10 Unique Tricks Every Movie Started To Rip-Off

The Trick

Though cross-cutting is one of the cornerstones of editing dating back to the very creation of film, no directors have employed it as extensively or ambitiously as Christopher Nolan, who uses multi-location editing to create perilously thrilling "parallel action."

In almost every film he's made since The Dark Knight - and especially in Inception, Interstellar, and Dunkirk - Nolan has presented multiple action sequences at once, whether taking place concurrently or not, nimbly cutting between them to maintain a constant ebb and flow of tension.

It's a simple yet clever technique to ensure that there's always something new and exciting to cut to, giving him an editorial buffer when one plane of action begins to wind down.

Unsurprisingly, many of Nolan's films have been nominated for Best Film Editing Oscars, even winning outright with Dunkirk.

The Rip-Offs

Too many blockbusters over the last decade have emulated this technique to keep count, but some of the more notable examples include The Avengers - particularly during its mid-film Helicarrier sequence - and Skyfall, which employed parallel action during the sequence where Silva (Javier Bardem) attempts to assassinate M (Judi Dench).

Due to the editorial complexity involved, parallel action generally isn't even attempted by your average hired hack filmmaker, and so it's rarely too objectionable to see directors following Nolan's lead, even if he remains very much the master of it.