Christopher Nolan's 5 Best Movies, According To Rotten Tomatoes

Universal Pictures

This Christopher Nolan guy is — I gotta say — pretty good at making movies. Born in London in 1970, this British auteur got his start making short films before his directorial debut, "Following," released in 1998; since then, he's basically never stopped working. So which movies are the very best of the best, as far as Nolan's body of work is concerned?

The thing about picking a Nolan favorite is that it's extremely subjective. Some people ride hard for "The Prestige," and others will tell you that he's never made a better movie than "Oppenheimer." That's why we went with a data-driven approach here — and pulled our information from the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. That way, it's a very "scientific" process, so to speak. Now that Nolan's long-awaited adaptation of the epic Greek poem "The Odyssey" is finally out in the world, we're ready to take a look at Nolan's filmography on Rotten Tomatoes and see which films landed at the top of the pack. 

From superhero movies to epic journeys, here are Christopher Nolan's five most well-rated movies on Rotten Tomatoes, ranked from "really good" to "total masterpiece."

Warner Bros.

After "The Dark Knight" literally changed the Oscars forever (by not getting nominated), Christopher Nolan films became real Oscar contenders. While his first nod came in 2002 for a screenplay (and we'll actually circle back to that shortly), 2010's "Inception" made it into the best picture race along with a second screenplay nomination for Nolan; however, 2017's "Dunkirk" earned Nolan his first-ever best director nomination as well as one for best picture.

Nolan's high-octane World War II drama, which sits at 92% on Rotten Tomatoes, uses — as so many of his films do — a non-linear narrative, showing us a week on Dunkirk beach in France with Allied soldiers like Tommy (Fionn Whitehead), Gibson (Aneurin Barnard), and Alex (Harry Styles) as well as Royal Air Force pilots like Farrier (Tom Hardy) and fighters in the Royal Navy. (See what he did there? Land, sea, and sky.) With very little dialogue and cinematography by Nolan's frequent collaborator Hyote van Hoytema — who used large-format film stock and IMAX cameras in 65mm to capture the action — "Dunkirk" is a dizzying visual feast that proves, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that this filmmaker has one of the very best eyes in the industry and creates some of the most unbelievable cinematic images of our time.

Universal Pictures

It's actually a little surprising that "Oppenheimer," the first movie to win Christopher Nolan his well-deserved Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director, is only fourth on this list. (It does have a 93% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, though.) Still, that speaks to Nolan's sheer talent — because "Oppenheimer" is an exceptional movie that really speaks to his vision and ambition as a filmmaker, and it's basically "the most Christopher Nolan movie" ever made. Adapted from "American Prometheus" by Kai Bird, this movie, obviously, centers around the titular theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer — an astonishing Cillian Murphy, who also took home an Oscar for his trouble — and charts his rise to fame and notoriety as he works on the Manhattan Project and develops the bombs later dropped on two Japanese cities during World War II.

Along the way, we meet his troubled wife Kitty (Emily Blunt, marking her first-ever Academy Award nomination), colleagues like General Leslie Groves (Matt Damon), Ernest Lawrence (Josh Hartnett), and Edward Teller (Benny Safdie), and enemies like Rear Admiral Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr., the final Oscar winner in the bunch), who hope to destroy the scientist's reputation. A three-hour epic with some of the best imagery of his entire career — especially the game-changing Trinity Test, where the folks living at Los Alamos test a prototype of the bomb — and a conclusion that spells out exactly how conflicted Oppenheimer felt about his own creation, "Oppenheimer" is an exceptional film about a complicated man, and it's one of Nolan's best.

Newmarket

Christopher Nolan may have made his official feature film debut with "Following," but it's "Memento," which still boasts a 94% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, that truly put him on the map. Adapted from his own brother Jonathan Nolan's short story "Memento Mori" (who went on to create "Westworld," co-write a handful of films with his brother, and then work on the video game TV series "Fallout"), "Memento" is the story of Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce), who has anterograde amnesia — which means he's not capable of making any new memories. To solve this problem and figure out who's responsible for the brutal murder of his wife Catherine (Carrie-Ann Moss), Leonard starts writing down clues about his situation on his own body, referring to them every time he needs to unlock a different part of this mystery.

"Memento" was, in so many ways, an astonishing primer to the rest of Nolan's body of work — it has a non-linear narrative, focuses on the twin themes of memory and grief, and forces the audience to fully lock in while they watch lest they miss anything important. The best films demand your attention, and you absolutely can't watch any Nolan movie while also scrolling on your phone; this is particularly true of "Memento," which still ranks among his very best.

Warner Bros.

Remember how I mentioned that "The Dark Knight" changed the Academy Awards for good? That's because this stunning sequel and superhero movie — the midpoint of Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy — was so undeniably great that fans were outraged when it didn't make it into the running for best picture with only five spots available. The following year, the category doubled to 10 ... but "The Dark Knight" secured its legacy by being so excellent that it loomed large over future ceremonies.

With Christian Bale returning as Bruce Wayne and Maggie Gyllenhaal replacing Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes, "The Dark Knight" follows up "Batman Begins" by introducing us to one of the storied franchise's most beloved and feared villains: the Joker. Portrayed by Heath Ledger in one of his final roles before the actor's tragic passing in 2008 at the age of 28 — who was, in the end, the only person involved with the movie to win an Oscar, which he took home posthumously — the Joker in "The Dark Knight" is wry, slick, and absolutely terrifying as he torments Bruce and his evening alter-ego, Batman.

Flanked by Gary Oldman as Jim Gordon, Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent (who earns his nickname Two-Face in this film after an explosion that takes out another character), and Nolan's frequent collaborator Michael Caine as Alfred, "The Dark Knight" is more than just a superhero movie. It's a thoughtful, stark look at human instinct, hubris, and selfishness, themes Nolan would continue to explore in future projects ... and it just so happens to feature Ledger in the performance of a lifetime as a comic book villain. Plus, years after its release, it remains just as perfect — and relevant — as ever, with a 94% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Universal Pictures

As of this writing, Christopher Nolan's top movie on Rotten Tomatoes — with a 96% rating — is his newest, and on some level this makes sense, because "The Odyssey" is the movie he's been building towards throughout his entire career. Adapted, obviously, from the Greek poem attributed to the ancient scribe Homer, Nolan casts his "Interstellar" and "Oppenheimer" actor Matt Damon as the long-lost hero Odysseus, whose overconfidence steers him and his fellow Greek soldiers far off course at sea after they emerge victorious from the Trojan War. 

As the years pass by, Odysseus' wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway) grows more despondent, fending off over 100 odious and drunken suitors who want her hand in marriage and the Ithacan throne; his son Telemachus (Tom Holland) is hellbent on figuring out whether or not his dear old dad is dead or alive. As for Odysseus himself, he's trying to regain his memory on a distant beach ... and once he has that handled, he begins his journey home anew.

With Zendaya as the ethereal goddess Athena, Benny Safdie as the powerful warrior Agamemnon, Robert Pattinson as one of those awful suitors Antinous, Lupita Nyong'o in a dual role as twins Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra, Elliot Page as the resentful soldier Sinon, Himesh Patel as Odysseus' right-hand man Eurylochus, and John Leguizamo as Odysseus' loyal blind swineherd Eumaeus, "The Odyssey" is packed with stars, all of whom are delivering the performance of a lifetime. "The Odyssey" is loud, exhilarating, exhausting, and completely stunning, and it's Nolan's top-rated film on Rotten Tomatoes.