Top Ranked Films of Christopher Nolan

Christopher Nolan
5 titles, 44th in points with 16,073

Christopher Nolan is certainly one of the best of the young directors, along with Darren Aronofsky. If anything, he's underrated currently, and almost certainly headed for the top 10 all-time at his current rate, given that Scorsese is now #3 and Spielberg #7, Nolan is that good.

Nolan’s films are always finely crafted, usually intellectually intense throughout. It’s said he spent ten years perfecting the complex screenplay for Inception. To me, his best is Memento, told in a style that fits the protagonist’s short-term memory loss, we see the story backwards in small vignettes, almost photographic flashes. Trying to imagine this working, and you can’t see how it can, yet it did, and the film won five Independent Spirit Awards, including best picture and director. It was far too creative for the Oscars, the type of film that scares the established film mediocricy.

These are all the films of Nolan’s that made the top 1000 in our 2011 update of the Top Ranked 1000 Films on the Net, all polls.

1. The Dark Knight (2008)#189
2. Memento (2000)#195
3. Inception (2010)#302
4. The Prestige (2006)#395
5. Batman Begins (2005)#701

out of the top 1000
6. Insomnia #1712

Where the heck is Following (1998)? His first film is both creepy and interesting. A man randomly follows people on the streets under the guise of gathering information for his writing. One man that he follows turns the tables on him in this bizarre crime thriller shot in black-and-white.

The two Batman films updated a tired, comic-book genre with films of a more Asian look, they reminded me of good Chinese films, like Zhang Yimou (not sure why). These are more psychological and dark, more complex and less superficial.

The Prestige is a terrific film about rival magicians from science fiction author Christopher Priest. It finally makes magic into an interesting subject for a feature film. The acting of Christian Bale, Michael Caine, and Hugh Jackman make the film even more intense than the directing style, a lot is dependent on stage-style acting since these are stage performers. There are some great twists in this plot, which seem even better in retrospect – this film is growing on me over time, if anything it’s underranked.


See the full list of top ranked 100 directors here: Top Ranked 100 Directors, 2011 Edition

Top Ranked Films of Ridley Scott

Ridley Scott
4 titles in the the top 1000,
27th in points with 20,824

Ridley Scott, one of the best modern action directors, has managed to direct both popular films, and films that were excellent examples of cinema craftmanship, among the best of their genres. These are all the films of Ridley Scott’s (brother of Tony Scott) that made the top 1000 in our 2011 update of the Top Ranked 1000 Films on the Net, all polls.

1. Blade Runner (1982) #13
2. Alien (1979) #51
3. Thelma & Louise (1991) #287
4. Gladiator (2000) #517

Two more mentioned, both severely underanked, should be in the top 1000, especially Black Hawk Down
5. The Duellists (1977) #1999
6. Black Hawk Down (2001) #2181

Blade Runner is excellent science fiction, now considered a classic (perhaps ranked a little too highly, maybe around 50-75 on my personal list). It is based on Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? However, the main character and emphasis of the book was the electric animal repairman who takes in the androids due to his love of machines and his ability to fix them. The title was deemed too long, so they bought the title Blade Runner from an unrelated novel, this term was never used in Dick’s novel. The android hunter in the book was the bad guy, being a hitman for hire out there killing precious electric humanoids; the electric repairman was the only person in the book with a heart. My only complaint with Scott's film is that he turned it into less SF and more film noir detective fare, not the aura you get from the novel.

Alien is overrated, in Sigourney Weaver’s own words, "it’s just And Then There Were None in space" (and it made her a star) – this is the classic Agatha Christie novel (and Rene Clair film) where a small group of people are invited to a remote island then are murdered one-by-one, with the implication being that one of them is the murderer. In this case, we know the murderer and it's the same plot event over and over until the last human (Weaver). In this version, substitute an alien planet for the island, and one ugly alien designed by artist H.R. Giger, as the murderer - somehow a species unknown to human space that apparently gestates inside humans and that has acid for blood; go figure.

Aliens, the sequel directed by James Cameron, was much better science fiction, and a new level of creepy as well – perhaps the best horror film ever made because it works on three levels: science fiction, horror, military action. Bill Paxton’s lines were hilarious, “Ain’t you keeping up with current events, pal? We’re getting our asses kicked!” and “game over, man, game over!” When Sigourney Weaver tells him “this little girl survived”, he says, “then why don’t you put her in charge?”

