Dark__

Micheal Mann
1981: Thief
1983: The Keep
1986: Manhunter
1992: The Last Of Mohicans
1995: Heat
1999: The Insider
2001: Ali
2004: Collateral
2006: Miami Vice
2009: Public Enemies
2015: Blackhat
2023: Ferrari




Christopher Nolan
1998: Following
2000: Memento
2002: Insomnia
2005: Batman Begins
2006: The Prestige
2008: The Dark Knight
2010: Inception
2012: The Dark Knight Rises
2014: Interstellar
2017: Dunkirk
2020: Tenet
2023: Oppenheimer

Both have directed the same amount of feature films, and are similiar… with Ferrari being released next week I think a poll was justified.

GoldenJCJ

Heat is in my Top 3 all time. It’s a masterpiece! It’s also the only Mann movie I think is great. I’m not a huge fan of his others.

Nolan might not have a movie that’s on the same level as Heat but I find the majority of his movies entertaining. He has a tendency to be a little more ambitious than he needs to be but despite some flaws, his whole filmography is pretty damn entertaining.

stvn1974

Of the Mann films I have seen I only liked Last Of The Mohicans and Heat. Out of the Nolan films that I have seen I only liked Memento and Batman Begins. I like the two Mann films more.

Decker

MICHAEL. It’s a super common name (the most common boy’s name in America for over 50 consecutive years) that somehow everybody still misspells. I don’t get it.

As far as the question : I greatly like them both, but I prefer Nolan and think every one of his films have been at least pretty good, while there are a couple of Mann films like Blackhat and Miami Vice that I don’t care for.

Boba Fett

I enjoy more of Nolan’s films, but Thief, Last of the Mohicans and Heat are absolutely amazing; Nolan hasn’t come close to matching that level of filmmaking.

MR Round

I like Mann more, his movies to me are much more enjoyable ,and Nolan is very hit or miss, I liked his Batman trilogy and the Prestige but ones like Tenant, Dunkirk, Intersteller and Inception i found pretentious and very boring. But movies like Heat, Last Of the Mohicans, Collateral and the Keep (with all its flaws and my hope to get his original cut released one day) their much more likely to be replayed then anything of Nolans

TheMovieman

Very torn as I love both crime-thrillers and am a Batman fan (and have also liked Interstellar and Inception). But ultimately movies like Heat, Thief and Collateral tipped it towards Mann.

RichC2

Pre-2000s Mann is better than Nolan. I'm not sure if Post-2000 weighs him enough to put him behind or not (Collateral was okay in my book but I never really got the praise for it.)

I guess the needle falls slight Nolan for me.

Jaymole

I have liked (to varying degrees) all of Nolan's films where as Mann is hit & miss for me so definitely Nolan.

Dark__

I like Mann a lot, but I like Nolan more. Overall, it's close but Mann's output in 00s definitely isn't as good as his 80s and 90s meanwhile Nolan has stayed consistent in quality since the start, with the only exception of Tenet where you can clearly see he didn't know what he was doing.

In my book, both have directed five excellent films: Heat, Collateral, Memento, The Prestige and The Dark Knight.

Decker

Nothing will invalidate a film criticism to me faster than using the word Pretentious as a pejorative description. Pretentious means
Don't we want our films, especially our genre films to have pretensions -- to aspire to be something greater and more important than what we've seen before? Isn't Heat a pretentious heist film? Isn't Batman Begins a pretentious superhero origin story? And isn't that a good thing in both cases?

RichC2

Nobody wants a movie that insists upon itself.

PhantomStranger

Mann may be the most overrated director of the past fifty years. Even in films like Heat, he did less than what I think a better director could have pulled from the same cast and screenplay. Probably peaked with The Insider and is now simply collecting checks. Nolan's poorest films are more interesting than Mann's best.

Rival11

It's so weird for me to say this but I'm not a fan of either of these guys.......It's weird because I love their directing style. All of their films just fall flat for me though.

I'll be watching Oppenheimer soon.

TomOpus

Nolan.

GoldenJCJ

This is a far more even-keeled response from you than I was expecting.

IBJoel

Possibly/Probably because of my age, but I prefer Nolan. Although I have liked all the Mann films I've seen. I think, despite their styles, they're just very different guys. Nolan works with the fantastic and is from a fairly posh background, whereas Mann has always had more of a blue collar and realism approach. Blank Check summed up his movies as being about "hard men making hard choices".

DJariya

Miami Vice, Heat and Manhunter are my favorite Mann movies. I am looking forward to Ferrari.

But, I think I'm more of a fan of Nolan's work. There are a few Nolan movies that I didn't love like Tenet and Dunkirk.

Draven

Nolan makes more visually interesting movies. Mann makes more entertaining movies. So Mann takes it for me. Only The Dark Knight comes close to something like Heat or Last of the Mohicans and TDK fumbles the ending hard.

asianxcore

I enjoy both directors greatly but as others have mentioned, Christopher Nolan due to his consistency of entertaining films.

Hazel Motes

Well, HEAT trumps all. But I’ve liked every Nolan film except Tenet. I’ve LOVED every Nolan film except for Tenet and the Dark Knight Trilogy. Mann’s only good film this century for my money is Collateral. The rest have been dreck. Heat, Thief, LOTM, and The Insider were all superb. Manhunter is good too.

Right now I’d say they are neck and neck. But at the pace Nolan is going I think he will win out eventually.

Hazel Motes

Side note just for fun, but I think Scorsese’s LAST 12 films are just as good as either directors entire filmography.

And his first 24 make both filmmakers combined filmography look like Mickey Mouse.

Meathead

Definitely Nolan. Only good Mann films for me are Collateral, Heat and Thief. Hated Miami Vice.

DJariya

Not a Mann directed movie, but he produced a movie in 1986 called "Band of the Hand" that was made at the height of Miami Vice's popularity. It's a little corny and dated by today's standards, but I enjoyed it. Stephen Lang played a mentor to a bunch of misfit crooks who help take down a major Miami drug kingpin.

Although he only directed the 1st episode. Mann did great work on the Max series Tokyo Vice. His influence is definitely felt throughout the 1st season.

Geofferson

He was also EP and directed the first episode of the HBO series, Luck. Only lasted one season but was a show worth watching. Also, before Heat was a theatrical film, the story was first told in a made-for-TV movie directed by Mann called LA Takedeown. Low budget and the acting isn't the best, but it's also worth checking out for fans of his.

Lastly, the extended cut of Blackhat didn't make it a great movie, but it was a material improvement over the butchered theatrical cut.