P: The Prestige
This is his follow-up to Batman Begins and is about an on-going feud between two magicians. It sounds cheesy but it turned out to be one of Nolan's best. Christian Bale and Michael Caine show up again here and give really great performances. Hugh Jackman takes the lead role here and it would be nice to see him do so again in a Nolan film. The plot becomes more and more intriguing up until the fantastic ending.This is a crucial film in Nolan's career because he did it just after the commercially successful Batman Begins, meaning he was reinforcing his independence with this film and highlighting how he would still continue to make fantastic little films like Memento and Insomnia even after his rise to fame. Inception was also making this statement but on a much grander scale.
Q: Quality & Quantity
Nolan has recently shown that blockbusters do not have to be outrageously dumb. The last few years have seen some pretty stupid blockbusters such as the Transformers sequels or the Paranormal Activity sequels. The Dark Knight Rises, Inception and The Dark Knight have all done extremely well at the box office and have proven that moviegoers are not idiots, the majority of them want a gripping and intelligent story with some entertaining explosions thrown in for good measure. Thankfully, other directors appear to be catching on to this and last year the release of The Hunger Games saw people discussing intelligence in film once more. Hopefully, more films made to be blockbusters will be more intelligent but don't worry, if you're not into that Michael Bay has announced a fourth Transformers movie.
R: Recurring Themes
Nolan's films deal with a lot of similar themes; betrayal, deception, loss and anger are all seen in most of his films. We see betrayal in Batman Begins where Bruce Wayne feels betrayed when Ra's Al Ghul attempts to destroy Gotham, in The Dark Knight when Harvey Dent feels betrayed by the law itself when he realises corruption was the main reason Rachel died, in The Dark Knight Rises when Bruce Wayne discovers that Miranda is in fact Ra's Al Ghul's daughter. There's also deception; in Memento Shelby is often deceived by his own supposed friends and is arguably deceived by his amnesia itself. The Prestige is all about deception as that is all magicians do. Nolan includes these themes to make them all connect in some way; he likes his films to be able to be linked together easily.