No one is more qualified to give an opinion about great movies than Christopher Nolan. First, he knows how to make a hit. His movies have earned over $6.6 billion globally, making him the seventh-highest-grossing film director of all time. He also has two Oscars, a Golden Globe Award, and two British Academy Film Awards to his name. His success is hardly surprising, considering that he started making short films at seven, according to the book, Christopher Nolan: The Iconic Filmmaker and His Work. The celebrated director, who tends to lean towards the science fiction genre, has openly expressed his admiration for movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey and Star Wars. The book further reveals that he preferred the iconic George Lucas film more when he was younger, watching it numerous times and researching Lucas’ filmmaking techniques. But Nolan doesn’t just like the blockbusters. He likes a couple of underrated films that either failed to get recognized for awards or never made big bucks or both.
In The Hit, a man decides to sing against his criminal counterparts to the authorities. However, as he is being led from the witness box at his trial, the criminals perform the Vera Lynn song “We’ll Meet Again” to him. True to their promise, they nab him years later, intending to take him to Paris for execution. But will things play out as planned? “Few films have gambled as much on a simple portrayal of the dynamics between desperate men,” Nolan declared to Criterion about Stephen Frears’ underrated crime movie starring Tim Roth. They say if you want to shoot, shoot, don’t talk, but here, the gangsters talk more than they shoot. Interestingly, such an approach works well. The golden quotes will stick to your brain, and so will the soundtrack by Spanish flamenco guitarist Paco de Lucia.
Christopher Nolan is widely considered to be one of the best filmmakers working today, though not all of his films have been box office hits. Nic Roeg’s Bad Timing introduces us to the Vienna-based psychiatrist, Alex Linden (Art Garfunkel), who lives a rather boring life until he meets the young Milena Flaherty (Theresa Russell). Attracted to her carefree attitude, Alex falls in love with her, despite being married. But the bliss doesn’t last. Milena has an overdose, and Alex gets singled out as a suspect. The British psychological drama moves you and educates you on the little “dos and don’ts” of relationships. There are instances of rape and sexual assault, so be warned. So controversial was the film that it was branded “a sick film made by sick people for sick people” by its distributor, the Rank Organisation, and went unreleased on home video in America until 2005. Questions can be raised about Bad Timing’s content, but it’s a beautifully shot film, something Nolan loved about it. He told Criterion that “Nic Roeg’s films are known for their structural innovation, but it’s great to be able to see them in a form that also shows off their photographic excellence.”
Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence stars David Bowie as a British soldier captured by Japanese forces during World War II and held in a POW camp. He remains defiant, and as tensions rise, a translator tries to create peace between the two parties. Nolan was always a big David Bowie fan, so much so that he cast him in The Prestige. His love for the actor-singer started with music, but it grew after he watched Bowie in Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence. The American-Japanese picture isn’t the first thing that comes to mind whenever one thinks of the best ‘80s war movies. Still, Nolan has admitted that “few films have been able to capture David Bowie’s charisma, but Oshima’s wartime drama is tailor-made for his talents.” Bowie’s performance is indeed the best thing about the movie, and the star confessed that it was all possible because Oshima granted him carte blanche. According to Bowie, the Japanese director micromanaged everyone else but told him, “Please do whatever it is you people do.”
In Mr. Arkadin, the well-heeled Gregory Arkadin (Orson Welles) claims not to recall anything that happened before the late 1920s. He enlists the ex-con Guy Van Stratten (Robert Arden) to dig into his past, and the findings are stunning. With so many untimely deaths linked to Mr. Arkadin, the film depicts a gripping exploration of Welles’ genius. While it isn’t as celebrated as his other works, Nolan appreciates the drama for preserving “the heartbreaking glimpses of Welles’ genius.” The filmmaker is spot on. The movie captures all aspects of Orson Welles’ talents, such as his use of unreliable narrators to create greater ambiguity and the dependence on non-linear storytelling. Even better, it looks like a fine painting, which is unsurprising, considering that it was shot in Costa Bravam, Valladolid, Segovia, Madrid, the French Riviera, and the Château de Chillon in Switzerland.
Based on Frank Norris’ 1899 novel, Greed concerns housewife Trina McTeague (ZaSu Pitts), whose life changes for the worse after she wins the lottery. Tension builds between her and her dentist husband, John (Gibson Gowland), partly because of her paranoia and partly due to manipulation by her friend, Marcus (Jean Hersholt). Made by avant-garde visionary director Erich von Stroheim, Greed is “a work of absolute genius,” according to Nolan. Von Stroheim was very enthusiastic while making it. He famously shot 85 hours of footage on location in and around San Francisco, something that was unheard of at the time. The film thus frees itself from the “stage” feel of other Silent Era productions. In addition to that, Von Stroheim employed sophisticated techniques like montage editing and deep-focus cinematography. We can see why Nolan loved it.
Based on Tom Wolfe’s 1979 book of the same name, The Right Stuff takes us through the first 15 years of America’s space program. The film focuses on the seven people who were selected to be the astronauts for Project Mercury, the first human spaceflight commissioned by the United States. Despite its box office failure, The Right Stuff is aesthetically pleasing, thanks to location shooting at various air bases and the incorporation of real aircraft. Nolan credits it as a heavy influence on Interstellar. “You can’t pretend 2001 doesn’t exist when you’re making Interstellar, but the other film I’d have to point to is The Right Stuff,” the filmmaker told IGN. “I screened a print of it for the crew before we started because that’s a film that not enough people have seen on the big screen. It’s an almost perfectly made film. It’s one of the great American movies, and people don’t quite realize how great it is — probably because it’s four hours long!”
The Norwegian thriller Insomnia is chaotic, portraying a detective whose mental health tumbles after he commits the same kind of crime he is investigating. While investigating a murder in a town in the Arctic Circle, the lawman accidentally shoots his partner and tries to cover it up. Consequently, insomnia and remorse overwhelm him. Good things are bound to happen when you blend semi-noir with psychological discourse. Insomnia makes you think, even when the protagonist isn’t doing the same, and its twists leave you clapping. Christopher Nolan loved the movie so much that he made a remake, the only time he’s remolded an existing picture. “It was liberating in a lot of ways because you’re able to just engage with the material as a director,” Nolan told State Hornet. “You’re coming into it at a later stage, so you’re given a quite effective, objective view of the material before you dive in. On the other hand, you inherit a lot of problems from somebody else’s brain.”
The movie The Hitcher will leave you with trust issues and make you speed past any stranger who tries to stop your car. In it, a man transporting a car to San Diego picks up a hitchhiker named John Ryder (Rutger Hauer), only to learn that he is a serial killer. He escapes from the criminal’s claws, but after seeing him murder a family, he decides to pursue him. Will it end well? The film was only made on a $7.9 million budget, yet it still brought less than that. Watching it now, one can’t help but feel that ‘80s audiences were unwise to ignore it, since it’s arguably one of the finest road horror movies ever made, featuring incredible Death Proof-like chase sequences, a few memorable scares, and a strong central performance. And Nolan approves. “As a teenager, I never questioned the logic of this 80s chiller, but now it seems mind-bendingly arbitrary plot-wise,” Nolan told Film Comment. “However, it does feature the criminally underappreciated Rutger Hauer in his finest and most influential Euro-psycho performance this side of Blade Runner.” Nolan liked Hauer so much that he cast him as the CEO of Wayne Enterprises in Batman Begins.