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Christopher Nolan. The name alone sends shivers down the spine of movie buffs. From perplexing plots to flabbergasting visuals, Nolan’s flicks set the bar for storytelling.

His blend of gripping plots and deep themes? Unmatched. And those box office numbers? A staggering $6 billion. Yeah, the success speaks for itself.

We have seen that 2023 was a golden year for him. Oppenheimer, the historical thriller about the creation of the atomic bomb, shattered records and became a cultural moment. But did you know it’s only his third highest-grossing Nolan film? That’s the magic of the British filmmaker.

Christopher Nolan

He weaves mind-bending tales that dive deep into life’s big questions—yet somehow, everyone still shows up. Hard to believe, but Nolan pulls it off every time.

Chris got a way of doing things that no one else can match. Come along for a tempest ride through his films,...

Christopher Nolan has become one of the biggest names in cinema in recent years due to his thought-provoking films, and his directing style can be traced back to his short films. Nolans career has been marked by box office hits that blend complexity with mainstream appeal, which often explore similar themes. Memento, Inception, and Dunkirk all explore themes of time, memory, and identity, wrapped in a complicated narrative structure.

However, this interest in non-linear stories about complex themes can be seen in Christopher Nolans earliest works Tarantella, Larceny, Doodlebug, and Quay the four lesser-known short films that the famous director produced from 1989 to 2015. Ranging from 3 to 8 minutes in length, each short film marks the next step in the directors early career as Nolan investigated the art of storytelling. It is evident that these short films obviously inspired Christopher Nolans other movies, due to their similarities, and it is fascinating to...

Over the course of his 12 movies, Christopher Nolan has developed a reputation for working with stellar ensemble casts. Nolan started off small, like many directors, but he gradually increased his ambitions as he got access to bigger budgets and more famous actors. From the start of his Dark Knight trilogy onwards, Nolan's movies have always been filled with great actors.

Nolan has several regulars who he likes to cast in multiple movies, including Michael Caine, Tom Hardy and Cillian Murphy. While he often finds interesting roles for these actors, he's not afraid to gamble on some more unexpected casting choices. Casting Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight, Harry Styles in Dunkirk and Robert Downey Jr. in Oppenheimer isn't what most people expected, but they all delivered results. Nolan's talented casts are key to how he has distinguished himself as one of the most influential directors of the 21st century.

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Christopher Nolan is reportedly teaming up with Matt Damon once again after Oppenheimer for his next film. The untitled film will officially place Damon among the esteemed list of actors who have worked with Nolan three or more times. The Jason Bourne actor previously appeared in Nolan’s Interstellar, alongside Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway.

Matt Damon in Interstellar | Credits: Paramount Pictures

Nolan is known to re-partner with actors he enjoys working with. Damon now joins the ranks of frequent collaborators like Cillian Murphy and Christian Bale. Interestingly, Damon had earlier revealed that he came out of a hiatus specifically to work with the Following director.

Matt Damon Will Join The Ranks Of Actors Who Have Worked 3 Or More Films With Christopher Nolan Matt Damon and Cillian Murphy in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer | Credits: Universal Pictures

Matt Damon revealed to EW that he had made a deal with his wife...

Nolan's long career led to the success of Oppenheimer, which was a departure from his usual blockbusters. The movie borrows visual elements from Nolan's earlier works, showing his growth as a filmmaker over 25 years. Nolan's collaborations with Cillian Murphy, Ludwig Gransson and Hoyte van Hoytema all shaped Oppenheimer.

Christopher Nolan won his first Oscar for Oppenheimer, but this achievement is just the culmination of a long career which shaped him for greatness. Nolan's feature-length debut was in 1998, and each subsequent movie that he directed has contributed in some way to making him the filmmaker that he is today. He could not have made Oppenheimer without acquiring the skills that he has from his other projects.

Oppenheimer blew away all box office expectations last summer, and it combined this success with an awards-season hot streak. The biopic is an unusual project for Nolan in some ways, who so often creates action-packed blockbusters with original sci-fi concepts.

