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Christopher Nolan’s Movies, Ranked: How “The Odyssey” and Other Films Compare

18 Jul
Christopher Nolan movies

Christopher Nolan has spent the last quarter-century doing something very few filmmakers can do: Making audiences think while simultaneously blowing their minds.

His movies have recurring themes — time, memory, identity, obsession, sacrifice, and moral ambiguity — and they’re populated with people who could really benefit from a good therapist. 

Nolan loves practical effects, giant IMAX screens, nonlinear storytelling, and asking viewers to do a little homework after the credits roll. 

He also loves working with the same people again and again. Christian Bale, Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Michael Caine, Tom Hardy, Robert Pattinson, Cillian Murphy, Kenneth Branagh, Gary Oldman, Marion Cotillard, and Morgan Freeman are just some of the actors who have appeared in multiple Nolan films.

Most importantly, Nolan never thinks small. Whether he’s exploring dreams, Gotham City, World War II, outer space, or ancient Greece, his films feel like events. Because they are.

I’ve seen 12 of Nolan’s 13 films, every single one of them on the big screen at least once, and I consider him to be one of my favorite filmmakers. So, with The Odyssey now in theaters, I thought it was a good time for a ranking of those movies. 

Sure, ranking Nolan’s movies is both fun and slightly misleading. Even his less satisfying work is still more ambitious and more impressive than many other directors’ best films.

In short, Nolan is a writer/director who doesn’t settle for “good enough.”

With all that in mind, here are my picks, from worst (a word I’m using in relative terms) to best.

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Ithaca’s King Is Coming Back

15 Jul
Matt Damon stars in Christopher Nolan's THE ODYSSEY

UPDATE July 26, 2026: I have now seen The Odyssey twice, the second time in IMAX 70mm (the way God intended), and that second screening made a significant difference in what I think about the film.

Wow! to everything — particularly the cinematography, the score by Ludwig Göransson, and the storytelling. Watching the film a second time, without my sky-high expectations and anticipation, I was able to simply watch the movie and appreciate its commentary about the costs and sacrifices of war on a deeper level. That said, the scene late in the movie showing the attack on and destruction of Troy resonated with me yet again. Given the events of the last three years, I’m still thinking about whether Odysseus is a hero to be respected or a leader of bad men who has a conscience about what he unleashed. That line about turning “a fight into a hunt” says it all. He’s complicated, that’s for sure.

The IMAX 70mm presentation allowed me to be fully immersed in the action, to see how amazing the cinematography really is, and to enjoy scenes like the confrontation with the Laestrygonians even more. Those scenes on the high seas with the waves crashing and the ship rocking, and the volume turned way up so you can be overwhelmed by the sound … It’s all breathtaking. In short, if you have the chance to see this movie in IMAX 70mm, you shouldn’t miss it. Even regular IMAX is preferable. Yes, even if you’ve already seen it once before.

After seeing The Odyssey a second time, the way it was intended to be seen, I’m raising my grade to an A–. It’s still not a perfect movie, but it’s really great, and I look forward to seeing it again — but only in similarly ideal conditions.

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The Year in Movies: My Favorite and Least Favorite Films of 2023

26 Dec
Top movies of 2023

It may be hyperbole to say this, but 2023 was the year the movies came back.

After three years of Hollywood being in pandemic mode and struggling to recover, including a year like last year when the films just felt so forgettable and meh, this year was filled with so many movies that were worth seeing that it was hard not to feel like things were back to normal. 

Of course, it was interrupted by the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, which set production on many projects back a few months (or, in some cases, a year) and meant that nearly every film that was released during the strikes did so with little to no fanfare. If one of those releases found an audience, it could consider itself lucky.

But by year’s end, things were back on track, and here we are again taking stock of the best and worst releases of the year. 

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#Barbenheimer: What I Thought of This Summer’s Two Biggest Movies

24 Jul
Oppenheimer and Barbie

You had to be sleeping under a rock to not have heard about Barbenheimer, the portmanteau made by combining the names of this summer’s two most eagerly anticipated movies: Greta Gerwig’s Barbie and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. 

Other than ambitious filmmakers taking large swings and huge ensemble casts full of recognizable faces, the two films do not have much in common; one is a candy-colored comedy based on a popular toy, and the other is a drama about one of the darkest chapters in American history. But the hype over the last few months turned their release on the same day into a legitimate event. Just check out the memes and social media chatter — not to mention the brand partnerships. In response, fans showed up in droves; the two movies together earned more than $235 million at the box office on opening weekend in the United States and Canada.

