawling narrative scope, the film succeeds as both character study and examination of how scientific progress outpaced ethical consideration in the atomic age.

The film that put Nolan on the map remains one of his most ingenious narrative constructions. Memento follows Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce), a man with anterograde amnesia hunting for his wife's killer while unable to form new memories. The film's structure brilliantly places viewers in Leonard's disoriented perspective by telling the story in reverse chronological order, intercut with black-and-white scenes moving forward in time.

Beyond its clever construction, Memento explores Nolan's recurring themes of memory, identity, and self-deception with remarkable depth. As Leonard relies on Polaroid photos, tattooed notes, and an unreliable support system, the film raises profound questions about how we construct narratives to give our lives meaning. The devastating final revelation recontextualizes everything that came before, rewarding multiple viewings and establishing Nolan's reputation for intellectually stimulating puzzle-box filmmaking.

Often overshadowed by Nolan's higher-profile works, this tale of rival magicians in Victorian London might be his most perfectly constructed film. Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman play illusionists whose professional rivalry escalates into a dangerous obsession after a tragic accident, with each man willing to sacrifice everything to outdo the other.

The film's structure mirrors the three-part structure of a magic trick explained in its opening moments: the pledge, the turn, and the prestige. Like the magicians it depicts, the film misdirects audience attention while hiding its secrets in plain sight. Exploring the costs of creative obsession and the dangers of technological progress (through David Bowie's brilliant cameo as Nikola Tesla), The Prestige rewards repeated viewings with new insights into its carefully constructed deceptions. Its devastating final reveal ranks among Nolan's most powerful moments.

Nolan's most formally experimental film since Memento applies his fascination with time to historical events—specifically, the evacuation of British and Allied troops from the beaches of France in 1940. The film interweaves three narratives spanning different timeframes: one week on the beach with soldiers awaiting rescue, one day at sea with a civilian boat joining the evacuation fleet, and one hour in the air with Spitfire pilots providing cover.

With minimal dialogue and an emphasis on immersive sound design and visceral imagery (mostly captured with IMAX cameras), Dunkirk creates an overwhelming sensory experience that conveys the terror, confusion, and occasional grace of warfare. Hans Zimmer's score, incorporating a ticking watch sound and Shepard tone illusions, creates relentless tension. By avoiding war movie clichés in favor of documenting the raw experience of survival, Nolan crafted a uniquely experiential historical film that focuses on process rather than personality.

Nolan's most emotionally resonant film combines hard science fiction with profound human themes. Set in a near future where Earth faces agricultural collapse, the story follows Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), a former NASA pilot who joins a mission through a wormhole to find habitable planets. What begins as a space exploration narrative evolves into a meditation on love, sacrifice, and the relationship between parents and children across time and space.

Working with theoretical physicist Kip Thorne to ensure scientific plausibility, Nolan creates spectacular visual sequences—particularly the water planet with massive tidal waves and the mind-bending representation of a tesseract allowing access to multiple time periods simultaneously. While some critics found fault with the film's third-act developments, Interstellar's ambition, emotional depth, and practical effects work (including stunning depictions of black holes and wormholes) make it one of Nolan's most affecting achievements.

Following The Dark Knight's massive success, Nolan leveraged his commercial clout to realize this original, high-concept science fiction film about dream infiltration. Leonardo DiCaprio leads an ensemble cast as Cobb, an extractor who steals information from people's minds by entering their dreams. Offered a chance at redemption through one last job—planting an idea rather than stealing one—he assembles a team for a mission involving dreams within dreams.

Inception represents the perfect synthesis of Nolan's artistic and commercial instincts, delivering mind-bending concepts and spectacular visuals while maintaining emotional stakes through Cobb's guilt over his wife's death. The film's layered dream sequences create escalating tension across multiple timelines, culminating in an ambiguous ending that continues to spark debate. The hallway fight scene with shifting gravity (achieved with practical rotating sets rather than CGI) remains one of cinema's most innovative action sequences.

Nolan's unquestioned masterpiece transcends its superhero origins to stand as one of the defining films of its era. Building on Batman Begins' foundation, this sequel expands its scope to explore broader themes of chaos, moral compromise, and the nature of heroism through the conflict between Batman, Harvey Dent, and the Joker.

Heath Ledger's posthumously Oscar-winning performance as the Joker created an antagonist for the ages—a nihilistic agent of chaos whose motivations extend beyond conventional criminality. His anarchic presence drives the film's exploration of how far society and individuals will compromise their principles when faced with existential threats.

Beyond its thematic richness, The Dark Knight features some of Nolan's most impressive technical achievements, including pioneering IMAX sequences and practical effects like the truck flip during the film's centerpiece chase. The film's influence extends far beyond superhero cinema, impacting everything from blockbuster filmmaking to how we discuss moral dilemmas in the post-9/11 era. Its perfect balance of entertainment value, artistic merit, and cultural significance earns it the top spot in Nolan's remarkable filmography.