Oppenheimer is a 2023 epic biographical thriller film written, co-produced, and directed by Christopher Nolan. It follows the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the American theoretical physicist who helped develop the first nuclear weapons during World War II. Based on the 2005 biography American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, the film dramatizes Oppenheimer's studies, his direction of the Los Alamos Laboratory and his 1954 security hearing. Cillian Murphy stars as Oppenheimer, alongside Robert Downey Jr. as the United States Atomic Energy Commission member Lewis Strauss. The ensemble supporting cast includes Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Florence Pugh, Josh Hartnett, Casey Affleck, Rami Malek, and Kenneth Branagh.

Oppenheimer was announced in September 2021. It was Nolan's first film not distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures since Memento (2000), due to his conflicts regarding the studio's simultaneous theatrical and HBO Max release schedule. Murphy was the first cast member to join, with the rest joining between November 2021 and April 2022. Pre-production began by January 2022, and filming took place from February to May. The cinematographer, Hoyte van Hoytema, used a combination of IMAX 65 mm and 65 mm large-format film, including, for the first time, selected scenes in IMAX black-and-white film photography. As with many of his previous films, Nolan used extensive practical effects and claimed minimal use of compositing; despite these claims, the final film contained several hundred VFX shots made by a mostly uncredited VFX crew of around 160.

Oppenheimer premiered at Le Grand Rex in Paris on Tuesday, July 11, 2023, and was theatrically released in the United States and the United Kingdom on July 21 by Universal Pictures. Its concurrent release with Warner Bros.'s Barbie was the catalyst of the "Barbenheimer" phenomenon, encouraging audiences to see both films as a double feature. Oppenheimer received widespread critical acclaim and grossed over $976 million worldwide, becoming the third-highest-grossing film of 2023. It was the highest-grossing biographical film of all time until being overtaken by Michael in 2026.

The recipient of many accolades, Oppenheimer was nominated for thirteen awards at the 96th Academy Awards and won seven, including Best Picture, Best Director (Nolan), Best Actor (Murphy), and Best Supporting Actor (Downey). It also won five Golden Globe Awards (including Best Motion Picture – Drama) and seven British Academy Film Awards (including Best Film), and was named one of the top 10 films of 2023 by the National Board of Review and the American Film Institute.

• Year: 2023
• Runtime: 180 min
• Genre: Biography, Drama, History
• Starring: Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon
• Awards: Won 7 Oscars. 370 wins & 378 nominations total
• Ratings: Internet Movie Database: 8.2/10; Rotten Tomatoes: 93%; Metacritic: 90/100

Plot

A 1959 Senate committee questions ex-AEC Chairman, Lewis Strauss, over his actions during Robert Oppenheimer's security hearing, when a revoked Q-clearance ended Oppenheimer's government advisory role. Strauss, who is nominated for Commerce Secretary, alleges the FBI was suspicious of Oppenheimer since his teaching days, well before anti-Communist William Borden accused him of espionage in 1954. He claims to not have acted against Oppenheimer, despite having many public disagreements with him.

In the 1930s, Oppenheimer teaches at Caltech and Berkeley, after studying theoretical physics in Europe. A number of Berkeley academics are also Communist Party members, but Oppenheimer does not join himself. After World War II breaks out, Ernest Lawrence of the Radiation Lab cautions Oppenheimer against having communist connections. Oppenheimer scales back, and is approached by General Leslie Groves to lead the Manhattan Project. Oppenheimer proposes a new laboratory at Los Alamos, New Mexico, where they could endeavour to build an atomic bomb before the Nazis. Edward Teller is recruited to Los Alamos, and theorizes that an explosion would cause (global) atmospheric ignition. When his theory is disproved, he starts researching fusion-based weapons instead of working on the proposed fission bombs.

After the war, Soviets test a plutonium bomb, similar to one developed at Los Alamos. In a meeting of top advisors, Oppenheimer frustrates Strauss by favoring arms talks with Russia instead of escalating with Teller's proposed thermonuclear weapons. During a heated period of discussion, Oppenheimer's past security lapses are brought up, including rekindling an affair with Communist ex-lover, Jean Tatlock, immediately after gaining his security clearance in 1942. Oppenheimer had also protected his friend Haakon Chevalier from an espionage investigation, by directly lying to security officer, Boris Pash. In his later hearing by the Gray Board at the AEC, the board's counsel, Roger Robb, replays these accusations to make Oppenheimer seem guilty of disloyalty towards the US.

In the present, Strauss alleges that Oppenheimer turned scientists against him, starting with Albert Einstein at Princeton in 1947. Teller testifies in Strauss' favor, and David Hill of the Chicago Met Lab is expected to do so too. In July 1945, the Trinity plutonium test is successful, and two bombs are subsequently dropped on Japan. Oppenheimer meets with President Truman, to whom he expresses his remorse on building the bomb. Truman clears him of all responsibility, but is annoyed at Oppenheimer’s remorse. Oppenheimer is labeled 'father of the atomic bomb', but his public stance in the post-war years changes towards nuclear non-proliferation.

Irritated at constantly being undermined by Oppenheimer, AEC Chairman Strauss conspires with Borden to initiate the 1954 Gray Board hearing. He appoints Robb as the board's counsel, compromising its independence from the AEC. Oppenheimer's humiliation angers scientists, who had attested to his loyalty and discretion; At Strauss' Senate hearing, Hill claims the scientific community is against him and Strauss loses the Commerce Secretary nomination (and with it, his career).

A flashback shows Oppenheimer did not mention Strauss to Einstein at all. Consumed by guilt over bringing atomic weapons to the world, he admits to Einstein that the global catastrophe they feared, and then believed was averted, was now ironically inevitable.

Cast

Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer, a theoretical physicist and director of the Los Alamos Laboratory

Emily Blunt as Katherine "Kitty" Oppenheimer, Robert Oppenheimer's wife and a former Communist Party USA member

Matt Damon as Gen. Leslie Groves, a United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) officer and director of the Manhattan Project

Robert Downey Jr. as Rear Admiral Lewis Strauss, a retired Naval Reserve officer and high-ranking member of the US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC)

Florence Pugh as Jean Tatlock, a psychiatrist, Communist Party USA member, and Robert Oppenheimer's romantic interest

Josh Hartnett as Ernest Lawrence, a Nobel-winning nuclear physicist who worked with Oppenheimer at the University of California, Berkeley

Casey Affleck as Boris Pash, a US Army military intelligence officer and commander of the Alsos Mission

Rami Malek as David L. Hill, a nuclear physicist at the Metallurgical Laboratory, who helped to create the Chicago Pile

Kenneth Branagh as Niels Bohr, a Nobel-winning Danish physicist, philosopher and Oppenheimer's personal idol

Benny Safdie as Edward Teller, a Hungarian theoretical physicist known for being the "father of the hydrogen bomb"

Jason Clarke as Roger Robb, an attorney and future US circuit judge who served as special counsel to the AEC at Oppenheimer's security hearing

Dylan Arnold as Frank Oppenheimer, Robert's younger brother and a particle physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project

Tom Conti as Albert Einstein, Nobel-winning German theoretical physicist known for developing the theory of relativity

James D'Arcy as Patrick Blackett, Oppenheimer's doctoral supervisor and Nobel-winning physicist at Cambridge University

David Dastmalchian as William L. Borden, a lawyer and executive director of the United States Congressional Joint Committee on Atomic Energy (JCAE)

Dane DeHaan as Maj Gen. Kenneth Nichols, a United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) and the deputy district engineer of the Manhattan Project

Alden Ehrenreich as a Senate aide to Lewis Strauss during Strauss's nomination for United States Secretary of Commerce

Tony Goldwyn as Gordon Gray, a government official and chairman of the committee deciding the revoking of Oppenheimer security clearance

Jefferson Hall as Haakon Chevalier ("Hoke"), a Berkeley professor who became friends with Oppenheimer at university, and was central to the Chevalier Incident

David Krumholtz as Isidor Isaac Rabi, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who worked as a consultant on the Manhattan Project

Matthew Modine as Vannevar Bush, head of the Office of Scientific Research and Development

Scott Grimes as Counsel to Lewis Strauss

Kurt Koehler as Thomas A. Morgan, an industrialist and former chairman of the board of the Sperry Corporation who was one of the panel members at Oppenheimer's security clearance hearing

John Gowans as Ward V. Evans, a chemist and academic who served as one of the panel members at Oppenheimer's security clearance hearing

Macon Blair as Lloyd K. Garrison, a lawyer who helped to represent Oppenheimer at his security clearance hearing

Gregory Jbara as Sen. Warren Magnuson, Chairman of Senate Commerce Committee

Harry Groener as Sen. Gale W. McGee

Tim DeKay as Sen. John Pastore

Matthias Schweighöfer as Werner Heisenberg, a German Nobel Prize-winning physicist who worked in Germany's nuclear weapons program during World War II

Alex Wolff as Luis Walter Alvarez, a Nobel-winning physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project

Josh Zuckerman as Giovanni Rossi Lomanitz, a physicist who became Oppenheimer's protégé at Berkeley

Rory Keane as Hartland Snyder, a physicist, who collaborated with Oppenheimer to calculate the gravitational collapse of a dust particle sphere

Michael Angarano as Robert Serber, a physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project

Britt Kyle as Barbara Chevalier, Hoke's wife

Emma Dumont as Jackie Oppenheimer, Frank's wife and Robert's sister-in-law

Guy Burnet as George C. Eltenton, a chemical engineer in the US with ties to the Soviet Union

Louise Lombard as Ruth Tolman, a psychologist close to Oppenheimer during the development of the atomic bomb

Tom Jenkins as Richard C. Tolman, Ruth's husband and General Groves' chief scientific adviser on the Manhattan Project

Olli Haaskivi as Edward Condon, a nuclear physicist who helped with the development of radar and briefly took part in the Manhattan Project

David Rysdahl as Donald Hornig, a chemist who worked on the firing unit at Los Alamos

Josh Peck as Kenneth Bainbridge, a physicist who was the director of the Manhattan Project's Trinity nuclear test

Jack Quaid as Richard Feynman, an American Nobel-winning theoretical physicist who worked in the Theoretical Division at Los Alamos

Gustaf Skarsgård as Hans Bethe, a German-American Nobel-winning theoretical physicist and the head of the Theoretical Division at Los Alamos

James Urbaniak as Kurt Gödel, an Austrian logician and mathematician known for his theorems that revolutionized mathematics and had far-reaching implications for philosophy and computer science

Trond Fausa as George Kistiakowsky, a Ukrainian-born Harvard professor who took part in the Manhattan Project

Devon Bostick as Seth Neddermeyer, a physicist who discovered the muon and advocated for the implosion-type nuclear weapon used in the Trinity Test

Danny Deferrari as Enrico Fermi, an Italian Nobel-winning physicist and creator of the Chicago Pile

Christopher Denham as Klaus Fuchs, a German-born physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project and spied for the Soviet Union

Jessica Erin Martin as Charlotte Serber, head technical librarian at Los Alamos

Ronald Auguste as J. Ernest Wilkins Jr., an African American nuclear scientist, mechanical engineer and mathematician who worked with Oppenheimer on the Manhattan Project

Máté Haumann as Leo Szilard, a Hungarian physicist who conceived the idea of nuclear chain reaction in 1933, and later in July 1945 at the Chicago branch of the Manhattan Project circulated the petition to President Truman against unannounced use of atomic weapons on Japan

Olivia Thirlby as Lilli Hornig, a Czech-American scientist who worked on the Manhattan Project

Jack Cutmore-Scott as Lyall Johnson, a security officer at Berkeley who worked at the Manhattan Project

Harrison Gilbertson as Philip Morrison, a physics professor who worked on the Manhattan Project

James Remar as Henry L. Stimson, Secretary of War under President Truman

Will Roberts as George C. Marshall, the United States Army Chief of Staff from 1939 to 1945

Pat Skipper as James F. Byrnes, US Secretary of State and future Governor of South Carolina

Gary Oldman as Harry S. Truman, the 33rd President of the United States who made the decision to drop the two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945

Hap Lawrence as Lyndon B. Johnson, the 36th President of the United States

Troy Bronson as Joseph W. Kennedy, a chemist instrumental in the discovery of plutonium, and head of the Chemistry Department at Los Alamos

Source: Oppenheimer (film), Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0); facts via OMDb.

