Summary

• Christopher Nolan's best scenes showcase his talent for gripping stories with or without explosive action set pieces.
• The reverse fight scene in Tenet is quintessential Nolan, blending blockbuster spectacle with intelligent sci-fi concepts.
• The Dark Knight set the blueprint for superhero movies, with action scenes like the Batpod chase proving Nolan's prowess.

Christopher Nolan has established himself as one of the most accomplished action directors of the 21st century, and his best scenes have influenced many other filmmakers. Nolan made a name for himself with low-budget indie movies like Memento before moving on to big studio assignments. His major breakthrough came when he directed the seminal Dark Knight trilogy, and he has since become a reliable director of original and exciting blockbusters.

Christopher Nolan's best movies include action-heavy thrillers such as The Dark Knight and Inception, but not all of his movies showcase his talent for explosive action set pieces. Oppenheimer and The Prestige, for example, prove that Nolan can craft gripping stories without many action scenes. As the world's foremost director of intelligent grand-scale epics, Nolan is capable of delivering some remarkable action scenes, even if they aren't necessarily his main focus.

10 Dormer Chases Finch

Insomnia (2002)

Christopher Nolan has called Insomnia his most underrated movie, and it's true that the crime thriller never reached the same kind of audience that most of his other movies have. With Al Pacino and Robin Williams delivering fantastic performances in a game of cat and mouse in the long Alaskan summer, Insomnia has plenty going for it. Its action scenes pale in comparison to some of Nolan's later movies, especially in of scale.

Insomnia is more about tension than outright action. Whether it's the slow-paced chase through a thick cloud of fog or the intellectual duel on the ferry, Insomnia's most memorable scenes are relatively quiet. This makes the sudden breathless chase over a field of floating logs feel much more treacherous. When Dormer slips and falls into the water, the logs close over him with the same noise and menace of a thunderstorm.

9 The Reverse Fight

Tenet (2020)

The reverse fight scene, in which the Protagonist battles with a version of himself from the past, is perhaps the quintessential Christopher Nolan action scene.

Tenet divided critics and fans with its cerebral sci-fi narrative. The sci-fi espionage thriller takes Christopher Nolan's obsession with non-linear narratives to a new level. Memento, Interstellar and Dunkirk all seem like warm-ups for Tenet's complex time-traveling plot. While not everyone will grasp the narrative immediately, Tenet is more about the experience and the visuals than pure storytelling.

The reverse fight scene, in which the Protagonist battles with a version of himself from the past, is perhaps the quintessential Christopher Nolan action scene. It combines blockbuster spectacle with an intelligent sci-fi concept, and the result is something completely new. The fight is so ensconced in dense sci-fi lore that it never feels truly immersive or dangerous, but it's a visually enchanting scene nonetheless.

8 Batman Vs. Bane

The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

The Dark Knight Rises typically falls toward the bottom of the ranking of Christopher Nolan's Batman movies, but there's still plenty to ire about the trilogy's third and final installment. The main issue is that The Dark Knight Rises tries to do too much with too many characters and plot lines. The scenes which focus on the dynamic between Batman and Tom Hardy's Bane are still compelling.

Batman's first fight with Bane shows how much he still has to learn. Bane dispatches him with playful calm, even taking the time to deliver some of the movie's best quotes in a conversational manner. Batman has to learn from this crushing defeat. There is no easy route to victory over Bane. He has to be more patient, more savvy and more responsible than he has ever been. The first fight is shot without any sense of grandeur to highlight Batman's weakness in the moment.

7 Batman Brings Out The Batpod

The Dark Knight (2008)

The Dark Knight set the blueprint for a generation of superhero movies by adopting elements of more traditional crime thrillers.

The Dark Knight was the pinnacle of Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy, and it may still be his greatest all-out action movie. The Dark Knight pushes Batman to new depths as he faces off with the Joker, and their engrossing dynamic contributes to plenty of exhilarating action scenes. The Batpod scene shows that Batman has a few tricks up his sleeve, and this becomes more important later when he unveils his Sonar technology.

The Dark Knight set the blueprint for a generation of superhero movies by adopting elements of more traditional crime thrillers, but Nolan still delivers some larger-than-life action set pieces. The Batpod scene benefits from Nolan's love of practical effects, as an 18-wheeler flips over and crashes down on its back. The Joker than emerges from the wreckage to goad Batman into hitting him, but he can't corrupt him.

6 The Mombasa Chase

Inception (2010)

Inception is typical of Christopher Nolan's penchant for marrying intense, pulsating action with complex psychological concepts. Despite the premise of dream sharing, some of Inception's action scenes are grounded in reality, and the Mombasa chase scene is one thrilling example. Cobb is chased through the busy streets of Mombasa, Kenya. He tries to fight his way out and hide in a coffee shop, but he eventually needs to be rescued.

