Christopher Nolan is responsible for some of the most beloved and ambitious films in recent memory. He has a distinct ability to craft epic and engrossing films filled with spectacle. However, characters are always a big part of his films' success.
While Nolan certainly has brought some great heroes to the big screen, his villain characters might be even more interesting. From those parts of big comic book movies to the more grounded bad guys, these characters add so much to the stories. Here are the most villainous characters in Christopher Nolan's movies.
Cobb (Following)
Following was Nolan's first feature film and one that is usually overlooked in his filmography. However, it is a sharp, grounded film about a young man who follows strangers as a hobby and finds himself drawn into the world of a thief named Cobb.
While Cobb first seems like a suave criminal type, a darker side is eventually revealed. He is actually a sociopath who murders his girlfriend and pins it on his new friend as all part of his devious plan.
Scarecrow (The Dark Knight Trilogy)
Dr. Jonathan Crane aka Scarecrow is the only villain to have appeared in all three of Nolan's Batman films and it's not hard to see why they wanted to keep him around. Crane initially comes off as a soft-spoken psychiatrist, but he is actually more of a man than the criminals he treats.
Aside from experimenting on his patients with fear toxins, Crane adopts the persona of Scarecrow to become one of Gotham's biggest villains. He starts out as a drug dealer before sentencing people to death during Bane's takeover of Gotham.
Robert Angier (The Prestige)
The Prestige is set in the world of stage magicians who use tricks to deceive their audience. Robert Angier is one of the most talented at these kinds of tricks and his obsession with discovering the perfect illusion sends him down a dark path.
Angier uses his skills of deception to frame his rival for his own murder and takes the man's young daughter away. Still not satisfied with his revenge, he finds a way to duplicate himself for a trick only to murder his clone after each performance.
Mann (Interstellar)
Interstellar is Nolan's ambitious space film that follows a group of astronauts searching for a new planet that can sustain human life. They receive word from Mann, another astronaut from a previous mission, that he has found a habitable planet.
When the others arrive on the planet, they discover Mann has been there alone for years. He sent the falsified data to the other team in hopes of being rescued, then attempts to kill the others so he can make his escape.
Ra's Al Ghul (Batman Begins)
Ra's al Ghul is the first villain Batman must face and the villain who was responsible for creating Batman. When Bruce Wayne is wandering the world in search of meaning, he finds it with Ra's al Ghul's League of Shadows and their quest for justice.
However, Bruce soon learns that Ra's takes justice too far by killing criminals and those he deems to be guilty. Eventually, he attempts to tear Gotham City down since it has become a place of corruption and evil.
Leonard (Memento)
For much of Memento, the audience sees Leonard as the hero of the story. He is a man who suffers from short-term memory loss while also on a tireless mission to find the man who killed his wife.
However, at the end of the film (or the beginning, depending on how you look at it), the truth is revealed. Leonard's wife committed suicide and he designed this mission of revenge to give himself a purpose. He chooses a target and leaves clues for himself to find and kill the alleged murder.
Bane (The Dark Knight Rises)
In The Dark Knight Rises, Batman finally meets a villain who is physically superior to the Caped Crusader. Bane is a massive force of nature and a fellow student of the League of Shadows. He quickly takes over Gotham with his violent tactics.
After breaking Batman's back, it turns out that was the least of what Bane is capable of. He also bombs a football stadium, kills Gotham's mayor, frees the city's prisoners, imprisons the cops and kills countless people who stand up to him.
Walter Finch (Insomnia)
Insomnia is another one of Nolan's earlier films that lacks the scale of his later projects but is nonetheless engrossing. The story follows a homicide detective (Al Pacino) who travels to Alaska to help investigate the murder of a young girl.
The man responsible for the murder is a local author named Walter Finch. Though soft-spoken and seemingly gentle, Finch is deeply disturbed. After carrying on an inappropriate relationship with the girl, he killed her and doesn't seem to have any real remorse for it. He also seems perfectly willing to kill again if pushed.
Talia Al Ghul (The Dark Knight Rises)
While Bane is an intimidating force capable of a lot of damage, it turns out that he was just following the orders of someone even more villainous. Talia al Ghul is the daughter of Ra's al Ghul and she plans to carry out her father's mission of destroying Gotham.
She first gets close to Bruce Wayne to add to the personal revenge mission, then orchestrates this takeover of Gotham. She is ruthless in murdering anyone in her way and plans to detonate a nuclear bomb in the city and kill millions.
Joker (The Dark Knight)
Batman's most iconic nemesis was brought to life in an unforgettable way in The Dark Knight. What is most unsettling and effective about Joker as a villain is how senseless he is in his actions. He doesn't want money or power or revenge, he simply likes anarchy.
Despite how unhinged he is, Joker is highly intelligent, knowing exactly what pressure points to hit to throw Gotham City into chaos. He toys with people, taunting them before killing them and is even responsible for killing Rachel Dawes.
