inception movie review essay

Home — Essay Samples — Entertainment — Inception — A Review Of The Movie Inception

A Review of The Movie Inception

• Categories: Inception Movie Review

About this sample

Words: 756 |

Published: Nov 5, 2020

Words: 756 | Pages: 2 | 4 min read

Works Cited:

• Davis, N. (2018, September 4). Colin Kaepernick: Nike suffer #justburnit backlash over advertising campaign. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/sep/04/colin-kaepernick-nike-advertising-campaign-just-do-it-anthem-protest
• ESPN. (2018, September 3). Nike's Colin Kaepernick ad is a business move, not 'social activism.' ESPN.
• Friedman, V. J. (2018, September 12). Nike's Kaepernick ad may be divisive, but it's also strategic. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/12/business/media/nike-colin-kaepernick.html
• Gormley, M. (2018, September 5). Kaepernick's Nike deal prompts flurry of debate online, not all of it critical. USA Today. https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2018/09/04/colin-kaepernick-nike-ad-prompts-flurry-debate-online/1188235002/
• Griner, D. (2018, September 5). Nike's Kaepernick ad and the brutal backlash, explained. Adweek.
• Pappas, S. (2018, September 6). Nike's Kaepernick ad riles consumers, but may also help build brand loyalty: Experts. Fox News.
• Perry, M. (2018, September 5). Colin Kaepernick: Why Nike's backing of the NFL star is a masterstroke. BBC News.
• Pritchard, J. (2018, September 4). Colin Kaepernick's new Nike ad is based on a true story. The Cut.
• Sagonowsky, E. (2018, September 4). Nike's Colin Kaepernick gamble hits social media paydirt: report. FiercePharma.
• Zillman, C. (2018, September 5). Colin Kaepernick's Nike ad is the best thing the company has done this year. Fortune.

Cite this Essay

Let us write you an essay from scratch

• 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
• Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

Verified writer

• Expert in: Entertainment

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

4 pages / 1797 words

4.5 pages / 2006 words

6.5 pages / 2866 words

4 pages / 1710 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Related Essays on Inception

Christopher Nolan's "Inception" is a science fiction thriller film that was released in 2010. The film was highly anticipated before its release and was a commercial success, grossing over $800 million worldwide. The film [...]

As I delved into crafting an "Inception" movie review, I found myself immersed in the intricate world of Christopher Nolan's 2010 science fiction action masterpiece. The movie is about Dom Cobb, a professional thief who invades [...]

Inception is a 2010 psychological science fiction action film written, co-produced, and directed by Christopher Nolan. The film features an international ensemble cast starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, Ellen Page, and [...]

Inception. Dreams or reality? Would you be able to tell the difference? This film has many twists and turns throughout it making the characters and viewers decipher dreams from reality. Inception begins with introduction of Dom [...]

Are we dreaming or is this real or are we simply just dreaming a dream thinking of reality? Dreams are fascinating things created from our minds, appearing as ones desires, motivations and thoughts. Christopher Nolan directed [...]

Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange is a novel pervaded by a multifaceted and intrinsic musical presence. Protagonist Alex’s fondness for classical music imbues his character with interesting dimensions, and resonates well [...]

Related Topics

By clicking “Send”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement . We will occasionally send you account related emails.

Where do you want us to send this sample?

By clicking “Continue”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy.

Be careful. This essay is not unique

This essay was donated by a student and is likely to have been used and submitted before

Download this Sample

Free samples may contain mistakes and not unique parts

Sorry, we could not paraphrase this essay. Our professional writers can rewrite it and get you a unique paper.

Please check your inbox.

We can write you a custom essay that will follow your exact instructions and meet the deadlines. Let's fix your grades together!

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

• Instructions Followed To The Letter
• Deadlines Met At Every Stage
• Unique And Plagiarism Free

Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, collections, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, dreams on top of dreams inside dreams.

Now streaming on:

It's said that Christopher Nolan spent ten years writing his screenplay for "Inception." That must have involved prodigious concentration, like playing blindfold chess while walking a tight-wire. The film's hero tests a young architect by challenging her to create a maze, and Nolan tests us with his own dazzling maze. We have to trust him that he can lead us through, because much of the time we're lost and disoriented. Nolan must have rewritten this story time and again, finding that every change had a ripple effect down through the whole fabric.

