Favorite Christopher Nolan Movie

[zombie kopitar]

The Prestige - The Dark Knight Rises was his golden period. Not that there aren't good films on either side of that range, but Interstellar is markedly where he began to fall off a bit and he started ruining his own audio.

What is the issue with the audio in Interstellar? I think it's one of the best scores of the last 10-15 years for a blockbuster movie, and a lot of it is more sound design than score

I would put Batman Begins above it , then probably a tie for Interstellar/Dark Knight for #2

Prestige for sure above Inception but they would be next tier. Dark Knight Rises well below those 5, haven't seen any others

Gonna see Oppenheimer at one of the 'true experience' Imax sometime here soon...good seats are booked out a few days

 

[Speyer]

The Prestige. Haven't seen Oppenheimer yet.

 

[beowulf]

Was not an easy decision as he has almost only great movies but had to go with Interstellar as it has always been a dream of mine of living to see humanity move to the stars and travel to distant worlds.

 

[Jack Straw]

I've only seen Interstellar, Tenet, and the Batman films, but of those definitely liked Interstellar best.

 

[Beau Knows]

Inception for me.

The first half of Interstellar had me feeling like that would be my favorite of his films, but the 2nd half is a bit of mess.

 

[Hivemind]

What is the issue with the audio in Interstellar? I think it's one of the best scores of the last 10-15 years for a blockbuster movie, and a lot of it is more sound design than score

It's where Nolan really started pushing the soundtrack volumes way above the dialogue volumes, and additionally stopped caring about mixing/mastering the audio for typical theaters (although his issues are still present even in high-end theaters). The issue got even worse on Dunkirk and Tenet (with the dialogue all but indecipherable in both of those), but the issue was very present on Interstellar. It's a deliberate choice by Nolan, but that doesn't mean the choice is automatically a good one.

Why ‘Interstellar’ Sound Issues Have Ignited a Hollywood Uproar

Buzz around the film Interstellar, the Christopher Nolan-helmed space saga starring Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway, hasn’t been particularly positive when it comes to the sound mix.

www.billboard.com

https://www.cnn.com/2014/11/18/showbiz/movies/interstellar-sound-nolan/index.html

 

[zombie kopitar]

Why ‘Interstellar’ Sound Issues Have Ignited a Hollywood Uproar

Buzz around the film Interstellar, the Christopher Nolan-helmed space saga starring Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway, hasn’t been particularly positive when it comes to the sound mix.

www.billboard.com

https://www.cnn.com/2014/11/18/showbiz/movies/interstellar-sound-nolan/index.html

interesting! I mean I remember just watching it on TV speakers, so I didn't notice anything egregious. I know a lot of people praise the score, but didn't realize the mix was so divisive

I generally hate unbalanced mixes with dialog too low like this too, but I just remember vibing with the sound design for whatever reason

 

[TCTC]

The Prestige and Dunkirk are my two favorite Nolan movies.

He likes a bombastic soundtrack. I would appreciate more subtlety, but that's just his style.

 

[Filppula]

The Prestige. Absolute masterpiece.

 

[JackSlater]

But not only that, one thing that did struck me about Inception when you think about it was how boring the dreams were in Inception. Where is the really crazy stuff? Heck, where is the sexuality? How about crazy scenarios like space travel blended with weird fantasy stuff? Or how about insane nightmares? How about solving a mystery surrounding a war atrocity by going into a soldier's mind that is broken? You can do all sorts of things with people's dreams, and you can scale the budget however you wish.

The tameness of the dreams has always been an issue for me. It's an all time great concept but the movie only scratches the surface. I always thought he should have done a sequel called Extraction or something that was a more straightforward heist movie that utilized the dream concept more and dropped everything about the protagonist's melodramatic dream related baggage. Ideally it would just have a different protagonist.

I'd say that Interstellar is also a great concept that drops the ball.

 

[Spring in Fialta]

There is one missing - Following, which was sort of a low budget black and white film that is reminiscent of Memento as far as twists and turns are concerned.

It involves an author who follows around a couple of thieves for inspiration as they go about their criminal activities .

Interestingly, the burglar who takes him under his wing is named Cobb (same as Di Caprio's character in Inception).

I'd heard somewhere that Nolan, at the end of the screening of Following at one of the festivals, told the audience that if they liked what they had seen, they could fund his next project, which was Memento.

It's worth watching if you want to see his entire body of work, but it's definitely raw.

I've seen all of his films (aside from Oppenheimer), but I'd say my top 3 would probably be:
1. Inception
2. Interstellar
3. Memento

I liked Following as well.

Memento would be my favorite and I think TDK trilogy is really overrated. The 2008 film really gets propped up by an awesome Heath Ledger performance but I think it has little going for it besides that.

 

[Randy Butternubs]

The Prestige, 100%. When I lived in Erie my parents would come up to visit me on/around my birthday. They'd take me to dinner and a movie. We decided to see The Prestige without knowing anything about it. Honestly, it's probably my all-time favorite.

My brother asked to borrow the Blu Ray years ago and hasn't returned it.

I recently finished reading the book it was based on, which is also good. There's enough different between the two.

