Although it is just plain fun to rank a director's movies, it may also help me think about the director's oeuvre of work as a whole. Comparisons can help me to discover elements of film that I am drawn to, what the director finds value in revealing through their movies and possibly how the director has grown artistically.
Since Nolan is perhaps the BIGGEST filmmaker making movies right now many people have seen many of his films and have written a lot about him and his content. He also often very blatantly shows the major themes he is working through in a film in dialogue and these themes are especially explored by being deeply ingrained within the mechanics of his…
Although it is just plain fun to rank a director's movies, it may also help me think about the director's oeuvre of work as a whole. Comparisons can help me to discover elements of film that I am drawn to, what the director finds value in revealing through their movies and possibly how the director has grown artistically.
Since Nolan is perhaps the BIGGEST filmmaker making movies right now many people have seen many of his films and have written a lot about him and his content. He also often very blatantly shows the major themes he is working through in a film in dialogue and these themes are especially explored by being deeply ingrained within the mechanics of his creative plots themselves. Truly, a lot could be written about his movies, but I will limit myself to a few of the major things that have hit me, personally, the hardest.
Nolan highlights time a lot. His characters are often haunted by their pasts and desperately trying to work toward a better future, usually with both the high stakes of the entire world or society depending on his protagonists’ actions and also on personal levels for their own well-being and mental health. Time is often working against his protagonists and helps create exciting scenes, as the audience knows these time limits can cause failure. Time is a force that is usually not manipulatable, but Nolan’s characters often use other philosophical devices they can manipulate in order to achieve their goals.
One of the many facets of life his characters use to realize their dreams is delusion. His characters often realize that deception is necessary in order to progress. Truth is malleable and what people choose to believe can have profound implications on the rest if their lives. Often his protagonists even choose to deceive themselves in order to create a better future. This kind of decision is just one of the many big hurdles Nolan’s characters have to live with as they determine how to live, how to act, how to see the world and their place in it.
Nolan’s protagonists are usually quite thoughtful in how they choose to live. They have values and much drama is created when they are put in situations that test the limits of those values. As his characters hold fast to their values, they find they must sacrifice much. In order to create a better society, a better world and future they understand they must lose a lot, but that ultimately it is necessary and worth it. They feel a responsibility to their world and their place in and believe they cannot live a life of the usual compromises most people in this world make for their entire lives.
Other directors I have ranked:
JJ Abrams | PT Anderson | Wes Anderson | Judd Apatow | Darren Aronofsky | Ari Aster | Sean Baker | Bong Joon-ho | Jane Campion | Charlie Chaplin | Damien Chazelle | Coen Brothers | Sofia Coppola | Cameron Crowe | Andrew Dominik | Robert Eggers | David Fincher | Alex Garland | Greta Gerwig | Todd Haynes | Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu | Jim Jarmusch | Rian Johnson | Spike Jonze | Satoshi Kon | Stanley Kubrick | Sergio Leone | Richard Linklater | George Lucas | David Lynch | Martin McDonagh | Steve McQueen | Sam Mendes | Nancy Meyers | Hayao Miyazaki | Jeff Nichols | Alexander Payne | Sarah Polley | Lynn Ramsay | Céline Sciamma | Ben Stiller | Quentin Tarantino | Andrei Tarkovsky | Taika Waititi | Edgar Wright | Chloé Zhao
