12 Screenplays by Christopher Nolan to Download and Study

A few months ago, I thought, “You know what you should do with The Odyssey coming out, Cole? Curate a collection of scripts by Christopher Nolan for your readers.” The reason being that there are few filmmakers as structurally adventurous as Nolan or as critically acclaimed and commercially success as him. How could screenwriters, both aspiring and established, not benefit from studying his work?

This past week, I hesitated. Not because I second-guessed my motivation, but because I wound up appreciating The Odyssey so much that it unintentionally became a feature of 5AM StoryTalk over the past month — from the subject of a fantastic Weekly Question thread, to my viral takedown of classicist and Homeric translator Emily Wilson’s “review” of it, to an epic breakdown of the film’s script as a vehicle to explore everything from PTSD to the genocidal sins of America and Europe. I still have another script/film breakdown coming, too, this time about the use of symbols and signaling in The Odyssey — but I did decide to push that one back a few weeks.

The point is, I panicked at the thought of basically turning myself into some kind of Nolan super-fan here.

To be clear, though, I am a super-fan — or, rather, a super-admirer. Nolan has positioned himself as one of cinema’s greatest advocates and prophets in the 21st century. Love him or hate him, there is no denying that he is one of the only major filmmakers in Hollywood regularly churning out original films that both clean up at the box office and sometimes even during awards season. He consistently uses his voice and influence to directly impact how films are made and how we experience them in theaters — and that should be celebrated by all film-lovers, even those who have decided they must hate everything he does as a point of pride. I understand some of the naysayers’ points at times, to be clear. Sometimes I agree with them. I just don’t understand the point of religiously repeating tired tropes even when they’re not even applicable to the film being discussed; nobody should define their identity by art and artists they hate.

Let’s bring it back to the point of this script collection now, which is to better understand how Nolan has used his filmography to explore many of the same trenchant social themes over and over (capitalism bad, white rich men bad, end of the world bad), often smuggling them into huge franchise films like his Dark Knight trilogy. To do this, he’s also almost exclusively employed non-linear narratives that use time and our understanding and experience of it to deconstruct his subjects and the nature of cinema. A script wouldn’t be a Nolan script either without a shocking twist that often reframes how you understand the film’s meaning and mechanics.

In total, Nolan has directed 13 films. You can find the scripts for 12 of them below, excluding The Odyssey, which still isn’t publicly available. His name appears on 11 of these as sole or co-screenwriter; the one exception is Insomnia, written by Hillary Seitz, but is included as it’s still an expression of his creative instincts and development and completes his filmography up to his latest film.

All of these screenplays tend to vanish, as all things do on the Internet. I’ve compiled them all into a master archive — download them for your personal study. And if you want more resources like this one, be sure to check out my other script curations:

Resource: Hundreds of Screenplays All in One Place

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July 26, 2025

Every six to eight weeks for the past couple of years, I’ve shared a personally curated screenplay collection for you to download and study. Today, I’m sharing all of them with you in one place!

The screenplay that really started it all — it’s still one of Nolan’s best, too.

The only script on this list not written or co-written by Nolan, so I think it’s worth interrogating how it stands apart from the others — but also what still connects it to the rest.