Month: July 2026

Ranking Christopher Nolan’s Films (w/The Odyssey)

AdamLeave a comment

This weekend saw the release of The Odyssey, the newest entry to come from the great mind of Christopher Nolan. Despite all the controversy and outrage over the internet, it looks as though it’s set to have a strong opening weekend in spite of it being three hours long and clearly NOT PG-13. As a result, time to rank every film in Christopher Nolan’s filmography thus far and see how it fares from worst to best.

It shouldn’t be unpopular to say that Christopher Nolan is one of the greatest filmmakers working today! He’s one of the few directors out there that everyone is aware of and his name attached to a film alone is enough to get people’s butts in theater seats. And coming in a post-covid and post-2023 strikers timeline and in the middle of summer filled with underperforming/underwhelming big movies, leave it to Nolan to be the one big name this weekend helping to turn the tide on the narrative that people don’t go to theaters anymore. I’m sure this isn’t what the Dark Knight himself had in mind when he made it his quest to save theaters back in 2020 with Tenet, but hey, I still think he consider it an absolute win regardless.

Keep in mind that for this list, there’s really only one of these movies that I’m not the biggest fan off. Just about every other one I either like or absolutely LOVE! Heck, over half of the movies on this list were some of my absolute favorite films in the year they came out with some of them being on my list of favorite films every year. That’s why this list was INCREDIBLY hard to make! Regardless, I’m up to the challenge and let’s rank the great work coming from the Nolan mind himself.

13.) Tenet

If there is one Christopher Nolan film that I would unfortunately have to declare to being a complete and total dud, it’s Tenet. While it’s well acted and looks amazing, this feels more like an intimation of a Christopher Nolan film than an actual Christopher Nolan film. The plot is a convoluted mess, the characters are completely one-note and half of the time nameless, the sound mixing is ungodly atrocious, and while it’s central time travel/espionage premise is a very interesting one, the execution of it could not have missed the mark as much as it did.. The fact you have a film where the main protagonist name is literally referred to as “The Protagonist” and you are expected to take it all seriously is literally all you need to know about the experience of watching Tenet. Little did we know that this would be the end of the road between the partnership of Nolan and Warner Bros, with the latter getting another chance of “saving” cinema but with a total different studio.

12.) Following

Here is the one that started it all. Christopher Nolan is able to make his first length directorial debut with Following, an INCREDIBLY low budget and small scale flick about a young writer who follows strangers for a living in the hopes of being able to write something interesting for his novels. For a film that basically involves it’s main character trying to find an identity, this is where Nolan enters the realm of cinema and secures an identity of it’s own. It’s beer money-level budget does hold it back from being a truly great film with the stellar production you would come to expect from Nolan and the 70 minute long running makes many elements feels rushed and sloppy. For a directorial film debut, you can certainly do much worse but can also do much better as well.

11.) Dunkirk

Nolan has always been a filmmaker that remained a loyalist on the experience of watching films in a theater. I don’t think there has been a film he has made to date that didn’t put as much emphasis on theater experience than with Dunkirk, a tense, tightly paced war epic about the battle that took place in the beaches of Dunkirk between Germany and France. While this definitely was an event worth seeing on the biggest screen in pure IMAX back in July 2017, it’s lack of compelling characters, questionable sound mixing, and a needlessly complicated narrative really hinders the rewatch value, making it fall short of being an all-time war movie classic. Plenty will argue that this is the intention on the part of Nolan but that still doesn’t make for a very engaging watch for me. If Tenet was an example of a Nolan film that had great ideas but bad execution, then Dunkirk is an example of a Nolan film with bad ideas but ultimately great execution. I guess if you have a massive 4K TV with a stellar sound system, you might get HALF of that theatrical experience that I got back in 2017. But take all of that away, all you get with Dunkirk is a basic war film that feels more like akin to your Ken Burns PBS documentary rather than it’s own film.

10.) Insomnia

The first film Nolan made that was disturbed by Warner Bros might just be his most overlooked feature to date, even if this is ranked in the lower half of Nolan’s filmography. We have a solid and engaging thriller about one man’s descent into madness and another man that is driven solely by madness. Al Pacino and Robin Williams turn in great performances and make for a perfect duology of the hero and villain of the picture. The film does a great job of showing the effect that constant daylight has on a character along with the passage of time that is scattered across the film. Tbh, the fact that this film is this low on the list says more about how good Nolan is at making films than the overall quality of Insomnia. It might be mid-tier on the Nolan scale but this is still a pretty good film all things considered.

