This list ranks all thirteen Christopher Nolan feature films from best to least essential, starting at number one.
Nolan's career is a strange one to map. He is the last director who could greenlight a three-hour original concept on the strength of his name alone, who made his debut on weekends for a few thousand dollars and ended up designing a camera for a war epic. The gap between his weakest and strongest work is significant. So is the consistency.
The criteria: formal ambition, emotional honesty, the degree to which the architecture serves something beyond its own ingenuity. Every entry here is worth watching. But the gaps between them are real.
