Age: 55
male
Christopher Nolan (born 30 July 1970) is a British-American filmmaker whose concept-driven epics have reshaped the modern studio blockbuster. Renowned for structurally intricate storytelling, large-format cinematography, and practical effects, he is widely regarded as a defining director of the 21st century. His films have grossed over $6.6 billion worldwide and earned him two Academy Awards, two BAFTAs, and a Golden Globe. He was appointed CBE in 2019 and knighted in 2024 for services to film. Raised between London and Evanston, Illinois, Nolan began making Super 8 shorts as a child, later studying English literature at University College London, where he ran the Film Society and met his producer and future wife, Emma Thomas; together they founded Syncopy Inc. After shorts like Doodlebug, he self-financed his micro-budget debut Following (1998), then broke through with the reverse-told amnesia noir Memento (2000). Studio work followed with Insomnia (2002) and then Batman Begins (2005), which launched a grounded superhero trilogy completed by The Dark Knight (2008) and The Dark Knight Rises (2012). Between and after those, he mounted original tentpoles—The Prestige (2006), Inception (2010), Interstellar (2014), and the triptych survival drama Dunkirk (2017), which earned his first Best Director nomination. Nolan’s films interrogate time, memory, identity, ethics, and knowledge—sneaking metaphysics into genre frames (noir, heist, war, biopic). Hallmarks include nonlinear or braided timelines, precision cross-cutting, mathematically inflected imagery, practical/in-camera spectacle augmented by visual effects, experimental soundscapes, and a steadfast preference for celluloid (65mm/IMAX) and theatrical exhibition. A frequent collaborator with Jonathan Nolan (co-writer), Emma Thomas (producer), and craftspeople such as Wally Pfister, Hoyte van Hoytema, Lee Smith, and Hans Zimmer, he also advocates globally for film preservation and exhibition, curating restorations and convening archivists to champion photochemical cinema. After the time-bending espionage of Tenet (2020), Nolan departed Warner Bros. and partnered with Universal on Oppenheimer (2023), a morally dense biopic that won him the Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Picture. He is re-teaming with Universal on The Odyssey (scheduled for 2026), an IMAX-shot adaptation of Homer’s epic. In 2025 he was elected President of the Directors Guild of America. Nolan lives in Los Angeles with Thomas and their four children, continuing to pair popular spectacle with intellectual ambition while championing the artistry—and communal ritual—of seeing movies on film, in cinemas.
They call him father, liberator, warlord, Slave King, Reaper. But he feels a boy as he falls toward the war-torn planet, his armor red, his army vast, his heart heavy. It is the tenth year of war and the thirty-third of his life. A decade ago Darrow was the hero of the revolution he believed would break the chains of the Society. But the Rising has shattered everything: Instead of peace and freedom, it has brought endless war. Now he must risk all he has fought for on one last desperate mission. Darrow still believes he can save everyone, but can he save himself? And throughout the worlds, other destinies entwine with Darrow’s to change his fate forever: A young Red girl flees tragedy in her refugee camp, and achieves for herself a new life she could never have imagined. An ex-soldier broken by grief is forced to steal the most valuable thing in the galaxy—or pay with his life. And Lysander au Lune, the heir in exile to the Sovereign, wanders the stars with his mentor, Cassius, haunted by the loss of the world that Darrow transformed, and dreaming of what will rise from its ashes. Red Rising was the story of the end of one universe. Iron Gold is the story of the creation of a new one. Witness the beginning of a stunning new saga of tragedy and triumph from masterly New York Times bestselling author Pierce Brown.
