Christopher Nolan has gone from the director of small independent films to one of the most popular directors in Hollywood history. His films have gained a passionate and massive following of fans who praise Nolan as a cinematic genius behind some of the greatest modern films.
Nolan’s films are always interesting and have grown into massive spectacles. With his new films Tenet hitting theaters this summer, now feels like a good time to looks back at his filmography and the moments that gained him this amazing reputation. Here are the most memorable scenes from every Christopher Nolan film, ranked.
Cobb’s Plan Revealed (Following)
Following was Nolan’s simple yet impressive debut film. The black-and-white thriller follows a jobless man who becomes obsessed with following strangers. Through his hobby, he becomes involved with a thief named Cobb.
The film is told with a jumbled timeline as with many of Nolan’s films and the final moments reveal the payoff to the story. As the protagonist recounts his story of meeting Cobb we then learn just how manipulative the thief has been this entire time.
Foggy Standoff (Insomnia)
Insomnia is one of Nolan’s more underrated films and worth seeking out. The dark crime thriller stars Al Pacino as a cop investigating murders in a small Alaskan community. The remote setting adds a lot to the eerie atmosphere of the film, especially in this memorable sequence.
Pacino’s Will Dormer and the other police set up a sting operation to catch the killer. Things get complicated when the site is overtaken by fog. It makes for a confused and intense chase after the unknown suspect that feels like something out of a horror film. The sequence ends with a shocking moment that takes the story in a bold new direction.
Interrogation (Batman Begins)
After the character was laughed off the big screen for a while, Nolan managed to bring Batman back in a dark and gritty way with Batman Begins. One of the distinctions in this version of Batman was how Nolan embraced fear as a weapon the hero used against his enemies.
When looking to get information on a major crime operation in Gotham, Batman interrogates a corrupt cop by hanging upside down from the top of a building. Bale’s Batman gets to be genuinely threatening in a way we hadn’t seen in movies before. It helped introduce a new and exciting take on the hero.
Okay, So What Am I Doing? (Memento)
Memento was the film that led to many people sitting up and taking notice of Nolan as an interesting new filmmaker. The mystery film follows a man named Leonard who suffers from short-term memory loss. He attempts to track down the man who killed his wife based on clues he leaves for himself.
It’s a unique take on the detective story to have a protagonist who never knows what is going on. In a funny and clever scene, Leonard is running without any idea why or where. When he sees another man running nearby, he clues in that he’s chasing him only to quickly realize he’s the one being chased.
Final Scene (The Prestige)
The Prestige is another brilliant mystery film from Nolan set in a very unusual world. The 1800s period piece stars Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale as two magicians who form a bitter rivalry with each other as they each try to come up with the perfect trick.
After several double-crosses, the two men come face to face for the last time and their tricks are revealed. Angier has discovered real magic that allows him to create duplicates of himself who he kills each night. Borden has a legitimate twin and they have been trading identities the entire time, living a lie to sell the illusion.
Videos From Home (Interstellar)
Nolan has often spoken of his admiration for Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and he finally got the chance to make his own space epic with Interstellar. While the film is filled with the kind of amazing visuals we’ve come to expect from Nolan, the most memorable scene is an intimate one.
After the astronauts experience trouble on a strange new planet, they return to their ship to find out that decades have passed in the meantime. Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) sits down to watch years worth of videos sent from Earth. He breaks down as he sees his children age and everything he’s missed in the blink of an eye.
Plane Crash (The Dark Knight Rises)
Heath Leger’s Joker was a hard villain to follow up in the final chapter of Nolan’s Batman trilogy, but Tom Hardy’s Bane proved to be a very interesting and intimidating antagonist. And this new character kicks off the film with a stunning introduction.
Taken prisoner along with some other thugs aboard a CIA plane, Bane quickly proves it was his plan to get captured. His men proceed to hijack the plane in an incredible midair sequence amazingly done with a lot of practical effects. It is a pure example of the kind of spectacle Nolan creates.
Out Of Fuel (Dunkirk)
Dunkirk is Nolan’s war epic that details the harrowing rescue mission of the British forces from Dunkirk beach during World War II. The film is a survival story in which heroism is matter-of-fact and not overly glorified.
Tom Hardy plays a pilot flying over to protect the remaining soldiers on the beach. Running out of fuel, he continues on until his tank runs dry. The image of his silent spitfire gliding over the beach is beautiful and then we get the cheer-worthy moment when he pulls back around to take out an attacking enemy plane.
Clown Heist (The Dark Knight)
The Dark Knight was a hugely influential comic book movie that took the Batman story and transplanted it into a massive crime epic. This exciting take on the film was made clear with the opening scene which, as Bane had in The Dark Knight Rises, serves as a great introduction to Joker to begin the film.
We see a group of thugs dressed in clown masks pulling off an elaborate heist of a mob bank. One by one, the thugs start picking each other off with only one left standing. He takes off the mask to reveal Leger’s iconic villain, a deranged yet brilliant criminal.
Hallway Fight (Inception)
Though Nolan is always pushing boundaries with his filmmaking, Inception feels like his most ambitious film yet. The original story from Nolan himself surrounds a group of thieves who enter people’s dreams to steal their ideas and memories.
The reality-bending movie is essentially a massive heist film whose unusual setting allows for some amazing visuals and inventive set pieces. The most memorable scene involves Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) fighting an enemy as the dream world shifts. The two men fight in a hallway that begins to spin, making for an awe-inspiring action sequence like nothing you’ve ever seen before.
