Summer’s coming, so we thought we’d celebrate with a trip to the beach. But this is a Christopher Nolan podcast, so this beach trip involves real-life stories of the men who evacuated Dunkirk in 1940 and tales of adultery amid Irish and British tensions. Join Jake and Marshall as they get ready to watch Dunkirk by discussing two of its key influences: David Lean’s film Ryan’s Daughter and Joshua Levine’s oral history book Forgotten Voices of Dunkirk.

Christopher Nolan’s longest film to date is also the one considered to be his most emotional. Interstellar is a space-travel epic that combines all of the director’s themes: Time, guilt, foils, multiple narratives, maximalism, and minimalism. It’s also the Nolan film that Jake and Marshall are the most emotional about. So S.T.A.Y. right there and listen to them chat about love, time, and space.

It’s an emergency episode! Join Marshall and Jake as they talk about the latest trailer for Oppenheimer.

Topics covered from this new glimpse of the film: American patriotism, Matt Damon’s penchant for hamminess, Cillian Murphy’s eyes, ticking countdowns, huge cast lists, and more. Join us as we overanalyze this footage as we get closer and closer to Oppenheimer’s release date.

Look, we know Contact isn’t mentioned anywhere in The Nolan Variations, but it’s our podcast, so we do what we want. There’s no way to talk about Interstellar without talking about Contact, the other movie where Matthew McConaughey and a strong female lead (in this case, Jodie Foster) wrestle with questions about faith, love, science, and space. Join us as we talk about the many similarities between Contact and Interstellar, plus a look at “The Library of Babel,” another Jorge Luis Borges short story.

All good things come to an end eventually. Don’t worry, we’re still continuing this podcast, but this episode marks the end of Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy. Join Jake and Marshall as they discuss The Dark Knight Rises and how effective it is as a trilogy-capper, and what this trilogy did for the wave of superhero films that followed.

“I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss.”

The theme of this episode: Revolution. Join Jake and Marshall as they look at Charles Dickens’ historical fiction epic A Tale of Two Cities and Gillo Pontecorvo’s neorealist film The Battle of Algiers and examine how the two are related to each other and how they influenced Christopher Nolan while making the final chapter of his Batman trilogy, The Dark Knight Rises.

Don’t think about podcasts! This week, Jake, Marshall, and returning guest Jay Wallis dive deep to navigate the various levels of Christopher Nolan’s dream heist epic, Inception. They discuss Hans Zimmer’s landmark score, the meta of the film’s heist crew, how that reveals Nolan’s storytelling ethos, and of course, everyone’s thoughts on that iconic ending.

Grab your totem and join us, won’t you?

Dreams, dreams, and more dreams. This week on the pod, Jake, Marshall, and guest Jay Wallis talk all about three of the biggest dreams and nightmares that inspired Inception: Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo and Jorge Luis Borges’s short stories “The Secret Miracle” and “The Circular Ruins.” We discuss dream logic, Hitchcock’s influence on Christopher Nolan, Borges’s act of creation, and more.

Note: This episode was recorded before the Oscars telecast, so you’ll also hear some armchair predictions that may (or may not) be accurate.

It’s the episode we’ve all been waiting for! This week, join Jake and Marshall as they discuss all things Dark Knight, one of the most influential superhero films ever made. Just remember: You either die a hero, or you podcast long enough to see yourself become the villain.

And here…we…go!

“Is this guy something, or is he something?”

That’s Al Pacino’s Vincent Hanna talking about Robert De Niro’s Neil McCauley in Michael Mann’s Heat. But it’s also Jake and Marshall marveling at Mann’s epic crime caper that helped inspire The Dark Knight. This week on the pod, we look at how Heat and the Long Halloween comics shaped Christopher Nolan’s second Batman film.