Christopher Nolan’s Best Shots: 40 Images That Define the Director’s Career

“Oppenheimer” — Explosion

The first two hours of “Oppenheimer” are a quiet build-up to one of the most visually stunning scenes in Nolan’s career. For the pivotal moment when Oppenheimer oversees the Trinity nuclear test, Nolan used real explosives while shooting in the New Mexico area, even claiming the shot used no visual effects. It certainly feels real on screen. Combined with extraordinary, soul-shaking sound design, the scene where the bomb goes off and an inferno erupts in the desert results in an absolutely majestic image: a jaw-dropping, fiery testament to the grandness and horror of Oppenheimer’s creation. —WC

“Oppenheimer” — Hearing

Although “Oppenheimer” is a big-budget blockbuster, a large percentage of the film takes place in small office rooms as the main character goes through hearings to attempt to keep his security clearance. But Nolan still knows how to make these talky scenes visually interesting and engaging. In one memorable shot, as Cillian Murphy’s Oppenheimer is questioned about his wife Kitty, the film pans over to reveal her (as played by Emily Blunt) sitting to the side, not looked at as the hearing committee speaks about her. Nolan keeps her blurred and out of focus, an apt metaphor for how she’s invisible in a room of men. —WC

“Oppenheimer” — Cillian Murphy’s Face

Watching “Oppenheimer” on an IMAX screen, the audience has a lot of time to get used to Cillian Murphy’s face. Throughout the film, Murphy frequently captures the leading man’s gorgeous mug in close-up shots, as his blue eyes stare into the distance. The motif ends the film, as a simple but effective way to convey all the regret Oppenheimer feels without a single word. —WC

“Oppenheimer” — Shooting IMAX in Black and White

OK, this entry is a bit of a cheat since we aren’t tying our wonderment to a single “Oppenheimer” image. But the biopic made history as the first major movie to shoot sections in IMAX, black and white, analog photography — courtesy of Hoyte van Hoytema. Analog uses a chemical process to capture the images on film, illustrative of Nolan’s reverence for the moving images of the film’s 1940s period. —AF

Who Is Robert J. Oppenheimer?, “Oppenheimer”

Christopher Nolan has an affinity for how objects — “Inception” spinning top, anyone? — can define character and propel a narrative. He also knows that costumes can speak volumes about a character — again, Robert Pattinson and John David Washington’s “Tenet” suits, anyone? While the “Oppenheimer” teaser gave us little to parse upon release, this shot of Oppenheimer’s (Cillian Murphy) hat and tobacco pipe tipped us off that the movie was going to be as much a character study about the man himself as a big-screen spectacle about the birth of the atom bomb. —RL

Plane Crash, “Tenet”

Sometimes a great shot has more to do with what’s in the shot than the visual craftsmanship needed to pull off the shot. Case in point: the “Tenet” plane crash. The script included a heist sequence that culminates in a Boeing 747 airplane crashing into an airport building, so naturally Nolan and his team purchased a real Boeing 747 airplane to blow up while filming. Capturing the moment of the explosion gives Nolan one of his most jaw-dropping practical effects stunt shots yet.

“I planned to do it using miniatures and set-piece builds and a combination of visual effects and all the rest,” Nolan said to Total Film magazine about the sequence. “However, while scouting for locations in Victorville, California, the team discovered a massive array of old planes. We started to run the numbers…It became apparent that it would actually be more efficient to buy a real plane of the real size, and perform this sequence for real in camera, rather than build miniatures or go the CG route.” —ZS

Railroads, “Tenet”

Nolan’s $200 million espionage epic “Tenet” builds to a climax in which forward-moving and backwards-moving timelines collide, which is why the director and cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema are smart to pepper many of the visuals leading up to the climax with a similar kind of push-and-pull visual energy. The best arrives early in the film and is a close-up of John David Washington’s protagonist framed between two sets of railroad tracks, the trains traveling in opposite directions. It’s a simple but stimulating foreshadowing of the events to come. —ZS

The Inverted World, “Tenet”

