In case you aren't already aware of it, you should try to find a copy of his first film, "Following". It's extremely low-budget, but aside from that, showcases good direction, interesting camera work, and a fantastic, Nolan-esque plot.

Like Clerks, its creation story is super interesting, and a testament to how little it costs to actually make a film if you're super creative, and really determined to.

Another good Nolan film is "Memento". My favourite of his works.

Personally I found Interstellar to be more pretentious, preachy, and illogical than cerebral. I mean I can suspend disbelief for SciFi tropes like time travel, but don't ask me to believe that a single uncurable pathogen could infect every staple food crop.

Not one of his better efforts.

There are dozens of us!

I agree, I really didn't get drawn in by Interstellar much at all. Although I only watched it on a home "theatre" and not an imax blow-your-mind "experience", so maybe I missed out on something that the bigger screen would have given me?

It's just weird that a rapidly-falling-back-to-agrarian society scrabbling for resources would also be able to secretly maintain such a high-technology base. I was waiting for a 1%-esque hidden society to be revealed leeching off the masses or something.

I'm not sure what the agrarian bit meant, I felt like it could be dropped without losing much of the film. I would have believed a dying Earth with every effort thrown into trying to colonize Mars, but Martians get cancer and the colony keeps failing or something. Then we discover this wormhole with what looks like Earth-like planets right on the other end! I could believe we'd throw a lot into a last ditch effort to find a planet we could live more easily on.

I probably over-thought it :)

> watched it on a home "theatre" and not an imax blow-your-mind "experience"

Whenever I hear that a movie needs a theatre with a screen larger than the Arecibo telescope for the public to enjoy it, I already know that's a bad movie.

All the other things you mention are spot on, too. Simply many science fiction movies lately have stopped making any sense, as if (as if?) the public was completely unable to tell the difference.

> don't ask me to believe that a single uncurable pathogen could infect every staple food crop.

Not to mention the fact that they instead of fighting it, they want to build gravitational propulsion, all by themselves in a secret location, to transfer humanity somewhere else. Like, low hanging fruits.

Also somebody told Hans Zimmer to turn it up to 11. There was no need for that, ordinary Hans Zimmer is plenty (see e.g. Crimson Tide) but Interstellar is permanently at maximum Hans Zimmer. I presume this is Nolan's fault.

Plenty of enjoyable vignettes, but a disappointment as a whole.

I would argue that if you can set aside the pop-culture legacy of the character of Batman--that feeling of "can something this popular be actually good?"--The Dark Knight is a better movie than Interstellar.

Interstellar has some beautiful shots and inspiring moments, but I think the plot and characters are not as well-realized. As much as I love the subject matter, I think Interstellar is one of Nolan's weaker films.

I would put them both more in the middle than most - I hate the magic aspect of the ending of Interstellar, but I also find the Joker's final act uncompelling, especially the boats rigged with explosives - but the aspect of both that I appreciate is a large-scale ambition that's rare these days (but that 2001 also certainly has). Technology has made low-budget ambition still produce high quality results, which is fantastic, but there's also something about what you can do when you throw hundreds of millions at a more audacious concept. I found Dunkirk disappointing because it was (by nature) much more straightforward.

I also prefer those movies, but Nolan’s Batman films were good as well. Not on the same level, but still good!

Honestly, as a kid watching The Dark Knight for the first time, I had been highly compelled by the movie.

> He clearly believes in the art of film-making, and not just throwing out big-ticket movies.

Except that's what he does. Sorry if this sounds ad-hominem, but he could spend less time expounding the difference between 70mm and digital and rather concentrate on making movies with plots that make some sense and not just intended to please the most average public.