Christopher Nolan's budget flexibility shines in Following with a captivating story made for only $6000. Natural lighting and black and white film enhance the neo-noir theme of Following on a small budget. Nolan's DIY approach to casting and locations for Following showcases his passion for filmmaking.

Even though all of his movies have come to be praised by critics and movie audiences alike, director Christopher Nolan is no stranger to being presented with a larger-than-life budget for his films. Oppenheimer was surprisingly conservative in the cost department (coming in at only 100 million dollars), and 2020's Tenet – which starred actor John David Washington – cost over 205 million dollars. This had to do with the fact that production took place in seven countries and Nolan’s expensive niche of using in-camera effects for a better visual.

In addition, there’s The Dark Knight Rises, which was estimated to cost anywhere from 250 to 300 million...

Ranking Christopher Nolan’s Films: From “Tenet” to “Inception” and Beyond (Photo Credit – IMDb)

Christopher Nolan’s films have raked in over $6 billion worldwide. Yeah, he’s a big deal. Nolan’s filmography is like a unicorn—unique and mind-bending. His movies are a trip filled with math, crazy storytelling, mind-blowing effects, and sounds that’ll mess with your head. Ranking his films? Good luck with that. And hey, if you love a movie, who cares where it falls on the list, right? Just sit back and enjoy the ride.

12. Tenet (2020) Genre: Action, Scifi, Mystery & thriller Cast: John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, Kenneth Branagh, Dimple Kapadia Runtime: 2h 30m Tomatometer: 69% IMDb Rating: 7.3/10 Available on: Netflix (India) Rent from: Microsoft $3.99 (US)

In Kyiv, the protagonist uncovers time inverting tech on a mission. He joins “Tenet,” discovering objects with reversed entropy. His target: Andrei Sator, a Russian oligarch with a...

Christian Bale's Batman is the definitive live-action interpretation with a complete arc, physically imposing yet compassionate and human. Fionn Whitehead shines as Tommy in Dunkirk, offering a sympathetic character in a tense war setting with minimal dialogue. Cillian Murphy's portrayal of J. Robert Oppenheimer in the upcoming film Oppenheimer is described as legendary and likely to win him an Oscar.

Christopher Nolan has introduced audiences to some of the most compelling movie characters of the 21st century, though they vary in quality. Starting with the independent film Following in 1998, Christopher Nolan has since become one of his generation's most popular and celebrated filmmakers, delivering consistently grand, entertaining, and thought-provoking work. Nolan has directed some of the best movies of all time, from superhero action to war epic to sci-fi masterpiece, and modern audiences can rejoice in knowing he's not letting up any time soon.

While his movies are...

Christopher Nolan remains one of the most significant filmmakers of the 21st century. The mere fact that stating this aloud invites a bit of controversy underlines how outsized a footprint the writer-director has left during the first 25 years of his career. Celebrated by some as a formative auteur in the lives of young cineastes, and derided by others as the patron saint of “film bros” who devour hyper-masculine Hollywood spectacle (particularly if it features capes), Nolan’s already built a formidable and debated legacy.

But in the summer of 2023, his impact was crystalized again when Nolan convinced one of the ever increasingly risk-averse Hollywood studios to invest more than $100 million into an R-rated, three-hour, and existentially despairing biopic, and then released it at the height of summer. That the movie opened bigger than most of the year’s alleged blockbusters, and bigger than any Nolan film not starring Batman, is...

There’s an enigmatic quality to the role of Christopher Nolan in the current filmmaking landscape, and one that stands apart from the fact that his films so often court ambiguity with explicit intent. From the Russian-nesting-doll antics of Inception to the magicians-as-filmmakers commentary of The Prestige, Nolan’s ambition within the realm of big-budget, broad audience spectacle is comparable to the likes of few. Looking back at his work thus far, what emerges—apart from his obsession with identity, reality, community, and obsession itself—is an artist who, heedless of his own shortcomings, is intent on challenging himself, a quality that salvages and even inverts a great many of his otherwise pedestrian choices. Rob Humanick

Editor’s Note: This updated list was originally published on November 5, 2014.

