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

6. Batman Begins

Any Batman movie is guaranteed to be a hit, but if it’s going to stay a hit rather than fade into the fog of Batmen past, it has to be good, to bring something new to the table. Christopher Nolan’s Batman movies do that, reinventing the Caped Crusader for the big screen. There’s no camp. No shark repellant. No Robin. Just a very damaged man, a lot of quickly cut fight scenes, and a lot of commentary on the moral rectitude of vigilanteism, or lack thereof.

Also there’s a secret society of ninjas and a psychiatrist who drives his patients made with crazy dust. That’s what fun about Nolan’s Batman movies, how the self-serious exists alongside the goofy. And the goofy is impossible to avoid, because these are still movies about a man who dresses up like a bat to fight crime.

And it more or less works! Nolan and company play it straight and really do find new meaning in Bruce Wayne’s journey, aided by folks like Christian Bale and Michael Caine, who enthusiastically dig into their characters. It’s Batman for a new age!

5. The Prestige

Dan Selcke’s note: I never saw the prestige, so I hand the floor over to WiC editor Daniel Roman:

Like Memento or Inception, The Prestige is another example of Christopher Nolan at his surreal best. It tells the story of two rival magicians living in Victorian England played by Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale whose lives devolve into a dangerous back-and-forth as they each try to master the perfect teleportation trick.

Dark obsession is the name of the game in this film. Early on it seems that Alfred Borden (Bale) has already mastered teleportation, which leads Robert Angier (Jackman) to obsessively try to figure out how his opponent outsmarted him. The name of the movie comes from the ending flourish of a magic trick, which is fitting because the movie itself is one big magic trick. The Prestige is all about the moody vibes, the shocking grimness, and the mind-blowing twists that make it instantly rewatchable. Like Memento, this is a movie made to be watched multiple times, because the ending puts the whole thing into a different context.

Released between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, The Prestige also featured a stellar cast, some of whom would recur in other Nolan films. We’ve got Michael Caine, Scarlett Johansson, Andy Serkis, Piper Perabo, Rebecca Hall, and, in one of the most perfect casting decisions choices, David Bowie as Nikola Tesla.

The Prestige is a riveting movie with a great, tragic story that holds up quite well. However, if we’re going to split hairs about Christopher Nolan movies, it probably belongs somewhere in the middle of his oeuvre. It’s a great movie but not one of Nolan’s best, simply because he’s made so many others which are even more spectacular.