The Director With The Most Movies In The IMDb Top 250

IMDb admittedly has a flawed ratings system — one that’s prone to review bombing and generally biased against genres like horror and romance — but it still has its merits. For instance, its Top 250 list of films is pretty hard to argue with; from “The Shawshank Redemption” ranking at #1 to “Paris, Texas” making the cut, most people would agree that these movies are all, at the very least, pretty good.

The only real issue with the Top 250 list is that superhero movies are a little overvalued there. I can’t complain that “The Dark Knight” is ranked #3 on the list, but I will indeed complain that “The Dark Knight Rises” is ranked #71. Sorry, but there’s just no way “Dark Knight Rises” deserves to be over a hundred spots above “Catch Me If You Can.” I’m not buying it; someone must’ve fudged the numbers.

For director Christopher Nolan, it’d be hard to complain about the pro-superhero bias of IMDb’s userbase, as that’s what helped him become the only director in the world with eight movies on the Top 250 list. “Memento,” “Batman Begins,” “The Prestige,” “The Dark Knight,” “Inception,” “The Dark Knight Rises,” “Interstellar,” and “Oppenheimer” all have a rating of 8.2 or higher, which is not bad considering they make up a solid 2/3rds of Nolan’s filmography.

The omission that probably surprises people the most here is Nolan’s 2017 film “Dunkirk,” a gripping WWII thriller that was “only” ranked 7.8 out of 10 on IMDb. The movie’s effective at what it sets out to do, giving us a stressful, exhaustive look at the 1940 Allied defeat at the Battle of Dunkirk. Don’t watch this movie if you’re afraid of drowning, burning, or getting unexpectedly hit in the head.

If there is a flaw in “Dunkirk,” and the thing that’s prevented it from landing an 8+ IMDb rating, it’s probably the lack of compelling character arcs. Whereas “Interstellar” was grounded by the heart-wrenching father/daughter relationship at its core, while “Inception” was centered on the main character’s guilt and heartbreak over the death of his wife, “Dunkirk” is (by necessity) an ensemble film where we don’t intimately get to know most of the characters. The result is a film that’s thrilling while you’re watching, but it doesn’t linger in the heart or mind for too long after it’s done.

The omission of Nolan’s 2020 film “Tenet” from the list is more understandable though. “Tenet” is easily Nolan’s most divisive movie so far. Nolan’s often accused of being a cold filmmaker, more concerned with making clever puzzle-box plots than creating compelling characters or strong emotional stakes. “Tenet,” with its extremely confusing paradoxical time travel premise, did little to counter this critique. There’s still plenty to love and respect about the film, but it’s definitely Nolan’s least accessible movie. With its 7.3 rating on IMDb, it’ll need a lot of new 10-star reviews to climb up into the top 250 list.

Of Nolan’s films, his 2000 mystery noir “Memento” (rated 8.4, ranked #57) deserves its spot the most. At first glance, the movie might seem too complicated for its own good; it’s about a detective with short-term memory loss and it’s told through a collection of scenes in reverse order, but the movie also repeatedly returns to a flashback storyline told in chronological order. Still, “Memento” has a strong emotional core to tie all the potential confusion together. It’s also a masterclass at giving the audience short-term mysteries to introduce and quickly solve. So, even if you’re struggling hard to keep track of the larger timeline (a common issue on first watch), you can usually still appreciate each scene on its own merits. 

Also worth mentioning is “The Prestige,” a historical drama with a bit of sci-fi thrown in. Like “Memento,” it’s another tightly-knit plot that might give you a headache on first watch but which fits together remarkably well on repeat viewings. But no matter which viewing you’re on, the intense rivalry between magicians Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) and Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman) is clear and compelling enough to make it all work.

“The Prestige,” with its 8.5 IMDb rating and its #43 ranking, is Nolan at his most emotionally rich. “Interstellar” may be the bigger tearjerker overall, but the psychological messiness of “The Prestige” will give viewers far more to talk about after the credits roll.