Tenet (stylized in all caps, previously as TENƎꓕ) is a 2020 science fiction action film written and directed by Christopher Nolan, who also produced it with his wife, Emma Thomas. It stars John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, Dimple Kapadia, Michael Caine, and Kenneth Branagh. The film follows a CIA officer who is recruited into a secret organization, tasked with tracing the origin of objects that are traveling backward through time and their connection to an attack by the future.

Nolan took over five years to write the screenplay after deliberating about Tenet's central ideas for more than a decade. Pre-production began in late 2018, casting took place in March 2019, and principal photography lasted six months in multiple countries. After delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Tenet was released in the United Kingdom on August 26, 2020, and in the United States on September 3, 2020. It was Nolan's last film to be released by Warner Bros. Pictures.

Tenet was the first Hollywood tent-pole to open in theaters during the pandemic and grossed $366 million worldwide on a $205 million budget, making it the fifth-highest-grossing film of 2020 despite failing to break even. The film received generally favorable reviews, but divided critics more than Nolan's previous works. It won Best Visual Effects at the 93rd Academy Awards and received numerous other accolades.

• Year: 2020
• Runtime: 150 min
• Genre: Action, Sci-Fi, Thriller
• Starring: John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki
• Awards: Won 1 Oscar. 49 wins & 135 nominations total
• Ratings: Internet Movie Database: 7.3/10; Rotten Tomatoes: 70%; Metacritic: 69/100

Plot

On "the 14th,” the Protagonist leads a covert CIA extraction during a staged terrorist siege at an Opera House in Kyiv. Compromised, he is saved from KORD forces by a masked operative whose bag has an orange trinket. The Protagonist retrieves an artifact but his team is captured and tortured. He swallows a suicide pill but wakes up to find it was a fake—a test that only he passed. He is recruited by "Tenet", a secretive organization that briefs him on objects with "inverted" entropy that move backward through time. With his handler Neil, he traces inverted munitions to Priya Singh, an arms dealer in Mumbai.

Priya reveals that she is also a member of Tenet and that the man who inverted her bullets, Russian oligarch Andrei Sator, is communicating with the future. Sator's estranged wife Kat Barton is an art appraiser who authenticated a Goya forged by her friend Arepo. Sator purchased the Goya and used it to blackmail Kat into staying with him. To earn Kat's help, the Protagonist and Neil try to steal the Goya from Sator's freeport facility at Oslo Airport but are thwarted by two masked men who emerge from either side of a machine. In Mumbai, Priya explains it was a "turnstile"—a device that inverts entropy. The two men were the same person but traveling in opposite directions through time. She reveals it was Sator who sabotaged his CIA team and that KORD has the artifact, which is weapons-grade plutonium.

Believing the Protagonist has destroyed the forgery, Kat introduces him to Sator in Italy. Sator agrees to help steal the artifact, which the Protagonist and Neil do in Tallinn, but they are ambushed by an inverted Sator holding Kat hostage. The Protagonist hides the artifact and rescues Kat, but they are recaptured and taken to a freeport in Tallinn where the inverted Sator interrogates them for the location of the artifact and shoots Kat with an inverted bullet. Tenet troops led by Commander Ives arrive, but Sator escapes into the turnstile. To save Kat's life, they also invert via the turnstile. The inverted Protagonist drives back to the ambush to retrieve the hidden artifact, but encounters Sator who overpowers him and takes it.

To un-invert, the Protagonist travels further back in time to the Oslo freeport, fights his past self, and enters the turnstile, followed by Neil and Kat. Later in Oslo, Priya tells him Sator now has all nine pieces of the Algorithm, a device future antagonists need to invert the entropy of the world to destroy its past. Priya planned for Sator to get the artifact to reveal the other eight pieces in preparing his dead drop. Recalling an earlier conversation with Michael Crosby, he realizes it is a nuclear hypocenter detonated on the 14th in Sator's hometown, the closed city of Stalsk-12.

On a Tenet ship traveling back to the 14th, Kat reveals Sator has terminal cancer and is omnicidal. They surmise that after the Kyiv opera house siege on the 14th, Sator returns to a family vacation in Vietnam to take his own life, sending the dead drop coordinates to the future via a dead man's switch.

Arriving at the 14th, Kat poses as her past self in Vietnam as the Tenet forces in Stalsk-12 try to recover the Algorithm. They use a "temporal" pincer movement—inverted and non-inverted troops create a diversion so the Protagonist and Ives can steal the Algorithm before detonation. Sator's henchman, Volkov, traps them in the hypocenter. Calling from Vietnam, Sator explains the antagonists are trying to prevent catastrophes due to climate change. As Volkov is about to execute the Protagonist, an inverted soldier with an orange trinket appears and sacrifices himself, enabling the Protagonist and Ives to escape with the Algorithm. The hypocenter detonates in Stalsk-12 just as Kat kills Sator in Vietnam.

In Stalsk-12, the Protagonist, Neil, and Ives arrange to separate and hide pieces of the Algorithm. The Protagonist notices the orange trinket on Neil's bag. Neil reveals that he was recruited in his past by a future Protagonist and that Neil has known him for a long time. Neil leaves them his piece of the Algorithm as he inverts to return to where he sacrifices himself in the hypocenter. Later, in London, Priya plans to kill Kat to maintain the secrecy of Tenet. Having realized that he is Tenet's creator, the Protagonist kills Priya and watches Kat leave with her son.

Cast

Also appearing are Jefferson Hall, the "Well-Dressed Man", whom the Protagonist tries to extract at the opera house; Andrew Howard as the Driver who sabotages the CIA's Kyiv operation and tortures the Protagonist; Wes Chatham as SWAT 3, a member of the Protagonist's covert CIA team in Kyiv; Denzil Smith as Sanjay Singh, Priya's husband; Jeremy Theobald as the steward at the Reform Club; Laurie Shepherd as Max, Kat and Sator's son; Jack Cutmore-Scott as Klaus, an employee of security firm Rotas at the freeport in Oslo; Josh Stewart as the voice of a Tenet agent in Mumbai; and Sean Avery as the lead soldier on the Red Team.

Source: Tenet, Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0); facts via OMDb.

Dunkirk is a 2017 war film produced, written, and directed by Christopher Nolan that depicts the Dunkirk evacuation of World War II from the perspectives of people on the land, sea, and air. It features an ensemble cast including Fionn Whitehead, Tom Glynn-Carney, Jack Lowden, Harry Styles in his feature film debut, Aneurin Barnard, James D'Arcy, Barry Keoghan, Kenneth Branagh, Cillian Murphy, Mark Rylance, and Tom Hardy.

The film portrays the evacuation with little dialogue, as Nolan sought instead to create suspense through cinematography and music. Filming began in May 2016 in Dunkirk and wrapped that September in Los Angeles, when post-production began. Cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema shot the film on IMAX 65 mm and 65 mm large-format film stock. Dunkirk has extensive practical effects. It employed thousands of extras as well as historic boats from the evacuation, and period aeroplanes.

Distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, Dunkirk premiered at Odeon Leicester Square in London, a few days before its release in the United Kingdom and United States on 21 July 2017. It grossed over $530 million worldwide, making it the highest-grossing World War II film until it was surpassed by Nolan's Oppenheimer (2023). Dunkirk received praise for its screenplay, direction, editing, score, sound design and cinematography; some critics called it Nolan's best work, and one of the greatest war films as well as one of the greatest movies of the 2010s. It received various accolades, including eight nominations at the 90th Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. It went on to win for Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Film Editing.

• Year: 2017
• Runtime: 106 min
• Genre: Action, Drama, History
• Starring: Fionn Whitehead, Barry Keoghan, Mark Rylance
• Awards: Won 3 Oscars. 68 wins & 236 nominations total
• Ratings: Internet Movie Database: 7.8/10; Rotten Tomatoes: 92%; Metacritic: 94/100

Plot

While the film is shown in a nonlinear narrative, including the action of one week on the beach, one day in the rescue flotilla, and one hour of the air battle, the following is the chronological order of events that happen in the film.

In the summer of 1940, during the Battle of France, Allied soldiers retreat to Dunkirk. A British soldier named Tommy loses his squadmates and flees through the perimeter held by French troops to the beach, where thousands await evacuation. He helps another soldier, Gibson, bury a body and survive a Luftwaffe dive-bomber attack. They rush a wounded man on a stretcher onto a hospital ship at the single, vulnerable mole, overseen by Commander Bolton, available for embarking on deep-draft ships, but are ordered off again before the ship is sunk by German aircraft. Tommy saves a Highlander, Alex, from being crushed by the wreck. That night, the three board a destroyer, but it is hit by a U-boat torpedo before it can depart. Gibson saves Tommy and Alex as the ship sinks, and they return to the beach.

The Royal Navy requisitions civilian vessels in England for the evacuation. In Weymouth, civilian sailor Dawson and his son Peter set out in his boat Moonstone, rather than let the Navy commandeer her. Their teenage hand George joins them on impulse. In the English Channel, they save an officer, now shell-shocked after surviving a U-boat sinking. Realising Dawson is going to Dunkirk, the officer grows fearful and Peter locks him up. He escapes, urging they turn back, and tries to wrest control of the boat; in the scuffle, he elbows George, who falls down a staircase and suffers a severe head injury.

Three Royal Air Force (RAF) Spitfires fly towards Dunkirk to provide cover for the evacuation, limited to one hour of operation by their fuel supply. They engage in a dogfight with a Messerschmitt Bf 109. After shooting it down, one of the pilots, Farrier, has his fuel gauge smashed and cannot read how much he has left. He and the second Spitfire pilot, Collins, determine their leader has gone down and fly on with Collins radioing Farrier about their remaining fuel. The crew of the Moonstone witness the two RAF pilots protect a minesweeper from a bomber escorted by fighters: Collins's Spitfire is hit and he ditches. Initially trapped in his canopy as the plane sinks, Collins is saved by Peter.

Becoming increasingly desperate, Tommy, Alex and Gibson join Highlanders in a grounded trawler in the intertidal zone outside the perimeter, hoping the tide will float them home. After its Dutch sailor returns, Germans start shooting at the boat, and water enters through the bullet holes. Alex, attempting to lighten the craft, accuses Gibson, who has been silent the entire time, of being a German spy despite Tommy's pleas. Gibson reveals he is French, having taken the identity of the buried soldier in hopes of being evacuated earlier. The tide finally lifts the trawler but the group has to abandon the sinking boat. Gibson is entangled in a chain and drowns.

Farrier, knowing his fuel is running out, decides to keep flying to chase down German aircraft. He engages a German bomber attacking a destroyer. The ship is bombed and sinks, but Farrier is able to down the plane before it can attack the escaping crew. The crashing plane ignites oil on the water, but Tommy and Alex are saved by Moonstone, which manoeuvred to save the men in the water. One of the rescued men points out to Peter that George has died of his injuries. Dawson has Moonstone evade an aerial attack, using a technique taught by his deceased elder son, a pilot lost at the start of the war. Farrier reaches Dunkirk just as his fuel runs out and shoots down a dive-bomber approaching the mole before gliding safely onto the beach beyond the perimeter. After destroying the Spitfire to prevent it from falling into enemy hands, he is captured by German forces.