9.) Interstellar

What might be Nolan’s most ambitious film and largest in scope to date, Interstellar makes for one of the most interesting and intriguing sci-fi films of the 21st century. The film goes into great lengths about mankind’s place in the universe and what we are willing to achieve for the survival of the human race. The effects are a feast for the eyes, it’s superbly acted, the emotional core between Cooper and his daughter is very well done, and the first two acts is able to execute it’s themes to near perfection, acting as an engaging race against time to preserve what’s left of humanity on Earth. Unfortunately, the third act then comes along where all logic gets thrown out of the window, a certain subplot that the film has been building to gets completely handwave, and everything is tied up into the cheapest little bow imaginable. There’s PLENTY to love about Interstellar and there are many moments where it becomes SO CLOSE to being up there with Nolan’s absolute best, but then the last 20 minutes happens that just doesn’t feel satisfying. Even if it’s not able to stick the landing as well as it could have, Interstellar makes for one engaging ride that is worth experiencing at least one time.

8.) Batman Begins

Batman Begins was an absolute revolutionary when it came out back in 2005. Not only did it revived the Batman franchise that seemed long dead for eight years, but it help set the foundation that properties surrounding superheroes and comic books can in fact be taken more seriously and still be really good. It gives us an incredibly engaging Bruce Wayne in Christian Bale’s iconic turn as this iconic character along with providing a satisfying origin story that stands as one of the best ever put to screen, being able to revolutionized superhero films for DC the way Richard Donner’s Superman and Michael Keaton’s Batman did back in the days. While it’s impact didn’t feel all the way felt until around the arrival of it’s sequel The Dark Knight three years later, this film’s importance to the Caped Crusader along with the sub-genre should not go unnoticed. Even before Marvel got their universe with Iron Man, it was this terrific first entry from Christopher Nolan that got the ball rolling with just how good a modern superhero movie can be. Only shaky camera action sequences and the second half not being quite as engaging as the first half prevents this from being even higher on the list!

7.) The Prestige

Fresh off a year after reviving the Batman franchise, here we have an absolute mind bender of a film with a strong emotional core, twists and turns that are not just surprising but makes complete sense, and a film that overall doesn’t have a clear protagonist or antagonist. The Prestige offers Nolan’s most packed film in terms of themes, craftsmanship and it’s twisty as hell narrative. With the way everything unfolds through the entire picture, the whole experience plays like a manifesto itself. Making you wonder if one day Christopher Nolan will acts as a professional magician himself once he retires from making films. Even if I feel like there’s one twist too many and the re-watches don’t quite match the experience of seeing everything unfold for the first time, The Prestige is still awesome and a film that should be talked about more when it comes to Nolan’s greatest achievements.

6.) The Dark Knight Rises

That’s right, I have The Dark Knight Rises THIS high on the list! Nolan’s final entry in his largely successful Dark Knight trilogy is his most daring movie of the lot. This is the one Batman film that actually dares to question the entire idea around the character of Batman: that perhaps Bruce Wayne becoming Batman was a mistake. Aided by a intimating villain in Tom Hardy’s Bane, a welcome supporting turn in Anne Hathaway’s Catwoman, fist bumping action sequences and a ending that brings the full themes of the trilogy together, The Dark Knight Rises made for an ending that is imperfect but yet FELT perfect at the exact same time. And especially in a age where superhero and movie franchises that constantly refuse to end, it’s certainly refreshing to have a series that was able to get a proper finale and stick to it, with NO sequel or follow-ups of any kind coming after it. While this is FAR from other flawless masterpieces that Nolan has created, I do think there is a strong argument that this is his most FLAWED masterpiece. In the sense, that despite all the glaring issues from a technical and script side of things along with some underwhelming death scenes, everything here just feels…..right. Even if this film does have it’s detractors, I’m still a believer in The Dark Knight Rises…even if you’re not.

5.) Memento

If you want to see a textbook example of how to make a film within a film, look no further than Memento. This is the kind of mind f**k that very few directors could pull off but Nolan is somehow able to do it and make it look complete easy. Guy Pearce is at his absolute best here as a man suffering from a rare memory loss and is trying to find the man who raped and killed his wife. The score is great, the mystery is able to build perfectly with each previous scene building perfectly to the next, and it’s just one of those rare films that will reward you every time you watch it regardless of what way you prefer to watch it. There’s not many films that constantly wants to keep me coming back for more after each viewing but Memento is one of those rare films. This is a film that might give you a headache when first watching it but it’s certainly the best headache you will ever have. Some might argue this is a bit too high on the list but this film just rules and deserves a spot in the top 5!

