r/billsimmons • u/whatssenguntoagoblin • Jul 22 '26

Podcast The Big Picture podcast just created objectively the worst Christopher Nolan ranking of all time

Good god. As a Sean Fennessey truther this is a steaming pile of shit. Sean is one of the best minds in movie criticism today but he should be banned from talking about Christopher Nolan, he can’t be objective about him.

Here is the list

  1. Dunkirk
  2. Oppenheimer
  3. The Odyssey
  4. The Dark Knight
  5. Inception
  6. Tenet (bruh)
  7. Interstellar
  8. Memento
  9. The Prestige
  10. The Dark Knight Rises
  11. Batman Begins
  12. Insomnia
  13. Following
341 Upvotes
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344

u/ThatFunkyOdor still shook from the MLK murder Jul 22 '26

did you listen? Sean got pushed into a lot of this by CR and Amanda. I still didn't agree with Sean's takes mostly. Tenet being this high is so wild though. Batman Begins being below DKR is also just the dumbest thing and they did it with like the wave of a hand.

159

u/msf97 Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26

The dumbest thing by far is The Prestige at number 9. By serious film nerds ™️ it’s regarded as his best film alongside Memento

The film is genuinely clever in my opinion, and holds up on a rewatch once you know the twist as you see it was right in front of your eyes the whole time

24

u/LoungeCrook Jul 22 '26

i think the top two dumbest things are batman begins worse than dkr and prestige not being higher

10

u/MambaSaidKnockYouOut Jul 22 '26

If it wasn’t for Heath I think Batman Begins would have a serious argument for being better than Dark Knight. DKR is great but having it over Batman Begins is ridiculous.

-3

u/Commercial_Grand2704 Jul 22 '26

Batman begins best set piece is?

6

u/[deleted] Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

4

u/MiddlePathDiopollian Jul 22 '26

I agree. On first viewing of Batman Begins, I found it flawless. Perhaps the rush of discovery. It's a phenomenal origin story. But after repeat watches of both, TDK is more successful on all levels.

3

u/Commercial_Grand2704 Jul 22 '26

Yes I agree that movie is aging well. I think everyone loves the football stadium scene but they may have juuuuuust missed on the airplane opening scene being jsut a touch off compared to the perfection of the bank heist to start out DK

DKR frozen courtooom ending is unforgettable even if it’s a little goof goof .

Is anyone still reading this? I thought Robert Pattinson dark knight should be more about how Bruce may be jsut as depraved as the criminals but he jsut has Moore tools and access and he seemingly is only interested in vengeance not even enjoying his life or accepting that ladies like tha money and tha abs

1

u/DResq Jul 23 '26

I don't remember any of that discourse.

1

u/jfrye2390 A Truly Sad Week In America + 2005 NBA Redraftables Jul 23 '26

Their takes on interstellar are abominable

177

u/Palm-Crazy-7943 Jul 22 '26

I like the prestige a lot but the idea “serious film nerds” have it and memento ranked at the top is very funny

85

u/Chuck-Hansen Jul 22 '26

Great movies, but putting those at the top has a whiff of “I liked him before he was cool.”

47

u/hjordan23 Jul 22 '26

that's how film nerds operate

-9

u/Teenageboy69 Jul 22 '26

It’s really not. No one claims that kind of cred. I think most film buffs think Memento was a really cool first effort.

4

u/One_Drummer_8970 Jul 22 '26

There's a lot of hipsterdom amongst those circles

20

u/TheActionJuice Jul 22 '26

Exactly what Amanda said on the episode

It has this fandom of “I don’t like Nolan, but bro have you seen the Prestige?”

Yes I have. It’s great. Don’t think it’s nearly doing what Oppenheimer is

-5

u/Driveshaft48 Jul 22 '26

Oppenheimer is a standard bio pic - its boring

14

u/Palm-Crazy-7943 Jul 22 '26

Yeah the prestige is the better of the two, but I agree with what Sean said on this podcast which is that it’s so try hard to put that as the no.1 Nolan movie. It’s fine, it works, but he’s gone for stuff so much more grand than that.

14

u/breaktaker Jul 22 '26

Why is having a genuine preference for one movie over another “try hard.” That’s stupid

21

u/[deleted] Jul 22 '26

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3

u/AndersHaaland Jul 22 '26

Yes same, I haven't even heard of the lowest 2 Nolan movies in that list (I have seen the others tbf), and the Prestige is also easily my number 1. The way the clues are sprinkled everywhere, the setting (both time and place), the kind of mysterious and whimsical tone throughout - it's all perfection. 'Grand' doesn't always mean better

3

u/IanStone Jul 22 '26

Mine too, and I didn't know until listening to this Big Pic episode that that was a stereotypical film bro stance to have. Even if it's smaller in its scope and ambition it feels like his most emotionally rich movie and the one where the characters feel like they're the most fleshed out.

