Phantom Thread 2017
Adam's favorite piece of Nolan criticism isn't criticism at all: a Vulture item about his kids calling him Reynolds Woodcock for six months.
The Big Picture · Discussion · Top Five · Interview
Top Five Christopher Nolan Movies and a ‘Tenet’ Review From Canada
September 1, 2020/ 52 min/ Sean Fennessey · Amanda Dobbins · Adam Nayman
Sean, Amanda, and critic Adam Nayman argue through the Christopher Nolan filmography and each name their favorites, then Nayman, watching from Toronto ahead of the U.S. release, reviews Tenet spoiler-free.
22 films across 5 segments.
AI-generated This episode was transcribed and analyzed with AI models. The matches aren't perfect — expect the occasional misheard title or a link to the wrong film.
Talking Nolancareer overview, ahead of Tenet
Memento 2000
Adam rewatched it early in the pandemic and noticed it's funny on purpose, in Guy Pearce's ‘Am I chasing this guy? Is he chasing me?’
Inception 2010
The episode's longest tangent: the memes, and ‘incepted’ turning up as a verb in a novel Amanda's reading, have it existing outside the movie itself now.
The Dark Knight Rises 2012
Adam hasn't thought about it since he sat through it, aside from the Bane-inaudibility jokes.
Insomnia 2002
Sean floated it for his own top five, maybe the one Nolan film without that sense of something coming, then talked himself out of it as too contrarian a pick.
Batman Begins 2005
On nobody's list. Adam calls it an early, table-setting entry in the world-building game Marvel would later industrialize.
Sean Fennessey's Top Five Nolan Movieshis picks
The Dark Knight 2008
Still his No. 1: ‘the electrifying feeling I like in a mainstream movie,’ flaws and all.
Memento 2000
More clever, and funnier, than the one above it, he says.
Dunkirk 2017
Grown on him more than any other Nolan film since he first saw it.
The Prestige 2006
One he's happy to revisit.
Interstellar 2014
Doesn't crack his top tier but has real strengths, he thinks.
Amanda Dobbins' Top Five Nolan Moviesher picks
The Dark Knight 2008
A rewatch the night before confirmed it: the first 90 minutes are as good as blockbuster filmmaking gets.
Inception 2010
Her known minority position; she says she's the only one still fond of it.
Memento 2000
Actual household shorthand: she and her husband invoke the tattoo trick over his memory.
Dunkirk 2017
Nolan's solemn, serious side executed at its best, she says, and genuinely moving.
Adam Nayman's Top Five Nolan Movieshis picks
The Prestige 2006
His favorite ‘by a lot,’ a fatalistic movie about entertainers destroying each other and themselves, which he half-jokingly calls Nolan's most personal work.
Memento 2000
A leaner, less self-serious version of the same forward drive he finds in The Prestige.
The Dark Knight 2008
One of the three films all three panelists share.
Dunkirk 2017
The other of the three consensus picks.
A ‘Tenet’ Review From Canadano-spoilers conversation
Adam Nayman on
Tenet 2020
Adam's verdict: didn't fully understand it, didn't quite feel it either, but had a good time anyway. Strong first hour, shakier last ninety minutes. Plays closest to a Bond movie of anything in Nolan's catalog, dialogue famously buried in the sound mix, and he doesn't think it's a spoiler-landmark movie the way The Usual Suspects or The Sixth Sense are.
Adam Nayman on
The Killing 1956
Kubrick's heist film with the clown masks. Adam figures Nolan loves it enough to have remade it twice, as Inception and now Tenet.
Adam Nayman on
Crash (1996) 1996
The last movie Adam saw in a theater before Tenet, at a drive-in. Didn't tear up for that one; he did for Tenet.
Also mentioned raised along the way
In passing Transformers: Dark of the MoonThe TripThe Usual SuspectsThe Sixth SenseLabor DayThe Crying GameCrash (2004)
Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads
TV Peppa Pig
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