This science fiction film powerfully incorporates “while on Earth” scenes to pace out the other main narrative in a way that feels real enough to believe on screen and on the page.Ĭhristopher Nolan’s approach to The Dark Knight might beg a few questions for those familiar with his postmodern style. Read More: Interstellar: Christopher Nolan and Kip Thorne Build a Black Hole In most respects, each story moves forward from beginning to end, but there is a hint here and there of the influence that Cooper finds himself having when interacting with materials technically “outside his time.” Yet another story that inherently warrants the nonlinear approach, Interstellar allows time dilation and the warping of time-space to become the vehicle for more than one protagonist’s story progression.

Being a subject of memory itself, this film’s use of nonlinear storytelling is perhaps easy to recognize, but all the while still enticing - especially when reading or watching this film for the second time around to catch what was missed the first time. Nolan reflects the division of this movie’s timelines stylistically using color as well as direction, with key, missing events moving backward as they become a suspenseful telltale of what’s to come during Leonard’s black-and-white stream of consciousness. The main character struggles to remember what happened even in the short term, so his ability to find his wife’s murderer is hindered by that. As one of Nolan’s earliest creations, this film satisfied the mystery-thriller quota that seemed to exist in the early 2000s by using memory as a story device.

If we’re talking nonlinear stories, Memento most definitely must come first.

Final draft example of flashbacks