The Right Order To Watch Each Christopher Nolan Film

26 years into his profession, Christopher Nolan is charging alongside on one of the crucial outstanding artistic and business runs the movie business has ever seen. Since he burst onto the scene with his breakthrough second function “Memento” in 2001, all he is executed is make one critically acclaimed field workplace hit after one other. Contemplating the sizable budgets he is change into accustomed to working with, it is a profitable streak that any of our big-swing maestros cannot match. Even Steven Spielberg skilled essential and/or business turbulence at this level in his profession, with movies like “1941,” “Empire of the Solar,” “All the time,” and “Hook.” However other than “Tenet” (which might’ve been a blockbuster had the Covid pandemic not saved the overwhelming majority of moviegoers out of theaters over the summer time of 2020), all of Nolan’s movies have doubled their manufacturing budgets on the international field workplace, and are presently rated contemporary at Rotten Tomatoes.

How finest to understand what Nolan has achieved since 1998? You possibly can’t do a lot better than a whole revisit of all his motion pictures — or, should you’ve in some way denied your self the pleasure, a first-time journey by his cinema. In what order do you have to view his 12 accomplished options? You may determine chronologically is the best way to go, however there’s a extra fascinating and maybe edifying method.

If you wish to maximize your Christopher Nolan viewing expertise, it’s best to select this path:

“Memento” (2000)

“Following” (1998)

“Insomnia” (2002)

“Batman Begins” (2005)

“The Darkish Knight” (2008)

“The Darkish Knight Rises” (2012)

“The Status” (2006)

“Inception” (2010)

“Interstellar” (2014)

“Dunkirk” (2017)

“Tenet” (2020)

“Oppenheimer” (2023)

Although there are way more prolific filmmakers on the market (like Steven Soderbergh, who has two options hitting theaters inside months of one another in 2025), Nolan has labored steadily all through his profession. He is by no means gone greater than three years between motion pictures, which is in regards to the span of time it takes to develop and mount movies on the huge bodily scale of “Dunkirk” and “Tenet.” On the age of 54, he is exhibiting no indicators of slowing or cutting down, as evidenced by his just-announced 2026 epic adaptation of Homer’s “The Odyssey.”

So why not simply go in chronological order like a sane particular person?

The primary four-film leg of the above order is supposed to copy how moviegoers found and got here to know Nolan’s visible storytelling aesthetic. You will by no means be capable to absolutely recapture the utter shock and awe of “Memento” quietly turning up in theaters through the spring of 2001, however whenever you throw it on simply think about that you simply walked into some modestly funds neo-noir starring Man Pearce (finest identified on the time for “L.A. Confidential”) and Carrie-Anne Moss (Trinity from “The Matrix), and having it slowly daybreak on you that you simply’re watching a superbly constructed puzzle of a film. Nolan was a no one at this level. So once we realized that this was his second function, all of us went wild attempting to trace down the then hard-to-find “Following” — which, whereas a a lot smaller, much less narratively bold movie, was nonetheless spectacular. 

Then got here Nolan’s first crack at a Hollywood image with a simple, but fantastically crafted remake of the Norwegian thriller “Insomnia,” at which level we realized this man had the command of craft to thrive on the studio degree — and, through “Batman Begins,” the smarts and ability to play within the franchise sandbox with out dropping his artistic id.

At this level, you may need to knock out Nolan’s subsequent two Batman motion pictures as a result of, whereas visually gorgeous and effectively above common for superhero motion pictures, this trilogy is the least fascinating portion of his profession. So after “The Darkish Knight Rises,” you may backtrack to 2006’s “The Status,” his intricately plotted magician thriller that some Nolan-philes take into account to be his best work to this point. Then you definitely’ll transfer on to his different Batman-break film, “Inception,” which emphatically proved Nolan was a brand-name filmmaker who might ship blockbuster crowds with out the comedian e-book hook.

Lastly, you may proceed chronologically with “Interstellar” (my decide for his finest at current), “Dunkirk” (which ought to’ve been his first Oscar), “Tenet” and the conscience-pricking, Academy Award-winning biopic “Oppenheimer.” If Nolan is not your favourite filmmaker by this level, you may a minimum of be capable to admire the gorgeous assurance with which he strikes from epic to epic. David Lean could not do it any higher. And it appears like “The Odyssey” simply may be his most large enterprise but. Critical moviegoers are fortunate to have him.