10 best anime to watch if you love Christopher Nolan movies (#5 is even trippier than Interstellar)

It’s hard to find anime that capture the nuanced complexity associated with Nolan’s cinematic style, but plenty of stories feature complicated time paradoxes, non-linear storytelling, and profound explorations of the human condition. Abstract or thematically dense anime like Serial Experiments Lain or Neon Genesis Evangelion might come to mind, but they don’t quite capture the same sentiment of a Nolan movie. That said, here are 10 best anime worth checking out if you are a fan of Christopher Nolan’s varied filmography.

1

Paprika

Satoshi Kon’s Paprika (2000) and Inception (2010) are often mentioned in the same breath due to thematic overlaps, wherein some of Nolan’s imagery is directly drawn from Kon’s film. A case in point would be the iconic warped hallway scene inside a zero-gravity hotel, or when a character presses their palm to shatter reality like glass. While these parallels are overt, Paprika and Inception couldn’t be more different in their handling of the intended premise. While both films tackle dream infiltration, Paprika uses a psychiatric device named DC Mini to enter patients’ dreams; Inception incorporates shared dreaming and time dilation into the complicated process.

Paprika is undoubtedly more surreal in nature, as it effectively uses the dizzying unreality of dreams to flesh out the protagonist, Dr. Atsuko Chiba, and her alter-ego, Paprika. After a detective named Toshimi Konakawa is plagued by a recurring dream, Paprika decides to get involved just as the sudden theft of three DC Mini prototypes occurs. Kon’s filmmaking merges outlandish sci-fi elements with engrossing mystery, which compounds into an experience that is impossible to forget.

2

Heavenly Delusion

Even when Nolan isn’t directly messing with time, he uses non-linear storytelling of the Memento (2000) variety to heighten mystery and challenge audience perception. Masakazu Ishiguro’s Heavenly Delusion juggles two storylines to similar effect — one where Maru and Kiruko travel a post-apocalyptic wasteland to reach “Heaven,” and another where a group of kids inhabits a school that is dubbed “Heaven.” The fun lies in figuring out how or when these storylines might intersect, and whether character worldviews are objective or tainted by external factors.

Similar to Nolan’s penchant for puzzle-box storytelling (best accomplished by 2006’s The Prestige), Heavenly Delusion also drops cryptic hints that only make complete sense once the central puzzle is solved. The mystery surrounding “Heaven” haunts this somewhat overlooked anime, while the danger posed by worldly threats (like monsters) is juxtaposed against the intimate struggles that Maru and Kiruko face during their journey.

3

Planetes

Planetes is a hard sci-fi space adventure that follows the DS-12 Toy Box crew, who are a part of the Space Debris Section. Their purpose is to prevent space debris from colliding with space stations and satellites, accomplished manually through various means. This is a story about the dangers of human ambition and the cost that we might have to pay with unfettered technological advancement, which includes space colonization.

Nolan’s Interstellar feels closest in terms of spacefaring spectacle, but the similarities actually run much deeper. Planetes also explores the psychological toll of isolation and uses hard science (like accurate orbital mechanics) to communicate the heavy burden that astronauts carry to accomplish their missions. The anime centers on Hachimaki, whose dream to own a spaceship feels impossible in the light of his low-paying, high-risk job and the dire state of things back on Earth. At one point, Hachimaki is thrust into deep isolation in the series, which fuels his traumatic disconnect from the rest of humanity and his obsession to join a manned Jupiter mission.

4

Monster

Naoki Urasawa’s Monster is an unparalleled dissection of the human psyche. It follows neurosurgeon Kenzo Tenma and his efforts to deal with sociopathic former patient Johan Liebert, whose brand of evil is both chilling and realistic. Tenma had saved Johan’s life years ago while disregarding orders to prioritize influential patients — a decision that cost him his entire career. Monster makes excellent use of a nuanced antagonist and a wide cast of supporting characters to create a labyrinthine narrative that blurs the definitions of good and evil.

Monster feels close to Nolan’s Insomnia, a psychological neo-noir that uses harsh daylight and discordant sound to disorient the viewer. This is also a tale submerged in moral ambiguity, which feeds into the paranoia that Will Dormer (Al Pacino) experiences. Monster’s exploration of morality is arguably more complex, as it raises questions about whether a human life is inherently worth saving. Nobody can predict if a child will grow up to become a monster, but what would an “everyman” like Kenzo do to combat the guilt that comes with his choices?

5

Voices of a Distant Star

Image: CoMix Wave Inc.

A Makoto Shinkai (Your Name, Suzume) film might not have much in common with Nolan’s filmography at first glance, but Voices of a Distant Star (2002) uses time dilation to heartbreaking effect just like Interstellar. Two childhood best friends, Mikako and Noboru, are separated when Mikako is enlisted to fight aliens on a deadly space mission while Noboru has to stay on Earth. As if cosmic distance isn’t enough, the two also have to deal with time dilation once Mikako heads deeper into space, which means that the messages she sends back to Earth take much, much longer to get there.