12. Inception (2010)

The purported originality of Inception says infinitely more about the cinematic vocabulary of those describing it as such than it does about the film itself.

Few filmmakers stoke the kind of loyalty and obsessive deconstruction as Christopher Nolan does.

Over 12 films and 25 years, he has made head-spinning, intricately constructed journeys into the mind, time, magic and Gotham City. And audiences have been more than happy to go along for the ride. He is one of the few filmmakers working today who can also get hugely expensive, original movies made.

And this week he’s back with his latest film, “Oppenheimer,” a historical epic about J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy), the man who oversaw the construction of the first nuclear weapon in the waning days of World War II. Full of gorgeous, IMAX-captured imagery and structural ingeniousness, it feels in many ways like the ultimate Nolan movie. That is, of course, until the next Nolan movie.

In celebration of “Oppenheimer” and because it’s fun to talk about his movies, we’ve decided to rank Nolan’s movies,...

Christopher Nolan, known for his mind-bending narratives and visually stunning films, has become one of the most celebrated directors of our time. This month marks the release of what is arguably the biggest movie of his career so far, Oppenheimer. Between amassing a cast of highly sought-after actors that includes Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, and Robert Downey Jr. (among many others) and pulling off a nuclear explosion without CGI, it's safe to say that Oppenheimer is one of the most anticipated movies of the year.

With movies like Inception, The Dark Knight Trilogy, and Interstellar under his belt, it's easy to overlook Nolan's humble beginnings. We take a step back in time and explore Nolan's directorial debut, Following. Released in 1998, this black and white neo-noir film sets the stage for Nolan's signature style and offers a glimpse into the mind of a budding genius.

What Is Following About?

Following...

In 1998, a young and still-unknown Christopher Nolan released Following, his black-and-white debut feature. The noir-tinged crime caper starred Jeremy Theobald as a struggling writer who becomes an apprentice to a small-time thief. Despite being made for a mere $6,000, Following introduced the world to a director brimming with ideas and style to spare. In the time since, Nolan has become one of the most celebrated directors working in the medium, whose big-budget epics often challenge as much as they entertain.

Memento was one of the first movies told almost entirely backwards; The Dark Knight Trilogy redefined what superhero movies could be; Inception was a stunningly-original sci-fi heist thriller; and Interstellar is a space epic that rivals only 2001: A Space Odyssey in scope and ambition. Every Christopher Nolan movie is an event, and each new film is more ambitious than the last. His next movie, Oppenheimer, for which Nolan and Kodak...

On the JoBlo Movies YouTube channel, we will be posting one full movie every day of the week, giving viewers the chance to watch them entirely free of charge. Today’s Free Movie of the Day is writer/director Martin Gooch’s 2018 post-apocalyptic sci-fi movie Atomic Apocalypse, and you can watch it over on the YouTube channel linked above, or you can just watch it in the embed at the top of this article.

Atomic Apocalypse has the following synopsis, provided by Gooch himself:

In Post Apocalyptic North America, one family fights for survival in this sci-i road trip of epic proportions in a nightmare world without gasoline, electricity, or humanity. Sheltered mother Kate loses her injured survivalist husband Sam, and love struck daughter Suzi in a matter of days after they join handsome loner Joe in search of a rumored hidden nuclear bunker full of food and medicine. Suddenly alone and lost,...

The Complete Works Ep. 93 — The Complete Works is a review and in-depth analysis podcast. FilmBook contributor Doug Hess is going to take a look at every film in the filmography of Christopher Nolan, scene-by-scene in each episode. This week, Doug discusses Christopher Nolan’s 1998 film Following. Following stars Jeremy Theobald, [...]

