Christopher Nolan
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Project Hail Mary (2026)
Directed by Phil Lord
influenced by Interstellar (2014)
Themes Visuals Characters
One review noted that Project Hail Mary tries to balance dark human emotion – in the vein of Arrival and Interstellar – alongside lighter, funnier moments, and those two tones don’t always gel smoothly.
It doesn’t aim to stun viewers in the way that, say, Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar does, but it has all the sci-fi hallmarks, with excellent set pieces throughout.
But unlike its cerebral cinematic sibling Interstellar, Project Hail Mary isn’t here to existentially ponder, but to whizz-bang entertain.
Project Hail Mary doubles and triples down on the communication problems that have been genre staples from 2001 to Silent Running to Contact, Interstellar and Arrival.
…the most polished and emotionally satisfying space epics since “Interstellar.”
…a touch of TARS from Interstellar…
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
Directed by Steven Spielberg
influenced Interstellar (2014)
Themes Visuals
Here is a film that provides plenty of 70mm action (cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema shot the whole thing on film with IMAX cameras he calls “the world’s heaviest Go-Pros”), as well as references both obvious and veiled to such influential sci-fi and/or science touchstones as 2001: A Space Odyssey , Close Encounters of the Third Kind , The Right Stuff and the best speculative fiction of to-the-stars maestro Robert A. Heinlein.
There is sincerity in the homage paid by its writer-director, Christopher Nolan, to two masterpieces of science-fiction cinema, Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: a Space Odyssey and Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Interstellar, which was originally a Steven Spielberg project (some of his markers, notably the ’70s-style farmhouse, remain), has an emotional core that recalls Spielberg’s critique of his own film, Close Encounters of the Third Kind: Richard Dreyfuss should have never left his family.
The rustic homestead, where Cooper and his father-in-law (John Lithgow) drink beer on the porch, recalls the Indiana home of "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" — an early hint that "Interstellar" — moving and sentimental — will be more Spielberg (who was once attached to direct) than Kubrick.
No, Nolan's end result here will not and should not be mentioned in the same breath as "2001: A Space Odyssey" or "Close Encounters of the Third Kind."
Astronauts Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway journey to a distant galaxy on a desperate mission to save humanity in this brainy, heartfelt, gorgeous and flawlessly acted sci-fi epic — inspired by “2001: A Space Odyssey,’’ “Close Encounters of the Third Kind’’ and less likely sources such as “The Grapes of Wrath.’’
And to pilot the ship, he needs Cooper, an instinctive flight jockey in the Chuck Yeager mode, much as McConaughey’s laconic, effortlessly self-assured performance recalls Sam Shepard’s as Yeager in “The Right Stuff” (another obvious “Interstellar” touchstone).
Here is a film that provides plenty of 70mm action (cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema shot the whole thing on film with IMAX cameras he calls “the world’s heaviest Go-Pros”), as well as references both obvious and veiled to such influential sci-fi and/or science touchstones as 2001: A Space Odyssey , Close Encounters of the Third Kind , The Right Stuff and the best speculative fiction of to-the-stars maestro Robert A. Heinlein.
There is also a “hotdog” swagger to his performance that reminds of the thrill seeking pilots, turned astronauts in Philip Kauffman’s 1983 space-race epic The Right Stuff .
Matthew McConaughey plays a former test pilot named Cooper (surely an homage to cocky test pilot Gordo Cooper of “The Right Stuff”).
Set in a near future when a dusty, ravaged Earth seems unlikely to sustain another full generation of humans, Interstellar finds Matthew McConaughey playing a cross between Richard Dreyfuss' Everyman from Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind and any of the brave astronauts seen in Philip Kaufman's The Right Stuff (two more classics whose DNA can be detected in Nolan's film).
Matthew McConaughey stars as “Coop,” basically playing Sam Shepard as Chuck Yeager in The Right Stuff and doing a fine job of it.
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Directed by Stanley Kubrick
influenced Interstellar (2014), Inception (2010), Dunkirk (2017), The Odyssey (2026), Tenet (2020)
Visuals Themes
There are moments that evoke the awe of “Lawrence of Arabia,” the monumental scale of “The Ten Commandments,” and even the existential grandeur of “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
His images are arresting and original — but with echoes of "Inception" and "2001: A Space Odyssey" (the movie to which "Interstellar" will inevitably be compared).
In a sly bit of homage, “Interstellar” references not only “2001: A Space Odyssey” but the sequel, “2010.”
