as is the case with nearly all of his films bar maybe the very early ones

The cut off is pretty much when he stopped collaborating with Jonathan Nolan on the script. Jonathan and Christopher split up after Interstellar where Jonathan went on to write for TV shows starting with Westworld.

Don't get me wrong, Christopher Nolan is quite capable of making movies by himself, but there still was a quality loss in the writing after Interstellar.

There is a sort of critical mass with the reception of art where at a certain point it no longer needs to be great to be remembered as great.

This is why I sometimes think that 'better' and 'great' are two distinct adjectives.

Were there better bands than 'The Beatles' but they never reached the popularity? Maybe. But were there greater bands than 'The Beatles'? I don't think so. I can't even name most of their albums yet I'm aware of their impact on the popular culture.

Any other band you name as counter is going to be a band that was massively popular (Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd or Queen) too.

Another example I can give is of tremendously two Indian movies 'Sholay' and 'Deewar'. Both released in 1975, both have Amitabh Bacchan in leading role, both written by the duo Salim - Javed.

In my opinion, 'Deewar' is a better movie by any metric yet it isn't anywhere close to 'Sholay' when it comes to popularity or influence. The latter was a juggernaut.

Anyway, it's past midnight here and I'm wondering if I've made any good point in this rambling.