 

[SJSharksfan39]

I haven’t seen Insomnia, Following or Tenet. I really want to see Insomnia but no one in this thread is talking about it. I heard people say it was one of Williams’ more underrated roles.

In terms of favorites, my top 3 are Inception, Dark Knight, and Memento.

 

[x Tame Impala]

I haven’t seen Insomnia, Following or Tenet. I really want to see Insomnia but no one in this thread is talking about it. I heard people say it was one of Williams’ more underrated roles.

In terms of favorites, my top 3 are Inception, Dark Knight, and Memento.

Woah woah woah!

Insomnia was great. Robin Williams, Al Pacino, and Hilary Swank killed it. The Alaskan setting was used perfectly IMO. If you haven’t seen it I definitely recommend it

But seriously watch it sometime, very good movie

 

[SJSharksfan39]

Woah woah woah!



But seriously watch it sometime, very good movie

I apologize I missed your post.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Memento
The Prestige
Batman Begins
The Dark Knight
Dunkirk
Oppenheimer
Inception
Insomnia
Interstellar
Tenet
Following
The Dark Knight Rises

 

[Rodgerwilco]

Not a huge Nolan fan, I generally don't prefer films with dark aesthetics, however Dark Knight is one of my favorite films of all-time and probably the movie I've seen the most times in my life.

I've always been big on Batman since I was a kid and I thought this was a near-perfect portrayal of Batman, Bruce Wayne, The Joker, and Gotham as a whole.

While I do recognize that some of that is in part due to Ledger's performance, I do not agree with many others that this is the only reason Dark Knight received the level of praise that it did.

 

[S E P H]

The Batman trilogy is clearly the best adaptation of Batman that we will ever see. It is just so well done from the acting to the storyline to the fan service. Going from Ra's al Ghul with The Scarecrow in the first film, to the Joker in the second, and finishing with al Ghul's daughter in the third staring Marion Cotillard and being able to intertwine Catwomen in all of this? Just absolutely amazing work and I am not talking about all the prime mafia gangs that take precedence in the movies as well.

Now with that said, Inception is probably his best original film.

Not a huge Nolan fan, I generally don't prefer films with dark aesthetics

If there is something Nolan suffers from a ton, it is the amount of constant whispering he has in his films between the dialogue of characters. That's what caused Tenet to fail, it was a brilliant film, but you only had a clue what was happening about 35% of the time lol.

 

[Stealth1616]

The Batman trilogy is clearly the best adaptation of Batman that we will ever see. It is just so well done from the acting to the storyline to the fan service. Going from Ra's al Ghul with The Scarecrow in the first film, to the Joker in the second, and finishing with al Ghul's daughter in the third staring Marion Cotillard and being able to intertwine Catwomen in all of this? Just absolutely amazing work and I am not talking about all the prime mafia gangs that take precedence in the movies as well.

Now with that said, Inception is probably his best original film.


If there is something Nolan suffers from a ton, it is the amount of constant whispering he has in his films between the dialogue of characters. That's what caused Tenet to fail, it was a brilliant film, but you only had a clue what was happening about 35% of the time lol.

I just saw Oppenheimer and have a similar complaint. Between the background music, accents and low level talking I found I didn’t follow a lot of the dialogue

 

[Rodgerwilco]

If there is something Nolan suffers from a ton, it is the amount of constant whispering he has in his films between the dialogue of characters. That's what caused Tenet to fail, it was a brilliant film, but you only had a clue what was happening about 35% of the time lol.

I'm not sure about the accuracy of this, but I read that Nolan does not like to re-record dialogue for certain scenes, he uses the original audio recording that occurred during the shot and that's it. As I said, I'm not sure the accuracy of this, but given what I've seen, it definitely tracks.

 

[DaaaaB's]

Pretty much a toss up between Interstellar, The Dark Knight, The Prestige, and Memento for me. Though Batman Begins and Inception were really good too. Didn't care for The Dark Knight Rises. Tenet and Dunkirk were kind of meh. Haven't seen Oppenheimer or Insomnia.

 

[PK Cronin]

I just watched Interstellar for the first time and can't feel it's been overhyped quite a bit. It's an excellent movie and I recommend everyone see it, but some people claim it's 10/10 and I just don't get that. Anne Hathaway was not good and the ending was lackluster for me. I'm wondering if seeing it in theaters makes that big of a difference.

Again, great movie, but I don't think it's his best.

 

[bambamcam4ever]

Hard to decide. Memento, Inception, Dunkirk, The Prestige, and the first two Batmans are all extremely good.

TDKR and Interstellar are much less so

 

[Sentinel]

Easily Memento for me.

 

[JetsWillFly4Ever]

Haven't seen:
Memento, Insomnia.

My Rankings:
The Dark Knight
Oppenheimer
The Prestige
Inception
Interstellar ---tier drop here, all these are bangers
Batman Begins
Dunkirk -- Still good movies but just didn't hit for me
Dark Knight Rises
Tenet -- only movies I did not really like, Dark Knight Rises might be more so just that there was so much hype and it was meh.