Christopher Nolan: Ranking All 9 Of His Movies From Worst To Best

4. Memento

Memento Guy Pearce
Summit Entertainment

Though it's doomed to be known as 'that film about memory loss,' Memento never once uses protagonist Leonard Shelby's condition as a gimmick. Yes, the film is told in reverse, but it's not a cheap trick used purely to incite interest - this directly mirrors Leonard's own fractured perception of reality, making Memento's unusual structure a way to service the plot rather than an unnecessary selling point.

Despite only being his second feature film, Nolan handles this odd structure and some big, big stars - including The Matrix alum Carrie-Ann Moss - with all the expertise of a Hollywood veteran, Memento's potentially confusing narrative instead coming across as confident, digestible and logical.

The movie can be ambiguous to a fault and it certainly takes more than one viewing to fully appreciate, but in that, Memento showed us exactly the type of filmmaker Nolan would go on to become. He doesn't just want to give us something to watch, he wants to give us something that makes us think.

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Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!