Continue reading: The Complete Works Ep. 93: Christopher Nolan – Following (1998)...

Before Martin Scorsese became one of the greatest directors of all time there was “The Big Shave.” Before Taika Waititi directed a Marvel movie and won an Oscar for “Jojo Rabbit” there was “Two Cars, One Night.” Before Andrea Arnold and Lynne Ramsay become two of our best working directors there was “Wasp” and “Small Deaths.” Most great directors start their careers with a great short film, several of which IndieWire has rounded up below for your streaming pleasure.

Of the selection below, short films by Andrea Arnold, Taika Waititi, Nacho Vigolando, and Marshall Curry all landed Oscar nominations in the Best Live Action Short Film Category. Both Arnold and Curry won the Academy Award for their shorts in their respective years. For Scorsese and Darren Aronofsky, the shorts below served as breakthrough moments as film school students at New York University and the American Film Institute, respectively.

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Nearly a decade before he was making movies about bats, Christopher Nolan was turning his attention to bugs. The filmmaker made a debut of sorts with 1997’s “Doodlebug,” a three-minute short filmed on 16mm and produced by his future wife and producing partner Emma Thomas, who’s worked with Nolan on each of his subsequent films.

Read More: Wes Anderson’s ‘Bottle Rocket’ Short Film: Watch the 13 Minute Clip That Launched His Career

“Doodlebug” is marked by a grainy, black-and-white aesthetic that’s of a piece with the spar narrative about a man (Jeremy Theobald) trying to squash an insect in his dingy apartment. It eventually gets recursive, with the bug in question being revealed as a miniature version of the man himself; in the end, they’re both of them dwarfed by an even larger version who appears behind them.

Read More: James Cameron’s ‘Xenogenesis’: Watch the Lo-Fi,...

Guy Pearce. Al Pacino. Christian Bale. Hugh Jackman. Leonardo DiCaprio. Matthew McConaughey. Fionn Whitehead.

One of those names is not like the others, and on the list of leading men in Christopher Nolan movies*, newcomer Whitehead sticks out like a sore thumb. But that's on purpose, as Nolan's been on the hunt for unknown talent to lead his new World War II film, Dunkirk. The Wrap reports that Whitehead is at the top of the director's list, though it's not 100% clear if the deal has officially been signed yet. If it goes through, Whitehead will play one of the two young leads in the movie, which has already cast Tom Hardy, Mark Rylance, and Kenneth Branagh in supporting roles.

Nolan wrote the original screenplay, which was inspired by Operation Dynamo, a 1940 mission that freed over 300,000 Allied troops who were trapped by the Nazis in the French city of Dunkirk. The movie,...

Everybody has to start somewhere.

The best and most successful Hollywood directors might find themselves marshalling $200 million epics, but in their formative years big budgets weren't at their disposal and they had to make do only with a good idea and the drive to make it happen. Many filmmakers use shorts to test-run ideas and explore themes they'd circle back to down the line.

From Christopher Nolan to Steven Spielberg, we look at nine short films that helped kick-start careers behind the camera.

1. Christopher Nolan - Doodlebug (1997)

Even before he hit it big, Interstellar director Christopher Nolan was distorting reality with his film work.

Doodlebug - led by Nolan's Following star Jeremy Theobald - played out an intriguing narrative loop over a brisk three minutes as a man chased a 'bug' around his flat with a shoe. A year after he made this film, Nolan took his feature debut Following...

First films are often a filmmaker’s worst movie, as they seem to be learning their craft as the film goes on. That said, they can also be instructive once they have a body of work, as you can often see the seeds of their future work embedded within. And though Christopher Nolan’s Following is one of his weakest efforts, all things considered, it’s still indicative of a talent that would emerge. Where in 1998 Nolan’s film may have come across as a clever but small riff on Pulp Fiction and the genre of crime films Tarantino helped launch, now you can see that Nolan was pretty on top of his game from the get go, even if his first film is a minor work. Our review of the The Criterion Collection’s Blu-ray of Following follows after the jump. Jeremy Theobald stars as an unnamed writer who...

