Christopher Nolan | No 6 | Film Power 100
Director: Inception, The Dark Knight
Who are the directors that can get any film green-lit? That was a key question in deciding the order of the Film Power 100. Christopher Nolan, 40, was the youngest and for some the most exciting name to pass that test. Nolan has acquired the enviable reputation of being an auteur working within the studio system. Few directors energise audiences as he does: impressing the popcorn -punters while being sufficiently cerebral to get the arthouse crowd chattering. Nolan quickly positioned himself inside Hollywood's elite after the success of his memory-jigsaw second film Memento. He resuscitated the Batman franchise with a brooding pair of movies: Batman Begins and The Dark Knight (a third film is in the pipeline). Together they made $1.3bn, establishing Nolan as a safe pair of hands with eye-watering budgets (Inception's was $170m). Whether he is or is not the heir to Alfred Hitchcock or Stanley Kubrick notwithstanding, the fact the internet burned up from the moment Inception was announced is an indication of his standing. Not everyone is convinced he is, cinematically speaking, the second coming ("He's a cold guy who makes cold films," has been the oft repeated quote, attributed to an unnamed producer). But Nolan is still a young director: he turned 40 a couple of weeks after Inception opened. That gives him plenty of time to decide if he wants to play it safe with superheroes or delve into deeper waters.