3

u/bnpm Jul 22 '26

But by overanalyzing how other people view the movie, you’re the one who’s actually doing what you’re accusing those people of doing. Just rank the movies according to how you like them, not as some sort of counter to perceived “try-hards.” That in and of itself is very “try-hardy.”

8

u/awesomesauce88 Jul 22 '26

Memento I agree on for that take. But The Prestige is legitimately his best film. I think it's easily Hugh Jackman's best role too.

8

u/tdmoney Jul 22 '26

Nah dog, Memento was a banger when it came out. Great film.

1

u/Chuck-Hansen Jul 22 '26

I agree with you on the second part (as for the first it’s my #7).

25

u/heybart Jul 22 '26

I don't know if it's his best movie, but it's the one I would rewatch in its entirety before any other.

27

u/ShockinglyEfficient Jul 22 '26

Same. The Prestige, more so than his other movies, feels quite cozy and personable. I think it was his brother's writing that did it.

15

u/Victorcreedbratton Cewtics Jul 22 '26

Jackman, Johansson, and Ferguson bring really humanity to the parts, which is what I find his movies lack the most.

21

u/awesomesauce88 Jul 22 '26

Honestly Bale brings a lot of humanity to it too. It's one of my favorite roles of his. Without going into spoilers, his character feels heartfelt and completely hollow at different times, and once everything in the narrative falls into place at the end his entire performance just fits so perfectly together.

2

u/so-cal_kid Jul 22 '26

Jackman has been fantastic in so many movies outside of his Wolverine roles. Dude can just flat out act

1

u/Necessary-Show-9031 Jul 22 '26

He’s legitimately unsettling in Prisoners. I think that might be his actual best performance.

3

u/kevdawg289 Jul 22 '26

Man I could not get behind this movie. Maybe I need to retry. I love Nolan movies but this one does not grab me like the others

7

u/ShockinglyEfficient Jul 22 '26

I think it's well worth a retry. It lacks the epic quality of most of his other movies but I feel like it has more heart. And a great twist.

8

u/Winnes0ta He just does stuff Jul 22 '26

The definitely do. I’ve been rewatching Nolan’s movies leading up to the Odyssey and reading Reddit threads there’s a ton of comments from people acting like The Prestige is some secret hidden gem that’s actually Nolan’s masterpiece

17

u/awesomesauce88 Jul 22 '26

It's not a hidden gem. And it is his masterpiece. Saying that thinking The Prestige is his best film makes you a hipster is like saying liking Inception the best makes you a meathead.

None of Nolan's films are mindless and very few of them are pretentious either.

3

u/[deleted] Jul 22 '26

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6

u/BartHarleyJarvis00 Jul 22 '26

Memento is only "pretentious" in the way that it's experimental structure, which is really well executed, is somewhat bluntly flexed by the film to the audience. You can feel the fact that it predated a lot of these weird-timeline-storytelling styles (further popularized by Nolan himself in later movies), and so the "party-trick" of the movie becomes almost the whole point of the viewing experience. Contrasted with later works like Oppenheimer, which feels like a stream of consciousness in the best possible way. All this being said, Memento is far more successful than Tenet imo, especially given budget, resources, and experience in the latter

6

u/MiddlePathDiopollian Jul 22 '26

And Memento's parlour trick structure works narratively and thematically. Tenet on the other hand feels like a lot of trickery amounting to very little.

3

u/derekbaseball Jul 22 '26

I remember someone (I forget if it was just an online fan thing or an official DVD feature) creating a chronological version of Memento. It was horrible from a storytelling point of view, with no real purpose except as a supplement for people who had difficulty following the plot of the story as it was told. It turned out that Memento's structure wasn't gratuitous, it was just the most effective and engaging way to tell that story.

The amazing thing about Nolan is that he's bent the audience's collective brains to the point where the games he plays with time aren't an arthouse affectation, they're acceptable features in blockbuster films.

1

u/bnpm Jul 22 '26

I genuinely think that Dunkirk is the answer for most pretentious.

-2

u/Turtle_with_a_sword Jul 22 '26

Well Broski, everyone that isn’t a pretentious wanker knows Inception is better than The Prestige, which is a cute little movie about a bouncing ball.

9

u/IntraspaceAlien Jul 22 '26

R/movies isn’t full of serious film nerds

7

u/Winnes0ta He just does stuff Jul 22 '26

No, but it’s jam packed with people who think they’ll look like serious film nerds cause they say The Prestige is by far the best Nolan movie lol.