Here is a film that provides plenty of 70mm action (cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema shot the whole thing on film with IMAX cameras he calls “the world’s heaviest Go-Pros”), as well as references both obvious and veiled to such influential sci-fi and/or science touchstones as 2001: A Space Odyssey , Close Encounters of the Third Kind , The Right Stuff and the best speculative fiction of to-the-stars maestro Robert A. Heinlein.
One of the most important settings from the film looks and feels like a shelved concept (wink wink) from Inception , practically a dream sequence but certainly inspired by Stanley Kubick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey ; that film seems to be a blueprint for this movie, substituting similar visuals while even the robots resemble one-by-three-by-nine obelisks.
This is Nolan’s unabashed tribute to 2001: A Space Odyssey, the first movie he ever saw at the age of 8 and the one that made him decide to be a filmmaker (there are homages to that earlier film everywhere).
Saving Private Ryan (1998)
Directed by Steven Spielberg
influenced Dunkirk (2017), The Odyssey (2026), The Prestige (2006)
Characters Visuals
From Jason Bourne to Saving Private Ryan, Matt Damon has made a career playing military men struggling with conscience and memory issues…
Between Saving Private Ryan, the Bourne series, The Martian, Interstellar, and five minutes of Ocean’s Eleven, Matt Damon is one of the most sought-after faces on and off-screen—and for good reason.
…a guy who seems to have an affinity for roles where he’s fighting to get home — Saving Private Ryan, Interstellar, and The Martian…
The long, graphic battle scene of the landing on Iwo Jima, filmed in desaturated colors, recalls the opening of Saving Private Ryan, and the final shot, in which we revisit the same beachhead in the present, is straight out of Schindler's List.
This is the most visceral, shocking opening to a war movie since Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan.
One might expect such a canvas to be accompanied by Saving Private Ryan-esque panoramic carnage, but rather than giving scope for large-scale violence, it simply serves to amp up the tension.
Joffe wisely doesn't ape Christopher Nolan's approach in the brilliantly executed Memento (to do so would have invited unfavorable comparisons) but his sure-handed (albeit conventional) approach to the material only goes far enough to make the setup compelling.
Nicole Kidman, Colin Firth and Mark Strong add value to this British psychological thriller with faint echoes of Memento in that its heroine suffers from a perilous case of amnesia.
In a twist that will probably have any neuropsychiatrists in the audience tsk-tsking to themselves, this already "atypical" case of anterograde amnesia — the kind that inspired Christopher Nolan's brilliant "Memento" as well as the brain-dead rom-com "50 First Dates" — also erased years of her life from before the accident, including her marriage.
Let’s say it can, and let’s even say that it’s not really a problem that this is a sloppy ripoff of “Memento.”
A shameless, mostly sanitized rip-off of better genre offerings like Memento and Diabolically Yours, Before I Go To Sleep imagines, soap-opera-style, that simply thinking really hard and occasionally being jolted by gruesome pictures can reverse rare forms of amnesia.
From the stylish mysteries of Hitchcock's Spellbound to the art-house thrills of Memento , the horrors of Angel Heart, the sci-fi experiments of Total Recall , the tragicomic heartbreak of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind , and even the goofy romance of 50 First Dates , memory – or the lack of it – has provided a nifty plot device for a dazzling array of cinematic crowd-pleasers.
A House of Dynamite (2025)
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow
influenced by Oppenheimer (2023), Dunkirk (2017)
Themes
…the opposite of Christopher Nolan’s stinger in Oppenheimer, which cut through time and space to grant its namesake a moment of terrible prophecy.
It picks up where Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer left off, with its chilling reminder that the invention of the atomic bomb may have triggered a chain reaction leading to humanity’s end.
And it comes amid a modern revival of big-screen nuclear anxiety including 2023’s “Oppenheimer” and preceding James Cameron’s announced plans to make “Ghosts of Hiroshima.
Not unlike Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, A House of Dynamite is fundamentally an institutionalist’s outcry about the horrors of nuclear proliferation.
Oppenheimer…
Oppenheimer and Cuban Missile Crisis docudrama Thirteen Days on the BOATS (Based On A True Story) end of things…
(One movie not referenced is Joseph Ruben ’s terrific “Dreamscape,” from 1984, which had a lot more fun with some of the same concepts.)
Similarly themed films have been produced over the years -- such as the 1984 Dennis Quaid thriller "Dreamscape," the 1999 blockbuster "The Matrix" and Jim Carrey's 2004 indie hit "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" -- though none with as quality a cast or as much dramatic oomph as "Inception."The…
"Dreamscape" (1984) featured a man who could enter and manipulate dreams, and, of course, in "The Matrix" (1999) human beings and machines battled on various reality levels created by artificial intelligence.
