Let’s make one thing clear: Christopher Nolan does not have a lackluster film to his name. While some are certainly better than others, his movies are all shades of good, great, and unforgettable. With the recent deployment of Dunkirk, Nolan has just reached double digits with his feature-length filmography. His distinguished career began nearly 20 years ago with Following, the 110-minute black and white caper that gave him entree into Hollywood.

From Memento to Batman Begins, The Prestige to Interstellar, Nolan traverses a panoply of worlds while adhering to similar narrative themes, cinematic rules, and creative structures. Whether in Gotham, a wormhole, or a dream within a dream, each of his films centers on men with albatrosses hung about their necks, forced to encounter their worst nightmares on the road to liberation.

Including Dunkirk, here are each of Christopher Nolan’s films ranked in order:

10. The Dark Knight Rises

Christian Bale as Batman and Tom Hardy as Bane in The Dark Knight Rises

If the film before it never existed, The Dark Knight Rises would be a superhero favorite. Like Return of the Jedi, Nolan’s Batman finale still delivers iconic moments while the larger tapestry falls short of ultimate glory. Though The Dark Knight dressed an existential heist movie in superhero drag, Rises resorts to a ticking-bomb plot that abandons the subtlety of the first two films.

While it retained the signature scope and style of a Nolan flick, Rises ultimately feels more made-by-committee than designed-by-auteur. Who thought audiences wanted their “silent guardian, watchful protector” to return with cartilage deficiency and a sorry attitude? The personal touches in Batman Begins and The Dark Knight are eschewed for broad strokes, brash action, and a conclusion that feels more inevitable than earned. Despite all of that, The Dark Knight Rises remains leagues above the army of superhero flicks on the market.

9. Insomnia

insomnia-pacino-williams-swank

With the success of Memento, Nolan won his golden ticket to cement his status in Hollywood. Thanks to the support of Steven Soderbergh, Nolan took the director’s chair for Insomnia, a remake of the 1997 Norwegian film.

Thanks to an all-star cast of Al Pacino, Robin Williams, and Hilary Swank, Nolan had the firepower to bring the crime drama to life. Though Nolan wrote the final draft of the film, he never received full credit for his work. It’s an appropriate twist of fate, however, as Insomnia has few of the hallmarks we’ve come to expect from Nolan. It’s a remake, after all, and though he handles the job with aplomb, it feels more like an inherited project than an original one. Regardless, it's an air-tight and menacing film that features an iconic character in Pacino’s sleepless and guilty detective. Though removed from Nolan’s more personal work, it’s easy to see why Insomnia put him in the running for Batman Begins.

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Still from Christopher Nolan's Following

8. Following

This is the birthplace of Nolan’s cinematic philosophy. Clocking in at just over 70 minutes, Following has all the attributes of a Nolan movie. From the pulsating soundtrack to the claustrophobic close-ups, the multiple plot twists and the endangered protagonist, it’s like a workshop inside young Nolan’s imagination. The main villain’s alias is named “Cobb,” for goodness sake.

In order to make the movie, Nolan and his then-girlfriend, Emma Thomas, filmed every weekend for a year. On a budget of $7,000 taken from his own salary, Nolan wrote, filmed, and even edited the feature. Thanks to his multidisciplinary involvement, the film works on every level. Like a modern Double Indemnity, it’s taut, engrossing, and perhaps the cruelest story Nolan has written.

7. Memento

Guy Pearce in Memento by Christopher Nolan

Nolan has many strengths, but his ability to immerse audiences in his protagonist’s perspective is unprecedented. Memento is the embodiment of Nolan’s narrative and visual flair. On paper, the plot is so labyrinthine and layered that it almost shouldn’t be filmable. Because the story was born of Chris and his broth Jonathan Nolan’s dual expertise and imagination, however, the ambitious plot unfolds effortlessly.

A structural feat, Memento is built to juggle two timelines. For first-time viewers, the effect is utterly disorientating until the final scene mercifully unites both narratives. This sense of confusion is by Nolan’s design, of course, and has the effect of putting the audience in the shoes of the amnesiac Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce). Memento is mind-bending, maddening, and worth every second of the ride.

6. Batman Begins

Batman Begins

After Joel Schumacher laid waste to the franchise, Batman was dead to moviegoers. For Warner Bros. to get the Dark Knight back on his feet, they needed a rare talent to bring a fresh perspective to the rebuild the bat. Though he had just three films under his belt, Christopher Nolan became the frontrunner to make Batman Begins.

The studio bet wisely. In an unexpected take on the Detective Comics character, Nolan stripped away the nippled suits and bat credits cards in favor of something more “relatable” (the director thinks the word “realism” is used too arbitrarily). With Batman Begins, Nolan justified the countless comic tropes that had filled Gotham. He made Bruce Wayne not just build the Batman but earn the right to become him. He gave Ra’s Al Ghul a philosophical fire as much as a will to fight. He made Gotham less of a proscenium and more of a living, breathing city. Alongside Hans Zimmer’s evocative score, the end result was a believable Batman that paved the way for an equally unbelievable sequel.

5. The Prestige

Christian Bale reacting to Hugh Jackman in The Prestige.

“Are you watching closely?” With the opening line of his fifth film, Nolan dares his audience to keep up. The Prestige may be an adaptation of the eponymous Christopher Priest novel, but it has Nolan’s DNA all over it. Even the original author admitted that as he watched the movie, he was thinking, “'God, I like that, and 'Oh, I wish I’d thought of that.'”

