📍Highgate, London N6, UK
1970 – 1988“Christopher Nolan was born in Westminster, London, in July 1970 and grew up in Highgate, a leafy, hilly corner of north London with old houses, Highgate Wood, the famous cemetery and views over the city. His father, Brendan, was a British advertising creative director, and his mother, Christina, an American former flight attendant and English teacher from Evanston, Illinois. With his older brother, Matthew, and younger brother, Jonathan, he was raised Catholic, and the family spent summers in Evanston, so he grew up between London and the suburbs of Chicago. At seven he borrowed his father's Super 8 camera and began making short films with his action figures, including a stop-motion homage to Star Wars called Space Wars. He built sets out of clay, flour, egg boxes and toilet rolls, and cast his little brother, Jonathan, who would later become his writing partner. He went to Barrow Hills, a Catholic prep school in Surrey, and then to Haileybury, a boarding school in Hertfordshire, where he kept making films. Seeing 2001: A Space Odyssey and Star Wars as a boy made him fall in love with the big screen. He studied English literature at University College London, where he ran the film society and made short films with his future wife, Emma Thomas. His first feature, Following, was made on weekends around London in 1998, and Memento, The Dark Knight trilogy, Inception, Interstellar and Oppenheimer followed. In 2024 he won Oscars for directing and producing Oppenheimer. The Super 8 films of his Highgate childhood were where it all began.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today