Following Directed by: Christopher Nolan Written by: Christopher Nolan Starring: Jeremy Theobald, Alex Haw, Lucy Russell Christopher Nolan's brand of high brow blockbuster filmmaking has certainly shaped the landscape of quality populist cinema. He single handedly revived the Batman franchise and in the process, formed a style guide which is regularly referenced by his peers in an attempt to emulate his successful recipe. Years before the Bwwwoooommmmm Inception sound rewrote modern day marketing, Nolan wrote and directed 'Following', filmed in black and white and shot on weekends with his film school friends. It's an impressive first feature that isn't without its problems. The film stars Jeremy Theobald as an unemployed, unnamed writer who follows strangers in hopes to find inspiration for his first novel. One of his targets, a young man in a dark suit, calls him out on his unusual brand of research and a strange relationship is formed.

Over the last decade, Christopher Nolan has established himself as one of the most noteworthy mainstream directors working in the industry, mostly due to the unprecedented cultural impact of his three entries in the Batman series (but not to mention high functioning works of originality at the multiplex, such as 2010’s Inception). His penchant for labyrinthine narrative structure and chronological confusion date back to his delightfully well made feature debut, Following, winning the top prize at the 1999 Rotterdam Film Festival, exploring themes and motifs he would closely mirror in his significantly successful follow-up, Memento. A no budget neo-noir, Criterion restores Nolan’s debut from a new digital transfer, making this edition the definitive way to experience an exciting beginning to a fascinating talent.

We meet a young man (Jeremy Theobald), narrating a story to a stranger that quickly seems to take on ominous dimensions. An aspiring writer, it turns out...

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Dec. 11 , 2012

Price: DVD $29.95, Blu-ray $39.95

Studio: Criterion

Jeremy Theobald gets in too deep in Following.

Before he became a sensation with the twisty 2000 revenge story Memento, Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight Rises, Inception) directed his first feature film, 1999’s Following, a low-budget, black-and-white, 16 mm neo-film noir mystery with comparable precision and cunning.

Following is the fragmented tale of an unemployed young writer (Jeremy Theobald) who trails strangers through London, hoping that they will provide inspiration for his first novel. He gets more than he bargained for with one of his unwitting subjects (Alex Haw), who leads him down a dark, criminal path.

With gritty aesthetics and a made-on-the-fly vibe (many shots were simply stolen on the streets, unbeknownst to passersby), Following is a mind-bending psychological journey that shows the remarkable beginnings of one of today’s most acclaimed filmmakers.

The DVD and Blu-ray editons of Following contain the following features:

· New,...

"Memento" gets most—if not all—of the credit as the starting point for the Christopher Nolan we know today. Sure, the story of Leonard Shelby and his backwards chase to find his wife's killer catapulted Nolan into the realm of the indie darling, but his first film, "Following," marks the real beginning of the man who would bring us the Batman

Since Criterion announced yesterday that they plan to bring "The Following" to Blu-ray in their typical, decked-out style and it's also readily available on Netflix Instant Watch, now is a good a time as any to take a look back.

"Following" tells the story of a nameless young man, played by Jeremy Theobald, who isn't cutting it as a writer, but eventually finds himself under the wing of a charismatic thief, Cobb, a name that would appear later in "Inception."

From there the story grows more complicated, of course,...

★★☆☆☆ With the much-anticipated The Dark Knight Rises (2012) released in UK cinemas this Friday (20 July), the BFI are running a Christopher Nolan season that includes his directorial debut Following (1998). This little-known 16mm first feature tells the story of a nameless young writer (Jeremy Theobald) with an odd habit of following people around London, collecting material for his book. His harmless pursuits eventually get him into trouble when he meets Cobb (Alex Haw), a debonair burglar who teaches him the tricks of the trade.

Read more »...

