Insomnia (2002)
Where to Watch
- Unlike modern films, the massive explosion sequence in Insomnia used zero CGI. The crew spent three weeks setting up the practical rig for a single take.
- The studio almost pulled funding for Insomnia midway through the shoot, convinced that the general audience wouldn't connect with the highly unconventional tone.
- The most famous, quotable line in Insomnia wasn't actually in the script; it was completely improvised by the actor on the third take.
Insomnia is a 2002 American psychological thriller directed by Christopher Nolan, a remake of the 1997 Norwegian film. Al Pacino stars as Detective Will Dormer, a veteran LAPD homicide detective with a sterling reputation who is sent to investigate the murder of a teenage girl in a small Alaskan town during the summer season of perpetual daylight. When Dormer accidentally kills his partner during a fog-shrouded pursuit and covers it up, the murderer he's hunting โ a crime writer played by Robin Williams โ witnesses the shooting and uses it as leverage, proposing a deal in which both men protect each other's secrets.
Christopher Nolan used the midnight sun as both a practical plot element and a metaphor for Dormer's inability to escape his guilt โ the relentless daylight prevents him from sleeping, and his deteriorating mental state blurs the line between hunter and hunted. Al Pacino's increasingly haggard performance, with dark circles deepening beneath his eyes as the sleepless days accumulate, was a masterwork of physical deterioration. Robin Williams delivered one of his most unsettling dramatic performances as the intellectual, soft-spoken killer.
Insomnia earned $113 million worldwide on a $46 million budget.