It lacks the nimbleness of Spielberg’s Minority Report or the Jungian-carnival bravado of Joseph Ruben’s Dreamscape or the eerily clean lines and stylized black-suited baddies of The Matrix?or, for that matter, the off-kilter intensity of Nolan’s own Insomnia.
The Bigger Picture: Though there will undoubtedly be (valid) comparisons made to The Matrix and Solaris , a more blatant antecedent for Inception is Joseph Ruben's 1984 thriller Dreamscape , in which Dennis Quaid must enter the President's nightmares to prevent an assassin from doing likewise.
The idea of entering dreams to manipulate someone isn’t new — “Dreamscape” did that back in 1984 — but Nolan raises the stakes with brilliantly deployed effects (Gordon-Levitt walking on ceilings is just one “wow” moment) and a fast-moving, globe-spanning story.
On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)
Directed by Peter R. Hunt
influenced Inception (2010)
Themes Visuals Plot
By also functioning as an action thriller, Inception fulfills Nolan's ongoing promise to craft works that are exciting as movies and exciting as films, layered with a Hitchcockian self-reflexivity about the dream escapism of movies themselves (Nolan has copped to Blade Runner , On Her Majesty's Secret Service and Topkapi being among his favorite movies, and their echoes are felt here).
Indeed, all those different dreamscapes give Nolan the chance to reprise what I can well imagine are some of his favourite episodes of cinematic derring-do and adventure – from James Bond’s alpine escapades in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service to the scorching gun battles of Heat .
When you add in the complications of dream time (five minutes of reality is about an hour of dream time) which expands exponentially the deeper you create levels of dreams within dreams, and a third layer that plays out like a literal tribute to On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (was this somehow a favorite lodged in the subconscious of one of these subconscious invaders?) it more and more resembles a movie created by the dreamers.
Otherwise, dreams amount to action scenes referencing other movies – Mission: Impossible, The Matrix, and the swirling snow-bound gun-battles of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.
At the same time, there’s one level of the film where it seems to turn into Peter Hunt’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969), but it turns out to be O.H.M.S.S. with Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) at its core.
The Matrix (1999)
Directed by Lana Wachowski
influenced Inception (2010), Tenet (2020), Interstellar (2014), Oppenheimer (2023)
Visuals Plot Themes
The use of special effects to communicate radical perceptual shifts comes courtesy of The Matrix .
It’s a concept with a heavy debt to “The Matrix” (another team of pros hacking a simulated reality) and author Jeff Noon’s groundbreaking “Vurt” (with its programmed dreams and similar Orpheus-like theme), but Nolan sets it in a more mundane world closer to the one we all know.
"The Matrix" and its "what is reality" themes and storyline will obviously come to most viewers' minds, while the likes of "Total Recall," "Dreamscape" and others of their ilk have similarly mined the sci-fi world regarding dreams, memories and the like.
As much as some will immediately compare Nolan’s latest to “The Matrix” in that it also plays with the concepts of reality, “Inception” is like “The Matrix” times 10, as if you took that meeting between Neo and the Architect from “Reloaded” and stretched it out across an entire film.
Nolan's inspirations include The Matrix, Blade Runner and a fusion of M.C.
It's a haunting, high-octane trip reminiscent of The Matrix .
They’re unforgettable characters on their own, but they also mirror the guilt, trauma, and loss that haunt him long after his brutal invasion of Troy.
…the Wizard of Oz effect makes it so, just like with Troy, no Gods are actually used…
…his invasion heroics in Troy…
I never thought I’d find myself talking up Wolfgang Petersen’s big-budget 2004 epic Troy, based on Homer’s other story, and starring Brad Pitt, Eric Bana, Orlando Bloom, and Diane Kruger.
Whereas Wolfgang Petersen’s Troy feared even acknowledging the gods and reduced the war of its title to a fortnight frolic on a beach, Nolan’s Odyssey is all-encompassing, faithful, and dares incorporate actual history we know from the late Bronze Age.
The last major film in this genre, Wolfgang Petersen’s TROY, hit theaters 22 years ago, so huge epics about Greek mythology are rare.
1917 (2019)
Directed by Sam Mendes
influenced Dunkirk (2017), Batman Begins (2005), The Dark Knight (2008), Tenet (2020)
Visuals Themes
The director can speed it up or slow it down through editing and other technical tricks, and we can have the illusion that we’ve lived through a full day when it’s been only a couple of hours (as with Sam Mendes’s 1917 , for instance).
The list is exemplary: Apocalypse Now, A Bridge Too Far, The Thin Red Line, Platoon, Saving Private Ryan, The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds, Fury, Dunkirk.
