Christopher Nolan Movies Tier List: All 13 Films Ranked (2026)

The Complete Christopher Nolan Tier List

Thirteen films, twenty-eight years, three Best Picture nominations, and one Best Picture win for Oppenheimer. The newest entry is The Odyssey, which opened on July 17, 2026 and enters this list at A tier on a provisional basis we explain in full below. Christopher Nolan's filmography is one of the tightest auteur runs in modern cinema, and that makes ranking it especially fun, because nearly every film has a serious case for higher placement. Here's our take, split into classic S/A/B/C/D tiers. Disagree? You should, and you can settle it yourself with Shortlist.

Where The Odyssey Lands, and Why We Are Not Sure Yet

The Odyssey opened in theaters on July 17, 2026. Most rankings published today have already slotted it near the top. We placed it at A tier, and the honest reason is that we are ranking its reception rather than its legacy, because on opening day nobody has a legacy to rank.

Here is every verified fact we can hand you, and nothing we cannot:

• Released: July 17, 2026 (Universal Pictures), after a world premiere at the Odeon Luxe Leicester Square in London on July 6, 2026.
• Runtime: 2h 53m (173 minutes), per the film's Wikipedia infobox. Rotten Tomatoes lists it one minute shorter, at 2h 52m.
• Reception: 94% on Rotten Tomatoes from 496 critic reviews, with a 97% audience score from more than 25,000 verified ratings, both read on August 18, 2026. It opened at 96% from 282 reviews on July 17, so the number has already moved once, and it moved down.
• Box office: $1.297 billion worldwide, read August 18, 2026. That makes it the highest grossing film of Nolan's career, past The Dark Knight Rises and its $1.085 billion, reached 31 days after release.
• Budget: a reported $250 million, produced through Nolan's Syncopy.
• The format story: it is the first feature shot entirely on IMAX 70mm film cameras, photographed by Hoyte van Hoytema, Nolan's cinematographer since Interstellar.
• Cast: Matt Damon as Odysseus, Tom Holland as Telemachus, Anne Hathaway as Penelope, with Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong'o and Charlize Theron.

So why A and not S, when it is the biggest hit he has ever had? Because S tier on this list has never meant "best selling" or "best reviewed." It means a film that held up. The Dark Knight is S tier because it is still the standard sixteen years later. Memento is S tier because the twist still works on rewatch. Staying power is the one thing a film cannot demonstrate on the day it opens, and Nolan's own filmography is the argument for patience: Interstellar opened to a divided 73% and is now many fans' favorite, while Tenet opened to spectacle and settled into his most contested film. We will re-place The Odyssey once it has had the chance to prove which way it goes.

One month in, the Tomatometer is already making that argument for us in miniature. On July 17 the film held 96% from 282 reviews and was, briefly, the best reviewed film Nolan had ever made. On August 18 it holds 94% from 496 reviews, which is a three way tie with Memento and The Dark Knight rather than a record. Nothing about the film changed. Two hundred more critics did.

If you have already seen it and you disagree, that is rather the point. Our full preview of what Nolan was attempting is in what to expect from Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, and you can place the film yourself in Shortlist without waiting for our opinion to catch up.

Every Christopher Nolan Movie by Box Office and Rotten Tomatoes Score

Christopher Nolan's 13 features have grossed $7.55 billion worldwide, and his highest grossing film is his newest one. The Odyssey has taken $1.297 billion since July 17, 2026, passing The Dark Knight Rises and its $1.085 billion. Three Nolan films have crossed $1 billion. One of them, his debut Following, took $126,052 on a $6,000 budget.

Below is the same 13 films as the tier list above, re-sorted by worldwide gross, with the Tomatometer beside it. We are printing this because almost every Nolan ranking you can find is somebody's opinion with no numbers attached to it, including the top of ours. These are the numbers, and they disagree with us.