With over 300,000 men successfully evacuated, Bolton stays to oversee the French evacuation. The shell-shocked officer and Collins part ways with the Dawsons, as Peter honours George's desire to do something useful by arranging publication of an obituary. Tommy and Alex board a trainload of evacuees, where they are heralded by the public upon arrival at Woking. Tommy reads about Churchill's address to Parliament from a newspaper, pledging that Britain will fight on.

Cast

Fionn Whitehead as Tommy

Tom Glynn-Carney as Peter Dawson

Jack Lowden as Collins (Fortis 2)

Harry Styles as Alex

Aneurin Barnard as Gibson

James D'Arcy as Colonel Winnant

Barry Keoghan as George Mills

Kenneth Branagh as Commander Bolton

Cillian Murphy as Shivering Soldier

Mark Rylance as Mr Dawson

Tom Hardy as Farrier (Fortis 1)

Michael Caine as Fortis Leader (voice) [uncredited]

Elliott Tittensor as Highlander 2

Will Attenborough as Second Lieutenant

Matthew Marsh as Rear Admiral

Additionally Luke Thompson appears as a warrant officer who tells a group of French soldiers they are not allowed on the ship. Harry Collett also appears as a minor unnamed child character.

Source: Dunkirk (2017 film), Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0); facts via OMDb.

Interstellar is a 2014 epic science fiction film directed by Christopher Nolan, who co-wrote the screenplay with his brother, Jonathan Nolan. It has an ensemble cast led by Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Bill Irwin, Ellen Burstyn, and Michael Caine. Set in a dystopian future where Earth is suffering from catastrophic blight and famine, the film follows a group of astronauts who travel through space in search of a new home for humanity.

The film began development in 2006 from a treatment by producer Lynda Obst and theoretical physicist Kip Thorne, and was originally set to be directed by Steven Spielberg. Thorne served as an executive producer and scientific consultant on the film, and wrote the tie-in book The Science of Interstellar. It was Obst's final film as producer before her death. Cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema shot it on 35 mm film in the Panavision anamorphic format and IMAX 70 mm. Filming began in late 2013 and took place in Alberta, Klaustur, and Los Angeles. Interstellar uses extensive practical and miniature effects, and the company DNEG created additional visual effects.

Interstellar premiered at the TCL Chinese Theatre on October 26, 2014, and was released in theaters in the United States on November 5, and in the United Kingdom on November 7, with Paramount Pictures distributing in the United States and Warner Bros. Pictures distributing in international markets. In the United States, it was first released on film stock, expanding to venues using digital projectors. It was a commercial success, grossing $681 million worldwide during its initial theatrical run, and $774.7 million worldwide with subsequent releases, making it the 10th-highest-grossing film of 2014. The film received generally positive reviews from critics. Among its various accolades, Interstellar was nominated for five awards at the 87th Academy Awards, winning for Best Visual Effects.

• Year: 2014
• Runtime: 169 min
• Genre: Adventure, Drama, Sci-Fi
• Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain
• Awards: Won 1 Oscar. 45 wins & 148 nominations total
• Ratings: Internet Movie Database: 8.7/10; Rotten Tomatoes: 73%; Metacritic: 74/100

Plot

In the near future, Earth suffers from crop blight, starvation, and devastating dust storms. Cooper, an ex-NASA test pilot-turned-farmer, raises his children, Murph and Tom, with the help of his father-in-law, Donald, following the death of his wife. Murph believes a "ghost" is trying to communicate with her through her bookshelf but is met with skepticism. Following a severe dust storm, Murph's bedroom experiences dust being pulled by gravity into lines of binary, which reveal coordinates to a secret NASA facility. At the facility, mission leader Professor Brand recruits Cooper for a last-ditch mission to save humanity on Earth, by finding habitable planets outside the solar system via a wormhole near Saturn. Cooper joins scientists Amelia Brand, Romilly, and Doyle, while bidding farewell to his children to whom he promises to return.

The Endurance spacecraft, piloted by Cooper and artificially-intelligent robots, TARS and CASE, passes through the wormhole and emerges into a faraway galaxy, orbiting a supermassive black hole, Gargantua. Previous NASA explorers have made this journey and three—Miller, Mann and Edmunds—have reported their planets being potentially habitable. Arriving on Miller's planet, the crew finds her spacecraft ripped to shreds. A massive tsunami, apparently occurring often due to the planet's proximity to Gargantua, barrels towards them and sweeps Doyle away. Amelia and Cooper return to the Endurance to find decades have passed in Earth-years. Alone on the spacecraft, Romilly has aged significantly.

On Earth, an older Murph is a scientist with NASA, helping Brand with his equations. On his deathbed, Brand admits that it was all a farce, and that humanity's Earth-existence is doomed; Murph relays this information back to the Endurance crew on Mann's planet, prompting Cooper to abandon the mission and return to Earth. Mann attempts to stop him, revealing that he falsified information about his planet's habitability in hopes of being rescued. Amelia saves Cooper, but Romilly dies in an explosion at the camp. Flying into space, Mann initiates an unauthorized docking maneuver with the Endurance, which depressurizes the airlock and kills him instantly. Cooper pulls off a daring rescue to save the spinning Endurance.

Without enough resources aboard to return to Earth, lone survivors Cooper and Amelia chart a course towards Edmunds' planet. Cooper sacrifices himself and TARS by detaching from the Endurance, keeping Amelia on course to survive the mission with the resources remaining. Cooper and TARS fall into the black hole, emerging inside a higher-dimensional tesseract where time is "physical." Here, Cooper sees his past-self leading him and Murph to the NASA facility through messages in Murph's bedroom. Knowing that quantum observations of the black hole could help Murph develop solutions to save humanity, Cooper encodes the data into a wristwatch placed on Murph's bookshelf. The tesseract dissolves, and Cooper and TARS are ejected from both the black hole and wormhole into the path of a human spacecraft orbiting Saturn in the future.

Aboard the cylindrical space-station, Cooper learns that Murph is now a venerated scientist, who developed the equations that allowed mass exodus from Earth. Murph is now much older than him due to the extreme time dilation he experienced near Gargantua. Having assured humanity's continued existence, Murph is nearing death but does not wish Cooper to witness it. She suggests he seek out Amelia on Edmunds' planet instead. Cooper and TARS embark on another journey to reach Amelia, who directs CASE and other robots to erect a new colony on the surface of Edmunds' planet. She kneels over his grave, takes off her helmet and breathes in the air from the surrounding atmosphere, indicating the planet could be humanity's next home.

Cast

Matthew McConaughey as Joseph "Coop" Cooper, a widowed NASA pilot who reluctantly becomes a farmer after the agency is closed by the government, and eventually joins the Endurance mission as the lead pilot.

Anne Hathaway as Dr. Amelia Brand, Professor Brand's daughter and NASA scientist aboard the Endurance mission, is responsible for conducting planet colonization.

Jessica Chastain as Murphy "Murph" Cooper, Joseph's daughter, eventually becomes a NASA scientist working under Professor Brand.

Ellen Burstyn as elderly Murph

Mackenzie Foy as 10-year-old Murph

John Lithgow as Donald, Cooper's father-in-law

Michael Caine as Professor John Brand, a high-ranking NASA scientist, father of Amelia, former mentor of Cooper, and director of the Lazarus and Endurance missions

Casey Affleck as Tom Cooper, Joseph's son, who eventually takes charge of his father's farm

Timothée Chalamet as 15-year-old Tom

Wes Bentley as Doyle, a high-ranking NASA member, and Endurance crew member

Bill Irwin as TARS (voice and puppetry) and CASE (puppetry), robots assigned to assist the crew of the Endurance

Topher Grace as Getty, Murph's colleague and love interest

David Gyasi as Professor Romilly, a high-ranking NASA member, and Endurance crew member

Matt Damon as Dr. Mann, a NASA astronaut sent to an icy planet during the Lazarus program

Also appearing are Josh Stewart as the voice of CASE; Leah Cairns as Lois, Tom's wife; Liam Dickinson as Coop, Tom's son; David Oyelowo and Collette Wolfe, respectively, as school principal and teacher Ms. Hanley; Francis X. McCarthy as farmer "Boots"; William Devane as Williams, another NASA member; Elyes Gabel as Cooper Station administrator; Lennart Nowak as Tom's cousin; and Jeff Hephner as Cooper Station doctor.

Source: Interstellar (film), Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0); facts via OMDb.

The Dark Knight Rises is a 2012 superhero film based on the DC Comics character Batman. Directed by Christopher Nolan, who co-wrote the screenplay with his brother Jonathan, and the story with David S. Goyer, it is the final installment in Nolan's The Dark Knight trilogy, and the sequel to The Dark Knight (2008). The film stars Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne / Batman, alongside Anne Hathaway, Gary Oldman, Tom Hardy, Morgan Freeman, Marion Cotillard, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Michael Caine. Set eight years after the events of The Dark Knight, it follows a retired Wayne being forced to resume his role as Batman to save Gotham City from nuclear destruction at the hands of the terrorist Bane (Hardy).

Christopher Nolan was hesitant about returning to the series for a third film, but agreed after developing a story with his brother and Goyer that he felt would conclude the series on a satisfactory note. Nolan drew inspiration from Bane's comic book debut in the 1993 "Knightfall" storyline, the 1986 series The Dark Knight Returns, and the 1999 storyline "No Man's Land". Filming took place from May to November 2011 in locations including Jodhpur, London, Nottingham, Glasgow, Los Angeles, New York City, Newark, and Pittsburgh. Nolan used IMAX 70 mm film cameras for much of the filming, including the first six minutes of the film, to optimize the quality of the picture. A vehicle variation of the Batplane and Batcopter termed the "Bat", an underground prison set, and a new Batcave set were created specially for the film. As with The Dark Knight, viral marketing campaigns began early during production. When filming concluded, Warner Bros. refocused its campaign, developing promotional websites, releasing the first six minutes of the film, screening theatrical trailers, and sending out information regarding the film's plot.

The Dark Knight Rises premiered in New York City on July 16, 2012, and was released in the United States and the United Kingdom on July 20. The film received positive reviews from critics, who deemed it a satisfying conclusion to the trilogy. It received a nomination for Special Visual Effects at the 66th British Academy Film Awards, and numerous other accolades, in addition to being named one of the top-ten films of 2012 by the American Film Institute. It also grossed $1.085 billion worldwide, making it the second film in the Batman film series to earn $1 billion, and the highest-grossing Batman film to date. In addition to being Nolan's highest-grossing film, it became the seventh-highest-grossing film of all time at the time of its release, as well as the third-highest-grossing film of 2012.

• Year: 2012
• Runtime: 164 min
• Genre: Action, Crime, Drama
• Starring: Christian Bale, Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway
• Awards: Nominated for 1 BAFTA Award. 45 wins & 103 nominations total
• Ratings: Internet Movie Database: 8.4/10; Rotten Tomatoes: 87%; Metacritic: 78/100

Plot

Bane, a former member of the League of Shadows, leads an attack on a CIA plane over Uzbekistan to abduct nuclear physicist Dr. Leonid Pavel. Meanwhile, eight years after the death of Gotham City district attorney Harvey Dent and the arrest of the Joker, organized crime has been eradicated in Gotham by the Dent Act, legislation that gives expanded powers to the police. Police commissioner James Gordon has kept Dent's killing spree a secret and allowed the blame for his crimes to fall on Batman. Bruce Wayne, still mourning the death of Rachel Dawes, has become a recluse.