The greatest war films are those which capture the terrifying physical and psychological ordeal that soldiers face, along with the sheer folly and waste of it all – Paths of Glory, Come and See, Apocalypse Now, Saving Private Ryan, most recently Dunkirk.
Not since Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk has time itself been so foregrounded as a war film’s scariest foe.
Director Sam Mendes, telling a tale based on stories that he heard in his youth from his grandfather (who at age 19 had been a messenger for the British Army during WWI) has here combined elements of “Dunkirk” and “Saving Private Ryan,” among others, and used Alejandro González Iñárritu’s single-shot storytelling method (used for “Birdman” and “The Revenant”) to create some impressive, innovative world-building.
Mendes works closely with the legendary Roger Deakins, and wisely borrows Dunkirk editor Lee Smith, to build and keep a perspective that moves with his heroes throughout the movie.
Like Guy Pearce in "Memento," the title character in writer-director Scott Frank's "The Lookout" needs to write notes to himself so he won't forget what he has to do each day.
Just don't expect another "Memento," despite the superficial similarities.
The story may sound reminiscent of Christopher Nolan's "Memento."
Thrillers featuring characters with short term memory problems risk being mentioned alongside Memento, and that comparison does not favor The Lookout.
The Lookout is Memento set in Mayberry, without any chronological conundrums.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt, as a fellow who has suffered serious head trauma, comes up with such a moody Method assemblage of twitches, tics, and guilty Memento mannerisms that he's not much fun to watch.
Joel and Ethan Coen’s O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), starring George Clooney…
Not in the way that O Brother, Where Art Thou? loosely adapted Homer’s story into a silly Southern romp.
Homer’s literary work has been adapted multiple times for the screen, including by the Coen Brothers in O Brother, Where Art Thou?
…rather than something more loosely inspired like O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Previous attempts to grapple with Homer’s epic veered into schlocky melodrama (Ulysses in 1954), artsy meditation (The Return in 2024) or comic metaphor O Brother, Where Art Thou? in 2000).
…most of the stuff I do remember only sticks by way of O Brother, Where Art Thou?, which remains my favorite adaptation of the text.
Sci-fi movie buffs will spot the homages to 2001 , Tremors , Alien , Interstellar and The Martian , but ticking off film references isn't enough to make Lightyear enjoyable for adults.
The marooned crew have been stuck for several decades (time moves quickly in the same vein as the ocean planet in Interstellar) and across that time, guided by generational growth, they come to see the planet as a new home.
With its classic science-fiction framework, “Lightyear” borrows from “The Twilight Zone,” “Star Trek,” Christopher Nolan’s “Interstellar” and others.
Director Angus MacLane and his co-writer Jason Headley then pilfer a concept from Interstellar as Buzz deals with time dilation in his attempts to finish the mission as a Space Ranger should.
Now, we’ve had funny robot sidekicks for yonks; from Lost in Space , Buck Rogers and Star Wars all the way to Interstellar .
Sometimes playing like Starship Troopers 4 Kidz, and at other points like Interstellar crossed with Pixar’s own Up, Lightyear follows the title space ranger (voiced here not by Allen but Evans) as he struggles to find his way back to Earth after becoming marooned on an alien planet with thousands of other scientists during an expedition gone awry.
(When you experience time inversion, you have to wear a special mask because your system is so screwed up, “normal” air will do you in.) “Tenet” is a movie filled with nods to other movies, from a certain color-coded element reminiscent of “The Matrix” to a late scene with an obvious nod to “Casablanca.”
I would be forsaken if I weren’t to reference Casablanca , “This looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”
Washington does make an impressively rugged hero, but on this outing he’s surprisingly lacking in charisma, and he strikes fewer sparks with Debicki’s heroine than he does with Pattinson’s cooly ironic sidekick – their rapport echoing Humphrey Bogart and Claude Rains’ beautiful friendship in Casablanca .
And he gets to paraphrase Casablanca , telling the Protangist that this is “the end of a beautiful friendship.”
Sí, se trata de creer, y Nolan transfiere ese mandato de fe al espectador, que debe confiar en Tenet a ciegas, en sus GESTOS deslumbrantes, en sus “mentiras”, en sus criaturas sin fondo, hechas de celuloide (de 70mm): personajes que citan como autómatas, a la manera de Godard, palabras de Walt Withman, de T.S. Eliot, de los protagonistas de Casablanca .
