All 12 Christopher Nolan movies ranked by someone who finds many of them pretty dull

10. Dunkirk

Released in 2017, Dunkirk was Nolan’s first attempt at a historical drama before Oppenheimer. The film tells the story of the Allied retreat from the French port town of Dunkirk as the Germans press in on them. At under two hours, it’s one of the shorter films in Nolan’s filmography.

But man, did it feel long when I watched it in the theater. Once again, the film has obvious strengths. It’s gorgeous, and Nolan films some fantastically ambitious sequences, including a spectacular aerial dogfight. But something about it just failed to pull me along.

I wonder if part of the reason I don’t often vibe with Nolan’s movies is because he doesn’t seem particularly interested in character. I mean, of course there are characters, but they’re often ciphers; some of his main characters don’t even have names. The main character in Following is just called “The Young Man.” The lead in Tenet is “The Protagonist.” Nolan lets his sights and sounds do the talking, which is valid, but I want someone to get attached to, and Dunkirk doesn’t give me anyone particularly memorable.

Dunkirk is a good movie, and a noble effort, but it kind of went in one ear and out the other for me, not unlike…

9. Interstellar

Again I’m going to talk trash about a film I think most of Nolan’s fans enjoy. Please be kind.

Interstellar has many of the things that Nolan’s fans think make his films so special. It’s gorgeous, like always. It has an ambitious concept: Earth is dying because human beings screwed too much with nature — believable — so we send Matthew McConaughey out into space in a last-ditch effort to find a habitable planet.

Over the course of nearly three hours, he explores a variety of hostile, inhospitable planets while the film engages with the physics behind gravity, time dilation and black holes in a way that isn’t exactly accurate, but explained at enough length to wear on the viewer. Dunkirk is a short movie that feels long. Interstellar is a long movie that feels longer.

I think Interstellar is better with characters than movies like Tenet and Dunkirk, and does a fine job with the relationship between McConaughey’s character and his daughter, played by Jessica Chastain, among other people. Mainly what I objected to was the bleak tone, which is so consistent as to be monotonous. Obviously it’s appropriate for a movie about the end of humanity to feel bleak, but I wish there were some other tones in there.

I think Nolan does some of his best work when he’s playing in other people’s universes, because it forces him to work with different tones. Speaking of which…