Bane conspires to help Wayne Enterprises board member John Daggett take over the company, and they begin by trying to buy Bruce's fingerprints. Cat burglar Selina Kyle steals Bruce's prints from Wayne Manor for Daggett, but he double-crosses her, and she alerts the police. Bane's henchmen capture Gordon in the sewers but he escapes and is found by steadfast Gotham City police officer John Blake, an orphan who has deduced Bruce's secret identity. Blake persuades Bruce to resume his vigilantism. Bane attacks the Gotham Stock Exchange and uses Bruce's fingerprints to verify fraudulent transactions, leaving Bruce ousted from his company and bankrupt. Fearing Bruce will purposely get himself killed fighting Bane, his butler, Alfred Pennyworth, resigns in the hope of saving him after revealing to him that Rachel was going to marry Dent, and thus, Bruce should let her go. Bane kills Daggett to pursue his own goals while Bruce and Wayne Enterprises's new CEO, Miranda Tate, become lovers.

Selina agrees to take Batman to Bane, but instead leads him into a trap under Wayne Tower. Bane, aware of Batman's identity, gloats that he intends to fulfill Ra's al Ghul's mission to destroy Gotham City before he brutally cripples Batman in combat. He takes Bruce to an ancient underground prison in the Middle East, where Bruce learns that Ra's al Ghul's child was born and raised there, but had a protector who helped the child escape. Back in Gotham, Bane detonates explosives to trap the police forces in the sewers, destroys all but one bridge surrounding the city, kills Gotham mayor Anthony Garcia, and forces Pavel to convert the fusion reactor core owned by Wayne Enterprises into a decaying neutron bomb before publicly killing him. He exposes Dent's crimes to the city and releases the prisoners of Blackgate Penitentiary, effectively taking over Gotham. He also has Gotham's elite exiled and killed in proletarian kangaroo courts presided over by Jonathan Crane.

Five months later, Bruce, now healed, escapes the prison. As Batman, he returns to Gotham and frees the police, and together they war with Bane's army. During the battle, Tate stabs Batman, revealing herself as Ra's al Ghul's daughter Talia al Ghul. Bane is her decoy and guardian who had helped her escape the pit, becoming mauled in the process. Talia activates the bomb, but it fails due to Gordon blocking the signal. Selina kills Bane and helps Batman pursue Talia, hoping to return the bomb to the reactor chamber, where it can be stabilized. Talia's truck crashes, but she remotely floods and destroys the reactor chamber before dying. With no way to stop the detonation, Batman reveals his identity to Gordon, and uses his aerial craft, the Bat, to haul the bomb over the bay, where it safely explodes.

In the aftermath, Batman is presumed dead and honored as a hero. Since Bruce is also presumed dead, Wayne Manor becomes an orphanage, and Bruce's estate is left to Alfred. Gordon finds the Bat-Signal repaired, while Lucius Fox discovers that Bruce had fixed the Bat's malfunctioning autopilot, implying that he escaped the Bat before the detonation. In Florence, drinking a Fernet Branca, Alfred discovers that Bruce is alive and in a relationship with Selina, and they acknowledge each other with a smile. Blake, whose legal first name is revealed as Robin, resigns from the GCPD, disillusioned with how they'd handled Bane's takeover, and receives a package leading him to the Batcave.

Cast

Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne / Batman:A billionaire socialite who dedicates himself to protecting Gotham City from its criminal underworld, as a feared vigilante. Nolan has stated that, due to the eight-year gap between The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises, "he's an older Bruce Wayne; he's not in a great state." Bale employed a martial arts discipline called the Keysi Fighting Method, now modified for Wayne's current state and Bane's style. Bale has stated that The Dark Knight Rises would be his final Batman film. Bale acknowledged that Batman is "not a healthy individual, this is somebody that is doing good, but he's right on the verge of doing bad". Bale clarifies that "He doesn't want to forget [his parents' deaths]. He wants to maintain that anger he felt at that injustice". Bale felt bittersweet about leaving the franchise, saying that it was like "saying goodbye to an old friend."

Michael Caine as Alfred Pennyworth:Bruce's trusted butler and confidant, who acts as a father figure to Wayne but is unable to accept Wayne's desire to revive his Batman persona, even resigning from his position to impress the seriousness of his position upon him. Christopher Nolan emphasized the emotional bond between Pennyworth and Wayne, stressing its importance in the previous films and predicting that the relationship will be strained as it never has before.

Gary Oldman as James Gordon:The Commissioner of the Gotham City Police Department, and one of the city's few honest police officers. Oldman described the character's work in cleaning up Gotham City as having left him world-weary and slightly bored, likening Gordon to a soldier who leaps at the chance to be on the front lines. His life has taken a turn for the worse since The Dark Knight; his wife has left him and taken their children, and the mayor is planning to dismiss him from his job. Gordon feels guilty over his role in covering up Harvey Dent's crimes and is prepared to resign from his position as Commissioner over it, but then senses that Gotham is about to come under threat.

Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle / The Cat:A professional cat burglar, grifter, and femme fatale who establishes a playful, teasing relationship with Wayne that "takes some of the somberness away from his character", and pursues a "clean slate" (a computer program rumored to be able to erase a person's criminal history) when she crosses paths with both Wayne and Batman. Hathaway auditioned not knowing what role she was being considered for. Jessica Biel and Kate Mara were considered for the role. Hathaway described the role as being the most physically demanding she had ever played, and confessed that while she thought of herself as being fit, she had to redouble her efforts in the gym to keep up with the demands of the role. Hathaway trained extensively in martial arts for the role, and looked to Hedy Lamarr—who was the initial inspiration for the comic book character—in developing her own performance. Batman Begins and The Dark Knight writer David S. Goyer had previously ruled out in 2008 including Catwoman in a third film for having already appeared in Tim Burton's Batman Returns, portrayed by Michelle Pfeiffer.

Tom Hardy as Bane:A mysterious and physically imposing villain who was excommunicated from the League of Shadows and portrays himself as a "liberator of pain" and revolutionary. He is desperate to continue Ra's al Ghul's legacy by destroying Gotham. The character was chosen by Christopher Nolan because of his desire to see Batman tested on both a physical and mental level. According to costume designer Lindy Hemming, the character wears a mask that supplies him with an analgesic gas to relieve pain he suffers from an injury sustained "early in his story". Hardy intended to portray the character as "more menacing" than Robert Swenson's version of the character in Joel Schumacher's Batman & Robin and that in order to do so, his portrayal entailed creating a contradiction between his voice and body. Hardy gained 30 pounds (14 kg) for the role, increasing his weight to 200 pounds (90 kg). Hardy later said training for the role probably damaged his body. Hardy based Bane's voice on several influences, which include Bartley Gorman and the character's comic book heritage. Bane claims that his revolution's enemies are the rich and the corrupt, who he contends are oppressing "the people", when in reality this was a ruse in order to exploit the citizens of Gotham City for the League of Shadows' ultimate goal in destroying Gotham City.

Marion Cotillard as Miranda Tate / Talia al Ghul:The current CEO of Wayne Enterprises who encourages a still-grieving Bruce to rejoin society and continue his father's philanthropic works but is later revealed to be the daughter of Ra's al Ghul and Bane's accomplice. Cotillard also does her own dub-over voice in both the European and Canadian French dubs of the film.

Joey King as young Talia al Ghul

Joseph Gordon-Levitt as John Blake:A young police officer whose instincts lead him to believe that there is trouble on the horizon and is promoted to detective by Gordon when the elder cop saw something of himself within the younger. Blake represents the idealism that Gordon and Bruce once held, but soon lost in their battle against crime in the city. The film reveals his legal name to be Robin John Blake, a homage to Batman's sidekick in the comics, Robin.

Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox: The ex-CEO turned executive vice president of Wayne Enterprises, who runs the company on Wayne's behalf and serves as his armorer for the Batsuit, providing him with high-tech equipment and discreetly developing cutting-edge technology and weaponry, even as Wayne Enterprises starts losing money.

Matthew Modine as Peter Foley: Gordon's second-in-command who disdains Batman.

Ben Mendelsohn as John Daggett: A rival billionaire socialite who employs Bane in his plan to take control of Wayne Enterprises.

Burn Gorman as Philip Stryver: Daggett's assistant and senior executive vice president of Daggett Industries. Philip Stryver is named after Stryver from A Tale of Two Cities, the novel that The Dark Knight Rises directly drew influence from.

Néstor Carbonell as Anthony Garcia: Gotham City's mayor. Carbonell reprises his role from The Dark Knight.

Juno Temple as Jen: Selina Kyle's friend and accomplice.

Josh Stewart as Barsad: Bane's right-hand man.

Alon Aboutboul as Dr. Leonid Pavel: A Russian nuclear physicist who is kidnapped by Bane and the League of Shadows in order to convert a fusion reactor funded by Bruce Wayne and Miranda Tate into a weapon to be used for the destruction of Gotham City.

Aidan Gillen as Bill Wilson: A CIA operative who was tasked with extracting Pavel from Uzbekistan and tracking down Bane for terrorist activities before his appearance in Gotham City. (Bill is referred to solely as "CIA" in the film's dialogue; the character's name is revealed in the film's novelization.)

Brett Cullen as Byron Gilley, a U.S. congressman who is kidnapped by Kyle. Brett Cullen would go on to portray Thomas Wayne in the 2019 DC Comics adaptation Joker.

Chris Ellis as Father Reilly, a priest at the orphanage in which Blake grew up.

Tom Conti as Prisoner: An unnamed prisoner who serves as Bruce Wayne's caretaker in Bane's underground prison, The Pit.

Daniel Sunjata as Mark Jones, a U.S. Special Ops officer who leads a task force into Gotham to assist Gordon and the GCPD in freeing the city from Bane's rule.

Liam Neeson as Ra's al Ghul: Liam Neeson reprises his role from Batman Begins in a cameo appearance; he also appears in a brief flashback.

Josh Pence as young Ra's al Ghul. He appears in scenes set thirty years before the events of Batman Begins.

Cillian Murphy as Dr. Jonathan Crane / Scarecrow: Cillian Murphy reprises his role from Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.

India Wadsworth as the wife of Ra's al Ghul and the mother of Talia al Ghul.

John Nolan as Douglas Fredericks, a board member of Wayne Enterprises. John Nolan is Christopher Nolan's uncle and he reprises his role from Batman Begins.

William Devane as the President of the United States.

Other cast members include Rob Brown, Brent Briscoe, Will Estes and Desmond Harrington as police officers; Christopher Judge as one of Bane's henchmen; and Noel Gugliemi as an ex-prisoner who is in charge of exiling corrupt elites during Bane's revolution. Thomas Lennon, who had appeared as a doctor in Nolan's 2000 film Memento, again plays a doctor. Glen Powell makes a pre-fame appearance as a stock exchange trader that gets knocked out by Bane.

United States Senator Patrick Leahy, who had made a cameo appearance in The Dark Knight, returned in The Dark Knight Rises, as a Wayne Enterprises board member.

Several members of the Pittsburgh Steelers have cameo appearances as members of the fictional Gotham Rogues football team in the film, including Ben Roethlisberger, Hines Ward, Troy Polamalu, Willie Colon, Maurkice Pouncey, Mike Wallace, Heath Miller, Aaron Smith, Ryan Clark, James Farrior, LaMarr Woodley, and Casey Hampton, and former Steelers head coach Bill Cowher as the head coach of the Rogues. Pittsburgh mayor Luke Ravenstahl, a kicker in college, appears as the kicker for the Rogues' opponents, the Rapid City Monuments.

Aaron Eckhart expressed enthusiasm in returning for a sequel if asked, although he later stated Nolan verified that his character, Harvey Dent / Two-Face, was dead, and only archive footage of Eckhart from The Dark Knight appears in the film.