Wicked: For Good (2025)
Directed by Jon M. Chu
influenced by The Dark Knight (2008), The Odyssey (2026), The Dark Knight Rises (2012), Oppenheimer (2023)
Visuals Themes Plot
…several scenes in which he directly echoes the “disappearing Batman act” on the rooftops and terraces of the Emerald City…
Which introduces an interesting theme that harks back to Batman movie The Dark Knight, concerning whether Oz needs a villainous symbol for the kingdom to unite against…
Fans of Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities or Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight will anticipate Elphaba’s destiny.
The Dark Knight approached a similar topic in the pop culture sphere—not as a reflection of idealism, but as a necessary evil amidst the War on Terror…
Follow-ups like The Godfather Part II, The Dark Knight, The Empire Strikes Back and numerous others all build upon the characters and world-building established in their predecessors…
They eventually team up for a resolution that recalls The Dark Knight (2008)—or rather, since the 1995 book and 2003 Broadway musical came first, Wicked may have influenced Christopher Nolan. Just as Batman arranged things so Gotham would lionize Harvey Dent as a hero and demonize Batman himself as a murderous vigilante, Elphaba volunteers to become the villain, staging her death so Glinda can thrive as the Good Witch they believe Oz needs…
It's obviously inspired by Fred Astaire's wall and ceiling dance sequence in "Royal Wedding," and the fact that it was shot the same way (with a revolving set rather than computer-generated effects) makes those scenes all the more impressive to behold.
The most rousing action sequence, a fight in a zero-gravity hallway, cleverly lifts from "2001" (and "Royal Wedding," in which Fred Astaire danced on the walls and the ceiling).
There are images in this smoothly elegant film that will be talked about for decades: six sleepers floating weightlessly in a hotel room; a Paris street folding in on itself; and in an echo of Fred Astaire’s dancing-on-the-ceiling scene from “Royal Wedding,” two guys crawl all over a ceiling with the same special-effect technique, except they’re not tap-dancing — they’re trying to kill each other.
Doctor Strange (2016)
Directed by Scott Derrickson
influenced by Inception (2010), Batman Begins (2005)
Visuals
Non-specialists would not want to bet their lives on being able to identify which dimension the film occupies at any specific moment, but from a visual point of view the upshot is that Doctor Strange enters a dazzling zone in which whole slabs of the New York cityscape fold down, multiply and assume new configurations in ways that take their cue from Inception but go far beyond it in visual spectacle.
The latter trick, which turncoat ex-disciple Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelsen) uses for more nefarious purposes, lends the film a staggering visual effects innovation, in which the building-bending seen in Christopher Nolan’s “Inception” is taken to an extreme that would blow even M.C.
The look is a little bit The Matrix, a little bit Inception, a little bit Dark City, and all acid trip.
Unapologetically folding the likes of “The Matrix” and “Inception” into the fabric of the Marvel Cinematic Universe , “Sinister” director Scott Derrickson reaches into the mirror dimension (whatever the hell that is) and retrieves the year’s most (only?) visually dazzling blockbuster.
True, Nolan has already mined this visual style half a dozen years ago in Inception, but it’s put to good effect by Derrickson.
Just as smart, the film’s director, Scott Derrickson (taking a giant leap from the Blumhouse cheapie-chiller Sinister, not to mention Hellraiser: Inferno) stylistically nods to puzzle-box brainteasers like Dark City, Inception, and The Matrix to conjure a cinematic universe that couldn’t be further removed from the usual Marvel spandexapaloozas.
Ad Astra (2019)
Directed by James Gray
influenced by Interstellar (2014), Dunkirk (2017)
Themes Visuals
It’s a sci-fi movie in the same vein as Christopher Nolan’s “Interstellar” and Alfonso Cuaron’s “Gravity” – it actually sits rather nicely at a midpoint between the two in terms of relative technological advancement while also echoing the complex emotional dynamics they put forth.
In particular it recalls Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar , and not only because of the sweeping, naturalistic visual sensibility that Dutch cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema brought to both films.
Ad Astra , the new movie from James Gray ( The Lost City of Z ), naturally recalls any number of other sci-fi exercises, from 2001: A Space Odyssey (which set the Bakelite-gleam standard for decades of extraterrestrial adventures to come) to Gravity and Interstellar .
The visual genius behind Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk and Interstellar (which feels much like Ad Astra) is again at the top of his game, assisted admirably by Max Richter’s inspirational score, not to mention an impeccable sound design and impressive but never obtrusive special effects.
Ad Astra is a sometimes compelling space drama, but it can't quite match the heights of both Gravity or Interstellar.
Solaris, Interstellar, Gravity, 2001: A Space Odyssey — Gray pays homage to each and more, along with another, more earthbound, masterwork: Apocalypse Now.