DIRECTOR · BORN 1970
Christopher Nolan
30 archived facts 6 topics 2 sources Last reviewed Nov 2026
Christopher Nolan (born 30 July 1970) is a producer best known for Inception, Interstellar and The Dark Knight Rises.
Is a huge fan of James Bond, and said to David S. Goyer, that his favorite James Bond movie is On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969).
In interviews he said, that he's only interested in making features that will be shown in theatres. He has no plans to ever work for Netflix. He criticized Netflix's distribution model as "mindless", because it would skip the traditional 3-month-theatrical-window, which he called a "terrific" model, that shouldn't be changed.
The majority of Nolan's features have one common story element: The main protagonist experiences some sort of mind problem, that significantly contributes to the storyline. In Memento (2000), Leonard suffers a short-term memory loss that has been caused by the murder of his wife. In Insomnia (2002), detective Will Dormer suffers from insomnia. Thoughtout the Dark Knight trilogy (2005-2012), Bruce Wayne experiences a fear of bats, which inspires him to conquer fear and fight his mental suffering. In The Prestige (2006), the magician Angier seeks vengeance for his wife's death and constantly experiences visions of the moment she died. In Inception (2010), Cobb suffered the loss of his wife, whose suicide he might have provoked. As a result of this trauma, he constantly sees and visualizes his wife, as if she's still alive.
In addition to their artistic and financial success, Nolan's Batman films were also highly influential in shaping the business side of Hollywood from the mid-2000s onward. The success of 'Batman Begins' popularized the notion of 'rebooting' franchises, and 'The Dark Knight' was the first Hollywood feature film to have scenes shot in IMAX (thus popularizing the format for presentations of major films). The critical outcry regarding 'The Dark Knight' being snubbed (as well as Wall-E (2008)) a Best Picture nomination at the Academy Awards (despite both being one of the most lauded films of the decade) motivated the Academy of Arts and Sciences to expand their Best Picture nominations field to 10 films (which was later changed to a flexible field of 5 to 10 films, depending on the results of the vote).
Older brother of Jonathan Nolan.
His top ten favorite movies are: 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), The Black Hole (1979), Blade Runner (1982), Chinatown (1974), The Hitcher (1986), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)), Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977), The Man Who Would Be King (1975) and Topkapi (1964), as well as anything by Stanley Kubrick.
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