October 15, 2014

Christopher Nolan Films, Ranked

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I have a lot of feeling about Christopher Nolan. On the one hand, he’s a very talented director and his movies are almost always visually stunning. On the other hand, the plots of many of his films frustrate me beyond belief. But when Nolan isn’t trying to “blow my mind” with an hour of Ellen Page saying “it’s a dream within a dream” over and over or Matthew McConaughey discovering that vibrations are time-ripples of love or something, he’s actually really good!

Nolan’s latest film Dunkirk has some time-nonsense in it, but it doesn’t try to blow your mind with any “cool ‘get it?’ ideas.” Nolan let’s the drama come from the story and the characters. It works really well! 

A few years ago I ranked Nolan’s films in response to my friend Sonny Bunch’s ranking of Nolan’s films. (His ranking was Bad with a capital b.) Since then Nolan has come out with two new films and Sonny has ranked them once again. It is…less bad. But still bad; bad with a lower case b. His main sin is ranking Dream Machine too high. 

Here is my updated, correct ranking.

(I did not include Nolan’s first film Following, which I have never seen because no one has ever seen it.)

1. Dunkirk

2. The Dark Knight

3. The Prestige

4. Memento

5. Insomnia

6. Batman Begins

7. Interstellar

8. The Dark Knight Rises

9. Inception

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We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

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