20. It's Proper Sci-Fi
For too long, the sci-fi movie genre has been a secondary action genre - thanks in part to the unintentional influence of the Alien franchise. It's rare that any sci-fi film consciously avoids the urge to bring something else to the table - be it action or horror or something else entirely - but Nolan stayed pure with Interstellar. Fans of the genre in literature will no doubt see the influence of Alastair Reynolds (and particularly his Revelation idea of higher beings monitoring the universe) and the social science fiction of Isaac Asminov.