If you’re someone who’s still on the fence about seeing one or both of these movies, or you’ve somehow managed to avoid all the buzz, let me cut to the chase and share the good news that they’re both worthy of the hype and worth seeing. That’s a bit of a modern-day miracle given we’re living in times when hyperbole and (undeserved) overpromotion are the norm.

What more do you need to know? Here are my thoughts about both films, in reverse alphabetical order.

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Wrapping Up a Decade at the Movies with 20 Favorite Films

10 Dec

Favorite movies of the decadeJust in case you haven’t heard, we’re now at the end of another decade. Which means it’s time to take stock not just of the year that’s closing, but the nine previous years, too, and what the major highlights and trends were.

Any decade recap in my world has to include a top-movies list. It’s a bit of a herculean task, to be sure, given that, by my math, I saw an average of 71 movies every year of this decade. (My single-year high was 85, a total I reached twice.) If all goes according to plan, I’ll close out the 2010s having seen 715 films.

That’s right: Seven hundred and fifteen films. It’s crazy, I know.

So yes, that creates a bit of a challenge when it comes to narrowing down the list to just a few “favorites.” Continue reading →

In a Meh Year for Movies, These Releases Won the Battle

7 Jan

So, 2017 was a funny year for the movies.

Not funny ha ha, but more like, it was just a meh year overall. With few exceptions, many of the movies I saw were good, not great. And it wasn’t just me: There appears to be little consensus across critics groups and award nominations so far because of it.

To that end, movies like Get Out and Call Me By Your Name I liked but didn’t love. (In the latter case, I thought Armie Hammer was miscast.) Same with Wonder Woman, which I liked but didn’t think was even the best superhero movie of the year. And on the flip side, movies I did really like, you won’t necessarily see on other top 10 lists. And some would never make my list in another, better year. Continue reading →

Christopher Nolan Scores a V for Victory with Dunkirk

18 Jul

Christopher Nolan’s latest, Dunkirk, is a film for anyone who wished the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan was an hour and a half longer.

The director of the The Dark Knight Trilogy, The Prestige, and Inception has given us a definitive account of one of World War II’s most heroic and miraculous — not to mention, pivotal — events, and in the process, has made a movie that is a real must-see. Continue reading →

2012 Was a Masterful Year for the Movies

21 Dec

You know it’s been a good year when creating a list of your favorite movies can’t be limited to just 10 — and two films jockey back and forth for the top spot right up until I hit “publish.”

And yet, rules are rules are rules, and tough decisions have to be made.

So without further ado, and with the full knowledge that Jeff Wells may call me a “beefalo,” here’s my list of the 10 best and most enjoyable movies I saw this year — as well as some honorable mentions and the 10 worst ones too. For my full reviews, click on each of the movie titles.

(Note: At the time of this blog post, not all the films have been officially released in Boston. I’ll add links when those reviews are published.)

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You Should Be As Afraid of Him As I Am

29 Jul

The Dark Knight Rises, Christopher Nolan’s thrilling final entry in his Batman trilogy, begins with a breathtakingly impressive and awfully scary sequence.

Shot in IMAX, it involves Bane, the bulked-up villain who wears an intimidating crab-like mask, taking a plane full of men hostage. “Now is not the time for fear,” Bane says as the plane attaches to another, tilts 90 degrees, and he injects one of the passengers with a needle that draws out his blood. “That comes later.”

Coulda fooled me.

The scene, which was previewed before IMAX screenings of Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol last December, was shot largely with stunt actors in the air and not with green-screen-assisted computer effects. And yes, with those heavier, bulkier IMAX cameras.

It’s nothing short of amazing.

But that’s to be expected, given the way Nolan has rebooted the Batman story, infused it with such craftsmanship, and made each new film of his trilogy bigger and better than the last.

The Dark Knight Rises, while it may not be a better film than The Dark Knight, is certainly the most ambitious one of the three. And that opening scene sets our expectations pretty high (no pun intended). Continue reading →

Life Could Be a Dream

19 Jul

We’re not in Kansas anymore, kids.

Again.

Picking up where The Matrix left off, Christopher Nolan’s new film, Inception, presents a reality that’s not quite what it seems.

And then Nolan layers it with twists and turns that only generate more questions and more questions.

The film’s like a dream within a dream within a dream within a dream.

Or is it?

Just how much of the action in Inception is real, and how much is a dream? That all depends on whether you want to swallow the red pill or the blue one.

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