Leonardo DiCaprio’s Favorite Christopher Nolan Is This Action Classic — and It’s Not ‘Inception’

Leonardo DiCaprio‘s portrayal of the paranoid revolutionary Bob in One Battle After Another, while not a huge box office hit, has been a major success for the Oscar winner. Not only has it established him as a strong contender for awards such as “Best Actor in a Leading Role” at the upcoming Academy Awards, but he can now add working with Paul Thomas Anderson to his list of acclaimed collaborators. Previously, he has worked multiple times with renowned directors like Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, and Baz Luhrmann, experiences that have offered him valuable insights into the art of filmmaking. Consequently, DiCaprio’s picks for his favorite films are particularly fascinating. Considering the number of renowned directors he’s collaborated with, it’s likely that some of these choices are by the same filmmakers. So, when he was asked during an interview with Collider‘s Steve Weintraub what his top Christopher Nolan film was, it made sense for him to steer clear of Inception on a pure fairness level. However, the actual answer may surprise you, yet it is a completely valid one when you dig a little deeper.

Leonardo DiCaprio’s Favorite Christopher Nolan Film is a Superhero Movie

Leonardo DiCaprio was joined by his One Battle After Another co-star, Benicio del Toro, while they were asked by Weintraub about some of their top picks for different prestigious filmmakers. For both Steven Spielberg and Stanley Kubrick, both men’s answers were fairly predictable: E.T., Jaws, and 2001: A Space Odyssey. When it came to Nolan, the pair were quick to agree once again, both stating “The Dark Knight” almost without hesitation. While there’s no reason to be surprised from a general point of view, DiCaprio’s praise of Nolan’s superhero masterpiece is surprising given his aversion to the genre in the past. While DiCaprio has never directly critiqued the genre, Timothée Chalamet did reveal the blunt and interesting advice given to him by his Don’t Look Up co-star during an interview with British Vogue: “no hard drugs and no superhero movies.”

While it would be a bit of a cop out to simply say he enjoys watching them but doesn’t want to act in them, the more plausible explanation for these contradictory pieces of information is how Nolan approached the genre that DiCaprio is seemingly wary of. Throughout The Dark Knight trilogy, Nolan redefined what a superhero film could be. With dark analyses of society, the idea of what a hero actually means in the modern day, and grounded action, Nolan’s The Dark Knight was an outlier of the industry and, to this day, remains arguably untouched in terms of the love and respect both critics and fans hold for it. In contrast, by 2018, when DiCaprio advised his younger colleague, the Marvel universe dominated the superhero genre, with other studios trying to imitate its formula with largely unsuccessful, mediocre films. In that case, it may not have been the genre itself that DiCaprio was warning Chalamet about, but its tendency to produce studio-driven projects, rather than artistically ambitious films.

Leonardo DiCaprio’s Pick For Christopher Nolan’s Best Film Isn’t Wrong

Considering how many incredible films Christopher Nolan has made, it is hard to say with complete certainty that The Dark Knight is his best work, with Oppenheimer, Memento, and Interstellar all being stunning pieces of cinema. However, it cannot be said that DiCaprio’s choice isn’t without strong merit. One of the aspects of The Dark Knight that stands out from Nolan’s other works is not just its obviously amazing villain, Heath Ledger‘s Joker, but the fact that its action is the best Nolan has ever done.

Within the trilogy, Nolan found his sweet spot for grounded fighting while giving the audience a spectacle. Batman’s (Christian Bale) fight scenes are shot better than in Batman Begins, as Nolan chooses brighter environments with higher contrast, such as the neon-lit car park and Joker’s daytime bank heist, rather than the overly dark Gotham streets. Compared to The Dark Knight Rises, the fluid choreography is also at its peak, with Batman’s updated cowl allowing him to turn his head, which feels like a clear nod to this improvement, whereas the fights with Bane (Tom Hardy) were slower and more labored. For the audience, the action is far easier to digest than some of Nolan’s other works. Batman’s feats are on the same scale as Inception and Tenet, with a timed extraction of Lau (Chin Han) and a multi-storey hostage rescue in the climax, while not messing with time or physics. In doing so, it is a far more linear scene in terms of momentum and stakes.

While some may consider it less complex, the benefit of not over-complicating things for your audience cannot be ignored. It must also be something that worked for Leonardo DiCaprio, considering his decisiveness in his decision to name The Dark Knight as Nolan’s best work. In the end, DiCaprio’s choice is a fascinating one because of the context surrounding the pick, as well as how it can neither be invalidated nor will it solve the never-ending debate surrounding the rankings of Nolan’s films.

The Dark Knight is available to stream on HBO Max in the U.S.

Release Date

July 16, 2008

Runtime

152 minutes

Producers

Benjamin Melniker, Charles Roven, Emma Thomas, Kevin De La Noy, Michael Uslan