Christopher Nolan had several movies appear in a new ranking of the best movies of the 21st century, but his highest-ranking movie is the one many call his masterpiece. Nolan has cemented himself as the biggest director of tentpole movies working in Hollywood today, a fact solidified by his Best Picture win for Oppenheimer.
Now Nolan has five movies named among the 100 best movies of the last 25 years in a new industry-led poll. While celebrated directors like Quentin Tarantino and Paul Thomas Anderson also have multiple movies on the list, Nolan has the most of any other director. However, the highest-ranked movie still stands out in his career.
The Dark Knight has been named by The New York Times as Nolan’s best movie of the last 25 years, which largely makes up his entire career as a professional filmmaker. The second movie in Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy landed 28th on the list, which was topped by Bong Joon-ho’s Best Picture winner, Parasite. The ranking wrote:
Indifference to superheroes isn’t a prerequisite for making a great film about them. But Christopher Nolan’s allergy to comic-book logic and his infatuation with the grown-up crime movie canon (especially “Heat” and “The Godfather”) revitalized a character still laboring to emerge from the miasma of “Batman & Robin.” The second entry and high-water mark of Nolan’s “Dark Knight” trilogy poses fruitful questions about the naïveté of its protagonist’s moral code. But the film’s greatest asset is Heath Ledger, whose staggering performance as the Joker set the bar for subsequent supervillains forever.
What The Dark Knight’s Ranking Means
The Dark Knight Defies Genre Barriers
The Dark Knight has long been considered Christopher Nolan’s best movie by many of his fans. It remains his second-highest-grossing movie to date, behind The Dark Knight Rises, and has been hailed as the greatest comic book movie of all time by many people. However, to see it embraced by an industry-led poll is somewhat surprising.
With this list coming at a time when superhero movies are falling out of favor, The Dark Knight‘s placement in the top 30 highlights how much it has transcended the genre
With Nolan scoring five movies on The New York Times’ list, it is clear that those voting in the poll are fans of the filmmaker. However, The Dark Knight faced stiff competition within the director’s own filmography. Oppenheimer won countless accolades while also being a massive box office hit, while movies like Inception showed Nolan’s ambition with original stories.
|
Every Christopher Nolan On The New York Times’ Poll |
|
|---|---|
|
Movie |
Ranking |
|
The Dark Knight (2008) |
28 |
|
Inception (2010) |
55 |
|
Memento (2001) |
62 |
|
Oppenheimer (2023) |
65 |
|
Interstellar (2014) |
89 |
Perhaps more impressive, The Dark Knight is also the highest-ranked superhero movie on the list, with Black Panther as the only other representation of the genre at 96. With this list coming at a time when superhero movies are falling out of favor, The Dark Knight‘s placement in the top 30 highlights how much it has transcended the genre.
Our Take On The Dark Knight’s Ranking
The Dark Knight’s Impact Exceeds All Of Nolan’s Other Movies
As much as The Dark Knight is beloved, everyone will have their own personal picks for Nolan’s best movies. I personally have grown to consider The Prestige his most enjoyable movie, while Dunkirk stands out as his most impressive work as a director. The fact that neither movie made this list shows how amazing Nolan’s career has been.
In terms of Nolan’s movie that made the biggest impact on the public at large, it is hard to deny The Dark Knight‘s placement. It elevated the comic book genre, redefined the cinematic take on Batman, and features one of the most iconic movie villains of all time in the form of Heath Ledger’s Joker.
Related
I Still Can’t Get Over Just How Wildly Different The Dark Knight’s Fourth Movie Is To The Rest Of The Series
The Dark Knight movie series is fascinating to revisit – especially when it comes to the series’ oft-forgotten fourth installment and its story.
At the same time, the movie also manages to be purely a Christopher Nolan project. He brilliantly uses the framework of a Batman story to tell his own crime epic on a massive blockbuster scale. The superhero genre might not have been able to top what The Dark Knight did, but it announced Nolan as a blockbuster filmmaker.
With the upcoming The Odyssey, Nolan continues to build on that moment, with what is reportedly his most expensive movie to date. Since The Dark Knight, his profile in Hollywood and his reputation as a brilliant filmmaker have only grown. However, time will tell if he can deliver a project that truly eclipses what many consider his masterpiece.
Source: The New York Times