This is similar to Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) drifting apart from his kids during the space mission in Interstellar, with Miller’s Planet dilating time so much that it widens this gulf more than ever. While Voices of a Distant Star isn’t a full-length feature, it tells a moving story about the persistence of memory against the oppressive void that is space and time. While Mikako and Noboru have every justification to forget about each other, they do everything in their power to breach the impossible distance separating them. Much like Interstellar’s hopeful ending, Voices of a Distant Star affirms that physical distance matters little when love is unconditional.

6

Perfect Blue

Another Kon classic, Perfect Blue dives into the life of J-pop idol-turned-actress Mima, who becomes a victim of stalking and gradually begins to lose her grip on reality. Featuring some of the most groundbreaking sequences of animation on film, Perfect Blue echoes Kon’s preoccupation with fractured realities and how they manifest on a psychological level. While Kon’s storytelling feels more layered than the tropes employed in a Nolan film, Perfect Blue also employs the use of mirrored surfaces and doppelgängers to pit two ideals or perspectives against one another.

The narrative ambiguity of Perfect Blue is rather intentional, much like the ending of Inception or the general mechanics of Tenet. Identity and perception are fluid concepts that cannot be put inside a box, which is why the objectivity of Mima’s experiences is brought into question. That said, Perfect Blue is more preoccupied with the toxic nature of celebrity culture and how it warps the popular perception of identity. In keeping with Kon’s exploration of trauma in Paranoia Agent and Millennium Actress, this celebrated movie also taps into the impulses that make Mima tick.

7

Steins; Gate

Image: White Fox

If you’re a fan of the looped timeline and reversed entropy featured in Tenet, the mind-bending nature of Steins; Gate is bound to scratch that itch. A lot happens within the first few episodes: The opening tips us off to the possibility of alternate timelines, a dead body found during a time travel conference sets protagonist Rintaro Okabe on a wild adventure, and a phone-operated microwave is able to send messages back in time.

As outlandish as all of this sounds, Steins; Gate grounds its time travel shenanigans in practical sci-fi tropes, where making a change in the past completely shifts reality instead of triggering the butterfly effect. The temporal leaps in this story are confined by World Line Divergence, which measures the degree by which a base world and an alternate world differ (calculated in percentage). Such convoluted rules take a toll on Okabe, as he is doomed to relive tragedies and deal with the repercussions of messing with the flow of time.

8

Id: Invaded

Image: NAZ

This Inception-coded anime centers on detective-turned-convict Narihisago, who can dive into the “id wells” of serial killers to figure out their motives. A horrific personal tragedy prompts Narihisago to break the law in Id: Invaded, which lands him his prison sentence in the present. An id well is a virtual reality constructed from the subconscious of serial killers, which investigators like Narihisago can explore with the help of cutting-edge technology.

Much like Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio), the characters in Id: Invaded are haunted by loss, and this grief acts as the motivation to dive into these psychological simulations. While these Nolan-esque elements are present, the anime feels more in sync with Paprika, which also uses a procedural framework to further its psychological themes. Even so, Id: Invaded does a commendable job of portraying the disorganized chaos of a person’s unconscious, which is littered with symbolic imagery and fragmented memories as opposed to straightforward clues.

9

Psycho-Pass

If you’re looking for an anime that mimics the gritty realism of The Dark Knight trilogy, Psycho-Pass comes very close to fulfilling that sentiment. There are no caped crusaders or rogues’ gallery in this story, but the Tokyo featured in Psycho-Pass becomes the nexus of a cerebral and complex thriller. Here, we’re introduced to the Sibyl System, a law enforcement group and bio-computer network tasked with preventing crime by identifying latent criminals.

Pre-emptive social correction inevitably leads to city-wide surveillance and arbitrary expectations of morality, which Psycho-Pass tackles with panache. There’s no dearth of flashy action here, but these high-octane sequences are balanced with discussions about whether a “perfect” society is one that’s robbed of free will. Inspector Akane Tsunemori and her partner Shinya Kogami emerge as characters who struggle within a setting designed to break them — while Akane’s centrist approach is repeatedly challenged by a corrupt system, Shinya’s brutal (but effective) tactics to enact justice often cross ethical lines.

10

Erased

Image: A-1 Pictures

If you’re looking for a Nolan-coded time travel story that doesn’t have world-ending consequences, Erased might be your best bet. In this story, a struggling mangaka named Satoru Fujinuma has an involuntary ability called “Revival,” which allows him to send his consciousness back in time right before a tragic incident. After someone close to him gets murdered, Satoru’s Revival sends him back 18 years into the past, where he must save more than one life.

While the anime’s time manipulation mechanics lend to a tense race-against-time storyline, the stakes in Erased are much more personal, as Satoru’s urge to save people is confined to the ones he loves. The past isn’t just a quick destination, as it also holds the power of nostalgia. Satoru needs to navigate the town he grew up in and cross paths with the people he knew when he was a child. While these aspects paint Erased as a profoundly emotional experience, Satoru’s journey functions on the same deterministic logic that most time travel protagonists employ.