Two things fall out of that table that a ranking on its own will never tell you, and both of them are the reason we do not rank by either column. Box office is not our metric. The Dark Knight Rises is Nolan's second biggest hit and it is B tier here. Memento is his second smallest at $40.1 million and it is S tier. Our four S tier picks land at 3rd, 4th, 5th and 12th on the money list.

The Tomatometer is not our metric either. Insomnia holds 92% and sits at C tier; The Prestige holds 77% and sits at A tier, because one of them is a competent studio assignment and the other is the film people keep going back to. And Nolan's three best reviewed films are tied at 94%: Memento (2000), The Dark Knight (2008) and The Odyssey (2026). Twenty six years apart, thirty two times apart at the box office, level on the only number Rotten Tomatoes publishes. That is roughly how much a percentage can tell you about which one you should watch tonight, which is the whole argument for ranking films against each other instead.

Christopher Nolan Movies in Order

Watching the entire Nolan filmography in order reveals an evolving obsession with time, identity, and the limits of perception. The early films are puzzles. The middle films are puzzles built into blockbusters. The recent films are puzzles built into historical epics.

1. Following (1998): 16mm, $6,000, shot on weekends
2. Memento (2000): The breakout
3. Insomnia (2002): His only studio-assignment film
4. Batman Begins (2005): The Bat-reboot
5. The Prestige (2006): Bale and Jackman
6. The Dark Knight (2008): Peak comic book film
7. Inception (2010): Dream heist
8. The Dark Knight Rises (2012): Trilogy closer
9. Interstellar (2014): Space epic
10. Dunkirk (2017): WWII triptych
11. Tenet (2020): Time inversion
12. Oppenheimer (2023): Best Picture winner
13. The Odyssey (2026): Homer on IMAX 70mm

The Odyssey is the newest and, at 2h 53m, the second longest, behind Oppenheimer. It is also the cleanest illustration of the pattern above: a puzzle about time and identity, built this time into a three-thousand-year-old epic.

How to Build Your Own Nolan Tier List

You just built one. The card above is the method in miniature: star ratings collapse for a director like this, because almost every Nolan film is a 4 or a 5 to his fans, but asked to pick one of two you answer without hesitating.

Five is not 13. Ranking the full filmography, Following through to the latest, is what Shortlist is for: the same two-at-a-time taps across every film, including the ones the card never showed you: is The Prestigetop three? Does Tenet deserve its reputation? Every list gets a share link you can send to anyone with a Letterboxd account.

You can read more about the comparison-based approach in our movie tier list guide.

Two different things get scored around this page. The S to D tiers above are editorial, and S means a film that held up rather than one that reviewed well on opening weekend. The score you see in the app is a different number: it is built from the head-to-head comparisons you make, scaled to 0 to 10, not from critic averages. How Shortlist scores work sets out the whole method.

Best Christopher Nolan Movie of All Time

The argument is almost always between The Dark Knight (2008), Memento (2000), Inception (2010), and Oppenheimer (2023). The Dark Knight wins most polls because of Heath Ledger's Joker and its broad cultural footprint. Memento wins among film-school audiences. Inception wins among general audiences. Oppenheimer is the youngest entry: it has the Best Picture trophy that the others were denied.

The Dark Knight Trilogy, Ranked

A common request is the trilogy ranking on its own:

1. The Dark Knight (2008): Consensus #1.
2. Batman Begins (2005): Tighter, more thematically focused than Rises.
3. The Dark Knight Rises (2012): Plot holes, but Hardy's Bane and the IMAX scope keep it standing.

Christopher Nolan Tier List FAQ

How many movies has Christopher Nolan made?

As of August 2026, 13 feature films, beginning with Following in 1998 and most recently The Odyssey, his adaptation of Homer, which opened on July 17, 2026 and has since become the highest grossing film of his career at $1.297 billion worldwide.

Is The Odyssey Christopher Nolan's best movie?

