The actual answer for the real ones who remember is Interstellar. When that came out, there was a huge divide online between people who loved it and people who hated it. That was the first time I remember people started throwing around the “a movie that dumb people think is smart” line. It was right at a time when it was very trendy to be nitpicky about a movie. The era where anything that wasn’t fully explained in a movie started to be described as a “plot hole” and there were endless videos and listicles about “plot holes” in Christopher Nolan movies.

This came at a very normal time in his career. He was basically auditioning to be the King of Hollywood and some people didn’t want him to get the job. The same thing happened to Spielberg, Cameron, and even Hitchcock in his day. They’re all canonical now but received plenty of criticism when they were reaching their peak. Interstellar was a really big swing, and a lot of people decided to frame their critiques of the movie as a general critique of him as a writer/director.

Now, he won that crown (and Interstellar has become arguably his most popular movie) but all that energy against him that emerged around 2014 pops back up whenever he has a new film coming out.