Christopher Nolan’s Most Essential Collaborators, from Cillian Murphy to Ludwig Göransson

In Michael Rabiger’s book “Directing: Film and Aesthetics,” Christopher Nolan provides a quote that speaks to the power of collaboration and his role in serving it as a filmmaker.

“As a director, I’m sort of a human lens through which everyone’s efforts are focused,” Nolan said. “A big part of my job is making decisions about how all the great talent that I’m working with blends into a single consciousness.” If Nolan’s job is to bring together the best talent in the business and have them work effortlessly together, then he’s been succeeding since his start as a feature film director over two decades ago.

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Nolan made his debut in 1998 with the low-budget thriller “Following,” which paved the way for his festival breakout “Memento” in 2000. He’d direct Al Pacino and Robin Williams in “Insomnia” (the standalone title in Nolan’s filmography he did not write) in 2002, before beginning his Christian Bale-starring Batman trilogy for Warner Bros in 2005. For more than 20 years, Nolan would work in partnership with the studio. He produced Oscar-winning sci-fi in 2010’s “Inception,” and got his second Best Picture nomination with war epic “Dunkirk” in 2018.

Although Nolan’s espionage thriller “Tenet” received a mixed reaction in 2020, anticipation for his J. Robert Oppenheimer biopic seems to have paid off. A longtime Nolan collaborator, Cillian Murphy stars in “Oppenheimer,” which tells the story of the man behind the infamous Manhattan Project.

Now is a good time to look back at the collaborations that have shaped the director’s impressive career. Nolan is one of the rare directors in Hollywood who has the power to craft original stories on a giant scale, but he would not have gotten to that status without the following talents. From actors like Michael Caine to cinematographer Wally Pfister, composer Hans Zimmer, and more, these are the partnerships that make Nolan one of the world’s best directors.

[Editor’s note: This article was first published in August 2019, and was updated in July 2023.]

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