The Dark Knight may have been the film that catapulted Nolan into A-list status, but it was this film that made people sit up and take notice that the director was going to have a life beyond Batman. Rather than playing in someone else's world, Nolan has managed to create a fascinating world (or is it worlds ?) of his own. The concept of dreams vs reality has been explored before, but rarely to the effect that it is here. The cast are all great, particularly DiCaprio and Cotillard, but even more importantly is Nolan's script and the editing, which never lose the audience despite the competing narratives within the film and which leave you feeling completely satisfied even with the intentional ambiguity of the final shot. Indeed, the final hour of the film is one of the greatest sustained sequences committed to film, that keeps raising the stakes and Nolan's efforts to try and capture difficult sequences in-camera rather than using CGI is rewarded with stunning imagery as well as tense and exciting action beats. Hopefully a sign of things to come, not only from Nolan after his work on The Dark Knight Rises, but also from Hollywood blockbusters in the future.