It is his biggest, not yet his best. It opened at 96% on Rotten Tomatoes from 282 critics and has settled to 94% from 496 reviews (read 2026-08-18), which ties Memento and The Dark Knight rather than beating them, and it is now his highest grossing film at $1.297 billion. We have it at A tier provisionally: The Dark Knight, Memento, Inception and Oppenheimer hold S tier because they survived years of rewatching. Ask again in a year, or skip the wait and rank it yourself.

What's the worst Christopher Nolan movie?

Following usually lands at the bottom of any Nolan ranking, not because it's bad, but because his other 12 films are stronger. It's an impressive debut, not a peak. Insomnia often sits second-to-last; it's the one Nolan film that feels like a director-for-hire job.

Did Christopher Nolan win an Oscar?

Yes, finally. Oppenheimer (2023) won Best Picture and Best Director at the 2024 Academy Awards. Before that, Nolan was nominated five times in directing/writing categories without a win, becoming a poster child for the Academy's blind spot.

What order should I watch Christopher Nolan movies?

Release order is best. The early puzzle-box films set up the obsessions that recur in his blockbuster era. If you only watch four, watch Memento, The Dark Knight, Inception, and Oppenheimer.

What is the Nolan tier list?

A Nolan tier list sorts all 13 Christopher Nolan features into S, A, B, C and D bands instead of a strict 1 to 13 order, so films of roughly equal standing can share a rank. On this one, S tier is The Dark Knight, Inception, Memento and Oppenheimer, and The Odyssey enters at A tier provisionally.

What is Nolan's most successful movie?

It depends which kind of success you mean, and the three answers are different films. By box office it is The Odyssey (2026) at $1.297 billion worldwide, ahead of The Dark Knight Rises ($1.085 billion) and The Dark Knight ($1.009 billion). By return on budget it is Following (1998), which took $126,052 against a $6,000 budget. By awards it is Oppenheimer (2023), his only Best Picture winner. All figures read 2026-08-18.

What is Christopher Nolan's highest rated film?

Three are tied at 94% on Rotten Tomatoes, read 2026-08-18: Memento (2000), The Dark Knight (2008) and The Odyssey (2026). The Odyssey briefly held the outright record at 96% from 282 reviews on release day and came back to the pack once 496 reviews were counted.

What is Christopher Nolan's lowest rated film?

Tenet (2020), at 70% on Rotten Tomatoes, read 2026-08-18, followed by Interstellar (2014) at 73% and The Prestige (2006) at 77%. Note that this is a different answer from the worst Nolan film: we place Following at D tier while critics score it 87%, and we place The Prestige at A tier on a 77%.

What are Christopher Nolan's top 10 movies?

Ours, in order: The Dark Knight, Inception, Memento, Oppenheimer, Interstellar, The Prestige, Dunkirk, Batman Begins, The Odyssey and The Dark Knight Rises. Nolan has directed only 13 features, so a top 10 is really a bottom 3 in disguise: it cuts Tenet, Insomnia and Following. That is why this Christopher Nolan movies tier list ranks all 13.

Is Nolan one of the greatest directors?

The measurable parts are settled: 13 features, $7.55 billion worldwide, Best Picture and Best Director for Oppenheimer at the 2024 Academy Awards, and 10 of his 13 films at 85% or higher on Rotten Tomatoes. Whether that adds up to one of the greatest is the argument itself, and it is the one this tier list exists to have.

Who is better, Tarantino or Nolan?

They are not doing the same job, which is why the question never resolves. Nolan works in structure and scale: 13 films, $7.55 billion, one Best Picture. Tarantino works in dialogue and genre memory across a deliberately shorter filmography. Settle it with your own head-to-head list, or start from our Tarantino movies ranked tier list.

Related Tier Lists

• Tarantino10 films · Rank these→
• Batman9 films · Rank these→
• Marvel38 films · Rank these→
• Star Wars12 films · Rank these→
• James Bond25 films · Rank these→
• Harry Potter11 films · Rank these→
• Pixar31 films · Rank these→
• Denis Villeneuve11 films · Rank these→
• How to build a tier listRank these→
• Movie ranking appsRank these→