Christopher Nolan needed a “wow” moment for the “Tenet” sequence in which John David Washington’s protagonist steps out into the inverted world for the first time. He got it courtesy of this expert tracking shot which constrasts Washington’s silhouette against the vibrant colors of the outside world-in-reverse. While the reverse VFX provide a cool factor, it’s ultimately the color contrast and Hoyte van Hoytema’s wobbling camera that give this shot its disorienting surrealism. It’s more or less the perfect visual introduction to inversion. —ZS

Building Explosion, “Tenet”

The “time inversion” concept in “Tenet” allowed Nolan and his team to come up with a handful of spectacular visuals, none more dazzling than a shot of a building exploding and reforming in equal measure. As “Tenet” visual effects supervisor Andrew Jackson explained to Befores & Afters, “We came up with a plan that involved building some large miniatures. They were 1/3 scale, and we built two buildings, 1/3 scale and we blew them up. One, we’d blow up the bottom, one we’d blow up the top. We matched the camera angles so we could comp those two together. It was a comp of two separate miniature explosions.”

Jackson added, “That was a good example of the whole integration of visual effects, special effects and the art department all working together to come up with a solution for that event. That was probably the biggest visual effects / practical effect on the film.” —ZS

Post-Climax, “Tenet”

“Tenet” is one of Nolan’s busiest films when it comes to visuals. There’s constant motion in the majority of frames to emphasize the narrative’s momentum forward and backward in time. No wonder it’s such an effective choice to mark the end of the movie’s climax with this expansive still shot of Aaron Taylor Johnson, John David Washington, and Robert Pattinson. Recalling the scope of Nolan’s favorite filmmakers David Lean and Sergio Leone, the still feels almost otherworldly and suspended in time due to its vastness and the brownish, almost-apocalyptic hues of the color scheme. It’s at this point in the film that Nolan allows the viewer to start breathing again, and it’s the perfect image to exhale on. —ZS

Looking, “Following”

Christopher Nolan’s 1998 feature debut “Following” stars Jeremy Theobald as a young writer who begins following strangers around to find inspiration for his next novel. Nolan served as his own cinematographer, finding visually arresting ways to show his protagonist trapped by his own strange obsession. —ZS

Leonard and Catherine, “Memento”

Nolan’s 2000 breakout “Memento” is significant for pairing him with cinematographer Wally Pfister, who would go on to define the director’s visual style over the next decade. The contrast between handheld color shots and mostly static, noir-driven black-and-white shots sharpens “Memento’s” dueling timelines narrative. Perhaps the most provocative shot is of Leonard knocked out on the floor beside his dead wife, the start of his new life on the left of the image and the end of his old on the right. —ZS

Mirrors, “Memento”

Nolan and Pfister approach the black-and-white portions of “Memento” in an almost Hitchcockian style, using mirrors to frame and reflect Leonard (Guy Pearce) in the same way Hitchcock did with Henry Fonda in “The Wrong Man.” The film’s success launched both men into the Hollywood studio system with Warner Bros.’ “Insomnia.” —ZS

Alleyway, “Insomnia”

Before Nolan and Pfister went all in on the blue-gray color scale in their “Dark Knight” trilogy, the two artists showed off their atmospheric color work in the 2002 mystery thriller “Insomnia,” starring Al Pacino and Robin Williams. In shots like these, Nolan heightens the iciness of his Alaska setting through color grading, while blocking telegraphs the claustrophobic and isolating effects the film’s mystery has on Pacino’s detective. —ZS

Bruce Wayne, “Batman Begins”

Of all the close-up shots in Nolan’s “Dark Knight” trilogy, the best one might just be this Bruce Wayne shot from franchise starter “Batman Begins.” Everything you need to know about the character is perfectly visualized by Pfister’s Jekyll-and-hyde lighting on Bruce’s face, set against the cold detachment of a chilly blue sky. —ZS

The Bat Cave, “Batman Begins”

One of the most rousing images in all of Nolan’s “Dark Knight” trilogy is this shot of Bruce Wayne standing up to his fear of bats. It an on-the-nose moment made epic by the way Nolan and Pfister light the crisp outline of the character so that he is at once a part of his own fear and now the leader of it. The shot is as mythic as “Batman Begins” gets. —ZS

