Christopher Nolan Names the Most Underrated Film of His Career

Christopher Nolan has said that The Dark Knight Rises doesn’t get enough credit. In his words, “I don’t have a favorite of any of my films, but I think The Dark Knight Rises is an underrated movie. There are things in there that we did that are pretty subversive and pretty shocking. It’s as close as I’ll get to adapting A Tale of Two Cities.” He feels the film has more layers than people realize and that it contains deeper ideas than it’s often given credit for.

Released in 2012, The Dark Knight Rises is the last part of Nolan’s Batman trilogy. It picks up eight years after The Dark Knight, showing Bruce Wayne living in isolation and no longer wearing the Batman suit.

But when a new threat arrives in the form of a terrorist named Bane, he’s forced to come out of retirement to try and save Gotham from being destroyed by a nuclear bomb.

Christian Bale returns as Bruce Wayne and Batman. He’s joined by a strong cast that includes Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle, Tom Hardy as Bane, Gary Oldman, Michael Caine, Marion Cotillard, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Morgan Freeman.

Nolan worked on the script with his brother Jonathan Nolan and David S. Goyer helped with the story. The movie took ideas from different Batman comics like “Knightfall”, “No Man’s Land”, and The Dark Knight Returns.

Even before it came out, the movie had a lot of buzz. Warner Bros. ran big marketing campaigns, which included releasing the first six minutes of the film ahead of time and putting out trailers that teased the darker and more serious tone of the story.

When the film was finally released, most people liked it. It got strong scores on sites like Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic. Many reviews said it was a powerful and emotional ending to the trilogy. Some felt it was deep, exciting, and visually impressive. The audience score was also very high, with people giving it an “A” rating.

Still, not everyone was thrilled. Some viewers thought the story was too long or too packed with characters. Others compared it to the earlier film The Dark Knight and said it didn’t quite reach the same level, especially when it came to the villain. Heath Ledger’s Joker had left a huge mark, and Tom Hardy’s Bane didn’t quite match that for some.

A lot of people saw political messages in the movie too. Around the time it was released, the Occupy Wall Street protests were going on, and some thought the film had a conservative message.

Some said it was showing support for the rich or attacking the idea of revolution. Others said it was anti-Occupy. But Nolan pushed back on all of that. He said, “We put a lot of interesting questions in the air, but that’s simply a backdrop for the story. What we’re really trying to do is show the cracks of society, show the conflicts that somebody would try to wedge open… but it’s not doing any of those things. It’s just telling a story.”

There were even comparisons to Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities, which Nolan has said was an influence. The scenes of uprising, prison, and sacrifice all reflect that connection.

Some people loved the final scenes of the movie and felt the ending wrapped up the trilogy in a big and emotional way. The film was even picked as one of the top movies of the year by major film organizations.

Even now, The Dark Knight Rises remains a movie that people debate. Some see it as a bold, thoughtful blockbuster, while others think it’s a step down from the earlier film. But Nolan clearly believes there’s more to it than people often notice.

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