The correct order to watch all Christopher Nolan movies

26 years into his career, Christopher Nolan continues to be one of the most creative and commercially successful films the film industry has ever seen. Since he stormed the scene with His second great movie “Memento” In 2001, all he did was deliver one critically acclaimed box office hit after another. Considering the large budgets he is accustomed to working with, it is a winning streak that none of our great masters can match. Even Steven Spielberg experienced critical and/or commercial turmoil at this point in his career. With films like “1941”, “Empire of the Sun,” “Always,” and “Hawk.” But aside from “Tenet” (which would have been a huge hit had the Covid pandemic not kept the vast majority of moviegoers out of theaters during the summer of 2020), all of Nolan’s films have doubled their production budgets at the global box office, It is currently rated as fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.

What’s the best way to appreciate what Nolan has accomplished since 1998? You can’t do better than a complete visit to all his films, or, if you’ve somehow deprived yourself of pleasure, take a first-time trip through his cinema. In what order should you watch its 12 completed features? You might think that chronological order is the way to go, but there is a more interesting and perhaps enlightening approach.

If you want to maximize your Christopher Nolan viewing experience, you should choose this path:

“Memento” (2000)

“Follow-up” (1998)

“Insomnia” (2002)

“Batman Begins” (2005)

“The Dark Knight” (2008)

“The Dark Knight Rises” (2012)

“Prestige” (2006)

“The Beginning” (2010)

“Interstellar” (2014)

“Dunkirk” (2017)

“Tenet” (2020)

“Oppenheimer” (2023)

Despite there being more prolific filmmakers (like Steven Soderbergh, who will have two films in theaters within months of each other in 2025), Nolan has worked steadily throughout his career. Only three years passed between films, which is the amount of time it takes to develop and assemble films on the massive physical scale of “Dunkirk” and “Tenet.” At 54, he shows no signs of slowing down or cutting back, as evidenced by his just-announced 2026 epic adaptation of Homer’s “The Odyssey.”

So why don’t we follow the chronological order like any reasonable person would?

The first phase of four films of the aforementioned arrangement aims to replicate the way moviegoers discovered and understood Nolan’s visual narrative aesthetic. You’ll never be able to recapture the sheer shock and awe of “Memento,” which quietly appeared in theaters during the spring of 2001, but when you screen it just imagine you’ve walked into a modestly budgeted neo-noir starring Guy Pearce. (best known at the time for L.A. Confidential) and Carrie-Anne Moss (Trinity from The Matrix), and it slowly occurs to you that you’re watching a perfectly crafted mystery from Nolan was nobody at this point, so when we learned that this was his second film, we all went wild trying Tracking down the then-hard-to-find “follow-up” – which, although much smaller, is less well-narrated. An ambitious film, it was still impressive.

Then came Nolan’s first success in a Hollywood film with a sharp, well-crafted remake of the Norwegian thriller “Insomnia,” at which point we realized that this was a man who had the skill of the craft to thrive at the studio level — and, through “Batman Begins,” the intelligence and skill to play in the sandbox of the franchise without losing its creative identity.

At this point, you’ll want to rule out Nolan’s next two Batman films, because despite being visually stunning and well above average for superhero films, this trilogy is the least interesting part of his career. So after “The Dark Knight Rises” It will fall back on 2006’s “The Prestige,” His mesmerizing, intricately plotted thriller that some Nolan fans consider his best work to date. Next, you’ll move on to his other Batman-like film, “Inception,” which proved conclusively that Nolan was a popular filmmaker who could deliver to mass audiences without the need for comic books.

Finally, you’ll follow chronologically with “Interstellar” (my pick for his best work at the moment), “Dunkirk” (which was supposed to be his first Oscar), “Tenet” and the Oscar-winning, conscience-stricken biopic “Oppenheimer.” If Nolan isn’t your favorite director by this point, you’ll at least be able to admire the astonishing confidence with which he moves from epic to epic. David Lean couldn’t do it better. And it looks like “The Odyssey.” This may be his biggest project yet. Serious moviegoers are lucky to have him.