4.) Oppenheimer

With this being the first film that Nolan made with Universal Pictures after his departure from WB, Oppenheimer is yet another masterfully made and directed film by the great Christopher Nolan himself. It’s able to tell exactly the kind of sprawling epic story that it aspires to be by making sure to act as a character study first and a biopic second. Every single member of it’s highly recognizable cast is able to completely disappear into their roles and captured their performances perfectly, it does a good job of exploring the man of J. Robert Oppenheimer (played perfectly by Cillian Murphy) as not just “the destroyer of worlds” but as an impactful man himself, the three hour runtime is put to good use without feeling bloated in the slightest, and is able to deliver fully on the theater experience in ways that no other filmmaker could pull off. While may not quite be my very favorite from Nolan himself, this is certainly one of his most impressive works to date and one that I wouldn’t fault anyone who declares it as their new favorite.

3.) The Odyssey

The Odyssey is cinema at its absolute finest! The cast from top to bottom is absolutely outstanding, the unconventional storytelling of this adapted classic tale works without any hesitation whatsoever, the action and set pieces are extremely thrilling and make paying the extra few dollars for the “special” screenings all the more worth it, there’s not a single minute of it’s near three hour running time that feels wasted, and while I can’t say that I agree with every single creative choice that Nolan makes along the way, the way everything comes full circle by the very end makes any potential glaring issue up to that point feel like a complete dust in the wind. Regardless if this is the best Christopher Nolan film or not, I don’t there is a film in his filmography that showcases the grand mindset that this man has had as a filmmaker for the past 30+ years. By constantly trying to find ways to outdo himself and providing you with even grander adventures with grander scales than before, this is Nolan yet again achieving a new level of high quality and a new meaning of absolute cinema! I can’t possibly know how he plans to top himself next time out but man, I will be the first in line for whatever he’s got next!

2.) The Dark Knight

I know it’s become cliché to claim that The Dark Knight is one of the best superhero movies ever, but many people said that for a reason, it is just that damn good. It just works flawlessly at being an unique, distinct story about Batman being challenged mentally, emotionally, physically, thematically, and symbolically. Joker and Harvey Dent acts as perfect parallels to the hero that Bruce so desperately wants to be as Batman along with the villain that he fears that he will one day become. It’s a Batman movie that perfectly mirrors itself with out it tells this identical tale of crime, corruption, and vengeance in the most complex and fascinating way imaginable. There have definitely been PLENTY of superhero movies out that have come out since 2008 that people have liked/disliked more than others but I don’t think anyone can argue that there hasn’t been a superhero movie that has a much of an impact on the genre or cinema as a whole than The Dark Knight. From it’s mind blowing twists and turns to it’s rapid fire pace to gripping action sequences to it’s resonate themes to Heath Ledger’s amazing turn as Heath Ledger and to even Christian’s Bale Batman voice, The Dark Knight, even 18 years later, still stands strong! Even if it is quite an eye roller to keep glazing this film all these years later, it deserves ALL the glazing that it gets because it’s THAT f**king awesome!

1.) Inception

I always go back and forth on #1 and #2 depending on my mood but for right now, I’m gonna go with Inception. There is not one Christopher Nolan film that perfectly demonstrates the man had his finest in terms of craft, narrative, novelty, and ideas. This is easily one of the very best sci films every made and one of the rare films where it’s brilliant ideas is able to be brilliantly executed in every way. The creativity on display is astonishing, the premise involving Inception is put to perfect use and feels wholly original, the dream scenes and world building is some of the very best I’ve seen in any film, the action is top notch and thrilling, the effects are breathtaking, the characters are all compelling and engaging, every actor is perfect in their roles, the score is among the most mesmerizing I’ve ever in any film, and it has one of the most satisfying endings I’ve seen in any film that it NEVER fails to tear me up. This is one of the films where no matter how many times I watch it, I still get that same fresh, unique, and intriguing experience I got when I watched it in the cinema back in 2010. Inception is the best film by Christopher Nolan to date and is one I can recommend to anyone that is a lover of films and cinema.

The Odyssey (2026) Movie Review- Absolute Cinema

AdamLeave a comment

I don’t think there is a director in Hollywood that always seems so eager to top himself the way that Christopher Nolan does! And I don’t just mean in terms of trying to green mushroom himself in terms of the size, scale, and scope that he chooses to shoot his films with or how grand, epic, and unconventional he wants to go with telling his stories (Although, that should DEFINITELY be noted!) but more in how he goes about it through the actual motivations of his main characters. I could go on talking about how The Odyssey is yet another cautionary tale in Nolan’s filmography about a man who wants nothing more but to get back to his family he abandoned (Inception, Interstellar) or another story where his main character who is forced to rebuild and rediscover himself to remember his true purpose (Memento, Batman Begins, & The Dark Knight Rises) but what is always so fascinating and even inspiring is how much the main protagonist in those films will go through in order to accomplish these goals that Nolan clearly has behind the camera or in the writer’s room.