The Mombasa chase bristles with kinetic tension. Nolan mixes shaky POV shots at ground level with slow-moving aerial shots of the chaotic streets, and this creates a holistic image of a situation that seems impossible to escape. The direction and the acting are vital, but the outstanding factor in the chase scene is Hans Zimmer's propulsive score, which cranks up the drama to excruciating levels.

5 The Tumbler Chase

Batman Begins (2005)

Batman Begins isn't quite as polished as its sequel, and some of the action sequences lack the visceral impact that Nolan would later develop.

Christopher Nolan kicked off his Dark Knight trilogy in style, handling a much larger budget and much higher expectations than he had ever had up to that point. Batman Begins takes the Caped Crusader back to his roots, exploring the psyche of Bruce Wayne in a way that few superhero movies had ever attempted. Christian Bale's performance would come to define the character for a new generation.

Batman Begins isn't quite as polished as its sequel, and some of the action sequences lack the visceral impact that Nolan would later develop. However, there are still a few outstanding scenes, particularly the Tumbler chase. The Tumbler is a grounded reimagining of the Batmobile, perfectly in line with the Dark Knight trilogy's more realistic style. It's essentially a military-grade armored vehicle with anti-pursuit measures.

4 The Sinking Of The Destroyer

Dunkirk (2017)

Christopher Nolan took a unique approach to the war genre with Dunkirk. Rather than focusing on large-scale battles, his war movie is about the tension of waiting for rescue. The British soldiers stranded at Dunkirk don't need to fight off enemy soldiers, they simply need to get lucky with the planes that periodically swoop over their heads. The constant aerial threat reflects the opaque logic of divine judgment.

The Dunkirk lends extra weight to some of its most nail-biting scenes. As a group of British soldiers finally escape from , they realize that their ordeal is far from over as their ship is destroyed, and they are forced to plunge into the ocean as German planes circle overhead. Dunkirk benefits from its sparse use of dialogue. This makes the wordless terror of the soldiers palpable, as a plane crashes into the ocean and ignites an oil slick.

3 The Docking Sequence

Interstellar (2014)

The docking scene unites Christopher Nolan's breathtaking visuals with a superb performance from Matthew McConaughey and a pulsating score from Hans Zimmer.

Interstellar is a grand space adventure that prods at the fabric of the universe and the depths of human psychology all at once. The docking scene somehow manages to condense these ideas into one breathless action sequence. As Cooper attempts to dock with the Endurance, he has to pilot his craft through a dangerous field of debris, and hope that he can stay conscious for long enough to complete the maneuver.

The docking scene unites Christopher Nolan's breathtaking visuals with a superb performance from Matthew McConaughey and a pulsating score from Hans Zimmer. These elements come together in harmony to produce one of Nolan's greatest ever scenes. The stark black and white of the external shots highlights the inhospitable expanse of space. Having such a bold reminder of the perils of the situation helps raise the stakes. Cooper isn't just fighting for his own survival, but for the very fate of humanity.

2 The Hallway Fight

Inception (2010)

Inception's multiple dream layers make things progressively weirder as Cobb and his team go deeper. The hallway fight is one of the first moments that Inception reveals the full scope of its trippy sci-fi concept, and it works beautifully within the context of the story. With time moving at a different pace inside the dream, Arthur has to fight for survival as the hallway begins to rotate all around him.

While many other directors would resort to CGI for such a surreal sequence, Christopher Nolan stuck with practical effects. The fight scene was shot within a large rotating hallway, so that Joseph Gordon-Levitt and the other actors could walk on the walls and ceiling as it turned. This gives the sequence a powerful immersive feeling, despite it being so clearly impossible in the real world.

1 Joker's Bank Heist

The Dark Knight (2008)

Christopher Nolan created a miniature heist movie at the beginning of The Dark Knight to introduce the Joker. It's a masterful way of using action to explore a character.

Christopher Nolan created a miniature heist movie at the beginning of The Dark Knight to introduce the Joker. It's a masterful way of using action to explore a character, and it helped Heath Ledger's Joker become one of the most enduring big-screen comic book characters of all time. The bank heist features a group of robbers wearing clown masks, each completing their specific job and killing another robber to reduce the number of shares.

Any logical thief would realize that if they have been ordered to kill another member of the gang, there could well be a target on their back too. However, the fact that these robbers choose to ignore that logic proves the Joker correct about his pessimistic worldview. He believes that all men are greedy and violent in nature, and the bank heist is an early social experiment that reflects the ferry dilemma later on. Amid the chaos and violence, the Joker thrives as the only cool head.