The “tremendous film” that blew Christopher Nolan away: “It was so exciting”
Despite my personal issues with his work, in that I think he needs to focus more on characters and learn how to write women, a lot of people have a thing for Christopher Nolan.
Even I would go as far as to call him the biggest director in the world right now, hot off the heels of Oppenheimer’s monumental success and on the cusp of Odyssey-mania in 2026. He definitely knows how to make a movie… well, if you discount Tenet, he does.
The British director has reached the stage of notoriety where his endorsement of a project is akin to a gift from the Almighty. His words carry a lot of weight. A seal of approval from Sir Chris is basically a license to print free money. Also, with a list of favourite films including 2001: A Space Odyssey, Saving Private Ryan, and Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence, he clearly has taste.
All of this is good news for Takashi Yamazaki. The Japanese filmmaker was interviewing Nolan in 2024 when the Oscar winner took the time to praise his movie, Godzilla Minus One. In a move that I’m surprised didn’t cause Yamazaki to faint, his counterpart embarked upon a mini-diatribe about what he described as a “tremendous film”.
“I thought it was so exciting,” he gushed. “It’s beautifully made, and the mechanics of it are so involving. It’s so exciting, but also I felt like it had a lot of the spirit of your earlier film, The Eternal Zero. It had a depth around the issues surrounding the main story, even though the main story is Godzilla, and is an entertaining and exciting one”.
Adding, “There was also wonderful depths of the characters, and a wonderful sense of history that I really appreciated.”
The latest in a very, very, very long line of films about the giant, angry lizard, Godzilla Minus One went down a treat among the franchise faithful. After years of the poster kaiju being dragged through the mud by those darned Americans, many felt this was a solid return to the creature’s roots. The monster was once again being used to reflect society as a whole. Comparisons were even drawn to Oppenheimer over its views on nuclear weapons, with both movies pointing out the inherent dangers and moral recklessness of this technology.
One area of Godzilla Minus One that Nolan had to have been a fan of was its special effects. Much was made of Yamazaki and his team were able to produce something that looked so good on such a small budget. Estimates put the cost of the movie between $10m and $15m, around one-tenth of what was spent on Oppenheimer. It wasn’t all good news, though. At the same ceremony that Nolan’s biopic won ‘Best Picture’, the Minus One team walked away with ‘Best Visual Effects’, the first non-English language film to do so.
If you’ve never dipped your toe into the radioactive waters of Godzilla before, then Minus One is a great place to start. You can say that Christopher Nolan personally recommended it to you.
