10 Most Important Directors Of The 21st Century (So Far)

As a filmmaker who has straddled and subverted genres across blockbuster hits and indie darlings alike, Christopher Nolan provokes a wide variety of reactions from moviegoers across the globe. Some think him pretentious or derivative, whereas others consider him to be a visionary or auteur.

Where some might think movies like Interstellar and Inception are riddled with plot holes, another might consider them to be challenging and thought-provoking pieces of art.

Whatever the take, there’s no denying Nolan’s influence on the film industry as a whole. For better or worse, some of the director’s ideas have become so ubiquitous as to be seen as memetic or clichéd, whereas others have seeped into the moviemaking process even deeper.

A traditionalist who values film over digital shooting, Christopher Nolan played a huge role in making superhero blockbusters the dominant force they are today, creating one of the finest examples of the genre in The Dark Knight. But where Zack Snyder plumps for bombast and spectacle in his Batman movies, every time Christopher Nolan sits in the director’s chair, he always puts story before everything else.

The ‘Inception Horn’ and Hans Zimmer’s booming Germanic scores have become part and parcel not just with Nolan’s movies, but with blockbuster filmmaking as a whole – the man has had a huge effect on almost every facet of the film industry.