From climatology to biofluidics, the characterization of complex flows relies on computationally expensive kinematic and kinetic measurements. In addition, such big data are difficult to handle in real time, thereby hampering advancements in the area of flow control and distributed sensing. Here, we propose a novel framework for unsupervised characterization of flow patterns through nonlinear manifold learning. Specifically, we apply the isometric feature mapping (Isomap) to experimental video data of the wake past a circular cylinder from steady to turbulent flows. Without direct velocity measurements, we show that manifold topology is intrinsically related to flow regime and that Isomap global coordinates can unravel salient flow features.