The Dark Knight sees a “non-limited” Batman going through hoops and ladders to stopping the Joker while realizing that even he must have a breaking point or else he will lose himself. Inception has a professional thief that is given the chance of a lifetime to have his criminal record clean if he is successful in literally going into someone’s dream and planting another person’s idea into one’s own target subconscious. The Dark Knight Rises gives us a broken Bruce Wayne that is given no choice but to tear himself apart and start over from scratch in order to defeat Bane and save Gotham City one last time as the Batman. Interstellar has Matthew McConaughey traveling to infinity and beyond in the hopes of finding a new home for his own children before it’s too late. Dunkirk has soldiers well…..doing everything in their power to save themselves in an actual war! Tenet follows someone literally named THE PROTAGONIST trying to do their job as being the film’s literal protagonist by messing with time before it messes back! And lastly, Oppenheimer, sees an infamous physicist nearly destroying the world once and for all to make himself go down in history as the man who invented the very first nuclear bomb.

I bring all this up because you really get the feeling that ever since The Dark Knight, Nolan has consistently have a strong desire to make his films as big, ambitious, and personal as they can possibly be. Not strictly because for the sake of the audience’s own entertainment but with Nolan’s own grand ambition as a filmmaker. Even if he is the last man in the world that needs to prove and justify himself with each new film he makes, he will still go through the great lengths and means to do so anyway, with the complete mindset that each new film he makes could be the very last one. These aren’t just stories about flawed protagonists pushing themselves beyond unrealistic measures to see the light at the end of the tunnel but also about how Nolan himself is willing to push himself beyond unrealistic measures to achieve an even bigger level of peak that nobody think is even possible anymore.

And with The Odyssey, Nolan is here to tell us his biggest and most daring tale yet. Not only with adapting one of the most epic poems in history with Homer’s The Odyssey, developed by the Greeks (We’ll get to that in a moment!) but with crafting his most layered and human story yet, centered around a man being forced to go through hell and back to return to his family and home, no matter how long it takes or what methods he has to use to get there. This is Nolan with his biggest cast, grandest scale, most nonlinear storytelling, and the most personal stakes of any film he has released to date. And the results is nothing short of magnificent!

The Odyssey is cinema at its absolute finest! The cast from top to bottom is absolutely outstanding, the unconventional storytelling of this adapted classic tale works without any hesitation whatsoever, the action and set pieces are extremely thrilling and make paying the extra few dollars for the “special” screenings all the more worth it, there’s not a single minute of it’s near three hour running time that feels wasted, and while I can’t say that I agree with every single creative choice that Nolan makes along the way, the way everything comes full circle by the very end makes any potential glaring issue up to that point feel like a complete dust in the wind. Although it might take me another rewatch or two to declare this my absolute favorite film from the great Christopher Nolan, The Odyssey is prove that the king of modern cinema still has plenty of days remaining on his throne!

Premise: It follows the Greek King Odysseus (Matt Damon) attempting to return home to Ithaca after the Trojan War. While he faces a treacherous voyage and is held captive by the nymph Calypso (Charlize Theron), his wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway) and son Telemachus (Tom Holland) struggle to fend off aggressive suitors trying to claim his throne.

At this point, you have probably already read or at least strongly familiar with the story of Homer’s The Odyssey. It’s a epic tale that has been told for many generations with many different iterations of this beloved/infamous story that have been made. Through every single moment of it’s 173 minute runtime, Nolan is in the mindset that you know the ins and outs of this story but is still wanting to tell it in the freshest and newest way possible, almost like you are seeing this countlessly told story being told before your eyes for the very first time. There’s clear inspiration on display between many translations of The Odyssey, including those from Emily Wilson, E.V. Rieu, and Robert Fagles, AND even other great epic historical films such as Andrei Rublev, Ran, Gladiator, and yes, even Troy. While I can’t imagine the 2026 version is exactly what Homer had pictured when he first made this story, there is a strong sense of confidence here of being able to perfectly capture the spirit of Homer’s tale, translating itself with the best possible update of the story that one can imagine.

And while we are on the subject, yes I would be lying if I claim that Nolan’s take on The Odyssey is as historically accurate as it gets. From the silver armors in Bronze Age to the “modernized” dialogue to the character of Simon basically replacing the character of Achillies to there being little to no Greeks in this overall Greek tale, this is definitely an adaption that you can tell was made in the year 2026 and NOT 1926!

If this was your typical adaption made by your typical filmmaker, these kind of bizarre changes would make the whole thing feel dead on arrival! However, just like with Odysseus himself, Nolan is clearly up to the challenge and is willing to go through any sort of controversy and pre-release PR disaster to craft the best possible version of his grand vision.