Source: The Dark Knight Rises, Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0); facts via OMDb.

Inception is a 2010 science fiction action film written and directed by Christopher Nolan, who also produced it with Emma Thomas, his wife. The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a professional thief who steals information by infiltrating the subconscious of his targets. He is offered a chance to have his criminal history erased as payment for the implantation of another person's idea into a target's subconscious. The ensemble cast includes Ken Watanabe, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Elliot Page, Tom Hardy, Cillian Murphy, Tom Berenger, Dileep Rao, and Michael Caine.

After the completion of Insomnia in 2002, Nolan presented to Warner Bros. a written 80-page treatment for a horror film envisioning "dream stealers," based on lucid dreaming. Deciding he needed more experience before tackling a production of this magnitude and complexity, Nolan shelved the project and instead worked on Batman Begins (2005), The Prestige (2006), and The Dark Knight (2008). The treatment was revised over six months and was purchased by Warner Bros. in February 2009. Inception was filmed in six countries, beginning in Tokyo on June 19 and ending in Canada on November 22. Its official budget was $160 million, split between Warner Bros. and Legendary. Nolan's reputation and success with The Dark Knight helped secure the film's US$100 million in advertising expenditure.

Inception's premiere was held in London on July 8, 2010; it was released in both conventional and IMAX theaters beginning on July 16, 2010. Inception grossed $839 million worldwide, becoming the fourth-highest-grossing film of 2010. Considered one of the best films of the 2010s, Inception, among its numerous accolades, won four Oscars (Best Cinematography, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Visual Effects) and was nominated for four more (Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, Best Art Direction, Best Original Score) at the 83rd Academy Awards. The Library of Congress selected Inception for preservation in the United States National Film Registry's class of 2025 for being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant".

• Year: 2010
• Runtime: 148 min
• Genre: Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
• Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Elliot Page
• Awards: Won 4 Oscars. 160 wins & 220 nominations total
• Ratings: Internet Movie Database: 8.8/10; Rotten Tomatoes: 87%; Metacritic: 74/100

Plot

Dom Cobb and Arthur are "extractors" who perform corporate espionage using experimental dream-sharing technology to infiltrate their targets' subconscious and extract information. Their latest target, Saito, is impressed with Cobb's ability to layer multiple dreams within each other. He offers to hire Cobb for the ostensibly impossible job of implanting an idea into a person's subconscious; performing "inception" on Robert Fischer, the son of Saito's competitor Maurice Fischer, with the idea to dissolve his father's company. In return, Saito promises to clear Cobb's criminal status, allowing him to return home to his children.

Cobb accepts the offer and assembles his team: a forger named Eames, a chemist named Yusuf, and a college student named Ariadne. Ariadne is tasked with designing the dream's architecture, something Cobb himself cannot do for fear of being sabotaged by his mind's projection of his late wife, Mal. Maurice Fischer dies, and the team sedates Robert Fischer into a three-layer shared dream on an airplane to America bought by Saito. Time on each layer runs slower than the layer above, with one member staying behind on each to perform a music-synchronized "kick" (using the French song "Non, je ne regrette rien") to awaken dreamers on all three levels simultaneously.

The team abducts Robert in a city on the first level, but unknown to any team member, his subconscious projections, trained to anticipate such a scenario, attack them. After Saito is wounded, Cobb reveals that while dying in the dream would usually awaken dreamers, Yusuf's sedatives will instead send them into "Limbo": a world of infinite subconscious. Eames impersonates Robert's godfather, Peter Browning, to introduce the idea of an alternate will to dissolve the company.

Cobb explains to Ariadne that he and Mal entered Limbo while experimenting with dream-sharing, experiencing fifty years in one night due to the time dilation with reality. After waking up, Mal still believed she was dreaming. Attempting to "wake up," she committed suicide and framed Cobb for her murder to force him to do the same. Cobb fled the U.S., leaving his children behind.

Yusuf drives the team around the first level as they are sedated into the second level, a hotel dreamed by Arthur. Cobb persuades Robert that Browning has kidnapped him to stop the dissolution and that Cobb is a defensive projection, leading Robert to another third level deeper as part of a ruse to enter Robert's subconscious.

In the third level, the team infiltrates an alpine fortress with a projection of Maurice inside, where the inception itself can be performed. However, Yusuf performs his kick too soon by driving off a bridge, forcing Arthur and Eames to improvise a new set of kicks synchronized with them hitting the water by rigging an elevator and the fortress, respectively, with explosives. Mal then appears and kills Robert before he can be subjected to the inception; he and Saito are subsequently lost in Limbo, forcing Cobb and Ariadne to rescue them in time for Robert's inception and Eames's kick. Cobb reveals that during their time in Limbo, Mal refused to return to reality; Cobb had to convince her it was only a dream, accidentally incepting in her the belief that the real world was still a dream. Cobb makes peace with his part in Mal's death. Ariadne kills Mal's projection and wakes Robert up with a kick.

Revived into the third level, Robert discovers the planted idea: his dying father telling him to create something for himself. While Cobb searches for Saito in Limbo, the others ride the synced kicks back to reality. Cobb finds an aged Saito and reminds him of their agreement. The dreamers all awaken on the plane, and Saito makes a phone call. Arriving in Los Angeles, Cobb passes the immigration checkpoint, and his father-in-law accompanies him to his home. Cobb uses Mal's "totem" – a top that spins indefinitely in a dream – to test if he is indeed in the real world, but he chooses not to observe the result and instead joins his children.

Cast

Leonardo DiCaprio as Dom Cobb, a professional thief who specializes in conning secrets from his victims by infiltrating their dreams. DiCaprio was the first actor to be cast in the film. Brad Pitt and Will Smith were the first two choices and were offered the role, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Smith turned it down because he didn't understand it. Cobb's role is compared to "the haunted widower in a Gothic romance".

Ken Watanabe as Saito, a Japanese businessman who employs Cobb for the team's mission. Nolan wrote the role with Watanabe in mind, as he wanted to work with him again after Batman Begins. Inception is Watanabe's first work in a contemporary setting where his primary language is English. Watanabe tried to emphasize a different characteristic of Saito in every dream level: "First chapter in my castle, I pick up some hidden feelings of the cycle. It's magical, powerful and then the first dream. And back to the second chapter, in the old hotel, I pick up [being] sharp and more calm and smart and it's a little bit [of a] different process to make up the character of any movie".

Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Arthur, Cobb's partner who manages and researches the missions. Gordon-Levitt compared Arthur to the producer of Cobb's art, "the one saying, 'Okay, you have your vision; now I'm going to figure out how to make all the nuts and bolts work so you can do your thing'". The actor did all but one of his stunt scenes and said the preparation "was a challenge and it would have to be for it to look real". James Franco was in talks with Christopher Nolan to play Arthur, but was ultimately unavailable due to scheduling conflicts.

Marion Cotillard as Mal, Cobb's deceased wife. She is a manifestation of Cobb's guilt about the real cause of Mal's suicide. He is unable to control these projections of her, challenging his abilities as an extractor. Nolan described Mal as "the essence of the femme fatale," and DiCaprio praised Cotillard's performance, saying that "she can be strong and vulnerable and hopeful and heartbreaking all in the same moment, which was perfect for all the contradictions of her character". Kate Winslet was offered the role but turned it down as she couldn't see herself in the role.

Elliot Page as Ariadne, a graduate student of architecture who is recruited to construct the various dreamscapes, which are described as mazes. The name Ariadne alludes to a princess of Greek myth, daughter of King Minos, who aided the hero Theseus by giving him a sword and a ball of string to help him navigate the labyrinth which was the prison of the Minotaur. Nolan said that Page was chosen for being a "perfect combination of freshness and savvy and maturity" not common in people that age. Page said their character acts as a proxy to the audience, as "she's just learning about these ideas and, in essence, assists the audience in learning about dream sharing". The role was written with Evan Rachel Wood in mind, but she turned it down. Emily Blunt, Rachel McAdams, Taylor Swift, Emma Roberts, Jessy Schram, and Carey Mulligan were also considered before it went to Page.

Tom Hardy as Eames, a sharp-tongued associate of Cobb. He is referred to as a fence but his specialty is forgery, more accurately identity theft. Eames uses his ability to impersonate others inside the dream world in order to manipulate Fischer. Hardy described his character as "an old, Graham Greene-type diplomat; sort of faded, shabby, grandeur—the old Shakespeare lovey mixed with somebody from Her Majesty's Special Forces", who wears "campy, old money" costumes.

Cillian Murphy as Robert Fischer, the heir to a business empire and the team's target. Murphy said Fischer was portrayed as "a petulant child who's in need of a lot of attention from his father, he has everything he could ever want materially, but he's deeply lacking emotionally". The actor also researched the sons of Rupert Murdoch, "to add to that the idea of living in the shadow of someone so immensely powerful".

Tom Berenger as Peter Browning, Robert Fischer's godfather and fellow executive at the Fischers' company. Berenger said Browning acts as a "surrogate father" to Fischer, who calls the character "Uncle Peter", and emphasized that "Browning has been with [Robert] his whole life and has probably spent more quality time with him than his own father".

Michael Caine as Stephen Miles, Cobb's mentor and father-in-law, and Ariadne's college professor who recommends her to the team.

Dileep Rao as Yusuf. Rao describes Yusuf as "an avant-garde pharmacologist, who is a resource for people, like Cobb, who want to do this work unsupervised, unregistered and unapproved of by anyone". Co-producer Jordan Goldberg said the role of the chemist was "particularly tough because you don't want him to seem like some kind of drug dealer", and that Rao was cast for being "funny, interesting and obviously smart".

Lukas Haas as Nash, an architect in Cobb's employment who betrays the team and is later replaced by Ariadne.

Talulah Riley as a woman, credited as "Blonde", whom Eames disguises himself as in a dream. Riley liked the role, despite it being minimal: "I get to wear a nice dress, pick up men in bars, and shove them in elevators. It was good to do something adultish. Usually I play 15-year-old English schoolgirls."

Pete Postlethwaite as Maurice Fischer, Robert Fischer's father and the dying founder of a business empire.

Source: Inception, Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0); facts via OMDb.

The Dark Knight is a 2008 superhero film directed by Christopher Nolan, from a screenplay co-written with his brother Jonathan. Based on the DC Comics superhero Batman, it is the sequel to Batman Begins (2005), and the second installment in The Dark Knight trilogy. The plot follows the vigilante Batman, police lieutenant James Gordon, and district attorney Harvey Dent, who form an alliance to dismantle organized crime in Gotham City. Their efforts are derailed by the Joker, an anarchistic mastermind who seeks to test how far Batman will go to save the city from chaos. The ensemble cast includes Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Heath Ledger, Gary Oldman, Aaron Eckhart, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Morgan Freeman.

Warner Bros. Pictures prioritized a sequel following the successful reinvention of the Batman film series with Batman Begins. Christopher Nolan and Batman Begins co-writer David S. Goyer developed the story elements, making Dent the central protagonist caught up in the battle between Batman and the Joker. In writing the screenplay, the Nolans were influenced by 1980s Batman comics and crime drama films, and sought to continue Batman Begins' heightened sense of realism. From April to November 2007, filming took place with a $185 million budget in Chicago and Hong Kong, and on sets in England. The Dark Knight was the first major motion picture to be filmed with high-resolution IMAX cameras. Nolan avoided using computer-generated imagery unless necessary, insisting on practical stunts such as flipping an 18-wheel truck and blowing up a factory.