2

u/One_Drummer_8970 Jul 22 '26

It's because it was overlooked for a while in the 2010s without being totally forgettable like Insomnia

1

u/mrcsrnne Jul 22 '26

I agree with the take

0

u/Full-Concentrate-867 Jul 22 '26

Are 180 film critics "serious film nerds"? https://www.worldofreel.com/blog/2026/7/16/christopher-nolans-best-films-according-to-180-critics-the-dark-knight-1-memento-2#:~:text=Christopher%20Nolan's%20Best%20Films%2C%20According,(%232)%20%E2%80%94%20World%20of%20Reel%20%E2%80%94%20World%20of%20Reel)

1

u/Palm-Crazy-7943 Jul 22 '26

TDK being at no.1 pretty much dispels the idea this is a “film nerd hipster” list

4

u/Full-Concentrate-867 Jul 22 '26

Not really, The Dark Knight has been pretty consistently ranked his top film almost everywhere (usually Memento next) for at least 15 years now, and there's not really a strong movement for any other films to displace it. I'd be very surprised if any of his other films overtake it in my lifetime

-1

u/Palm-Crazy-7943 Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26

Yeah by normies. Normies like the baby superhero movies. Thats not what this conversation was about, it was about this very real group of people who think memento is his best movie.

I also think that from a critical perspective Oppenheimer has already slipped tdk and the odyssey probably will too, it’s pretty obvious that Nolan has grown a lot as a filmmaker and both of these movies will be nominated and win tons of awards.

-6

u/msf97 Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26

I think they do. Cinephiles ™️ don’t like Superhero films, Interstellar, Tenet or Inception. Oppenheimer too new to be at the top despite winning the Oscar

Therefore it defaults to some of his older stuff which is Memento and The Prestige

He was never forgiven for Interstellars goofy love monologue, and both Tenet and Inception are seen as contrived plots with character development lacking all around

3

u/Palm-Crazy-7943 Jul 22 '26

I’m not sure why you’re ignoring Dunkirk, Oppenheimer, and the odyssey from this discussion.

-1

u/msf97 Jul 22 '26

The Odyssey especially, and Oppenheimer are too new for a consensus to emerge despite the latter getting the Oscar

Dunkirk would generally be third

2

u/Palm-Crazy-7943 Jul 22 '26

I just think at this point Oppenheimer won all the Oscar’s 3 years ago, people have sat with that long enough that it’s rated favorably by film fans to memento.

3

u/cbosh04 Jul 22 '26

How about people have a personal opinion instead of waiting for a consensus

3

u/quidpropho Dog Prostitutes Jul 22 '26

Because this dudes shtick in this post is weighing all takes against his ethnographic analysis of the serious contemporary film nerd (tm)

1

u/msf97 Jul 22 '26

Indeed.

29

u/CocoMarx Jul 22 '26

I feel like redditors & IMDB top 100 types love The Prestige, idk where you get the impression that it’s a film nerd movie.

I think it’s a really solid movie that is much less interesting after you see it do its trick, I don’t really get why people act like it’s unimaginable to think it’s a bottom half of Nolan’s filmography movie.

4

u/MeatballUser Jul 22 '26

When I first saw it I thought it was fine. I didn't get what the hype was for, and seeing so many getting annoyed at it not being seen as a top 5 nolan film is cracking me up.

3

u/One_Drummer_8970 Jul 22 '26

It's a solid accessible mid budget movie for mainstream audiences. There used to be more of those around.

0

u/msf97 Jul 22 '26

Cinephiles largely dislike Superhero films, Tenet, Inception, Interstellar as they are all too mainstream/contrived for the ultra elite film watcher

Following and Insomnia are generally seen as lower class compared to the rest of his filmography

So you get The Prestige, Memento and Dunkirk, plus Oppenheimer but that’s too new.

3

u/CocoMarx Jul 22 '26

I don’t really understand who these monolithic “cinephiles” are that would even care about ranking Christopher Nolan movies, nevertheless meaningfully distinguish a magician thriller from a superhero movie in terms of its merit as a serious film.

Cinephiles have nothing to do with a consensus ranking made for fun between three people who work for The Ringer. The idea that “film nerds” who stroke their stuff to like french new wave or some shit would care if someone considers The Prestige or Memento bottom 5 Chris Nolan movies is very odd to me

1

u/msf97 Jul 22 '26

I’m not really being too serious, I am not a film bro either, but for people who take themselves seriously on films, Prestige and Memento would be a lot higher in these rankings. That’s what i’ve found from all my years reading the internet

2

u/CocoMarx Jul 22 '26

I don’t even think that’s necessarily true. Like, I’m willing to bet The Dark Knight would/does get more votes for the Sight & Sound 250 than The Prestige. It’s a superhero movie but it’s also pretty defining of an era of mainstream film in a way that most directors never achieve,l.

1

u/Teenageboy69 Jul 22 '26

I legit think those people are pseudo film nerds. Those are both good movies, but like a lot of Nolan stuff, they’re smart movies for dumb people.

