In an alternate timeline, today would be a very special day for one reason. It would be the release of Christopher Nolan’s latest Tenet (2020). Even within the confines of COVID-19, it’s being hailed as the film that refuses to budge from its theatrical release, forcing people to contemplate health to see whatever tricks are in store this time around. Is this a sequel to Inception (2010)? Even if it isn’t, I guarantee that many of you have seen those trailers and felt in real-time your mind expand, on the precipice of blowing by the time that the master bends time once again.
The reason that Tenet is getting attention for this foolhardy idea is mostly that Nolan has developed a reputation. As far as directors of the 21st century, there hasn’t been a blockbuster filmmaker with as rabid of fans who are willing to discuss every film like it’s a masterpiece. It’s what makes every film an event, giving him a cultural caché that no other filmmaker has really achieved. Maybe it’s because of his work in the “dark and gritty reboot” nature of Batman Begins (2005) and its subsequent sequels, or that he has such a clarified vision.
It’s unclear, but what is known is that he’s one of cinema’s greatest marketers. Much like J.J. Abrams, an ambiguous trailer is enough to get you in the door. Unlike Abrams, his goodwill has lasted through even his weakest projects, presenting fascinating worlds that push the cinematic landscape into a new form of awe. Nolan is great because his films are as much about anticipation as they are the final product, and it all serves as a triumphant piece of art. We will keep going so long as he keeps making movies, and that’s why Tenet is both mocked for its foolhardy dream and why it actually makes sense. Even as he reinvented comic book movies, he’s a traditionalist at heart.
Nobody will know for sure if Tenet will come out within this calendar year. Still, you have to admire this strange piece of audacity that has made his voice as a director singular. Then again, the past 20 years would feel much emptier without him. He has shaped cinema into something more exciting, and the fact that my Top 5 can be much different from yours only speaks to his versatility. He has a little bit of something for everyone, and that’s what makes him a force to be reckoned with. Feel free to leave your own Top 5 in the comments and discuss whether Tenet has any potential for an official release anytime soon.
1. The Dark Knight (2008)
All it takes is an opening bank heist to notice the seismic shift that is taking place. With Hans Zimmer’s lingering dread of a score playing in the back, ticking like a neurotic heart, we’re watching a genre that has been scoffed at finally being elevated to a serious art form. This borrows more from Michael Mann, using the contemporary dread of 9/11 politics to inform a darker vision of Gotham. As Michael Caine will say “Some people just want to watch the world burn,” and that is what’s clear here. Batman is once again taking on The Joker, but how do you stop someone who is so sadistic and self-destructive when just the utterance of his name fills you with terrors? The Joker’s anarchism is on another level, more methodical than ever, and it’s the moral quandary at the center of this story.
If Batman represents justice, The Joker represents an absence. To stare into his war-painted face is to look into a void. He doesn’t have a personal identity. You can never understand him and his lack of humanity only makes him more horrifying. It’s a performance so visceral and immediately iconic that it, unfortunately, sent actor Heath Ledger into a fatal downward spiral. It was a performance that found him at his absolute best, and it’s a shame how little of a chance he had to build on this. It’s one of the many mysteries that makes this an incredible anomaly, a success story that shines bright even 12 years later.
Even if Nolan had always been respected, this was the point where he cemented himself as a modern great, capable of taking pop culture and using it to comment on our fears. With excellent action sequences, acting, and a score that bangs claustrophobically at your soul, this is more than a Batman movie. It was a cultural shift in how we saw comic books. Suddenly they could be a greater art form, being taken seriously as these provocative character studies where nothing is off-limits. This is more than superheroes. This is one of the flawed humans doing everything to hold the world together, and few have been able to match The Dark Knight’s effectiveness in the years since. The only one who came close, ironically, was a LEGO.
2. Dunkirk (2017)
Over a decade after Nolan had reinvented the comic book movie, he found himself approaching the war genre with an even loftier challenge. It’s practically an art-house movie with a studio budget, lacking any conventional protagonist and an uninformed view of time. Much like his other films, his exploration of how we use time was given its ultimate test as he explored how the British community came together to save soldiers stranded on the beaches of France. From the air, sea, and even the hollowed-out hulls of ships wasting away on the shores, the film creates one of the tensest views of war while using operatic techniques to stitch them all together.
The action is once again breathtaking, placing the viewer into a sense of peril. The opening scene’s quietness is haunting, making you realize that even in isolating the fear of death lingers over your safety. Every wall has the potential to hide an assassin. The sky is full of bombers. There’s no good hiding place, and it only gets worse as everyone stumbles through the chaos. Without a conventional protagonist, it means that the danger is capable of hitting harder, where everyone’s life feels equal. The editing connects these moments with manic poetry that puts you on edge, hoping to find some solace.