The Dark Knight was marketed with an innovative interactive viral campaign that initially focused on countering criticism of Ledger's casting by those who believed he was a poor choice to portray the Joker. Ledger died from an accidental prescription drug overdose in January 2008, leading to widespread interest from the press and public regarding his performance. When it was released in July, The Dark Knight received acclaim for its mature tone and themes, visual style, and performances—particularly that of Ledger, who received many posthumous awards including Academy, BAFTA, and Golden Globe awards for Best Supporting Actor. This made The Dark Knight the first comic-book film to receive major acting awards. It broke several box-office records and became the highest-grossing 2008 film, the fourth-highest-grossing film to that time, and the highest-grossing superhero film of the time.

Since its release, The Dark Knight has been assessed as one of the greatest superhero films ever, one of the best movies of the 2000s, and one of the best films ever made. It is considered the "blueprint" for many modern superhero films, particularly for its rejection of a typical comic-book movie style in favor of a crime film that features comic-book characters. Many filmmakers attempted to replicate its success by adopting a similarly gritty, realistic tone, though with uneven results. The Dark Knight has been analyzed for its themes of terrorism and the limitations of morality and ethics. The United States Library of Congress selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry in 2020. A sequel, The Dark Knight Rises, concluded The Dark Knight trilogy in 2012.

• Year: 2008
• Runtime: 152 min
• Genre: Action, Crime, Drama
• Starring: Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart
• Awards: Won 2 Oscars. 163 wins & 165 nominations total
• Ratings: Internet Movie Database: 9.1/10; Rotten Tomatoes: 94%; Metacritic: 85/100

Plot

A gang of masked criminals rob a mafia-owned bank in Gotham City, betraying and killing each other until the sole survivor, the Joker, reveals himself as the mastermind and escapes with the money. The vigilante Batman, district attorney Harvey Dent, and police lieutenant Jim Gordon ally to eliminate Gotham's organized crime. Batman's true identity, the billionaire Bruce Wayne, publicly supports Dent as Gotham's legitimate protector, believing Dent's success will allow him to retire as Batman and romantically pursue his childhood friend Rachel Dawes—despite her being with Dent.

Gotham's mafia bosses gather to discuss protecting their organizations from the Joker, the police, and Batman. The Joker interrupts the meeting and offers to kill Batman for half of the fortune their accountant, Lau, concealed before fleeing to Hong Kong to avoid extradition. With the help of Wayne Enterprises CEO Lucius Fox, Batman finds Lau in Hong Kong and returns him to the custody of the Gotham police. His testimony enables Dent to apprehend the crime families. The bosses accept the Joker's offer, and he kills high-profile targets involved in the trial, including the judge and police commissioner Gillian Loeb. Although Gordon saves the mayor, the Joker threatens that his attacks will continue until Batman reveals his identity. He targets Dent at a fundraising dinner and throws Rachel out of a window, but Batman rescues her.

Bruce struggles to understand the Joker's motives, to which his butler Alfred Pennyworth says that "some men just want to watch the world burn." Dent claims he is Batman to lure the Joker out, who attacks the police convoy transporting Dent. Batman and Gordon apprehend the Joker, and Gordon is promoted to commissioner. At the police station, Batman interrogates the Joker, who says he finds Batman entertaining and has no intention of killing him. Having deduced Batman's feelings for Rachel, the Joker reveals she and Dent are being held separately in buildings rigged to explode. Batman races to rescue Rachel while Gordon and the other officers go after Dent, but they discover the Joker has given their positions in reverse. The explosives detonate, killing Rachel and severely burning Dent's face on one side. The Joker escapes custody, extracts the fortune's location from Lau, and burns it, killing Lau in the process.

Coleman Reese, a consultant for Wayne Enterprises, deduces and tries to expose Batman's identity, but the Joker threatens to blow up a hospital unless Reese is killed. While the police evacuate hospitals and Gordon struggles to keep Reese alive, the Joker meets with a disillusioned Dent, persuading him to take the law into his own hands and avenge Rachel. Dent defers his decision-making to his now half-scarred, two-headed coin, killing the corrupt officers and the mafia involved in Rachel's death. As panic grips the city, the Joker reveals that two evacuation ferries, one carrying civilians and the other prisoners, are rigged to explode at midnight unless one group sacrifices the other. To the Joker's disbelief, the passengers refuse to kill one another. Batman subdues the Joker but refuses to kill him. Before the police arrest the Joker, he says that although Batman proved incorruptible, his plan to corrupt Dent has succeeded.

Dent takes Gordon's family hostage, blaming his negligence for Rachel's death. He flips his coin to decide their fates, but Batman tackles him to save Gordon's son, and Dent falls to his death. Believing Dent is the hero the city needs, and the truth of his corruption will harm Gotham, Batman takes the blame for his death and actions, persuading Gordon to conceal the truth. Alfred burns an undelivered letter from Rachel to Bruce that says she chose Dent, and Fox destroys the invasive surveillance network that helped Batman find the Joker. The city mourns Dent as a hero, and the police launch a manhunt for Batman.

Cast

Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne / Batman: A wealthy socialite who as a child was traumatized by his parents' murder. Wayne secretly operates as the heroic vigilante Batman.

Michael Caine as Alfred Pennyworth: Wayne's father-figure, trusted butler, and confidant.

Heath Ledger as the Joker: A criminal mastermind and anarchist who is determined to sow chaos and corruption throughout Gotham.

Gary Oldman as James Gordon: One of the few honest officers in the Gotham City Police Department (GCPD) who assists Batman's war on crime.

Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent / Two-Face: Gotham's noble district attorney-turned-violent vigilante.

Maggie Gyllenhaal as Rachel Dawes: Gotham's assistant district attorney and Wayne's childhood friend, who is divided between her feelings for him and for Dent.

Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox: Wayne Enterprises' CEO who supplies technology and equipment for Batman's campaign.

Additionally, Eric Roberts, Michael Jai White, and Ritchie Coster appear as crime bosses Sal Maroni, Gambol, and the Chechen, respectively; while Chin Han portrays Lau, a Chinese criminal banker. The GCPD cast includes Colin McFarlane as commissioner Gillian B. Loeb, Keith Szarabajka and Ron Dean as detectives Stephens and Wuertz, Monique Gabriela Curnen as rookie detective Anna Ramirez and Philip Bulcock as Murphy.

The cast also features Joshua Harto as Coleman Reese, Anthony Michael Hall as news reporter Mike Engel, Néstor Carbonell as mayor Anthony Garcia, William Fichtner as a bank manager, Nydia Rodriguez Terracina as Judge Surrillo, Tom "Tiny" Lister Jr. as a prisoner, Beatrice Rosen as Wayne's Russian ballerina date, and David Dastmalchian as the Joker's paranoid schizophrenic henchman Thomas Schiff. Melinda McGraw, Nathan Gamble, and Hannah Gunn portray Gordon's wife Barbara, his son James Jr., and his daughter, respectively. The Dark Knight features several cameo appearances from Cillian Murphy, who reprises his role as Jonathan Crane / Scarecrow from Batman Begins; musical performer Matt Skiba; as well as United States Senator and Batman fan Patrick Leahy, who has appeared in or voiced characters in other Batman media.

Source: The Dark Knight, Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0); facts via OMDb.

The Prestige is a 2006 science fiction psychological thriller film directed by Christopher Nolan, who co-wrote the screenplay with his brother Jonathan Nolan, based on the 1995 novel by Christopher Priest. Set in Victorian London, the film stars Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale as stage magicians who compete to create a superior teleportation illusion.

The supporting cast includes Michael Caine, Scarlett Johansson, Rebecca Hall, Andy Serkis, and David Bowie as inventor Nikola Tesla. The film reunited Nolan with Bale and Caine following Batman Begins (2005) and with several regular collaborators, including cinematographer Wally Pfister, production designer Nathan Crowley, editor Lee Smith, and composer David Julyan. Principal photography took place in early 2006, with locations including Los Angeles and Colorado.

The Prestige premiered at the El Capitan Theatre on October 17, 2006, and was released in the United States on October 20, 2006, by Buena Vista Pictures Distribution through its Touchstone Pictures label, with Warner Bros. Pictures handling international distribution. The film received generally positive reviews from critics, with particular praise for its performances, production design, and narrative structure. It was a box office success, earning $109 million worldwide on the budget of $40 million.

• Year: 2006
• Runtime: 130 min
• Genre: Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi
• Starring: Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman, Scarlett Johansson
• Awards: Nominated for 2 Oscars. 6 wins & 44 nominations total
• Ratings: Internet Movie Database: 8.5/10; Rotten Tomatoes: 76%; Metacritic: 66/100

Plot

Note: Though the movie contains multiple flash-forwards and flash-backs throughout, the story is told here in chronological order.

In 1890s London, Robert Angier, Alfred Borden, and Angier's wife, Julia, work as magician's assistants under the mentorship of John Cutter. During a water tank trick, Julia drowns after Borden incorrectly ties her wrists. Angier blames Borden, and the two men become bitter rivals.

Both men pursue separate careers in magic. Borden, a gifted inventor of illusions, marries a woman named Sarah, with whom he has a daughter named Jess, and hires an enigmatic assistant, Fallon. Angier, whose strength lies more in showmanship, continues working with Cutter and takes on a new assistant, Olivia. The feud escalates as Angier and Borden visit and sabotage each other's acts. Borden loses two fingers after being shot by Angier during a pistol trick, and Borden violently thwarts Angier's bird act in front of a live audience, harming an attendee.

Borden next debuts a spectacular illusion, The Transported Man, in which he appears to teleport from one side of the stage to the other almost instantly. Angier becomes obsessed with discovering the trick's secret and, with Cutter's help, roughly recreates the act using a lookalike named Root, a failed actor. Though Angier's version is successful, he resents remaining hidden beneath the stage while Root takes the applause. Desperate to outdo Borden, he sends Olivia to spy on him, but she falls in love with Borden and defects, and passes Borden's coded diary to Angier.

Borden reveals to Angier that the key word, TESLA, supposedly decrypts the diary and reveals his method. Seeking answers, Angier travels to Colorado Springs to meet the inventor Nikola Tesla. Believing Tesla built a teleportation device for Borden, Angier commissions Tesla to make one. Tesla eventually delivers a working machine but warns that it will bring only misery. When used, the device creates a duplicate of its subject while leaving the original person intact. In London, Angier uses the machine in a new illusion, The Real Transported Man, which earns him acclaim. Sarah, suspicious of Borden's secrecy and affair with Olivia, hangs herself.

Determined to uncover Angier's method, Borden sneaks backstage during a performance of The Real Transported Man and witnesses Angier fall into a water tank and drown. He attempts to open the tank and save Angier, but is arrested for Angier's murder, convicted, and sentenced to death. While awaiting execution, Borden is approached by a solicitor for a wealthy Lord Caldlow, who offers to care for Borden's daughter Jess in exchange for the secret behind the original Transported Man. When Caldlow visits the prison, Borden is horrified to discover that he is actually Angier. Borden passes Angier a note revealing the secret, but Angier tears it up, leaving him to hang. Cutter helps dispose of Tesla's teleportation machine, but is dismayed by Angier's intention of allowing Borden to die.

As Borden is hanged, a disguised visitor shoots Angier in the basement of his theater, revealing himself as Borden. The mortally wounded Angier learns the truth: "Borden" is in fact a pair of identical twins sharing one identity. One twin loved Sarah, the other Olivia; one lost two fingers, and amputated the twin's same two fingers to match; one has survived, while the other was executed. Together, they performed The Transported Man by switching places undetected, and whenever one twin was performing, the other hid using prosthetics and makeup under the identity "Fallon".

