12 Times A Director Went On An INSANE Streak Of Great Movies
4. Christopher Nolan: Five Films From 2005-2012
The Streak: Batman Begins, The Prestige, The Dark Knight, Inception, The Dark Knight Rises
Christopher Nolan has never made a bad film, but Insomnia and Interstellar do have a couple of slight missteps to mean they interrupt the streak (a shame, given how great both Memento and Dunkirk are), and yet what's left is a blockbusting run anyone would be proud of.
His Dark Knight Trilogy is a miraculous feat of not just comic book filmmaking, but cinema in general. It's worth remembering the state Batman was in after Joel Schumacher's run, and yet Nolan was able to revive it in a fashion that took the burgeoning superhero genre a huge step forward, dragging Batman into the 21st Century and yet still feeling in part with the character.
Of course, that was just a taster of what was to come. The Dark Knight then completely changed the game, making a towering crime epic that just so happened to be based upon a comic book, and featuring an all-time great villainous turn from Heath Ledger. Dark and gritty, and featuring a scale never seen in this films, it was a stunning achievement, and still the bar to beat for comic book movies. The Dark Knight Rises didn't top it, and yet Nolan's command of scale and spectacle is largely unrivalled in blockbuster terms.
In between those are The Prestige and Inception, two films that, perhaps even more so than his Batman trilogy, mark Nolan out as a filmmaker of immense craft. In the former, he manages to make a period mystery box drama; the latter is like the work of M.C. Escher brought to life. In both, though, we see his ability to handle complex stories and, despite what his critics say, emotional threads, turning in films that are full of twists, turns, and unbelievable innovations.
[JH]