Because of its lack of linear structure, the film feels groundbreaking, showing the impact of war and how moments juxtapose another. Every person, great and small, are important here. They are necessary to save the day. Rarely has a war film perfectly captured this community aspect in such a way that you’re not drawn to the war, but to the survival. If anything suggests that Nolan still has plenty of surprises, it’s this film that not only manages to clock so much tension under two hours but makes it feel much more violent than its PG-13 rating would suggest. Our brains can connect the dots better than any severed limb, and it’s things like this that only make this the quintessential heart attack movie of the past decade. Everything will be all right. You just have to hold out hope for a little longer.
3. Inception (2010)
Following the success of The Dark Knight, it was clear that the bar was set very high for whatever came next. With Inception, Nolan made a film that pretty much became the credos by which his whole career was based. The dream-with-a-dream logic pushed his exploration of time to its most abstract, finding ways to understand how our imagination can be just as much our own worst enemy. Hallways bend, trains run through the middle of the street, and all while Leonardo DiCaprio searches for an answer rooted deep inside.
Many will get caught up in the “ambiguous” ending, but the journey is about so much more than understanding what reality is. It’s about understanding what is reality and fiction, being able to live in the moment instead of an impossible dream. It’s about how we construct fantasy, a film that is comparable. As much as Nolan has created a world that’s fun to explain, it’s one that finds every tendency in his toolkit at his most personal and novel. He would use every idea here elsewhere in the decade ahead, but rarely have they created a vision so succinct as this.
Outside of The Dark Knight Trilogy, it’s unlikely that Nolan will have a film that captured the zeitgeist quite like this. Even years later, many play with the film’s goofy use of slowing down time. But that only speaks to how influential this film is, creating a world that was unlike anything seen before, using practical effects to create mind-bending images that have withstood the test of time. It may be hot air if you think too much about it, but as a form of entertainment, it’s arguably the film that best explains Nolan’s entire career. There’s a reason that his production company, Syncopy, hasn’t changed its logo since this. It’s The Cult of Nolan distilled perfectly into one film. Nothing even comes close.
4. Memento (2000)
With his sophomore movie, Nolan proved what he was capable of with his first venture into time-bending narratives. The story is a murder mystery that takes place largely within the protagonist’s mind. His body is tattooed with these clues that provide some context for answers that lie somewhere in his past. The only catch is that he has acquired memory loss during this time and the audience is just as hazy as Guy Pearce is. We don’t know why we’re here or where the story is going, and it makes for a great literal head trip and one that became Nolan’s first high concept thriller, and one of the rare R-Rated ventures in his entire career.
It’s true that on some level this is his silliest, most gimmick-inspired film. However, it’s also the work of someone who always wanted to play with structure, making us see the narrative as a flexible means to an answer. As the main timeline moves forward, every new clue is presented in flashbacks, moving from the film’s start, eventually landing to a moment hours and days ago when things went horribly wrong. It’s all means to explore themes that are shocking and tragic, playing on our perverse love of a mystery.
Every second is kinetic, starting a career that has only grown more ambitious in the decades since. Even then, there are whole videos of co-writer Jonathan Nolan explaining how complex the timeline is. He proves that it’s all possible for this world to intertwine so perversely and still make sense. There’s clearly a fire in every decision made for this film, confidence that young filmmakers often lack. Even if nobody could predict what he would do even by the end of the decade, they had this hot shot movie to prove what he was capable of. Thankfully, he’s lived up to his potential more often than not.
5. Batman Begins (2005)
Even if The Dark Knight hogs all of the credit for making Batman dark and scary, there is something to this umpteenth origin story that defies expectations. Sure most of us know the story of Bruce Wayne’s parents being murdered, but Nolan has found a way to make it vital and new. It presents a world that somehow manages to equal parts borrow from the set designs of Blade Runner (1982) and still destroys the idea that being a comic book movie meant having to be flamboyant, colorful, and nonsensical.
That isn’t the world that Nolan is interested in. With help from mentor Ra’s Al Ghul (fun fact: originally made for a tie-in product to Batman (1989)), we get a vision of him more as a fighter, someone bulking with muscle and using practical effects wherever possible. Even with the main villain The Scarecrow using literal fear tactics, the film feels grounded in something surreal and familiar. This Gotham was one representative of your modern crime-ridden cities, not some fictional Fritz Lang homage.
Batman Begins may never get the respect of its sequel, but it’s just as important to fully understand Nolan’s view of this character. It’s one of the most emotionally rich explorations of the character with arguably one of his best supporting casts. What follows is a moral study that is direct in purpose, reflecting the potential of a hero who exists in our world. It may be among the silliest-looking films in this franchise, but the shift towards darkness was becoming clear. Within the next five years, Batman would be able to be taken seriously again. It all starts here, and I’d argue its creative license at key points perfectly reflects how bold and out of the box Nolan was as an up and coming Hollywood director.
What are your favorite Christopher Nolan movies?
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