Christopher Nolan is one of the most beloved and brilliant directors in Hollywood. He put himself on the map with Memento, he captured the horrors of war in Dunkirk, and he changed the face of the superhero genre with The Dark Knight trilogy. The success of his twisty, time-bending cinematic epics has proven that mainstream audiences can still be captivated with an original property like Inception or Interstellar.
Some of Nolan’s movies, like the devilishly complex The Prestige, have proven to be more rewatchable than others, like the overlong, overcomplicated The Dark Knight Rises.
Interstellar (2014)
Nolan’s spacefaring epic Interstellar, reworked from a Steven Spielberg project that was stuck in development hell for years, has undeniably stunning visuals. But its aimless plotting and overlong runtime let it down on rewatches.
It starts off strong with its subversive portrayal of a futuristic Dust Bowl, but the plot meanders from planet to planet, waxing poetic about the quantifiability of love, until Nolan is ready to reveal the big twist ending: Matthew McConaughey is a time-traveling bookcase.
The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
The big finale of Nolan’s Batman trilogy, The Dark Knight Rises, had the burden of topping the spectacle of The Dark Knight, which was already as epic and mega-scale as a movie can be. The Dark Knight Rises ended up going way too big, recreating the French Revolution on the streets of Gotham.
Tom Hardy’s Bane is no Heath Ledger’s Joker, but he gives a memorable enough performance to warrant a couple of revisits. The Dark Knight Rises drags on for far too long, and Bruce Wayne spends most of the runtime in a pit with a broken back.
Insomnia (2002)
Nolan’s only remake of another filmmaker’s work, Insomnia, is a standard serial killer thriller. It’s also the only movie that Nolan didn’t write for himself, so it has an uncharacteristically conventional structure.
Still, it’s a solid crime thriller. Nolan brings the chilly Alaskan setting to life. Insomnia is anchored by Robin Williams’ haunting performance as a killer opposite Al Pacino’s grizzled cop.
Tenet (2020)
Nolan’s most recent movie, the James Bondian espionage epic Tenet, needs to be viewed more than once to make head or tail of the time-traveling spy antics.
The overcomplicated spy-fi plot has a few holes that stand out on rewatches, but on the whole, Tenet is an action-packed thrill-ride full of breathtaking practical stunts shot on glorious IMAX cameras.
Following (1998)
On his low-budget debut feature Following, Nolan is credited as a director, writer, producer, cinematographer, and editor. The premise is a lot simpler than the dream heists and wormholes that would follow: a young man follows strangers around the streets of London.
With a nice, lean 70-minute runtime, Following is an easy watch. The minimalist visuals and no-nonsense storytelling established the director’s uniquely moody vision of neo-noir.
Batman Begins (2005)
Superhero origin stories are inherently less rewatchable than the sequels that can jump right into the action. But as far as origin movies go, Batman Begins is pretty awesome. The refreshing gritty realism of Batman Begins revitalized the genre.
Nolan explored the Bat’s backstory in more depth than ever before, detailing his combat training with the League of Shadows before he donned a cowl and started fighting crime in Gotham.
Memento (2000)
The movie that catapulted Nolan from his indie roots into a world of cushy studio gigs was his iconic psychological thriller Memento, about an amnesiac man trying to figure out who murdered his wife.
Its Oscar-nominated screenplay follows a complicated story structure that moves all over the timeline. Half of it is told in chronological order and the other half is told backwards. Eventually, the twain meet in the middle. Like Tenet, Memento needs to be watched at least a few times just to be understood.
Inception (2010)
In 2010, Nolan took a break from making Batman movies to tackle an original story: his mind-boggling sci-fi epic Inception. Despite its taxing runtime, Inception is a movie that can be enjoyed over and over again.
The unique genre experiment of Inception combines everything great from Nolan’s previous movies. It’s a moody neo-noir like Following, a twisty psychological thriller like Memento, an action-packed blockbuster like the Batman movies, and a puzzle to solve like The Prestige.
Dunkirk (2017)
Thanks to enthralling cinematography, razor-sharp editing, and a classic wall-of-sound score by Hans Zimmer, Nolan’s World War II epic Dunkirk maintains a feeling of visceral intensity from start to finish. Nolan essentially just re-staged the entire Dunkirk evacuation and pointed cameras at it. This is one of the director’s most ambitious and engaging time-bending experiments, cutting between a week on the beach, a day at sea, and an hour in the air. The movie builds to an immense payoff when these three story threads converge at the climax.
Dunkirk isn’t just a mind-blowing recreation of a harrowing historical event; it beautifully captures the Dunkirk spirit. Despite the devastating defeat, the movie ends on a hopeful note. The soldiers worry they’ll be cast out as pariahs when they get home, but everyone at home is just happy they made it back.
The Prestige (2006)
Nolan’s tale of rival magicians, The Prestige, holds up to countless rewatches. Scripted, shot, and edited with the precision of a magic trick, The Prestige was carefully designed to be enjoyed again and again by eagle-eyed audiences.
The movie is built around its twists and turns, and Nolan filled the first two acts (“the pledge” and “the turn”) with hints at the shocking fate that awaits the characters in the third act (“the prestige”).
The Dark Knight (2008)
The middle chapter in Nolan’s groundbreaking Batman trilogy is one of the greatest comic book movies ever made. The Dark Knight is a slick, action-packed neo-noir epic set in a corrupt city, like Michael Mann’s Heat with Los Angeles switched out for Gotham.
Heath Ledger’s Oscar-winning turn as the Joker is mesmerizing. His performance can be watched over and over again and still remain just as terrifying. Above all, The Dark Knight is the ultimate Batman movie, ending with a sacrifice that only Batman could make.