Christopher Nolan Says ‘Gladiator 2’ is His Favorite Film of 2024

As 2024 comes to a close, many publications are releasing their “best of the year” lists to celebrate everything cinema had to offer. This is certainly true of Variety, who, in addition to more traditional top ten fare, also asked numerous filmmakers to name their top film of the year. Among the directors chosen to weigh in — which includes Barry Jenkins (Mufasa: The Lion King), Alfonso Cuarón (Gravity), and Fede Alvarez (Alien: Romulus), among others — Christopher Nolan had one of the most heartfelt answers.

The Oppenheimer director picked fellow British filmmaker Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II as his favorite film of the year, stating, “Scott’s contribution to the evolution of cinematic storytelling has never been properly acknowledged.” High praise indeed.

Of the film itself, Nolan writes:

Like the best long-awaited sequels, ‘Gladiator II’ must be a remake and sequel in one, and it’s testament to Scott’s brilliance that he manages to balance the individual pathos of the original with the expansionist demands of the sequel’s central theme, bringing a lifetime of experience in controlling tone. Scott raises the game with the staging of his action – his incredible, hyper-observant, multi-camera mise-en-scène (so different to the original) masterfully wrestles the action into clear and jaw-dropping sequence after sequence. The effect is not just to entertain, but to drive us towards awareness of the movie’s themes. Few filmmakers have ever worked so invisibly on multiple levels. In films from ‘Blade Runner’ to ‘Thelma and Louise’ to ‘Gladiator II,’ the visual density of Scott’s art serves as foil for his underlying thematic clarity.

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Nolan Is a Man with Layered Tastes in Cinema

In addition to his love for Gladiator II, Nolan previously heaped tons of praise on Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two, another 2024 release, calling it a “miraculous job of adaptation” and a “remarkable piece of work.” He’s also been vocal about older films that have inspired him over the years, including Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, and two other Ridley Scott science fiction films — Alien and Blade Runner — as well as several James Bond films (rumors of Nolan directing a Bond film have been swirling for years, and he’s even said doing so would be a “privilege”).

It seems the director really loves films that combine elements of spectacle with dense thematic elements — much like his own work. But then again, he’s also shown love for more character-driven pieces, like Charlotte Wells’s intimate father-daughter drama Aftersun, which features Gladiator II star Paul Mescal in his breakout cinematic performance (after appearing in the critically acclaimed Normal People), Celine Song’s Past Lives, and Hugh Hudson’s Oscar-winning Chariots of Fire.

The whole piece is a worthy read for any cinephile, because — as Carole Horst writes in the introduction to the piece — “Perhaps no one in the filmmaking ecosphere understands and appreciates the accomplishments of filmmakers better than their peers. And no one articulates the wonders and achievements in more rewarding or greater detail.”

Gladiator 2 is the follow-up to Ridley Scott’s award-winning film Gladiator from 2000. Scott returns to direct the sequel, with Paul Mescal staring as Lucius, alongside Denzel Washington and Joseph Quinn as the villain Emperor Geta. Gladiator 2 had been stuck in development hell for years before a script written by David Scarpa finally moved forward.

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