There's no way around it: Out of all the great directors working right now—Scorsese, Spielberg, Coogler, Gerwig—Christopher Nolan has the heavyweight belt right now. And his adaptation of Homer's The Odyssey makes it clear that he won't give it up anytime soon. To celebrate the British visionary's latest triumph, we ranked all of his films from worst to best. See where we put The Odyssey below. —Brady Langmann, senior entertainment editor
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Where does The Odyssey land in the director’s expansive canon?
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After his emergence in 1998 with the indie thriller Following, Christopher Nolan garnered his first taste of acclaim in 2000 with his twisty crime noir Memento. The guy has been on a hot streak ever since, with a string of blockbusters coming every two or three years in which megawatt A-listers line up to work with him.
With The Odyssey rolling into theaters like a Trojan horse, Esquire’s editors put their heads together to rank Christopher Nolan’s films from “worst” (in a relative manner) to greatest. Did we get it wrong? Did we place your favorite too low or the one Nolan movie you hate too high? And is Cobb still dreaming at the end of Inception?
Here’s Esquire’s current ranking of Christopher Nolan’s movies.
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The Proud Boys are mythical in the American psyche. Founded by Gavin McInnes in 2016, the group first came to national attention a year later, with the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where far-right activists clashed with counterprotestors, one of whom was killed. Ironically, few Proud Boys attended; leadership wanted to avoid association with neo-Nazis and later disavowed the event. Nonetheless, the Proud Boys have been called terrorists and a hate group. On January 6, 2021, they helped lead the Capitol insurrection, with more than a dozen members convicted or pleading guilty for their roles. But if you listen to the Proud Boys themselves, they will tell you they are just a men’s club bound by a shared view of masculinity and a common set of values. What’s the truth, and why does it matter? People join extremist groups in search of someone or something to blame for their societal grievances, which can turn to violence against those they see as culpable. By learning why and how the Proud Boys are able to separate their self-image from their actions, I hope to better understand the contradictions that exist in America today.
The plan was for me to spend this weekend out at the chapter’s clubhouse and gun range. I agreed not to bring my phone or any device that could track my location and not to take pictures of anyone’s face with my camera.
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The guy who plays the Punisher offers to make me a cup of tea. When I decline, Jon Bernthal, forty-nine, reaches for a square tin box and pops off the lid to reveal a pile of purple gummies. I am certain there’s weed in them. “Want one?” he asks, pushing the tin in front of me. I pause, eyeballing them. “They’re soft throat lozenges. Sugar-free. These fuckers are good, dude.” My throat is fine, but I oblige. Bernthal drops one in his mouth and leans back in his chair, assuming the position for a raw and honest talk about life.
An hour earlier, he met me inside the stage door at the August Wilson Theatre in Manhattan—where he’s starring in the Broadway adaptation of Dog Day Afternoon—dressed in blue jeans and an orange hoodie, an American flag on the left breast. Under the flag are the words “We Support the Troops.” He was shirtless beneath the sweatshirt, a tattoo on his left pectoral that says “Lil Bird,” his nickname for his wife, Erin, peeking out. He had the hood pulled over his head, which was already covered in a stocking cap. He wore what looked like wrestling shoes on his feet. They’re not wrestling shoes, although he did wear them to grapple with one of his sons earlier that day.
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