5 Best Christopher Nolan Movies, According To IMDb

This guy Christopher Nolan is pretty good at directing movies, huh? Ever since he made his directorial debut in 1998 with "Following" and broke into the mainstream with his mind-bending drama "Memento" in 2000, Nolan has remained one of the industry's most influential and acclaimed filmmakers. Playing with timelines is, of course, nothing new — non-linear storytelling is a staple in movies and television, to the point where "Seinfeld" even parodied Harold Pinter's non-linear play "Betrayal" in 1997 — but Nolan has certainly popularized the technique, employing it in basically all of his films. At first thought, the fact that he uses this over and over again might sound like it gets stale after a while, but honestly, that's what makes Nolan such a filmmaking genius; he manages to make non-linear storytelling his calling card without it getting actively stale, because he employs it in such vastly different ways. The way he plays with time in "Tenet," by way of example, bears little to no resemblance to the way he plays with the same concept in historical epics like "Oppenheimer" or "Dunkirk."

With all of that said, all of Nolan's films are highly ranked on IMDb, but which ones earned the highest ratings from fans? From a space epic about fatherhood to a massive and ambitious literary adaptation to a superhero movie that many would argue completely changed the genre, here are Christopher Nolan's top-rated movies on IMDb from "least amazing" to "most amazing."

"The Odyssey" might well be Christopher Nolan's masterpiece, but it's still ranked "last" on IMDb when it comes to his top five (which is still pretty good, considering). In 2026, three years after he won the Academy Award for best picture for "Oppenheimer" (and best director too), Nolan re-emerged as an Oscar frontrunner thanks to "The Odyssey," a sweeping epic and wildly ambitious film adapted from the Greek poem attributed to Homer. Using mostly practical effects to recreate Ancient Greece as Homer chronicled it, Nolan casts Matt Damon — who also appears in "Oppenheimer" and "Interstellar" but marks his first lead role in this movie — as Odysseus, the story's hero who comes up with the Trojan horse gambit to win the Trojan war and promptly gets him and his men hopelessly lost at sea as they attempt to return to Ithaca.

As Odysseus, his right-hand man Eurylochus (Himesh Patel), and the rest of his soldiers evade monsters like a cyclops (Bill Irwin), the vengeful witch Circe (Samantha Morton), and even giant man-eating knights, his wife Penelope (an astounding Anne Hathaway) sits at home, wondering if her beloved husband will ever return while fending off suitors like Antinuous (Robert Pattinson). As Odysseus and Penelope's son Telemachus (Tom Holland) comes into his own as a prince, he decides that enough is enough and sets out to find his father, culminating in one of the best third-act sequences Nolan has ever crafted throughout his entire career. "The Odyssey" has a strong IMDb rating, to be sure ... and just because it falls last on this list doesn't mean it's not incredible and one of Nolan's crowning achievements to boot.

For a lot of Christopher Nolan fans, his magic-based drama "The Prestige" is his very best film — so it's not entirely surprising that it ended up fourth in his top five on IMDb. This 2006 masterwork, based on Christopher Priest's 1995 novel and adapted by Nolan and his brother and frequent collaborator Jonathan, stars Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale as rival stage magicians Robert Angier (actual name: Lord Caldlow) and Alfred Borden, who begin their careers together working under magician John Cutter (Nolan regular Michael Caine). After Angier's wife Julia (Piper Perabo) drowns during a dangerous trick, he blames Borden for tying her wrists wrong, and a bitter enmity develops between them. 

Throughout the years, Angier (who's much more of a flashy showman in his performance style) and Borden (who's a master of simple but incredibly effective illusions) keep sabotaging each other's shows ... but when Borden innovates a trick he calls "The Transported Man," Angier finds himself overcome with envy and desperate to figure out how it works. We definitely won't reveal the unbelievable twist found in "The Prestige," but know that it involves intrigue, a spy in the form of Scarlett Johansson's assistant Olivia, and, unbelievably, real-life scientist Nikola Tesla (played by the late, great David Bowie in a small supporting role). "The Prestige" is a thrilling, baffling, and incredibly innovative story told gorgeously by both Nolans, and that's why it's maintained such a strong IMDb rating after so many years.