Dying, Angier confesses that each time he used Tesla's machine, it created a clone, one of whom drowned beneath the stage each night, and that he is no longer sure of his own identity. The surviving Borden brother reclaims his daughter, as Cutter narrates that the final act of any magic trick—the "prestige"—is the return of what was thought lost. Angier's death knocks over a kerosene lamp that sends his theater up in flames, revealing rows of water tanks holding the corpses of his many duplicates.

Cast

Hugh Jackman as Lord Caldlow, an aristocratic English magician, whose public persona is the American magician Robert "The Great Danton" Angier. Nolan cast Jackman, stating that Angier "has a wonderful understanding of the interaction between a performer and a live audience", a quality he believed Jackman possessed. Jackman based his portrayal of Angier on 1950s-era magician Channing Pollock. Jackman also portrays Gerald Root, an alcoholic lookalike used for Angier's New Transported Man.

Christian Bale as Alfred "The Professor" Borden / Frederick Borden / Bernard Fallon, a working-class English magician. While Nolan had previously cast Bale as Batman in Batman Begins (2005), he did not consider Bale for the role of Borden until Bale contacted him about the script. Nolan subsequently believed that Bale was "exactly right" for the part and that it was "unthinkable" for anyone else to play it. Nolan suggested that the actors not read the original novel, but Bale ignored the advice.

Michael Caine as John Cutter, the stage engineer (ingénieur) who works with Angier and Borden. Caine had previously collaborated with Nolan and Bale in Batman Begins. Nolan noted that the part had been written "before I'd ever met" Caine. Caine described Cutter as "a teacher, a father, and a guide to Angier". In trying to create the character's nuanced portrait, Caine altered his voice and posture.

Scarlett Johansson as Olivia Wenscombe, Angier and Borden's assistant. Nolan was "very keen" for Johansson to play the role, and when he met with her to discuss it, "she just loved the character".

Piper Perabo as Julia McCullough, Milton the Magician's assistant and Angier's wife.

Rebecca Hall as Sarah Borden, Borden's wife. Hall had to relocate from North London to Los Angeles in order to shoot the film, although the film itself takes place in London.

David Bowie as Nikola Tesla, the real-life inventor who creates a teleportation device for Angier. For Tesla, Nolan wanted someone who was not necessarily a film star but was "extraordinarily charismatic". Nolan stated that Bowie "was really the only guy I had in mind to play Tesla because his function in the story is a small but very important role". Nolan contacted Bowie, who initially turned down the part. A lifelong fan, Nolan flew out to New York to pitch the role to Bowie in person, telling him no one else could possibly play the part; Bowie accepted after a few minutes.

Andy Serkis as Mr. Alley, Tesla's assistant. Serkis said he played Alley with the belief that he was "once a corporation man who got excited by this maverick, Tesla, so jumped ship and went with the maverick". Serkis described Alley as a "gatekeeper", a "conman", and "a mirror image of Michael Caine's character". Serkis, a big fan of Bowie, said he was enjoyable to work with, describing him as "very unassuming, very down to earth… very at ease with himself and funny".

Ricky Jay as Milton the Magician, an older magician who employs Angier and Borden at the beginning of their careers. Jay and Michael Weber trained Jackman and Bale for their roles with brief instruction in various stage illusions. The magicians gave the actors limited information, allowing them to know enough to pull off a scene.

Roger Rees as Owens, a solicitor working for Lord Caldlow.

W. Morgan Sheppard as Merrit, the owner of a theater where Angier initially performs.

Samantha Mahurin as Jess Borden, the daughter of Borden and Sarah.

Daniel Davis as the judge presiding over Borden's trial.

Chao-Li Chi as Chung Ling Soo, a Chinese magician who disguises his great physical strength by pretending to be elderly and frail in all public appearances.

Source: The Prestige, Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0); facts via OMDb.

Batman Begins is a 2005 superhero film based on the DC Comics character Batman. Directed by Christopher Nolan, who co-wrote the screenplay with David S. Goyer, the film stars Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne / Batman, with Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, Katie Holmes, Gary Oldman, Cillian Murphy, Tom Wilkinson, Rutger Hauer, Ken Watanabe, and Morgan Freeman in supporting roles. The film reboots the Batman film series, telling the origin story of Bruce Wayne (Bale) from the death of his parents to his journey to become Batman and his fight to stop Ra's al Ghul (Neeson) and the Scarecrow (Murphy) from plunging Gotham City into chaos.

After Batman & Robin (1997) was panned by critics and underperformed at the box office, Warner Bros. Pictures cancelled future Batman films, including Joel Schumacher's planned Batman Unchained. Between 1998 and 2003, several filmmakers collaborated with Warner Bros. in attempting to reboot the franchise. After the studio rejected a Batman origin story reboot Joss Whedon pitched in December 2002, Warner Bros. hired Nolan in January 2003 to direct a new film. Nolan and Goyer began development on the film in early 2003. Aiming for a darker, more realistic tone compared to the previous films, a primary goal for their vision was to engage the audience's emotional investment in both the Batman and Bruce Wayne identities of the lead character. The film, which was principally shot in the United Kingdom, Iceland and Chicago, relied heavily on traditional stunts and miniature effects, with computer-generated imagery being used in a minimal capacity compared to other action films. Comic book storylines such as The Man Who Falls, Batman: Year One, and Batman: The Long Halloween served as inspiration.

Expectations for Batman Begins ranged from moderate to low, which originated from the poor reception of Batman & Robin that was credited with stalling the Batman film series in 1997. After premiering in Tokyo on May 31, 2005, the film was released in the United States on June 15. The film received positive reviews and ended up grossing over $371.9 million worldwide against a $150 million budget, becoming the ninth highest-grossing film of 2005, and was the second highest grossing Batman film at the time of its release, behind Tim Burton's Batman (1989). Receiving a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography, the film elevated Bale to leading man status while it made Nolan a high-profile director.

Since its release, Batman Begins has often been cited as one of the most influential films of the 2000s. The film helped popularize the term reboot in Hollywood, inspiring studios and filmmakers to revive franchises with realistic and serious tones. It was followed by the sequels The Dark Knight (2008) and The Dark Knight Rises (2012), which rounded out The Dark Knight trilogy.

• Year: 2005
• Runtime: 140 min
• Genre: Action, Crime, Drama
• Starring: Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Ken Watanabe
• Awards: Nominated for 1 Oscar. 15 wins & 79 nominations total
• Ratings: Internet Movie Database: 8.2/10; Rotten Tomatoes: 85%; Metacritic: 70/100

Plot

In Gotham City, young Bruce Wayne falls down a well and develops a fear of bats. One evening, Bruce visits the opera with his parents and is so unsettled by the performers masquerading as bats that he asks to leave. While returning home, a mugger named Joe Chill demands possessions from Bruce's parents and shoots them dead during a botched robbery. Bruce is orphaned and raised by the family butler, Alfred Pennyworth.

Fourteen years later, Chill testifies against mafia crime boss Carmine Falcone, and is paroled. Bruce intends to murder Chill to avenge his parents, but an assassin in Falcone's employ kills him first. After confronting Falcone, who says real power comes from being feared, Bruce spends the next seven years traveling the world, training in combat, and immersing himself in the criminal underworld. In a Bhutan prison, Bruce is approached by Henri Ducard, who recruits him into the League of Shadows, led by Ra's al Ghul. After completing his training, he rejects the League's mandate that all criminals should be killed. He burns down the temple and escapes after learning that the League believes Gotham is corrupted beyond saving and intends to destroy the city. Ra's is killed by falling debris, while Bruce saves Ducard.

Intent on fighting crime and redeeming Gotham, Bruce returns to Gotham and to his family's company, Wayne Enterprises, which is being taken public by businessman William Earle. Company archivist Lucius Fox, a friend of Bruce's father, allows him access to prototype defense technologies, including a protective bodysuit and the Tumbler, an armored vehicle. Bruce poses publicly as a shallow playboy while setting up base in the caves beneath Wayne Manor and taking up the vigilante identity of "Batman", inspired by his childhood fear, which he has now conquered.

Intercepting a drug shipment, Batman provides his childhood friend, Rachel Dawes, an Assistant District Attorney, with evidence against Falcone and enlists Sergeant James Gordon, one of Gotham's few honest police officers, to arrest him. In prison, Falcone meets Dr. Jonathan Crane, a corrupt psychologist who smuggles drugs into Gotham with his help. Donning a scarecrow mask, Crane sprays Falcone with a fear-inducing hallucinogen, driving him insane and having him transferred to Arkham Asylum under his care. While investigating Crane, Batman is sprayed with the hallucinogen. He is saved by Alfred and Fox, who develop an antidote for it.

When Rachel confronts Crane, he reveals that he has introduced his drug into Gotham's water supply and drugs her. When Crane is captured, he claims to work for Ra's al Ghul. Batman saves Rachel and administers the antidote. At Bruce's birthday party, Ducard reveals himself to be the true Ra's al Ghul. Having stolen a powerful microwave emitter from Wayne Enterprises, he plans to vaporize Gotham's water supply, rendering Crane's drug airborne and causing mass hysteria that will destroy the city. He sets Wayne Manor aflame but Alfred rescues Bruce. The League of Shadows frees Crane and the other inmates from Arkham, while Ra's loads the emitter onto Gotham's monorail to release the drug at the city's central water source under Wayne Tower. Batman reveals his identity to Rachel before confronting Ra's on the train. Gordon uses the Tumbler's cannons to destroy the train track and Batman leaves Ra's to die as the train crashes.

Rachel now respects Bruce but refuses to be with him, promising they can be together when Gotham no longer needs Batman. Batman becomes a public hero. After purchasing a controlling stake in Wayne Enterprises, Bruce fires Earle and replaces him with Fox. Gordon is promoted to Lieutenant, shows Batman the Bat-Signal, and tells him about a criminal who leaves behind Joker playing cards. Batman glides away into the night to investigate.

Cast

Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne / Batman:A billionaire socialite who, after witnessing his parents' death in a mugging at age 8, travels around the world seven years before returning home to inherit his family company Wayne Enterprises whilst operating at night as a bat-masked vigilante bringing justice upon the criminal underworld of Gotham City. Bale was relatively unknown when cast. Before he was confirmed on September 11, 2003, having expressed interest in the role since Darren Aronofsky was planning his own film adaptation, Eion Bailey, Henry Cavill, who would later be cast as Superman, Billy Crudup, Hugh Dancy, Jake Gyllenhaal, Joshua Jackson, David Boreanaz, Heath Ledger, who later played the Joker in The Dark Knight, and Cillian Murphy, who would later be cast as Dr. Jonathan Crane / Scarecrow, took interest in it as well. While still attached to the project, Aronofsky revealed in a 2020 interview for Empire magazine that he wanted Joaquin Phoenix for the role, but the studio wanted Freddie Prinze Jr. instead. Josh Hartnett met with Nolan about the role, but decided against pursuing it. Bale, Bailey and Murphy auditioned using the Batman Forever sonar suit donated by Val Kilmer, but the cape was lost, and Amy Adams served as the casting reader for the casting of Bruce Wayne / Batman in a favor to the casting director. Though his friends doubted him stating it was not going to work, Bale was convinced by Nolan's approach and he felt that the previous films underused Batman's character, overplaying the villains instead. To best pose as Batman, Bale studied graphic novels and illustrations of the superhero. Director Nolan said of Bale, "He has exactly the balance of darkness and light that we were looking for." Goyer stated that while some actors could play a great Bruce Wayne or a great Batman, Bale could portray both radically different personalities. Since he had lost a great deal of weight in preparation for his role in The Machinist, Bale hired a personal trainer to help him gain 100 pounds (45 kg) of muscle in the span of only a couple of months to help him physically prepare for the role. After realizing he went over by 30 pounds (14 kg), he lost the excess weight by the time filming began. Bale trained in Wing Chun Kung Fu under Eric Oram in preparation for the movie.