Thelma and Louise is overrated to me (but is a fun and mindess action film, noted for the first onscreen appearance of Brad Pitt, as Geena Davis' lover), should be down around 500th-700th. A much better female revenge story is the French film Chaos (2001), in which an Algerian woman sold into prostitution plots to escape her life and punish her captors. In a way, it's a retelling of The Count of Monte Cristo. This is a film you will applaud in the end.

Gladiator is perhaps underrated at 500, I’d have it in the top 200 for sure, one of the best adventure films ever, with supreme imagination, excellent acting, and top notch special effects. Easily the best film of a usually terrible sub-genre, the gladiator film. I’m always reminded of the line in Airplane, when Peter Graves asks the kid, “Tell me, Timmy, do you like gladiator films?”

The Duellists is a long film about a long feud between two officers, Harvey Keitel and Keith Carradine, during the Napoleonic Wars, in which they fight a series of never-ending swordfights. This is a cerebral swashbuckler film, on the level of Kafka, in which life is not about winning or losing, but about the fight. Underrated at 1999, should be in the top 1000.

Black Hawk Down [see photo below] is one of the most intense war action films ever, on a level with Saving Private Ryan, and based on a true story of a downed U.S. helicopter in Somalia, being attacked on all sides as a rescue team searches on the ground. Almost too realistic, hard to believe it's not in the top 1000 - it would be in my top 200, one of the best 5 war films ever, perhaps, especially for action.

See the full list of top ranked 100 directors here: Top Ranked 100 Directors, 2011 Edition

Great Film: Zhang Yimou's Hero

Hero (2002) is a Chinese epic from director Zhang Yimou. Actor Jet Li said the screenplay (by Li Feng, Zhang Yimou, and Wang Bin) was the best he had ever read and left him in tears. They often call this Jet Li's Hero to distinguish it from an earlier U.S. film (also worth watching but nothing great) starring Andy Garcia and Dustin Hoffman. Along with Li, the film also stars the most popular actress in the world, Ziyi Zhang, shown in the still shots above from Hero. The visually stunning style of Hero is the ultimate for an action-adventure film, going even one level higher than Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. It's no wonder that Quentin Tarantino wanted to get his name on this one as "Q.T. Presents....", like he had anything to do with creating this masterpiece! He did the same thing to the terrific crime film in two parts, Chungking Express, which inspired Pulp Fiction. The story is a story within the story, as a warrior relates his tale to the king of Qi'in (which became China), of how he killed three assassins from neighboring kingdoms who were plotting to kill him. Bose found the film so incredible that it used a famous sword master sequence in a tv ad for a new tv surround sound system; they claim to have a hidden camera on a family who is appropriately 'jaw-dropped' by the film and sound. Hero is full of memorable scenes and sequences, I won't describe any, they have to be experienced at least twice. Watch it once with subtitles, then again without any distractions to the visual poetry because this is the cinamatic art at its highest level. Other great visual action films: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (China, Ang Lee); Spiderman; The Matrix; House of Flying Daggers (China, Z.Yimou); The Seven Samurai (Japan); The Empire Strikes Back; The Replacement Killers; Diva (France); Aliens; The Road Warrior; Run, Lola, Run (Germany).

World's Best Action and Adventure

Action and / or adventure films Films in gold won Best Picture Oscars®

• The Adventures of Robin Hood
• Around the World in 80 Days (original)
• Batman
• Ben-Hur (10 Oscars)
• Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (China)
• El Mariachi (Mexico)
• The French Connection
• The Game
• Gladiator
• Hero (Jet Li's, China)
• La Femme Nikita (France)
• The Man Who Would Be King
• Pirates of the Caribbean Trilogy
• The Raiders of the Lost Ark
• The Replacement Killers
• The Right Stuff
• The Road Warrior
• Run, Lola, Run (German)
• The Seven Samurai (Japan, bw)
• Spiderman
• The Stunt Man
• Terminator 2: Judgment Day
• V For Vendetta

We now have to include "Jet Li's" with the Chinese film Hero due to a U.S. one with the same name. This one involved two directors and had an incredible sequence used by BOSE for a tv surround sound system ad. Jet said it was the greatest script he had ever read. The Seven Samurai was the basis for the Western The Magnificent Seven, and for the space film Battle Beyond the Stars. People laughed at me when I saw Gladiator at the theater and told them it would get at least five Oscar nominations if people saw it. V For Vendetta is by the Washowski Brothers, who gave us the Matrix Trilogy. This revolutionary tome is even better, see if you recognize the voice behind the mask!