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

2. Memento

Nolan’s first big cinematic magic trick is still his best. Memento made huge waves when it came out back in 2000 because of its unique structure: it tells its story backwards. Each scene reveals context we didn’t have before, filling us in on the life of short-term amnesiac Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce) even as he forgets it.

Memento is a thriller; Shelby is looking for the man who killed his wife, a classic noir trope. So we have a very simple story told in a complicated way, which I feel like is what Nolan is trying to do in at least half of his movies. Whereas Tenet and Interstellar can buckle under themselves as conceits pile on top of each other, Memento just has the one. The movie is very focused on pulling you from one scene to the next, and it’s so effective that we don’t see the ending twist coming until it slaps us in the face.

1. The Dark Knight

To me, The Dark Knight is the movie where all of Nolan’s habits work to make the movie better. Nolan loves to go grim, and The Dark Knight goes grim. It tackles themes of corruption, justice and ethics, but never gets bogged down by them. It’s hard to get bogged down by anything when the movie has Heath Ledger lighting up the screen as the Joker, who is outlandish enough to be a credible Batman villain but grounded enough to make you think he could exist in the real world.

Working within the framework of the Batman universe puts Nolan on just enough of a leash that he can’t get carried away by his imagination, but gives him enough slack to construct plausibly preposterous sequences like Batman and the Joker facing off on Gotham City’s main drag. Many scenes have become iconic, like the Joker burning a giant pile of money. Everything just clicks. Nolan finally finds balance between his instincts.

It’s not a perfect film. While not as overstuffed as The Dark Knight Rises, the movie doesn’t give Two-Face quite the time he needs to emerge as a villain on Joker’s level, but The Dark Knight is still a tremendous piece of work.

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