The problem with Chris Nolan movies

There's something about Nolan movies that I can't put my finger on, and that just doesn't agree with me - it's like they are just too 'full of themselves' if that makes any sense.

Inception, Batman, Tenet, I enjoyed them, but they were all just too 'look at me, aren't I the best movie ever', and I didn't feel like watching them again.

Hoping someone can help articulate what I might be struggling with about these movies - and I don't mean to criticise them, they are fine movies.

Hmm. Do you feel similarly about other films that explore big or intricate ideas? High concept films in general? If so, maybe that’s it. It's almost inherently arrogant to try to tackle certain things.

Otherwise, maybe one of those things where the reactions of fans is being smuggled into an appraisal of the work itself.

Nolan's one of my favorite directors.

Don't have any issue with anything he's done except Tenet and to a lesser degree TDKR.

I once said that I didn't like a director's films and someone then challenged me to watch more of his movies. I did that and I found out I did appreciate the director.

So I challenge you to watch all of Nolan's movies. He only has 11 feature length films to his name, so that would be an easy watch. Start at his first feature length film, Following (1998) and work your way chronologically to his latest films.

I bet you'll gain a new understanding of where he came from and where he's going in his film vision. You'll be all the better for it too as you then can be knowledgeable on all things Nolan.

I have seen memento and was fine with that. I went into inception having had it really bigged up by work colleagues beforehand, and as well as the problem mentioned before, I was annoyed by the too frequent action scenes - people appearing firing machine guns all the time - Tenet a lot like that too. With Batman you expect action so that side was fine, but the last two were very overblown.

I didn't like Inception or Memento. What other Nolan films have you seen? If you haven't seen it I highly recommend The Prestige.

My ranking of seen Nolan movies from best to worst:
The Dark Knight
Inception
Memento
Insomnia
The Dark Knight Rises
Batman Begins
Dunkirk
Interstellar

I like first four and I am more reserved about bottom four.

so you get intimidated by his films? blimey.

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While I'm a pretty big fan of Nolan in general, I understand what you're getting at, as it is possible for a film to try so hard to force itself to seem "great" or "important" that it ens up feeling forced, and overshoots its mark; it's the reason why I've never felt The Godfather is a great film, because it tries too hard to seem that way, like with the unnecessary shot of the Statue Of Liberty in the background of the "leave the gun, take the cannoli" scene, which feels like it was trying to shove the loaded, ironic symbolism down our throats, when the theme of the film showing us the dark side of the American dream was already evident from the very first line.