Ranking Nolan

6. The Prestige (2006)

There’s a lot of film people out there who like to be contrarian and cite The Prestige as Nolan’s best work. While I can’t get on board with that, it truly is a masterful work of filmmaking. This is the one Nolan film I have to admit took me a couple times to really appreciate. First of all, it’s a period piece that’s not boring. That’s not easy to do. Also, who doesn’t want to see Batman and Wolverine face off as magicians? Well, that’s not actually happening, but the main stars are Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman. The rivalry between these two guys is the true heart of the story, and the sick lengths they go to in order to one up each other. Nolan has often been criticized for being brilliant, but cold – he’s too analytical. Not enough emotion. I think this criticism is complete garbage, but we’ll get to that later. In the case of The Prestige, some of that is fair game. The characterizations of Borden (Bale) and Angier (Jackman) suffer a little bit amongst the complicated nature of the story, which is pretty remarkable. Out of all his films, The Prestige for me is his most complicated narrative, even more so than Memento or Inception. While a little jarring at first, this movie really sticks with you after a couple viewings. And that’s a strength of all Nolan films – the replay value is endless.

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