And the main thematic throughline that helps Nolan’s The Odyssey be up to par with the very best adaptions of it’s source material is that it never forgets that at it’s heart, The Odyssey is about a man learning the humanity within himself and using that as strength to pull off the biggest comeback of all time. Each character from the film’s extremely stacked cast plays a role that ties back to Odysseus’ overwhelming journey, with trying to get home after the Trojan War and the encounter of mythical beings along the way in order to reunite with his wife, Penelope, and a son that he may or may not know about.

It’s through these first two hours of the film that do their damnest of carrying the weight of the complete damning picture. Big important sequences are told out of order and through the perspectives of other characters played by the most talented actors and actresses you can think of, it has a balanced tone that knows when to take it’s material seriously and when to have some completed messed up fun with it (That “pig” scene will live rent free in my head for a long time!), and it never forgets for one moment that is a story about Odysseus first and everyone else second. While this is all well and done for the first two hours, there are definitely some moments along the way where you can’t help but hear the gears turned out a little too loudly, wondering how much of this narrative plate spinning is Nolan showing confidence with himself and Nolan just being forced to grind through certain moments of backstory in order to show off the most important set pieces of the story.

Thankfully, the final hour of this film completely makes up for any prior shortcoming. Not only is it able to make nearly every questionable creative choice and casting decision beforehand seem completely justified but it all culminates to one of the most satisfying climaxes in recent memory, with Matt Damon being able to relive his “good old days” in about the best way possible (I imagine Universal will be on the phone with him Monday morning to discuss resurrecting a certain franchise that made him what he is). It’s hard to go into details without major spoilers but the way everything is paid off in the final 30 minutes is so damn good, making a man’s journey come full circle and taking back everything that he lost along the way.

The cast, as you would expect given how much AURA is on screen here, are all excellent. Matt Damon as Odysseus is able to perfectly sell himself as a believable warrior king in his middle age and able to carry himself as well as among the best featured films with him. Tom Holland excels as the son, Telemachus, clearly comfortable in stepping out of the shadow of Spider-Man and into the shoes of a young man waiting for his father to return. Anne Hathaway as Penelope should be the current frontrunner for Best Actress come the Academy Awards next spring, giving an amazing and vulnerable performance as a troubled mother, wife, and queen of a kingdom that she is forced to rule by herself.

Robert Pattinson is entertaining playing the complete asshole that is Antinous, Himesh Patel makes for a solid second-in-command of Eurylochus, Charlize Theron is great as always as Calypso, the woman that takes care of Odysseus and wants him for herself, Zendaya is given a similar role as she did in Dune: Part One as Athena but she makes it play, Jon Bernthal as Menelaus acts as the right guide for Telemachus, a man who represents the version of a father that he might want, and John Leguizamo is completely unrecognizable in the best way as Eumaeus, given more focus and depth than I was expecting. I would’ve liked to have seen more from Mia Goth and Logan Marshall-Green as twin siblings in Melantho and Melanthius and Benny Safdie as Agamemnon but they are able to fit in alongside everyone else. Oh, and although Samantha Morton’s Circe is only in one major sequence in the film, nailed it just……nailed it!

And of course, you have to address the GIANT elephant in the room in regards to the controversy surrounding the casting. Yes, Travis Knight, Lupita Nyong’o, and Elliot Page are all in this film as their roles of Phemius, Helen of Troy/Clytemnestra, and Sinon (A.K.A. NOT Achilles) respectively but their roles are about as minor as they come and don’t hog the spotlight as majority of the cast members already mentioned that it’s baffling it attached as much backlash as it did. Sure, I can question if it was the wisest choice for Nolan to cast a rapper in a Greek tale (Even if Travis’s newest song in the end credits is catchy as hell!) or I would buy Elliot Page as being the bravest warrior that Odysseus has ever seen (To be fair, it’s NOT implied he is the best or strongest warrior of them all and the film is clearly aware of that!) but for anyone that is familiar with The Odyssey, they are all given the same extended cameo roles they did in the books, given a combined screentime of five to seven minutes at best. So, even if you are among the unhinged folks that are outraged of these castings, they are not in it nearly as much for them to hold you back on your enjoyment of the film, especially since all three of them are great in the film with their limited screentime (And yes, I do indeed buy Lupita Nyong’o as the most beautiful woman in the world! Don’t @ me!).

