Film 01 / 13 · Directed by Christopher Nolan
Christopher Nolan's Following (1998)
Following is Christopher Nolan's first feature film, a 70-minute black-and-white thriller about a young writer who starts trailing strangers around London. Made with friends for about $6,000, it premiered at the San Francisco International Film Festival in April 1998 and opened the way to Memento.
A young, unemployed writer in London starts following strangers in the street, looking for material for his first book. He sets himself rules, then breaks them.
One of the men he follows, a confident burglar named Cobb, notices him and invites him along on his break-ins. The writer gets drawn into a game whose rules he does not know.
Ratings
As of 11 November 2026- IMDb7.4/10115K votes
- Rotten Tomatoes87%Tomatometer · 89 reviewsPopcornmeter 85%
- Metacritic60/100Metascore · 11 reviews
- Letterboxd3.47/5Average rating
- Kinopoisk7.5/1023.2K votes
Editor's score
Lars Ziegler · 6 November 20265.9/ 10Average of seven craft categories, each out of 10.
| Screenplay | 7 |
|---|---|
| Direction | 7 |
| Acting | 5 |
| Cinematography | 6 |
| Sound & music | 5 |
| Editing | 7 |
| Design | 4 |
How the ranking adds up
Total 57.0 / 100Facts
- World premiere
San Francisco International Film Festival, San Francisco- Release (UK)
- Runtime
- 70 min
- Genres
- Drama · Thriller
- Studios
- Next Wave Films
- Distributor
- Momentum Pictures
- Budget
- $6,000
- Box office
- $128,048 worldwide
$48,482 domestic · $77,570 international
Incl. re-releases · Box Office Mojo, 11 November 2026
Awards
Wikipedia, 11 November 2026No Oscar, BAFTA or Golden Globe nominations.
Cast
Billing order- 01Jeremy TheobaldThe Young Man
- 02Alex HawCobb
- 03Lucy RussellThe Blonde
- 04John NolanThe Policeman
Key crew
- Director
- Christopher Nolan
- Screenplay
- Christopher Nolan
- Producers
- Christopher Nolan, Jeremy Theobald, Emma Thomas
- Cinematography
- Christopher Nolan
- Editing
- Gareth Heal, Christopher Nolan
- Music
- David Julyan
Production notes
- 01
Nolan shot it on 16 mm black-and-white film over about a year of Saturdays, because he and his cast all had weekday jobs.
- 02
Nolan was also his own cinematographer, the only time he has filmed one of his features himself.
- 03
The burglar is called Cobb, the name Nolan later gave Leonardo DiCaprio's character in Inception.