When it comes to "confusing" Christopher Nolan movies, "Interstellar" probably takes the top spot — but clearly, enough people love it, because it's third on this list. (Note that "Tenet," arguably his most bewildering film, is not in his top five on IMDb.) Released in 2014 and co-written with Jonathan Nolan, "Interstellar" stars Matthew McConaughey as Joseph "Coop" Cooper, who, like most other humans on earth, finds himself preparing for a possible mass extinction event thanks to dying crops and constant dust storms. A widower, Coop raises his kids — daughter Murphy, or "Murph" (Mackenzie Foy) and son Tom (Timothée Chalamet) — alongside his father-in-law Donald (John Lithgow), and the family's life changes forever when Murph and Cooper make a wild discovery related to the dust storms and present it to NASA professor John Brand (Michael Caine). After the good professor ties their evidence to potentially habitable planets that can only be accessed through a wormhole, he tasks Coop and his own daughter Amelia Brand (Anne Hathaway) with seeing how viable these planets might be. What follows is a (surprise!) non-linear narrative about civilization, family, and the twin flames of grief and love.

Make no mistake: "Interstellar" is a dense, difficult, and deeply challenging story that asks a lot of its viewer, but you'll be richly rewarded ... and by the time Jessica Chastain shows up, you'll be crying too. The enduring love for this film is a testament to its ambition, scope, and all-around greatness, and it's always held a solid IMDb ranking amongst Nolan fans.

Released in 2009 and written and directed by Christopher Nolan, "Inception" is, like "Interstellar," devilishly and delightfully complex ... but instead of space, this movie takes place mostly in various mind palaces. Leonardo DiCaprio leads the film's sprawling and excellent ensemble cast as Dom Cobb, a career criminal evading arrest, meaning that he's unable to see his two young children in the wake of their mother Mal's (Marion Cotillard) death. One day, after Dom and his partner Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) perform a "mind heist" on a wealthy businessman named Saito (Ken Watanabe) — their "dream-sharing" tech allows them to not only extract information, but even plant ideas in the minds of their targets — Saito is impressed enough to offer them a job. If Dom and Arthur can successfully infiltrate the mind of Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy), son of the dying magnate Maurice Fisher (Pete Postlethwaite), to dissolve his father's massive empire, Saito will be able to corner their shared market without competition. In exchange, Saito will arrange for all charges against Dom to be dropped so that he can reunite with his kids.

Alongside Dom and Arthur, the team to enter Robert's psyche consists of forger Eames (Tom Hardy), chemist Yusuf (Dileep Rao), and architect Ariadne (Elliot Page), and they all work together to try and pull off this heist ... all while Dom keeps his own mental demons, including a manifestation of Mal, at bay at all costs. Between the phenomenal performances, the exceedingly sharp concept, more outstanding practical effects, and a soundtrack by Hans Zimmer that leans into bombast and slowed-down songs (especially "Je ne regrette rien" by Edith Piaf), "Inception" is a modern classic, and it remains beloved by Nolan fans on IMDb.

"The Dark Knight" is widely regarded as the film that "changed" superhero movies, and for good reason — Christopher Nolan's take on Batman writ large is pretty excellent, but when it comes to his Dark Knight trilogy, the middle installment "The Dark Knight" stands out in a good way. Following up on Nolan's 2006 film "Batman Begins," 2008's "The Dark Knight" recasts female lead Rachel Dawes with Maggie Gyllenhaal (taking over for Katie Holmes) and reintroduces us to Christian Bale's brooding, taciturn Bruce Wayne, who's working alongside police commissioner Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman) and Gotham's district attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) to fight crime in the dangerous city. Bruce also has an ulterior motive of sorts; despite his jealousy that Harvey is romantically involved with Rachel, he hopes that Harvey will be able to handle crime so efficiently that Bruce will no longer have to singlehandedly keep Gotham safe anymore.

Unfortunately for everyone — except the audience — Harvey and Bruce's quest is complicated by the Joker, a mysterious man played by the late, great Heath Ledger who basically shows up to ruin everybody's day simply to cause chaos. Ledger, Bale, Eckhart, Michael Caine (who plays Bruce's loyal butler Alfred), and Bane are all phenomenal in this installment, and while "Batman Begins" and "The Dark Knight Rises" are both categorically excellent Batman movies, "The Dark Knight" remains the very best ... and it's got the IMDb stats to prove it.