Everyone talks about Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, Inception, or Interstellar. Fair enough — they’re massive.
But there’s one film Nolan himself thinks never got its moment… and it’s quietly resurfacing.
Enter Insomnia – now streaming on BBC iPlayer and suddenly back in the spotlight.
The 2002 thriller stars Al Pacino as a sleep-deprived detective and Robin Williams in one of his eeriest roles–not cracking jokes, nut playing mind games in a chilling Alaskan murder case.
It’s dark, slow-burning, and very un-Nolan… at least on the surface.
Critics loved it back then. One review famously called it a “magnificent blanc-noir” that is “pleasingly old fashioned, yet viscerally and sensually modern, delivering an icy, sub-zero burn to the mind.”
Still, it somehow slipped under the radar compared to Nolan’s flashier hits.
Even Nolan admits it.
“I’m very proud of the film,” he said. “I think, of all my films, it’s probably the most underrated. […] The reality is it’s one of my most personal films… It was a very vivid time in my life.”
He added: “It was my first studio film… the first time I’d worked with huge movie stars.”
Fans seem to agree. One wrote: “Insomnia deserves to be put right up there… It’s even arguably better than some of his later films.”
So if you thought you’d seen every Nolan masterpiece… think again. This one’s been hiding in plain sight.
