The Sie Film Center’s programming manager, Ernie Quiroz, is like a kid with an electric train set. With three screening rooms and a variety of projectors at his disposal, Quiroz decides what magic plays out on those screens, and he is bringing some of his personal favorites, the films of Christopher Nolan.

From Oct. 23-26, Quiroz and company will screen Memento (2000), The Prestige (2006), Following (1998), The Dark Knight (2008), The Dark Knight Returns (2012), Insomnia (2002), and Inception (2010) for The (Almost) Complete Chris Nolan.

Why almost? No Batman Begins. The 2005 franchise reboot is currently not available for screening purposes (Warner Bros. did not give specifics as to why), so that one you will have to watch at home, but everything else will play on the Sie’s big screen. And here’s the kicker: each one will be presented on 35 mm.

There has been a lot of talk lately about the differences between DCP and 35 mm, and there will be more when Nolan releases his latest effort, Interstellar—a sci-fi film about mankind leaving Earth because of a global dust bowl—in 35 mm and IMAX. The last of a dying breed, Nolan shoots exclusively on film and will even be releasing Interstellar several days early to theaters that still show film, which is what prompted Quiroz to run a 35 mm retrospective.

“For the last 10 years, I’ve felt increasing pressure to stop shooting film and start shooting video, but I’ve never understood why,” Nolan told Directors Guild of America publication DGA Quarterly in 2012. “It’s cheaper to work on film, it’s far better looking, it’s the technology that’s been known and understood for a hundred years, and it’s extremely reliable.”

Reliable, perhaps. But its increasing rarity makes tracking down 35 mm prints a challenge for programmers. As Quiroz put it, “It’s just following the trail of breadcrumbs.”

But for Quiroz, it is a labor of love. 

“I think he’s an amazing filmmaker,” Quiroz says. “He manages to combine high-brow ideas with visceral action. I don’t think there’s any other filmmaker that can quite pull that off.”

Consider Nolan’s Batman trilogy. There were comic book movies before Nolan got his hands on Batman, but those that came after bore the stamp of Nolan. This is especially true of The Dark Knight (Oct. 25), where Nolan waded into the waters that separate “art” and “entertainment,” smuggled in psychology and questions of morality, and made capes and cowls palatable for adults.

And yet, Nolan is much more than his Batman trilogy. Opening the retrospective is Memento (Oct. 23), a story told backward in 10-minute chunks that launched a thousand copycats but managed to get every college film student obsessed with story structure.

The series concludes on Oct. 26 with Nolan’s greatest effort, and easily his most polarizing, Inception. Following a team of dream-sharers that burrow deep into a man’s mind, Inception is a heist film where the rules constantly change. The dream-within-a-dream structure not only allowed Nolan to play with genre like few directors can but allows each viewer their own interpretation of the events. Some were elated, many were infuriated, but Inception will endure for some time.

Sure, you’ve seen these movies before. But your flat screen isn’t this big and your sound system isn’t this good. Watch them projected on a huge screen with a fun crowd. It’s what Nolan would prefer and what Quiroz would want. Trust me, they’re right.

The above article first appeared in the pages of Boulder Weekly Vol. 22, No. 12, “Beyond Batman.”