However, despite having nearly everyone but the kitchen sink as part of the cast, the real MVP of the film is no one other than Christopher Nolan. His craftsmanship is yet again on complete full display, making sure that regardless of what way you chose to see this film in theaters, it will make for the very best possible viewing experience that anyone could have imagine. With completely sharp direction, gorgeous cinematography from Hoyte van Hoytema, surprisingly consistent editing from Jennifer Lame, and a haunting/riveting musical score from Ludwig Göransson, Nolan yet again deliver the complete full package of a theatrically released film, making sure that every single penny that was spent from it’s $250+ million budget was justified. Heck, even the sound mixing worked for me this time! It’s THAT good!

Even if you are someone that don’t care for Christopher Nolan as a filmmaker, you can’t deny the man is doing everything in his integrity to keep the cinematic theatrical experience alive. With so many achievements underneath his belt, he has every excuse in the book to just play it safe with each new film he now releases and not feel the end to top himself every chance he gets. But thank the Greek gods he REFUSES to do that because man, I can’t think of a bleaker cinematic future in the 2020s if Oppenheimer and The Odyssey never became a thing. For as long as that man is making films, he will always act like a man on a mission, constantly aiming to reach a higher bar with each new film that he makes. I mean, can you name me ONE other director working in Hollywood that is able to CONSISTENTLY deliver films that always end up being in the top 10 highest grossing films of the year because of their name ALONE?! I bet you can’t and that what makes Christopher Nolan such a gift to cinema.

The Odyssey makes for yet another grand triumph from Christopher Nolan along with one of the best grand epics in recent memory, managing to defy all expectations and find new unforeseen boundaries to push. The story centering on Odysseus is captivating, the action sequences whether it involves the Trojan War, cyclops, or Matt Damon going full Jason Bourne are all brilliant, the cast is among the greatest ensembles of all time, and everything about the final hour of the film is so perfectly executed that it literally washed any gripes I had beforehand completely away. I can’t say I would have made every single creative and artistic decision that Nolan makes here but nearly every single one of those decisions is justified and is perfectly shown why onscreen.

Regardless if this is the best Christopher Nolan film or not, I don’t there is a film in his filmography that showcases the grand mindset that this man has had as a filmmaker for the past 30+ years. By constantly trying to find ways to outdo himself and providing you with even grander adventures with grander scales than before, this is Nolan yet again achieving a new level of high quality and a new meaning of absolute cinema! I can’t possibly know how he plans to top himself next time out but man, I will be the first in line for whatever he’s got next!

Although if the cave and “pig” scene is any indication and how ANOTHER certain big someone in Hollywood has reacted to The Odyssey, I think we have a certain genre that Nolan hasn’t tackled yet and a certain actor that Nolan hasn’t collaborated with yet could be a match made in heaven!

Please make it happen!

Ranking The Billion Dollar Club Movies (Updated w/Michael & Toy Story 5)

AdamLeave a comment

Michael and Toy Story 5 are about to cross the billion dollar mark at the box office. With that, there are now a total of 64 movies to have made it into the one billion dollar club. Regardless if inflation or re-releases also helps with that (which they both do), a movie has made a total of over seven bills at least 64 times throughout cinema history. Because of that, I decided to go ahead and do a ranking of every single one of these since I’ve actually seen all of these movies at least one time.

This will make for a rather complicated list, even more so than other lists I make on here. This will be a fine mix between what I believe is the best movie from an objective standpoint, what I believe is the best from a subjective standpoint, and the impact each one has had on pop culture for better and worse. I’ve thought about this for quite awhile now so it’s time for me to rank them.

If you disagree with this list, then by all means disagree but please don’t be a jerk about it. We have enough of those on the internet. I really don’t take much pride in these lists and rankings other than to have some fun. Opinions change everyday and this ranking is just how I feel at the exact moment that I’m publishing this list.

Also, since it’s going to be 64 movies, I’m not gonna go into detail on any one of those and just show the number I have ranked for each movie. I’ll just say which movie is ranked where and show off a trailer for it because why not? I might even update the list once another movie comes around that makes a billion dollars and see how much of my opinion on this list has changed since then.

Let’s not waste anymore time and get right down to it.

64.) Transformers: Age of Extinction

63.) The Lion King (2019)

62.) Jurassic World: Dominion

61.) Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

60.) Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

59.) Minions

58.) Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

57.) Alice In Wonderland (2010)

56.) Beauty and the Beast (2017)

55.) Despicable Me 3

54.) Lilo & Stitch (2025)

53.) Moana II

52.) Aladdin (2019)

