On July 30, 2025, Christopher Nolan died 55 candles on the cake. A day before another Englishman famous throughout the planet who instead of candles will blow 45: Harry Potter.

Of course, one really exists and the other is “only” the protagonist of one of the literary, cinematographic and, soon, more famous television sagas of the globe, but do not think that the combination of the two is a forcing due to their nationality and closeness of the respective geneticians on the calendar.

There is a sense in what I go, or rather, I will go saying in a few lines.

But so much: here on Toray it seemed to us sensible to celebrate this particular anniversary because it wants that 55 years are a Palindroma age, perfect for chatting a little by the director who even directed a film entitled Palindromo, Tenat.

2001: the beginning of the change

The bizarre bond between Nolan and the JK Rowling wizard also extends to one year, 2001, which was fundamental for both even if, at the historical level, it has become famous for something much more tragic and dramatic.

Putting the attacks of 11 September aside, in 2001 Christopher Nolan began his rise to success with Memento who was presented at the Sundance Film Festival by winning the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award for the best screenplay.

Meanwhile, Harry Potter landed in cinemas from all over the world almost simultaneously with another “niche” production that you may have seen or, at least, to hear: the Lord of the Rings – The Compagnia dell’Apolo.

Of course, at least at the beginning, the weight of the name of Christopher Nolan and that of the two franchises mentioned were not comparable. And it must also be said that these two epopes, to which the Marvel Cinematic Universe would also be added a few years later, have substantially decreed the death of the Starom classically understood. Those who were born before the beginning of the new millennium, remember well that, in a now remote era, without social and smartphones, often and willingly to ensure the economic success of a film, it was enough that the name of this or that actor and actress was printed on the relative billboard. If then behind the camera there was a director also known by the stones, all the better.

But 2001 also sanctioned the start of the cinema of the great intellectual properties where, to count, it is not so much who is in the cast, when the character (or the saga) or who gives the title to the relative feature film. Think of the various stars who, over the years, have been hired or have even started their careers with a great blockbuster. Despite their notoriety, outside of that specific sphere they have not been able to have triumphs analogues. Their name was not enough to create files to the cinema coffers.

Meanwhile, however, year after year, those that were formed at the boxes of the rooms with “L’Altimo di Nolan” on the bill were progressively growing.

Nolanism

Just a few weeks ago, on the occasion of the release of the last mission: Impossible, I told you about Tom Cruise and how it is, more than any other Hollywood personality, the definitive cinema machine. If you want to know more or if you want to refresh your memory, click here.

Nonetheless, with the last two films of the epic that started in 1996 with the film directed by Brian De Palma, Thomas Cruise Mapother IV was unable to catalyze the attention (and money) of people as well as with Top Gun: Maverick.

Without taking anything away from the many efforts that the actor has made and continues to make for the protection and safeguarding of the cinematographic experience in a context in which the relationship of (almost) all with this average has changed, in the meantime, Christopher Nolan has seen the weight of his name increase drastically.

In fact, to date, he is probably the only star existing in Hollywood who has managed to ensure that his name became a trademark and acquired a weight comparable to that of a brand such as Star Wars or Marvel.

Think well of everything that, from memento onwards, happened. First there was the successful remake of a Norwegian thriller, Insomnia, then the cinematographic relaunch of a superhero, Batman, who after the second film by Joel Schumacher (that of the nipples of the bat man clearly visible on the armor), was more dangerous than nitroglycerin to be maneuver.

A film that has changed everything and that allowed Christopher Nolan to exponentially increase its contractual weight and notoriety. Because he had the intelligence not to bind exclusively to what, net of the rereading he had done, was however an icon created by others who had existed for some time before him and who will continue to exist even after him (and all of us). After each Kolossal dedicated to the creature of Bob Kane and Bill Finger, he is dedicated to projects that had nothing to do with comics. After Batman Begins, The Prestige arrived, after the dark knight the dreamlike thriller inception and after the dark knight – the return touched to Interstellar.

By now it was enough to see a promo with the word “A film by Christopher Nolan” to ensure that in the Warner coffers, the major with which he collaborated for twenty years before the post-tennet divorce, hundreds of millions of dollars rained.

It is no coincidence that in the ranking of the ten films forbidden to children under 17 unaccompanied (according to the North American classification system), there are only two films not belonging to some saga: the passion of Christ of Mel Gibson (also released in 2004, a context that cannot be comparable to today’s one) and Oppenheimer of Nolan. It is in third position with 976 million dollars of collection, after Deadpool & Wolverine and Joker, but before Deadpool 2.

All this has become reality thanks to a precise vision of the cinematographic medium and the narrative that, around the figure of the English director, has been created. That of a person who little inclined to give in to the enticements of technology, who does not carry a smartphone behind, who prefers to read emails after his assistant printed them. Time ago, chatting with the Hollywood Reporter, joked by saying that his children, probably, would label him as a luddist total, adding that “in reality I would resist this definition. I think technology and what he can offer are extraordinary. Mine is simply a personal choice on how much I want to be involved”.

This choice that translates into very practical – and complicated terms – on the way it turns its Kolossal. Who tend to avoid laying theaters and the green screen preferring real locations, not to overdo it with the use of digital special effects, which are if anything used to finish what it films directly with the camera, and for its obsession for the large IMAX format and the vision of its films which must compulsorily start with the darkness of a cinematographic room illuminated only by what is projected on the screen. So much so that his admirers, rather than fans, are disciples ready to fulfill any request made. If Nolan “says” that one of his work must be seen in a given way … you can be sure that tens of thousands of people around the world will do everything in order not to betray the words of the prophet.

In a moment of crisis in the room that sees even armored cries that, until recently, seemed unreliable, primarily the Marvel Studios, Christopher Nolan has already managed to establish a record with a film that is still shooting and that will not be released before half of July 2026, the Odyssey. A few days ago, Universal put on sale in North America, the tickets to see the film in the format which, according to the director, is the most suitable for enjoying it at best, IMAX on 70mm film. The sold-out was immediate. About 23,000 people, the same ones who in one day, throughout Italy, went to see the new Superman of James Gunn, bought the access titles 365 days in advance for one of the rooms which, on the weekend of July 16, 2026, will project the Odyssey in Imax 70mm. Let’s talk about a number of structures of less than 30.

Only the director who brings – with extreme agility would be said – all the weight of cinema on his shoulders could establish this record.

Certainly, for him it will have been a pleasant aperitif in view of this birthday Palindrome and for us a further stimulus to ask us “Who knows what will happen when it will celebrate 66?”.