The Batman, “Batman Begins”

Nolan’s preference for practical stunt work over visual effects pays off in even non-action scenes, most obviously in sweeping shots like this, in which Pfister blocks a perching Batman among the skyline of Gotham City. This impressive shot style became a calling card for Nolan’s “Dark Knight” trilogy. —ZS

A Field of Bulbs, “The Prestige”

In between Batman movies, Nolan took on the magician thriller “The Prestige,” perhaps the most underrated title in his filmography. Nolan and Pfister’s most beautiful shot depicts a hazy field of lightblubs around two silhouettes, an image both menacing and calm in its stillness. —ZS

Enter Tesla, “The Prestige”

David Bowie’s Nikola Tesla makes a grand entrance in one of Nolan’s most self-referential shots, which depicts the character emerging out of a storm of electrical currents to prove both Tesla and Bowie’s megawatt star power. The shot effectively blurs the line between actor and character in a way that leaves the viewer in awe. —ZS

Dark Magic, “The Prestige”

Christopher Nolan is an expert when it comes to ending his films with shots that imprint themselves on the viewer’s brain (see “Inception” later in this gallery), and one of his best arrives in the final moments of “The Prestige.” A simple dissolve is used to blend together the images of cloned magician hats and the basement of a burning theater, creating a rich visual metaphor for the entire movie. —ZS

The Robbery, “The Dark Knight”

A shot can’t possibly be captured in a still image, and what makes the opening shot of “The Dark Knight” is the way Nolan’s camera slowly pushes in on a bank robber holding a clown mask. It’s the menacing control of the camera that begins heightening the tension from the get-go. —ZS

A Joker Victory, “The Dark Knight”

Nolan’s Joker is iconic not just because of Heath Ledger’s Oscar-winning performance, but also because of the way Nolan shoots the villain throughout the film. Low-angle shots and close-ups are used repeatedly to maximize the Joker’s presence, while attaching the camera to a speeding police car in this shot magnifies the character’s controlled chaos. —ZS

Batman Mourns, “The Dark Knight”

This shot of Batman standing atop rubble while mourning the death of Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is one of the “Dark Knight” trilogy’s defining images. Pfister was nominated for the Oscar for Best Cinematography. —ZS

Blue Batman, “The Dark Knight”

The use of color grading and silhouette is so stark in this shot that Pfister seems to be channeling his inner Roger Deakins. Of the many shots depicting Batman against the Gotham skyline, this one from “The Dark Knight” is easily the most stunning. —ZS

Batman Rises, “The Dark Knight”

Another stunner of a closing shot arrives in “The Dark Knight.” Nolan and Pfister’s camera follows Batman’s motorcycle at breakneck speed as the character emerges from a dark tunnel and speeds right into the light. The shot again shows Nolan’s knack for taking an on-the-nose metaphor and giving an authentic and visceral edge through camera movement. —ZS

The Street Wall, “Inception”

The storyline of “Inception” forced Nolan to embrace visual effects on a more aggressive level, but the film’s wow factor comes as much from its VFX as it does from how Nolan and Pfister shoot said VFX. A street folding in on itself to create a wall is impressive, but the image is made all the more eye-popping with the choice to keep the camera distant. —ZS

Hallway Fight, “Inception”

Nolan and his production team actually built a rotating hallway to pull off the signature action set piece in “Inception,” which features Joseph Gordon-Levitt defying gravity. Positioning the camera in front of him magnifies the brain-altering movements of the space, creating one of Nolan’s most definitive moments. —ZS

A Dream City, “Inception”

Nolan does not get too sentimental in “Inception” from a script standpoint, but he does succeed in providing heartbreaking visuals. This shot of Dom (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Mal (Marion Cotillard) building a dream utopia is at once breathtaking and foreboding, diminishing the characters beneath the scope of their own imagination. —ZS

The Spinning Top, “Inception”

The notorious spinning top. It’s one of the most talked about movie endings of all time and a shot that will undoubtedly define Christopher Nolan for the entirety of his career. —ZS