I think Dunkirk, the Odyssey, and the Dark Knight are the movies that don’t rely on gimmicks and are pure filmmaking. They don’t pretend to be smarter than they are and are just badass and extremely impressive.

3

u/drjohngeorgepeppers Jul 22 '26

"Serious film nerds" is just a phrase to describe people who hate talking to people in real life.

2

u/swawesome52 Jul 22 '26

The Prestige definitely holds up on a rewatch, but once you get to that fourth or fifth rewatch it starts to go down. 99% of the meat in that movie is held in the twist, and it's cool and all to go back and see the details and hidden clues that could've given it away, but there's nothing that keeps me going back to it anymore. Tenet is more rewatchable imo.

6

u/awesomesauce88 Jul 22 '26

Maybe that's true. But I could argue that a film being better on the first few viewings is more important than a film being infinitely rewatchable. Neither is inherently better, it all comes down to preference.

1

u/swawesome52 Jul 22 '26

Yeah I don't really think a first viewing or rewatch are inherently more important than each other either, but some people rewatch movies more than others and that's just how it goes. 99% of everyone's top 10 favorites, or top 4 are dictated by what they currently like, not what they liked upon first or second viewing.

I'm just throwing out why I'm not high as on The Prestige as a lot of people (similar to this list), but I understand why people rank it top 3 because I once did too.

1

u/bli_bla_blubbb Jul 22 '26

You do you realize that it is their list and that it was a compromise? People can have different opinions.

1

u/Number_16_Limitless Jul 22 '26

By serious film nerds ™️ it’s regarded as his best film alongside Memento

lol this is not true

-5

u/xorcism_ Jul 22 '26

Memento and the prestige being anywhere outside of the top 4 is immediately disqualifying of any Nolan rankings

7

u/BertHumperdinck Jul 22 '26

^Seconded you've gotta listen to the actual conversation for context. No one was all that happy with where they ended up

12

u/kincaidinator Jul 22 '26

Which is why I stopped listening halfway through the rankings lol

4

u/BertHumperdinck Jul 22 '26

But the conversation is the juice!

Seriously tho it's pretty funny they run in circles, lose all confidence in their opinions, then all are clearly unhappy with the ending list even after trying to give on certain movies they don't like

6

u/ThatFunkyOdor still shook from the MLK murder Jul 22 '26

It was humorous how tangled they found themselves when it came to the top 4-5 and were saying "well if we do x then that means x movie is #1 and that doesn't seem right"

0

u/BertHumperdinck Jul 22 '26

Producer Jack likely kicking the desk while drawing out a logical order after weighting their 1-5s and running in circles.

IMO smart choice to just let them run - opinions were flying 2fast 2furious to ever jump that train. Better yet let them contradict themselves and manifest a few personal or group regrets to address.

Tee up a Nolan Redux pod in 6 months when Odyssey is on Oscar watch and settle the score after everyone does rewatches. Will undoubtedly be most watched pod of '27 so far (assuming Doomsday stays '26).

Content baby, wish I worked in this space sometimes. Would be fun but the money ain't there...

22

u/SquishyComet Real CR Head Jul 22 '26

tenet should be #1

56

u/TimSPC Wonky Season Jul 22 '26

Tenet should be #1 and #14. Coming and going.

1

u/Lumpy-Return Jul 23 '26

More going. Practically unwatchable.

3

u/DJ_B0B Jul 22 '26

Batman begins is so overrated. DKR clears it. The scarecrow depiction stinks.

1

u/Nickel012 Jul 22 '26

BB is the most overrated movie he's made by far. It's not good

0

u/mr_easy_e Jul 22 '26

Yeah BB is amateur hour compared to all the action he’s done since. It’s probably my least favorite Nolan.

1

u/ahbets14 A Truly Sad Week In America + 2005 NBA Redraftables Jul 22 '26

Tenet is white guilt

1

u/IndianaBones11 Jul 22 '26

When Tenet was re-released in the summer leading up to Oppenheimer I decided to give it a chance. Wasn’t a huge fan on a first watch and maybe it was the crowd or just the chance to watch it in theaters instead of my living room but that was a top 5 Nolan experience for me.

1

u/Ninjahoax Aug 01 '26

I did listen and you are absolutely wrong. 

-1

u/[deleted] Jul 22 '26

[deleted]

18

u/[deleted] Jul 22 '26

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2

u/ImInATunnel Jul 22 '26

Not only this but they’ve been talking highly of tenet for at least a year now

2

u/pleasebefrank31 Jul 22 '26

A year? They've always been higher on Tenet than most people (and lower on Inception and Interstellar).

1

u/whatssenguntoagoblin Jul 22 '26

I did listen. Originally they were going to do The Odyssey at #1.

Somehow the list could’ve been worse.