Gus Lewis as Young Bruce Wayne.

Michael Caine as Alfred Pennyworth:A trusted butler to Bruce's parents, who continues his loyal service to their son after their deaths as his closest confidant. Nolan offered the role to Anthony Hopkins but he declined. Nolan went to Caine's country home to personally deliver him the script, telling what his role would be and describing Alfred as "Batman's godfather". Nolan felt Caine would effectively portray the foster father element of the character. Although Alfred is depicted in the film as having served the Wayne family for generations, Caine created his own backstory, in that before becoming the Waynes' butler, Alfred served in the Special Air Service. After being wounded, he was invited to the position of the Wayne family butler by Thomas Wayne because, "He wanted a butler, but someone a bit tougher than that, you know?"

Liam Neeson as Henri Ducard / Ra's al Ghul: The leader of the League of Shadows, an ancient society that uses chaos to punish the corrupt and decadent, who goes undercover as an associate of the League and trains Bruce in martial arts, later revealing himself in the film's climax. Writer David Goyer said he felt he was the most complex of all the Batman villains, comparing him to Osama bin Laden; "He's not crazy in the way that all the other Batman villains are. He's not bent on revenge; he's actually trying to heal the world. He's just doing it by very draconian means." Gary Oldman was the first choice for the part, but ended up playing James Gordon instead. Guy Pearce, who collaborated with Christopher Nolan on Memento (2000), reported that the pair had discussions about him playing the role, but both of them decided that he was too young for the part. Viggo Mortensen was also considered for the role. Neeson is commonly cast as a mentor, so the revelation that his character was the main villain was intended to shock viewers.

Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes: Bruce's childhood friend and love interest who serves as Gotham City's assistant district attorney and fights against corruption in the city of Gotham. Nolan found a "tremendous warmth and great emotional appeal" in Holmes, and also felt "she has a maturity beyond her years that comes across in the film and is essential to the idea that Rachel is something of a moral conscience for Bruce".

Emma Lockhart as Young Rachel Dawes.

Gary Oldman as James "Jim" Gordon:One of the few uncorrupted Gotham City police officers, who is on duty the night of the murder of Bruce's parents and, in this way, shares a special bond with the adult Bruce and thus with Batman. Oldman was Nolan's first choice for Ra's al Ghul, but when Chris Cooper turned down the part of Gordon to spend time with his family, Nolan decided that it would be refreshing for Oldman, who is renowned for his portrayals of villains, to play the role instead. Speaking of his role as Gordon, Oldman explained, "I embody the themes of the movie which are the values of family, courage and compassion and a sense of right and wrong, good and bad and justice". He filmed most of his scenes in Britain. Goyer said Oldman heavily resembled Gordon as drawn by David Mazzucchelli in Batman: Year One.

Cillian Murphy as Dr. Jonathan Crane / Scarecrow: A corrupt psychopharmacologist working as Chief Administrator of Arkham Asylum. A specialist in the psychology of fear, he has secretly created a fear-inducing toxin and plots with Ra's al Ghul to expose the entire Gotham population. Nolan decided against casting an Irish actor like Murphy for Batman, before casting him as Scarecrow. Murphy read numerous comics featuring the Scarecrow and discussed making the character look less theatrical with Nolan. Murphy explained, "I wanted to avoid the Worzel Gummidge look, because he's not a very physically imposing man – he's more interested in the manipulation of the mind and what that can do." Robert Downey Jr. was considered for the role.

Tom Wilkinson as Carmine Falcone:The most powerful Mafia boss in Gotham, who shares a prison cell with Joe Chill after he murdered Bruce's parents. Later, after having Chill murdered for his decision to testify against their relationship, he goes into business with Dr. Jonathan Crane and Ra's al Ghul by smuggling in Crane's fear toxins through his drug shipments over the course of several months so that they can be mixed in with the city's water supply.

Rutger Hauer as William Earle:The CEO of Wayne Enterprises, who takes the company public in Bruce's long-term absence.

Ken Watanabe as decoy Ra's al Ghul:A member of the League of Shadows assigned to impersonate Ra's al Ghul during Bruce's training.

Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox:A high-ranking Wayne Enterprises employee demoted to working in the company's Applied Science Division, where he conducts advanced studies in biochemistry and mechanical engineering and supplies Bruce with much of the gear necessary to carry out Batman's mission. He is promoted to CEO when Bruce takes control of the company by the end of the film.

Other cast members include Mark Boone Junior as Arnold Flass, Gordon's corrupt partner; Linus Roache as Thomas Wayne, Bruce's late father; Larry Holden as district attorney Carl Finch; Colin McFarlane as Gillian B. Loeb, the police commissioner; Christine Adams as Jessica, William Earle's secretary; Vincent Wong as an old Asian prisoner; Sara Stewart as Martha Wayne, Bruce's late mother; Richard Brake as Joe Chill, the Waynes' killer; Gerard Murphy as the corrupt High Court Judge Faden; Charles Edwards as a Wayne Enterprises executive; Tim Booth as Victor Zsasz; Rade Šerbedžija as a homeless man, who is the last person to meet Bruce when he leaves Gotham City, and the first civilian to see Batman; Catherine Porter as an assassin posing as a reporter, who kills Chill under Falcone's orders; Risteárd Cooper and Andrew Pleavin as uniformed policemen; Jo Martin as a police prison official; and Shane Rimmer and Jeremy Theobald (the star and co-producer of Nolan's 1998 film Following) as Gotham Water Board technicians. Jack Gleeson, who had previously co-starred with Bale in 2002's Reign of Fire and later found fame for his role as Joffrey Baratheon in the HBO series Game of Thrones, appears as a young admirer of Batman who is later saved by him from Ra's al Ghul's men; Gleeson was cast at Bale's recommendation. Actors John Foo, Joey Ansah, Spencer Wilding, Dave Legeno, Khan Bonfils, Mark Strange, Grant Guirey, Rodney Ryan, and Dean Alexandrou portray members of the League of Shadows. Hayden Nickel made his acting debut portraying James Gordon Jr.

Source: Batman Begins, Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0); facts via OMDb.

Insomnia is a 2002 American neo-noir psychological thriller film directed by Christopher Nolan from a screenplay by Hillary Seitz. It is a remake of the 1997 Norwegian film of the same name. The film stars Al Pacino, Robin Williams, and Hilary Swank, with Maura Tierney, Martin Donovan, Nicky Katt, and Paul Dooley in supporting roles. It follows two Los Angeles homicide detectives investigating a murder in Nightmute, Alaska. After the killer witnesses an accidental shooting committed by one of the detectives, they create a plan for both parties to mutually avoid prosecution.

Insomnia premiered at the Tribeca Festival on May 3, 2002, and was theatrically released in the United States and Canada on May 24, 2002 by Warner Bros. Pictures, with Summit Entertainment releasing in other territories. It grossed $113.8 million worldwide against a production budget of $46 million. The film received positive reviews, with praise for Pacino's and Williams's performances. At the 29th Saturn Awards, Williams was nominated for Best Supporting Actor, and Seitz was nominated for Best Writing.

• Year: 2002
• Runtime: 118 min
• Genre: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
• Starring: Al Pacino, Robin Williams, Hilary Swank
• Awards: 1 win & 11 nominations total
• Ratings: Internet Movie Database: 7.2/10; Rotten Tomatoes: 92%; Metacritic: 78/100

Plot

In Nightmute, Alaska, teenager Kay Connell is found beaten to death, her body scrubbed of forensic evidence and dumped naked in a landfill. At the request of the local chief, LAPD detectives Will Dormer and Hap Eckhart are sent to assist with the investigation. Ellie Burr, a young local detective who idolizes Dormer, is assigned as their guide. They question Kay's abusive boyfriend Randy Stetz, who admits he discovered Kay had a secret admirer but could not force her to reveal his identity. In private, Eckhart admits he is being pressured by an Internal Affairs investigation and will testify against Dormer in exchange for immunity.

Kay's backpack is discovered at a shack near the coast and Dormer uses it to set a trap, but this backfires and the suspect flees into a heavy fog, shooting an officer in the leg. Giving pursuit, Dormer spots an unidentifiable figure and fires at them with his backup weapon after his sidearm jams. Grabbing a .38 caliber pistol the suspect dropped, Dormer rushes to the figure and discovers he has shot and killed Eckhart. The police assign blame to the suspect and Dormer does not dissuade them, knowing Internal Affairs will never believe the shooting was an accident due to Eckhart's pending testimony.

Burr is assigned to the shooting investigation and finds the .38 bullet that pierced the officer's leg. That night, Dormer fires the .38 into an animal carcass, then retrieves and cleans the bullet. At the morgue, the pathologist gives him the 9 mm caliber bullet from Eckhart's body, which she doesn't recognize as very few people in the area own pistols. Dormer replaces it with the .38 bullet. When Burr believes the case is closed, however, Dormer's conscience refuses to let him sign off and he tells her to do another review, which causes her to notice inconsistencies in his statement.

Dormer becomes plagued by insomnia, brought on by his guilt and further exacerbated by the perpetual daylight. He begins receiving phone calls from the killer, who witnessed Dormer shoot his partner. Questioning her estranged best friend, Dormer learns Kay was a fan of local crime writer Walter Finch, and realizes he was her secret admirer based on the alias she gave him. Dormer goes to Finch's apartment in a nearby village and breaks in, hiding the .38 in a heating vent. Returning home, Finch realizes someone is inside and escapes after a chase.

Finch contacts Dormer again and arranges a public meeting on a ferry. Finch wants help shifting suspicion to Randy, offering to stay silent about the Eckhart shooting in return. Attempting to dissuade him from this, Dormer tells Finch he can't hide his relationship with Kay and gives advice on handling the inevitable police questioning. As Finch leaves the ferry, he reveals he has recorded the conversation.

In another phone call, Finch admits he flew into a blind rage after Kay laughed at his romantic advances, stressing that her death was "an accident." Having lied that he lost the gun, Dormer suggests Kay's dress would be sufficient evidence to implicate Randy. The next day, Finch is questioned and mentions that Kay described Randy's abuse to him in her letters. Finch then claims Randy threatened Kay with a gun, and Dormer realizes his trap has again failed. Randy is arrested when the .38 is found in his house. Finch asks Burr to come to his lake house the next day to collect Kay's letters.

Returning to the cabin, Burr discovers a 9mm shell casing. She reads her police academy thesis about one of Dormer's cases and realizes he carries a 9mm as a backup weapon. After trashing his room in an attempt to block the sunlight coming through the window, Dormer confides in the hotel clerk about the Internal Affairs investigation: he fabricated evidence against a pedophile he was certain had murdered one of his victims, and the conviction (among many others) would have been overturned had Eckhart testified. When he tries to justify this to himself, the clerk asks him if it's something he's willing to live with.

Dormer breaks into Finch's apartment again and discovers Kay's letters. Realizing Burr is being lured into a trap, he rushes to Finch's lake house, where Finch reveals he has Kay's dress before knocking Burr unconscious. Dormer arrives and confronts Finch, but is disorientated from lack of sleep and overpowered before Burr revives and drives Finch off. She tells Dormer she knows he shot Eckhart, and he admits he is no longer certain it was an accident. Finch retrieves a shotgun from his boathouse and begins shooting; Burr returns fire while Dormer outflanks Finch. In a struggle Dormer wrestles the shotgun away, but Finch draws Burr's gun and they shoot each other, resulting in both of them being respectively wounded and killed. Attempting to comfort the mortally wounded Dormer, Burr moves to throw away the shell casing that proves his guilt. Dormer stops her, telling her not to lose her way as he did, before dying.

Source: Insomnia (2002 film), Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0); facts via OMDb.