BFI Southbank has announced a Christopher Nolan season for this July. All of the Inception director's films will be screened throughout the month at the riverside venue, leading up to the release of The Dark Knight Rises at BFI IMAX and nationwide on July 20. "Nolan has created a new type of Hollywood 'mainstream'," the BFI said, "films notable not only for their considerable technical skill but also for their brilliant, complex and playful narrative ingenuity." The full Christopher Nolan programme is as follows: Following (UK 1998. With Jeremy Theobald, Alex Haw, Lucy Russell, John Nolan. 70min. 15)

Plus Doodlebug (UK 1997. With Jeremy Theobald. 3min):

Sunday, 1 July 16:00 NFT2 / Wednesday, July 4, 20:40 NFT2 Memento (USA 2000. With Guy Pearce, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano, Mark Boone Jr. 113min. (more)...

Article by Dan Clark of Movie Revolt

We are about to embark on what will hopefully be a rather fun summer of movies. With that in mind I focused the second installment of Streaming for Pleasure on some films you should see before this summer hits. Having a familiarity with an actor or director’s career can often shine some light on what their future projects may have in store. Also it can help garner more motivation to see a film you would have otherwise avoided. Curious what the Avengers might be like? What Tom Hardy has in store for the character of Bain? Well check out some of these films and they just might answer some of your questions.

Following

Directed By: Christopher Nolan

Written By: Christopher Nolan

Starring: Jeremy Theobald, Alex Haw, and Lucy Russell

Synopsis: Christopher Nolan writes and directs this odd, claustrophobic neo-noir film about a...

The Academy may have snubbed him for best director, but Nolan's global reputation is assured. Matthew Tempest recalls the singularly driven young man he met in the Ucl film society

It was pretty obvious to anyone at the University College London film society in the early 1990s (which comprised about half a dozen of us in a windowless, airless basement) that Chris Nolan was going places. I thought his career might even go all the way, and he might shoot a few adverts before eventually (if he got lucky) directing episodes of The Bill and Coronation Street.

That was simply how the UK film industry was back then. The only career path was to worm a way into directing for telly or commercials. It had been generations since John Schlesinger, Ridley and Tony Scott, Adrian Lyne and Alan Parker had managed to make the leap from London, and telly, to Hollywood.

A year in the making, young director Nolan shot his debut feature, Following, on a shoestring budget over the space of a year. So, how does it stand up twelve years on...?

Ambitious, darkly comic, but clumsy and cold, Christopher Nolan's (Inception, The Dark Knight) first feature, Following, showcases a talented writer/director's Herculean effort to show the world his neat bag of tricks.

Made for almost nothing, over a year of weekends (in between his job filming and recording sound on company training videos), and influenced by Robert Rodriguez (El Mariachi) and Kevin Smith (Clerks), Nolan envisaged a film that explored his favourite aspect of film noir: men who were defined by their often brutal actions.

The idea was a bold one: to shoot no more than two usable takes per set-up, to shoot only with natural light, in cheap, available locations and to work around the respective...

First off, to those of you expecting a review of Chinatown (1974) as promised in the hint that was contained in the Blue Velvet (1986) piece, I apologize. Chinatown will be the next film covered in the retrospective. I simply got sidetracked in the wake of Christopher Nolan's Inception (2010) by the auteur completest in me, demanding that I actually sit down and watch Following (1998). While it didn't reach the heights of Memento (2000) or Insomnia (2002), the latter of which is perhaps Nolan's most overlooked and underestimated film due to its remake status, I very much enjoyed his rough and ragged debut (which is allegedly up for both the Criterion treatment and a theatrical re-release thanks to his most recent success---in the meantime you can catch it on Netflix Watch Instantly).

The film is bare, cut and dry almost to the point of The Limey (1999), beginning with a young struggling writer (Jeremy Theobald...