Using Michael Caine’s voice-over monologue at the film’s start, Nolan sublimates the structure of the film through the format of a magic trick: the pledge, the turn, and of course, the prestige. The rivalry between Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman) and Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) proves so vicious, however, that the secrets to the film sneak right past us. It’s a haunting movie and a love letter to fin de siècle London, where it appears Mr. Nolan would be quite well adjusted.

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Matthew McConaughey is Cooper in Interstellar

4. Interstellar

There is tremendous irony in Interstellar. At once Nolan’s most ambitious film, it’s also his most personal. Though it’s set amid distant constellations, the director’s space epic is ultimately about a father’s relationship with his children. Before Nolan officially approached Hans Zimmer with the movie, he asked the composer to write a theme inspired by two lines of dialogue, one from a father, “I’ll come back,” and the response from his child, “When?” The simple tune that Zimmer created became the beating heart of the film.

Interstellar is a polemical movie, especially when pitted against other entries from Nolan’s oeuvre. While a grand entertainment, it’s not particularly entertaining in the way Hollywood typically builds its blockbusters. It hurts, it transports, and it moves. Amid all of the machinery and wormhole travel, Interstellar is about loss, separation, and the hourglass of life that cascades away without end. Some viewers have complained about the long run-time, the maudlin nature of the film, and the dubiousness of its intergalactic science.  Others recognize it as an emotional moon jump ahead of its very inspiration, Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Thanks to powerhouse performances by Matthew McConaughey, Jessica Chastain and her character’s younger counterpart, Mackenzie Foy, Interstellar compels audiences to “not go gentle into that goodnight.”

3. Dunkirk

Kenneth Brannagh in Dunkirk

When all is said and done, Dunkirk may ultimately top Nolan’s list of achievements. For now, the sheer newness of Nolan’s WWII epic precludes it from taking one of the top spots. Rankings aside, this is easily Nolan’s most horrifying film. While restrained in its depictions of violence, Dunkirk is fearless in showing the utter hell that nearly 400,000 British, French, Canadian and Belgian soldiers endured. To watch Dunkirk is to experience the Second World War with none of the bailout buttons we’ve come to expect from cinema. This is a 107-minute heart-palpitation that threatens to turn into a full on myocardial infarction. As Nolan himself pitched it, it’s truly “virtual reality without a headset.” Gamers familiar with Call of Duty and Battlefield will no doubt feel right at home.

Told through a triptych of air, land, and sea, Dunkirk effortlessly handles the multiple perspectives and unites them in thrilling ways. Though the narrative toggles between the beachhead, the cockpit, and the belly of destroyers, the tension never slips. Every minute is precious with Tom Hardy, Kenneth Branagh, Mark Rylance and star-in-the-making Fionn Whitehead, as danger abounds on all sides. Nolan’s guiding hand is seen not just in the sparing but effective dialogue or the interwoven narrative, but in his visual storytelling. The first half of the film borders on a silent movie, yet it communicates volumes. Better yet, Nolan’s flair for practical effects is on full display. Battleships sink, Spitfires crash land in the ocean, oil spills lead to ocean blazes, and there’s never any doubt that these sequences are real. Despite the brutality it showcases, Dunkirk is a truly gorgeous film that is an equal testament to the survivors of Operation Dynamo and the consummate craft of Christopher Nolan.

2. The Dark Knight

Heath Ledger as The Joker in The Dark Knight

With The Dark Knight, Nolan blew the doors off the superhero genre. Though Batman Begins was (and remains) the best superhero origin story set to film, the second chapter changed the landscape of Batman’s future. Christian Bale’s take on the Caped Crusader was so effective that the DCEU is still finding its niche for Ben Affleck and Matt Reeves’ anticipated entry.

As both writer and director, Nolan turned his ambitious script into one of the most thrilling and intense films of the last 20 years. He and Heath Ledger developed an indelible Joker along with a subplot study on the nature of anarchy. Ledger’s wanton clown brought Batman to the brink of justice and set a new gold standard of villainy. The Dark Knight also manages to include an ill-fated romance with Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal) and the tragedy of Harvey Dent against the backdrop of a withering Gotham. Amid the theatrics,  Nolan always keeps The Dark Knight rooted in real-world consequences, showing the true effects of a masked vigilante who operates outside the law.

1. Inception

Inception

The fundamental laws of the universe are clear: every action has a reaction, the sun will come up tomorrow, and Inception should not have worked. To everyone but the dreamer of the dream himself, Christopher Nolan, this story should have seemed impossible to film. Memento may have had two timelines and a serpentine structure, but that script looked like a fairytale relative to the mind maze of Inception.

And yet, the movie worked. Not only does it make sense, but it also triggers all manner of human reaction along the way. Inception is so intoxicating that you relish the opportunity to get lost in it, to go to that third layer of the dream and risk it all. While Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) pulls off an epic mind-heist in the movie, Nolan does the same with his audience, planting ideas in our mind until he pulls the rug out and forces us to question everything we watched. Inception is the embodiment of a filmmaker at the top of his game, who not only understands the mechanisms of the medium but inverts them for his own pleasure.

NEXT: Could Dunkirk Finally Win Christopher Nolan an Oscar?