Christopher Nolan was born in London on July, 30th in 1970 as a child of a British father and an American mother. He began making war movies with his older brother Matt using his father's super 8mm camera and an assortment of male action figures. At the age of seven Star Wars came out and influenced him to do short science fiction films in the verge of George Lucas space saga.

Nolan was living in Chicago at that time and also made films together with Adrien and Roko Belic

While an undergraduate at University College in London his super 8mm surreal short "Tarantella" was shown in the US on PBS' "Image Union" in 1989. Nolan then studied English Literature at University College London. Meanwhile he continued making film, now at the college film society and in 16mm.

By the mid-90s, he had hooked up with Jeremy Theobald who appeared in the short movie"Larceny" (which was shown at the Cambridge Film Festival in 1996) and the three-minute surreal film "Doodlebug".

It was Theobald who co-produced and stared as the lead in Christopher Nolan's first full feature called Following. Following, a no-budget black-and-white movie produced in London over a one year period of time and finished in 1998 received multiple awards including the Rotterdam International Film Festival's Tiger Award and the Slamdance Black & White Award. This allowed Nolan to direct the highly acclaimed film Memento in 2000, for which he also wrote the screenplay.

Christopher Nolan is red-green colorblind.

He is married to Emma Thomas, who produced some of his short films, Following, Memento and Insomnia. She gave birth to their daughter during the filming of Insomnia.

Is the nephew of actor John Nolan. He is left-handed.