51.) The Fate of the Furious

50.) Jurassic World

49.) Captain Marvel

48.) Frozen II

47.) Incredibles 2

46.) Toy Story 4

45.) The Super Mario Galaxy Movie

44.) Star Wars: Episode 1- The Phantom Menace

43.) The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

42.) Spider-Man: Far From Home

41.) Avatar: Fire & Ash

40.) Transformers: Dark of the Moon

39.) Avengers: Age of Ultron

38.) Joker

37.) The Super Mario Bros Movie

36.) Aquaman

35.) Michael

34.) Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

33.) Finding Dory

32.) Toy Story 5

31.) Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead’s Man Chest

30.) Star Wars: The Force Awakens

29.) Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

28.) Deadpool & Wolverine

27.) Furious 7

26.) Avatar: The Way of Water

25.) Avatar

24.) Zootopia 2

23.) Frozen

22.) Iron Man 3

21.) Captain America: Civil War

20.) Ne Zha 2

19.) Barbie

18.) Harry Potter & The Deadly Hallows Part II

17.) Spider-Man: No Way Home

16.) Inside Out 2

15.) Avengers: Infinity War

14.) Zootopia

13.) Star Wars: The Last Jedi

12.) Black Panther

11.) Skyfall

10.) The Dark Knight Rises

9.) The Avengers

8.) Titanic

7.) Top Gun: Maverick

6.) Avengers: Endgame

5.) The Lion King

4.) Jurassic Park

3.) The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King

2.) Toy Story 3

1.) The Dark Knight

Top 10 Best Movies of 2026 (So Far)

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Hey, everyone! I hope you all are enjoying your 4th of July weekend! As we exit June and enter July, that means we are already halfway through 2026! Because of that, I might as well give you all my pick for the top 10 best movies of the year so far!

Keep in mind, I have not seen every single movie that has released in 2026 and there might just be a critically praised movie that you love that I have just not gotten around to yet. Also, these rankings are NOT set in stone and are subject to change as the year goes on. For all I know, my #10 on the list could possibly end up being my #1 favorite movie of the year.

Although there is still PLENTY of films to come out for the remainder of the year, these are the ten films that has affected me in the best ways for the first six months of 2026!

10.) Backrooms

While I’m not quite on the love boat with this one, I’m sure as hell on the respect boat. I love the original atmosphere and unique setting that Kane Parsons has created here, making the backrooms itself a fascinating place to explore whenever we are able to get to it. I did wish the overall narrative had more meat to it and Parsons didn’t have to keep coming up with contrived excuses for his characters to keep showing up to the backrooms. And I’m still scratching my head on the resolution to the whole thing. However, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve are great here and there are still plenty of seeds that have yet to be grown in the world that is Backrooms that I’m curious to visit yet again in the future. I can see this being a series of films that only gets better from here on out. 

9.) The Sheep Detectives

Well, what do you know. Who would’ve guessed that a film about a literal talking sheep in live-action could end up being this heartwarming and cozy?! Even if it can be a bit too silly at times, The Sheep Detectives just tugs at your heartstrings in the best of ways and Hugh Jackman is as much as a welcome presence as he always has been on the big screen. If you are someone that adores the new Paddington movies, this might just well in your wheel house.

8.) 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple

It made have taken a second try but 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is able to deliver the complete full package I wanted from the previous 28 Years Later film from last year, while standing as perhaps the best installment in this franchise since the original. The acting is terrific, the horror and gore will disgust you in the most delightful ways imaginable, and it is still able to follow the franchise’s overall themes by continuing to offer fresh, new, and different perspectives about a world that has plunged into total chaos without taking you out of it or even inviting comparisons to the world that we are currently live in. I sure hope this is able to find it’s audience through digital and streaming because if not, then MAN are they missing out!

7.) Hoppers

Hoppers is a showcase of what happens with Pixar allows themselves to let loose and forge their own path to creativity. The film has it’s own distinct animation style that compliments the storytelling without it being too overbearing or “in your face”, the characters are all likeable with their own relatable goals that anyone can get behind, it’s easily among the funniest Pixar movie in years, and despite prior reports of Disney’s efforts to downplay the themes of environmentalism, it’s able to get that exact message across in as much of a profound way as Pixar was able to in 2008 with Wall-E. It may take it’s time in getting to that exact point in the ways that it was intend and does have one or two cringeworthy lines about how “aware” it is of it’s own premise but the pay-offs by the latter half of Hopper makes it the whole experience feel worth it! While there are those out there that claim Toy Story 5 or Minions & Monsters as their animated film of the year, I’m still sticking by this one.

6.) Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die

After coming out of the closet making the criminally underrated A Cure For Wellness, Gore Verbinski is back to take a stance on the biggest global crisis at the moment, Artificial Intelligence. Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die sees Sam Rockwell from the future to give us all a warning on how the robots and machines are taking over and it’s up to choices that we make now that can set the course to a much brighter path forward. The cast is greats, the visuals are aces, the ending is as poignant it comes, and it’s super refreshing for a movie to not have any subtly whatsoever to get it’s message across. Although Verbinski’s direction won’t be suitable for anyone, this is a solid watch.

