Christopher Nolan

Christopher Nolan is a British-American filmmaker who began making war movies with his older brother Matt using his father's super 8mm camera and an assortment of male action figures. At the age of seven, Star Wars came out and influenced him to do short science fiction films on the verge of George Lucas' space saga.

By the mid-90s, he had collaborated with Jeremy Theobald, who appeared in the short film Larceny (which was shown at the Cambridge Film Festival in 1996) and the three-minute surreal film Doodlebug. It was Theobald who co-produced and starred as the lead in Christopher Nolan's first full feature called Following. Following, a no-budget black-and-white movie produced in London over a one-year period of time and finished in 1998, received multiple awards, including the Rotterdam International Film Festival's Tiger Award and the Slamdance Black & White Award.

This early success allowed Nolan to direct the highly acclaimed film Memento in 2000, for which he also wrote the screenplay. Nolan's films have since grossed more than $6 billion worldwide. He is known for his work on The Dark Knight trilogy, The Prestige, and Inception. Nolan's work often explores themes of epistemology, existentialism, and the malleable nature of memory and personal identity. He has received numerous awards and honors throughout his career, such as being appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2019 for his contributions to film and being honored with a British Film Institute Fellowship in 2024.

He and his wife, Emma Thomas, run the production company Syncopy Inc. He has continued to work on a series of successful films, including his most recent project, Oppenheimer, in 2023. It grossed $950 million worldwide and received eight Golden Globe nominations, winning five, including Best Motion Picture—Drama and Best Director for Nolan. Oppenheimer won seven Oscars at the Academy Awards, including Best Director for Nolan.