Christopher Nolan is on cloud nine after his biopic, Oppenheimer, garnered significant attention at the 96th Academy Awards. With the highest number of Oscar nominations this year, Oppenheimer has already won the director his first Golden Globes award this year. While Nolan is the favorite to win the Best Director Oscar, it is notable that some of his earlier works did not receive the deserved recognition from the Academy.
While nine of his films have received nominations at the Oscars, Nolan has yet to win a Best Director or Best Picture award at this prestigious awards ceremony. Among these nine films, at least three had the potential to win him his long-overdue award.
The Dark Knight
Christopher Nolan experimented with the comic book genre in The Dark Knight trilogy and even went on to serve as an inspiration for other films in the genre. Nolan’s second film in the trilogy, The Dark Knight, became the first comic book film to be widely recognized in major awards. The film received eight nominations at the 81st Academy Awards, but Nolan was notably snubbed for the Best Director and Best Picture awards.
The Dark Knight won two out of its eight nominations, including the posthumous Academy Award for Heath Ledger. Richard King also won the Best Sound Editing Award for the film. The year was marked by some amazing productions, which probably resulted in The Dark Knight not getting recognized in the major categories. Slumdog Millionaire won the Best Picture award and the director of the film, Danny Boyle, won the Best Director.
The comic book films were generally ignored by the Academy voters, which made both the film’s inclusion and its snub in the major categories a topic of discussion. In 2023, while welcoming the Academy’s move to include Top Gun: Maverick and Avatar: The Way of Water in Best Picture Oscar nominations, Steven Spielberg told Deadline that the decision came late for The Dark Knight. The film is now available for streaming on Max.
Inception
The magnitude and complexity of Inception delayed the film for years, however, Christopher Nolan’s reputation with The Dark Knight helped him finally bring his vision to screen. It is considered one of the best films of 2010 and earned eight nominations at the 83rd Academy Awards. While the film won four Oscars, including Best Cinematography, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Visual Effects, Nolan did not receive an Oscar for screenplay or direction.
While the Insomnia director was nominated for the Best Director award at the Golden Globes and BAFTA, he was snubbed from the nominations at the Oscar. The Week described his snub as the “biggest mystery of [2011]’s Academy Awards” since the film garnered nominations for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay. The film was defeated in most of its artistic nominations by the two biggest contenders that year, The Social Network and The King’s Speech.
The biggest disappointment for the film was the Golden Globes, where the film didn’t win a single award. Inception is now available for rent on AppleTV+.
Dunkirk
Dunkirk earned Nolan his first directorial nomination at the Oscars. After receiving criticism for continually omitting the Interstellar director in the key category, the Academy finally acknowledged Nolan’s directorial prowess in this film. Dunkirk also earned seven other nominations, including the Best Picture, but it was notably snubbed in the screenplay and acting awards.
It was not just Christopher Nolan fans who felt the lack of recognition at the Oscars for the film. Director Quentin Tarantino was surprised when the academy failed to recognize Nolan’s screenplay or Hoyte van Hoytema’s cinematography in the film. Speaking to The Rewatchables podcast, Tarantino also added that Hans Zimmer’s score not winning the Best Original Score was a snub. Tarantino shared on the podcast:
“I’m not gonna weigh in on the Academy politics… I was stumped. I think the fact that the score didn’t win was a snub. The fact that he didn’t get nominated for Best Screenplay is a snub. I mean a big snub.”
Nolan was a frontrunner to win the Best Director that year, but the women-centric films including Lady Bird, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, and The Shape of Water took home most of the awards. Dunkirk is now available for rent on AppleTV+. Nolan is hopeful that he might achieve his dream of winning the prestigious award for Oppenheimer, which is now available for rent on AppleTV+.