Hold On, “The Dark Knight Rises”

“The Dark Knight Rises” begins with a masterful set piece depicting Bane (Tom Hardy) hijacking an airplane. The set piece culminates in the plane dropping and the characters of Bane and a kidnapped scientist holding onto a rope. Nolan shot the scene from above, and when the plane falls to the ground it creates one of his most jaw-dropping “Oh my god” moments (especially when seen in Nolan’s preferred IMAX 70mm). —ZS

Bruce and Selina’s Dance, “The Dark Knight Rises”

One of Nolan’s best decisions in “The Dark Knight” is to film Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle’s proper introduction as a spinning one-take around the characters as they dance. It’s a hypnotic camera movement that mixes with the warm yellow tones of Pfister’s cinematography to create a connection both disorienting and irresistible. —ZS

The Pit, “The Dark Knight Rises”

A visual motif in the “Dark Knight” trilogy finds characters emerging from darkness and heading into the light, which is essentially the purpose of The Pit in “The Dark Knight Rises.” The setting came to define Nolan’s trilogy ender, made all the more mythic by Pfister’s stark contrast between black and white. —ZS

Video Message, “Interstellar”

The best directing choice in “Interstellar” has nothing to do with space. After a mission gone wrong, Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) and his team return to their ship to discover 23 years have passed on Earth during what was only a short amount of time spent on an ocean planet. Cooper sits down to watch video messages from his children, now grown, and Nolan shoots the character in a single take as the camera slowly pushes in and Cooper breaks down. It’s the most emotional shot of Nolan’s career so far. —ZS

Ocean Planet, “Interstellar”

The way Nolan plays around with scale in “Interstellar” is one of the best things about the film’s direction. For all the epic shots of Cooper’s small ship against the massive backdrop of giant planets, this image of a space vehicle parked on an ocean planet remains a highlight. The shot intensifies the scope of the setting, which is at once familiar in its water design but terrifying in how the shot turns said water into something endless and overpowering. —ZS

Enter the Wormhole, “Interstellar”

Keeping things grounded is Nolan’s mantra in “Interstellar,” and it serves him well in the sequence in which a spacecraft enters a wormhole. Nolan’s choice to keep the camera attached to the side of the vehicle has a visceral effect for the viewer and allows Nolan to match the feelings of his characters with that of the audience. —ZS

Inside the Black Hole, “Interstellar”

Love it or hate it, Nolan’s “Interstellar” delivered one of the director’s most impressive visual set pieces when Cooper enters the black hole and the space becomes refracted and repeated. Nolan loves to keep things practical, but shots like these prove he has a mastery of directing in VFX spaces. —ZS

Air Fight, “Dunkirk”

Nolan cleansed himself after the VFX-heavy “Interstellar” with a return to practical stunt work on “Dunkirk,” which meant not only choreographing real airplane fights but also sticking his camera onto the planes in order to direct them up in the air. That Nolan is able to capture images like this mirror shot with a sense of clarity and purpose, all while his camera is in flight, is a testament to his skill. —ZS

The Bridge, “Dunkirk”

There’s a reason Warner Bros. ended its first trailer for “Dunkirk” with this shot of a group of soldiers ducking and covering without anywhere to run. In terms of pure visuals, “Dunkirk” does not get better than this shot, which embodies both the expansive setting and the claustrophobic predicament of the characters. —ZS

The Beach, “Dunkirk”

Nolan and cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema (who also shot “Interstellar”) channeled David Lean and F.A. Young in the way they captured the beach setting of “Dunkirk,” creating a space that feels dangerously limitless but because of that only increases the characters’ isolation. Hoytema was nominated for the Best Cinematography Oscar. —ZS

Defiance, “Dunkirk”

Nolan’s love for a last shot visual methapor served him well once again in “Dunkirk,” which concludes with this powerful shot of fighter pilot Farrier’s plane on fire. Farrier (Tom Hardy) is being captured by German soliders and has destroyed his plane to prevent his opponents from stealing information. It’s an act of defiance that Nolan and Hoytema capture in an image of blazing glory. —ZS