Magicians of the late nineteenth century, fond friends Robert “The Great Danton” Angier and Alfred “The Professor” Borden (Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale) turn to bitter rivals after Angier’s wife is killed in an on-stage accident. Thinking outside the box and taking inspiration from new technologies, the two try to one up and sabotage each other’s acts resulting in increasingly violent incidents, taking a toll on their personal lives. One day Borden debuts a new trick called the Transported Man and, unable to crack it, Angier becomes obsessed with exposing how it works. After all, it can’t really be magic, can it?

Sometimes overshadowed by his Batman movies and later blockbusters, Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of the novel by Christopher Priest is a dark, atmospheric and devilishly clever trick of a film thick with Victorian aesthetics, technological wonder and cutthroat cunning. While spellbinding in its out-of-order puzzle structure, it’s the electric feuding of Jackman’s aristocrat showman and Bale’s DIY illusionist that energises the The Prestige as well as the stacked support of Michael Caine, Scarlett Johansson, Rebecca Hall, Andy Serkis and a mesmerisingly understated David Bowie as Nikola Tesla.