Robin Williams in Insomnia airs as Nolan's Odyssey opens
Christopher Nolan's 2002 thriller Insomnia—featuring a chilling turn by Robin Williams opposite Al Pacino—is back on BBC Two this Friday at 11:05pm and streaming on BBC iPlayer, just as Nolan's The Odyssey hits cinemas. The neo-noir remake remains his only directed film he did not write.
Key Takeaways
- Insomnia airs on BBC Two at 11:05pm Friday and is streaming now on BBC iPlayer.
- Robin Williams plays the killer opposite Al Pacino's sleep-deprived LAPD detective in Alaska.
- It is Nolan's only directed feature he did not write, remaking a 1997 Norwegian film.
- Midwest Film Journal's Nick Rogers revisited Insomnia and The Prestige and still found both wanting.
- Collider and Nolan alike have framed Insomnia as an overlooked highlight of his early career.
Why is Robin Williams' Insomnia back in the spotlight?
As the Daily Express reports, Nolan's third feature returns to UK screens while his latest blockbuster, The Odyssey, opens. Nolan was 31 when he directed Pacino and Williams in the psychological thriller, which had been unavailable for a long stretch.
Written by Hillary Seitz and based on the 1997 Norwegian original, Insomnia follows an LAPD detective sent to a remote Alaskan town to probe a teenage girl's murder. Sleep deprivation leads him to accidentally shoot his partner—then face blackmail from the killer.
What do fresh reappraisals say about Insomnia and The Prestige?
In a July 13 essay for Midwest Film Journal's Coming Around Again series, Nick Rogers revisited Insomnia and 2006's science-fiction thriller The Prestige—the only Nolan films he had not grown to like. He still calls Insomnia a largely anonymous, middling anomaly, even as he praises the Pacino–Williams face-offs.
Those scenes, Rogers writes, find the stars chipping away at each other like a deadly dance of deceptive promises. He calls Williams' turn a captivating prelude to the actor's darker work later that year in One Hour Photo. For fans of mind-bending storytelling beyond pure spectacle, see more in our Future Tech & AI Wonders coverage, where Nolan's Prestige-era ideas about illusion and impossible tech still echo.
Is Insomnia really Nolan's most underrated film?
Collider argues the film deserves far more attention, citing Pacino's restrained portrait of guilt and exhaustion and strong reviews that still put Insomnia among Nolan's best-reviewed titles at 92% on Rotten Tomatoes, with a 78 Metacritic score. Nolan himself has recognized it as the most underrated movie he has made.
Rogers is less convinced, noting Nolan never again cast Pacino or Hilary Swank and treating the studio thriller mainly as proof he could play along en route to Batman. Either way, Friday's BBC Two slot and iPlayer stream give new viewers a chance to decide—while The Prestige's teleportation rivalry remains the sibling curiosity for anyone tracking Nolan's early experiments with future-facing fantasy.