With all the pixel-service we’ve given Christopher Nolan in the last couple of days (see both of my reviews of Inception to catch up on it all), I had to share his very first film with you, which I’m only just now finding about, thanks to Rope Of Silicon’s ranking of Nolan’s work, posted earlier today. The short film, titled Doodlebug, was made in 1997, and stars Jeremy Theobald (who also starred in Nolan’s debut feature, Following). Watch it below; I think you’ll readily identify themes that run throughout much of Nolan’s later work – notably, matters of being, paranoia, the dark nature of the material etc.

Christopher Nolan on the set of Inception

Photo: Warner Bros. Trying to rank Christopher Nolan's first seven films is an exercise in futility, but after watching all of his films over the last week once again with every intention of writing this article I couldn't just not do it. So, here we are.

Ranking the bottom two films was quite easy, but depending on my mood the next five could adjust on a daily basis, but one thing I noticed after watching all of Nolan's films over again is how much my appreciation for each has changed as I've gained a larger understanding for his work. His love for the anti-hero is obvious, and his desire for dark stories has been evident from the outset. He's a smart filmmaker who understands the medium and knows how to use it to the advantage of his stories. His casting is typically...

IFC has made the trailer for the re-rerelease of Following, Christopher Nolan's debut film. As the hype around Inception comes to a peak, IFC Films is proud to present Christopher Nolan's debut feature film, Following, available nationwide on demand via IFC In Theaters. Check out the trailer below.

Following Trailer

A fascinating introduction to the talent and vision of a filmmaker who is fast becoming one of the major American directors of our time, Following originally debuted in 1998, and enjoyed a quick succession of Festival prizes and wild critical acclaim. The film is a sly neo-noir thriller which follows a writer who picks out strangers at random from the crowded streets of London shadows them see where they go, how they spend their days. Following features the innovative blend of high-minded style and genre elements that Nolan has now made his trademark.

The film will enjoy a three...

NEW YORK -- Christopher Nolan's noirish thriller is an uncommonly polished and assured feature debut, highly clever textually and supremely accomplished technically. This ultra low-budget exercise marks the emergence of a significant directorial talent who should have no problem parlaying this calling card into studio work.

"Following", which was recently showcased at the New Directors/New Films Festival, has opened for a commercial run at New York's Film Forum.

The Hitchcock-style story line centers on the meeting of two fascinating characters: Bill (Jeremy Theobald), a young man who has a habit of following strangers just to see where they'll go and what they'll do; and Cobb (Alex Haw), a menacing but dapper, well-heeled burglar who turns the tables on Bill after being tailed. Cobb takes Bill into his confidence and inducts him into his lifestyle, which involves violating his victims' privacy and personal space as well as stealing their possessions. The third major character is a beautiful blonde whose relationship to the men is revealed in a gradual, teasing way.

The story is told via a complicated, time-twisting chronology in which we often don't understand the meaning of scenes until later. Although the effect is disorienting and a bit overdone, the screenplay is so clever and Nolan keeps such a tight directorial control over the proceedings that we are engrossed even when we are confused. Unlike many beginning filmmakers, Nolan operates with an admirable precision and economy; clocking in at a brisk 70 minutes, "Following" contains not one superfluous shot.

Despite the obvious low budget and chaotic shooting schedule (it was shot on weekends in a year), the black-and-white film never betrays its modest origins. It also contains superb performances from Theobald as the confused young man who gets in over his head and Haw as the suave, sophisticated burglar. The latter displays a genuine star quality that marks him an actor to watch for.

FOLLOWING

Zeitgeist Films

Credits: Director-screenplay-cinematographer: Christopher Nolan; Producers: Emma Thomas, Christopher Nolan, Jeremy Theobald; Executive producer: Peter Broderick; Editor: Gareth Heal, Christopher Nolan; Music: David Julyan; Production designer: Tristan Martin. Cast: Bill: Jeremy Theobald; Cobb: Alex Haw; The Blonde: Lucy Russell; The Policeman: John Nolan. No MPAA rating. Black and white. Running time -- 70 minutes.