INSOMNIA

Insomnia is the odd film out in Nolan's catalog, twice over: His only remake (of the 1997 Norwegian thriller) and the only film he did not write or co-write. As for its shape: Told straight through — the pressure comes from the Alaskan midnight sun, not the edit. That part it shares with a couple of others: of the 13 films charted below, 10 are told out of order and 3 play it straight.

Playing it straight cost Nolan nothing with critics. They gave it 92% approval across 203 reviews, with the consensus crediting the duel between Al Pacino and Robin Williams — a sleepless detective interrogated by his own witness. Audiences hold it at 7.2 from 347K votes.

Three films into his career, Nolan got his first full studio budget — a $46.0M Warner Bros. production, roughly 9× Memento's, with Al Pacino, Robin Williams, and Hilary Swank above the title. It proved the pattern held at studio scale, returning $114M worldwide — 2.5× its cost.