5.) Send Help

Can we point out how much of a miracle that a film like Send Help exists? In an age of sequels, reboots, remakes, and legacy-quels conquering the film landscape and sucking up the remaining creative energy that Hollywood might still have, films like these are becoming more diamonds in the rough in the film industry. Thankfully, someone at 20th Century Fox or Disney was wise enough to give a blank check to the godfather of horror and superhero movies in Sam Raimi, his first original horror film since 2009’s Drag Me To Hell! Send Help is yet another worthy addition to Raimi’s Hall of Fame of Horror! It’s able to capitalize on it’s simple yet effective premise thanks to it’s two charismatic leads, it’s incredibly visionary direction, unapologetically excessive gore, and a script that will keep audiences on their toes the whole way through. Even if the ending leaves out a bit too many unanswered questions, it’s still an absolute blast of a motion picture that is definitely worth seeing on the big screen.

4.) Disclosure Day

Despite it’s polarizing reception, Disclosure Day is a very entertaining and engaging ride that makes for another fine addition to the “NOT a Marvel/Star Wars/IP movie” collection of the 2026 summer movie season. The cast is terrific, Spielberg is clearly having a blast making a movie about aliens again, and the screenplay is able to have it’s cake-and-eat-it-too, operating as both a solid thriller and a layer filled character study that will have plenty of delightful “explain” videos made for it. Not every single question the audience have will be answered but the ones that does is given a proper answer while the ones it choses to leave in the balance might just be for the better. It may not be quite S-Tier Steven Spielberg but Disclosure Day is more than enough proof that the godfather of blockbuster cinema still got plenty in the tank left in him and should still be treated with grace and dignity with each new film he releases. Even if not everybody will buy what Disclosure Day has to say about humanity and how the truth can lead to unity, it is bittersweet to see Steven actually try and perhaps that is what matters more than anything.

3.) The Furious

Have you been wanting to see a spiritual successor to The Raid 2 for the past 12 years?! Have you been anxious to see a balls-to-the-wall non-stop action thrill ride in the 2020s that is NOT John Wick?! Did you want to see a movie that takes the same plot and premise surrounding stopping human traffickers as Supergirl (2026) but done right?! Well, look no further than The Furious! An action packed masterwork that has no agenda other than delivering on over-the-top fight scenes, performing some of the greatest stunts and practical set pieces you have seen in years, and give you simplistic characters with human goals that you want to root for! Sometimes, there is nothing better for a film than riding with pure simplicity, without a care in the world of what lengths and leaps of logic it is willing to go to deliver the goods. Regardless of what way you chose to watch it, please check out The Furious ASAP!

2.) Project Hail Mary

Project Hail Mary is an incredibly well made, extremely well acted, and very well paced sci-fi thriller that works not just as a faithful adaption of the critically acclaimed book from Andy Weir (The Martian) but it also stands strongly as it’s own cinematic experience and a thematically moving think tank surrounding art and science . There is not a single second that is boring or uninteresting, Ryan Gosling is pitch perfect in the lead role as Grace and has great chemistry with his so-called co-star, it has a perfectly controlled tone that knows when to be funny, serious, and moving when it’s absolutely required, and even if you can see the inspiration from your favorite sci-fi flick from the 2010s (Gravity, Interstellar, The Martian, Arrival, Mr. Gosling’s own First Man! Take your pick!), it is able to have it’s own unique identity while telling a distinct story about the importance of loyalty, friendship, unity, and sacrifice. While it’s certainly not the most flawless film I’ve ever seen and I’m sure there will be nits to be picked from fans of the book, I can’t imagine Project Hail Mary being a better version of itself than what Mr. Lord and Mr. Miller was able to deliver here.

1.) Obsession

The most talked about film of 2026 is my absolute favorite thus far! I don’t think I’ve seen a film where the whole message of “Be careful what you wish for!” has been executed this well and scary! The directing by Curry Barker is top notch, the performances are all great, it has a nice blend of horror thrills and laughter that I don’t any other director would be able to combine brilliantly, and the ending still haunts me weeks after seeing the movie. It’s also makes for a perfect subversion to have the main protagonist practically being the villain of the film, being forced to face the consequences of the choice he made strictly for his own pleasure. Inde Navarrette deserves a damn Oscar for her performance and it’s yet another brilliant original horror film to go with all of the other brilliant horror films we have gotten so far this decade! If this is the future for not just original horror but original films in general, there might just be a light at the end of the tunnel for future cinema.

Happy 250th Day everybody! Enjoy with prosper!