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This article contains spoilers for “The Prestige,” “Inception,” and “Interstellar.”

Christopher Nolan has directed many of the most acclaimed blockbusters of the 21st century — “The Dark Knight” (2008), “Inception” (2010), and “Interstellar” (2014) to name a few — many of which include conceptual explorations of time, back-and-forth action between different plotlines, and, somewhat concerningly, a lead with a dead wife.

Despite how it may seem, Nolan’s films aren’t all about time. They also carry a message about film itself, and by doing so, are metacinematic.

“The Prestige” (2006) is about two magicians, Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) and Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman), who compete to become the most decorated illusionist. They attend each other’s shows both to sabotage and to learn from one another. Their tricks grow more and more impressive as each drives the other to create the most memorable acts.

The film opens by explaining the three acts of a magic trick. First, the Pledge: The magician presents a seemingly normal object, animal, or person. Then, the Turn: The magician makes it disappear. Finally, the Prestige: The magician brings the object back.

The second half of the film centers itself on one particular act. Borden exits a door and bounces a ball. Within a split second, he exits another door on the opposite end of the stage and catches it. Angier becomes obsessed with trying to figure out how Borden performs the trick. Eventually, he enlists scientist Nikola Tesla (David Bowie), who builds a cloning machine that allows Angier to replicate the act, appearing to teleport across a massive stage in a second for his final performance.

Nolan shifts the focus of the final act from the audience in the film to the audience watching “The Prestige” — now we, the viewers, try to figure out the secret behind the Turn and the Prestige. But of course, we “won’t find it, because [we] don’t really want to know. [We] want to be fooled.” These lines close the film, and the final shot is the Prestige: Angier reappears.

In “The Prestige,” Nolan structures the film like a magic trick. He isn’t just examining the nature of magic, but rather movie magic — people watch films with the desire to be fooled, to be enamored. The film demonstrates Nolan’s love for cinema and his belief in its enchanting, transformative power.

“Inception” plays with the idea of implanting an idea in someone’s head. It follows a fictional team of architects who design dreams in order to extract information from someone while they’re unconscious.

Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio), the protagonist, reveals that dreams can also implant — or “incept” — ideas, not just extract them. He shares that he and his wife Mal (Marion Cotillard) lived an entire life together in a dream. However, he planted an idea in her mind that altered her forever: “That her world was not real.” When they wake up, Mal cannot shake the belief that she’s still dreaming, even in complete reality.

A powerful businessman, Saito (Ken Watanabe), asks the team to perform an inception on Fischer (Cillian Murphy). The process is intense and dangerous, but Cobb miraculously makes it out alive.

In the final scene, Cobb returns home to his children — something he’s been working towards the entire film. In another movie, the mission would finish, and the audience would have no reason to believe that the final scene is a dream. But, when the film has already led viewers deep into layered dreams and far enough separated from reality, we’re incepted with the same doubt as Mal: Is this reality or still a dream?

Though “Inception” is about dreams within dreams, it also becomes a film within a film. The dream architects act like a film crew: directors, set designers, and actors. Fischer isn’t the true subject; the audience is. In other words, the inception works on the viewers.

The audience has no reason to question the first scene — though it turns out to be a dream — but every reason to question the final one, supposedly reality. To this day, debates continue over whether the ending is reality or another dream, with fans searching for clues. Nolan once again demonstrates the power of film, but in “Inception,” that power is more subversive. It manipulates rather than enchants.

While “Inception” and “The Prestige” present the most obvious examples of metacinema, “Interstellar” provides a subtle reflection on film.

“Interstellar” imagines a post-apocalyptic culture, where the Earth is depleted of resources and slowly becoming uninhabitable. Scientists like Professor Brand (Michael Caine) lose hope, planning to recreate civilization on a distant planet, assuming humanity will die off. Protagonist Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) laments, “We used to look up and wonder at our place in the stars. Now we just look down and worry about our place in the dirt,” reflecting this sense of futility.

But Cooper refuses to give up hope. He is relentless in his drive to find a solution to save humanity. The film repeatedly features Dylan Thomas’ famous villanelle “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night,” reinforcing its themes of resistance and survival.

Astronaut Brand (Anne Hathaway) argues that love transcends dimensions. In “Interstellar,” love also transcends the screen — from the filmmakers to the audience. Viewers experience Cooper’s love and grief for his daughter Murphy (Mackenzie Foy, Jessica Chastain). In that sense, humanity survives not only through an isolated space exhibition but also through the movie screen.

As the film industry progresses from its human roots — using CGI in place of practical effects and potentially AI to replace human creators — the heart of cinema is on the brink of death. In “The Prestige” and “Inception,” Nolan shows how film can impact viewers, highlighting the importance of film as a human art form.

In “Interstellar,” Nolan’s cynicism towards the film industry’s evolution evolves into a fear for its survival. But he is not grieving cinema; He’s telling us to save it — “do not gentle into that good night.”

Rage, rage, against the dying of the light.