Christopher Nolan CBE (born 30 July 1970) is a British-American film director, producer, and screenwriter. His films have grossed more than US$ 5.7 billion worldwide and have garnered 11 Academy Awards from 36 nominations. Having received many awards and honours throughout his career, in 2015, Time named him as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. In 2019, he was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire for his services to film.
Nolan developed an interest in filmmaking from a young age. After studying English literature at University College London, he made his feature film debut with Following (1998). Nolan gained international recognition with his second film, Memento (2000), for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. He transitioned from independent to studio filmmaking with Insomnia (2002), and found further critical and commercial success with The Dark Knight Trilogy (2005–2012), The Prestige (2006), and Inception (2010), which received eight Oscar nominations, including for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay. This was followed by Interstellar (2014), Dunkirk (2017), and Tenet (2020). For Dunkirk, he earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture and his first nomination for Best Director.