The British Film Institute (BFI) will present English director Christopher Nolan with its highest honor, the BFI Fellowship, in recognition of the Oppenheimer filmmaker’s “extraordinary achievements and enormous contribution to cinema,” the BFI announced Monday.
The BFI Fellowship will be presented to Christopher Nolan at the BFI Chair’s Dinner in London on February 14, 2024, hosted by BFI Chair Tim Richards. This will be followed by an “In Conversation” event with Nolan on Feb.15 at the BFI Southbank theater and a special introduction to Nolan’s 2020 sci-fi film Tenet at the BFI IMAX.
In a statement, the BFI called Nolan the “rare director who marries his epic vision with an intelligent, unique approach to filmmaking and storytelling” and listed his many achievements for his films, which have won a total of 11 Oscars.
“I’m delighted to be honoring and recognizing Christopher Nolan with a BFI Fellowship,” said Richards. “Christopher Nolan is one of the greatest filmmakers of the 21st century, creating hugely popular movies that have grossed over $6 billion worldwide. His movies are all made for the big screen to challenge and entertain audiences around the world. Christopher’s commitment and support of the Cinema industry is legendary. He has also been at the forefront of preserving celluloid through his involvement with The Film Foundation and his own support via the Morf Foundation for the BFI’s photochemical work. All done to ensure that current and future audiences will be able to continue to enjoy and learn from our incredibly rich history of cinema for many years to come.”
Nolan’s most recent film, Oppenheimer, starring Cillian Murphy as the eponymous physicist who lead the team that built the first atomic bomb, has been a huge critical and commercial hit, grossing nearly a billion dollars globally for Universal Pictures. It’s become Nolan’s biggest film ever at the U.K. box office, grossing 58.7 million pounds ($74.4 million) to date, topping The Dark Knight and Dunkirk. The film had a rare second run in early November at Imax cinemas in the U.S. and has become the fourth-highest-grossing worldwide Imax release of all time. Oppenheimer will get a repeat showing at BFI Imax again in January 2024.
Nolan is a vocal advocate for the theatrical experience, continuing to shoot his films on celluloid — eight of his features were shot on 65 mm Imax cameras — and calling for them to be watched on as big a screen as possible. He is a strong supporter of the work of film archives around the world, including the BFI National Archive.
“I am thrilled and honored to be accepting a BFI Fellowship from an organization so dedicated to preserving both cinema’s history as well as its future,” said Nolan in a statement.
Nolan will be joining the distinguished ranks of other BFI Fellows which include David Lean, Bette Davis, Akira Kurosawa, Ousmane Sembène Elizabeth Taylor, Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger, Orson Welles, Thelma Schoonmaker, Derek Jarman, Martin Scorsese, Satyajit Ray, Yasujirō Ozu and, most recently, Tilda Swinton, Barbara Broccoli, Michael G Wilson and Spike Lee.
