Watch: 12 Trademarks You'll See in Pretty Much Every Christopher Nolan Film | No Film School

Whether he's filming neo-noirs, sci-fi adventures, or superhero flicks, Christopher Nolan has a way of infusing his unique flavor of cerebral cinema, complete with bleakness, complicated intellectual acrobatics, and total mind-f**kery. And while most fans know about Nolan's penchant for putting audiences through the metaphysical gauntlet (and then laughing maniacally while he watches them try to make sense of everything), what are some of the Oscar-nominee's other cinematic trademarks? ScreenPrism explores twelve of them in the video below:

Though you may not be able to pinpoint a film by Christopher Nolan as quickly and easily as you would, say, a film by Wes Anderson or Quentin Tarantino, you do get to peer a bit more into the depths of the director's psyche. Nolan's brand of cinema shows us what excites his intellect, what intrigues him, what confuses him. So many of his films explore the metaphysical world and its many mysterious unanswered questions—What is time? What is truth? What is fact? What does it mean to exist?

But again, ScreenPrism does a great job of highlighting the many techniques and characteristics Nolan comes back to in order to tell his stories. So, to answer the central question of the video: "You know it's a Christopher Nolan movie if..."

there's a non-linear story
there's a subjective point of view
the story makes you a detective
there is an ambiguous ending
characters have a split identity
there is moral ambiguity
there is expressive lighting
you see characteristics of film noir
there are digital and practical effects
it's self-referential
it deals with common themes, like revenge, anger, and guilt
Wally Pfister is behind the camera (and a number of recurring cast and crew)

What are some other trademarks in Christopher Nolan's films? Let us know in the comments below.

Source: ScreenPrism

Christopher Nolan directors visual storytelling

What's the Hype With 'Interstellar' Revisiting Cinemas After a Decade in 70mm IMAX?

Here's Why You Need to Revisit 'Interstellar' in 70mm IMAX

Celebrate the love and hope at the center of Nolan's space epic in the format it was meant to be seen.

If we know anything about Christopher Nolan, he likes to go big. Nolan started with smaller-scale stories (as many of us do) with early noir adjacent works like Following, Memento, and Insomnia, then started going and staying big with his illusionist drama The Prestige. Since then, the scale has been various degrees of massive, with the biggest scope in his time-and-space sprawling epic, Interstellar.

While Interstellarmight not be everyone's favorite Nolan outing, there's no denying it's an impressive feat of filmmaking and his most emotional—if watching Matthew McConaughey's Cooper desperately try to reach his family through quantum space-time doesn't make you cry at least a little bit, what's going on, dude?

With Interstellar'sIMAX release, it's a great time to shed some tears in a public setting in one of the most prestigious film formats around. As we mentioned in our film gauge piece, Nolan loves shooting on film and utilizes 65mm intentionally to provoke a tone of massive scale. In that regard, Interstellar was made for 70mm IMAX. That goes without saying, dawg. That being said, other factors make Interstellar a perfect movie to revisit in theaters while you can.

Let's break down the release further below.

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