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With the release of The Odyssey, it’s time to re-assess all of director Christopher Nolan‘s movies from worst to best. This wasn’t an easy task. Unlike ranking five Indiana Jones movies or seven Mission: Impossible films, Nolan offers 13 films that range from historical dramas (Dunkirk, Oppenheimer) to sci-fi thrillers (Interstellar, Tenet) to mysteries (The Prestige, Memento) to his Batman trilogy. Through it all, the Oscar winner has risen to become one of the world’s finest filmmakers, one of the few who can dependably fill theater seats on an opening weekend, and is one of the last refuges for grown-up cinema fans. Here are all of Nolan’s films, from weakest to the strongest.
13. Insomnia (2002)
It says a lot about Nolan that the “worst” film he directed is still rather good and worth seeing. Insomnia is a remake of the Norwegian title and is perhaps notable in that it’s the only movie Nolan directed that he didn’t write or co-write. Here, a veteran Los Angeles detective (Al Pacino) teams with a small-town investigator (Hilary Swank) to solve a murder in remote Alaska. It’s an effective, moody detective drama, but it lacks Nolan’s usual ambitious scope and feels like a for-hire job.
