Following

1999

Following

Critics Consensus

Super brief but efficient, Following represents director Christopher Nolan's burgeoning talent in tight filmmaking and hard-edge noir.

80%

TOMATOMETER

Total Count: 25

85%

Audience Score

User Ratings: 22,647
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Movie Info

Following is a wickedly clever story of how a young man's obsession with following people leads him into a dark underworld. Bill, the unlikely hero, is a marginalized but intriguing Everyman who follows strangers at random on the street. When Cobb, a man Bill has been following, catches him in the act, Bill is drawn into Cobb's world of breaking into flats and prying into the personal lives of their victims. In Cobb, Bill finds a strange companion, part mentor, part confessor and part evil twin. With an ingenious structure that involves flashforwards and doubling back, the film tests our knowledge and understanding just as the protagonist is being duped into an elaborate triple-cross. This first feature heralds in Christopher Nolan a promising new talent to the indie film scene.

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Cast

Jeremy Theobald
as The Young Man
Alex Haw
as Cobb
Lucy Russell
as The Blonde
John Nolan
as The Policeman
Dick Bradsell
as The Bald Guy
Gillian El-Kadi
as The Homeowner
Jennifer Angel
as The Waitress
Nicolas Carlotti
as Barman
Darren Ormandy
as Accountant
Guy Greenway
as Heavy No. 1
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Critic Reviews for Following

All Critics (25) | Top Critics (3)

  • Entertaining, but material doesn't develop the full, edgy potential that similar paranoid-triangle efforts realized.

    Mar 26, 2009

    Dennis Harvey

    Variety
    Top Critic

  • Audiences will walk out of the theater shocked to find that only 70 minutes have gone by.

    Jun 25, 2001 | Rating: 3/4 | Full Review…

    Mick LaSalle

    San Francisco Chronicle
    Top Critic

  • Following certainly offers evidence to Nolan's now hallmark visual ingenuity - not only with the black-and-white photography but with the quasi-Hitchcockian framing.

    Nov 5, 2018 | Rating: 3/5 | Full Review…

    PJ Nabarro

    Patrick Nabarro

  • Following shows the convenience and inconveniences of coexistence... [Full review in Spanish]

    Dec 14, 2017 | Rating: 7/10 | Full Review…

    Hugo Hernández Valdivia

    Cinexcepción

  • Besides the similarities in playing with time and structure, Nolan is already zeroed in on his favorite cinematic theme: obsession.

    Dec 20, 2012 | Rating: 3/4 | Full Review…

    Eric Melin

    Scene-Stealers.com

  • a harbinger of things to come, an exercise in the kind of temporal gymnastics, sleight-of-hand shifts in perspective, and rigorous insights into the dark depths of human nature that have defined Nolan's later films

    Dec 12, 2012 | Rating: 3/4 | Full Review…

    James Kendrick

    Q Network Film Desk
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Audience Reviews for Following

  • Jan 31, 2017
    One of the most captivating indie films I've ever seen - especially impressive for a film shot on just a £3,000 budget.
    Sean T Super Reviewer
  • Oct 08, 2015
    The Following is not a bad noir film. While not quite amateur, it is a novice effort -- both imaginative and naive. The plot is a bit too clever, but it is an interesting (and short) film. Recommended more to fans of black-and-white noir than to Christopher Nolan fans.
    Robert B Super Reviewer
  • Mar 30, 2015
    I know that this film has been really well-received in retrospect because it's a Chris Nolan film, but I just didn't like it. And I love most of Nolan's movies. Nothing really happened the whole time until the ending, and that was really stupid. The neo-noir style is cool, but like I said, this film in general just didn't appeal to me.
    Stephen S Super Reviewer
  • Sep 24, 2014
    Unconventional but strangely engaging, Following may not be Christopher Nolan's most refined film, but it's surely one of his most unique.
    Isaac H Super Reviewer
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