The story can either be told in a few sentences, or not told at all. Here is a movie immune to spoilers: If you knew how it ended, that would tell you nothing unless you knew how it got there. And telling you how it got there would produce bafflement. The movie is all about process, about fighting our way through enveloping sheets of reality and dream, reality within dreams, dreams without reality. It's a breathtaking juggling act, and Nolan may have considered his " Memento " (2000) a warm-up; he apparently started this screenplay while filming that one. It was the story of a man with short-term memory loss, and the story was told backwards.

Like the hero of that film, the viewer of "Inception" is adrift in time and experience. We can never even be quite sure what the relationship between dream time and real time is. The hero explains that you can never remember the beginning of a dream, and that dreams that seem to cover hours may only last a short time. Yes, but you don't know that when you're dreaming. And what if you're inside another man's dream? How does your dream time synch with his? What do you really know?

Cobb ( Leonardo DiCaprio ) is a corporate raider of the highest order. He infiltrates the minds of other men to steal their ideas. Now he is hired by a powerful billionaire to do the opposite: To introduce an idea into a rival's mind, and do it so well he believes it is his own. This has never been done before; our minds are as alert to foreign ideas as our immune system is to pathogens. The rich man, named Saito ( Ken Watanabe ), makes him an offer he can't refuse, an offer that would end Cobb's forced exile from home and family.

Cobb assembles a team, and here the movie relies on the well-established procedures of all heist movies. We meet the people he will need to work with: Arthur ( Joseph Gordon-Levitt ), his longtime associate; Eames ( Tom Hardy ), a master at deception; Yusuf ( Dileep Rao ), a master chemist. And there is a new recruit, Ariadne ( Ellen Page ), a brilliant young architect who is a prodigy at creating spaces. Cobb also goes to touch base with his father-in-law Miles ( Michael Caine ), who knows what he does and how he does it. These days Michael Caine need only appear on a screen and we assume he's wiser than any of the other characters. It's a gift.

But wait. Why does Cobb need an architect to create spaces in dreams? He explains to her. Dreams have a shifting architecture, as we all know; where we seem to be has a way of shifting. Cobb's assignment is the "inception" (or birth, or wellspring) of a new idea in the mind of another young billionaire, Robert Fischer Jr. ( Cillian Murphy ), heir to his father's empire. Saito wants him to initiate ideas that will lead to the surrender of his rival's corporation. Cobb needs Ariadne to create a deceptive maze-space in Fischer's dreams so that (I think) new thoughts can slip in unperceived. Is it a coincidence that Ariadne is named for the woman in Greek mythology who helped Theseus escape from the Minotaur's labyrinth?

Cobb tutors Ariadne on the world of dream infiltration, the art of controlling dreams and navigating them. Nolan uses this as a device for tutoring us as well. And also as the occasion for some of the movie's astonishing special effects, which seemed senseless in the trailer but now fit right in. The most impressive to me takes place (or seems to) in Paris, where the city literally rolls back on itself like a roll of linoleum tile.

Protecting Fischer are any number of gun-wielding bodyguards, who may be working like the mental equivalent of antibodies; they seem alternatively real and figurative, but whichever they are, they lead to a great many gunfights, chase scenes and explosions, which is the way movies depict conflict these days. So skilled is Nolan that he actually got me involved in one of his chases, when I thought I was relatively immune to scenes that have become so standard. That was because I cared about who was chasing and being chased.

If you've seen any advertising at all for the film, you know that its architecture has a way of disregarding gravity. Buildings tilt. Streets coil. Characters float. This is all explained in the narrative. The movie is a perplexing labyrinth without a simple through-line, and is sure to inspire truly endless analysis on the web.

Nolan helps us with an emotional thread. The reason Cobb is motivated to risk the dangers of inception is because of grief and guilt involving his wife Mal ( Marion Cotillard ), and their two children. More I will not (in a way, cannot) say. Cotillard beautifully embodies the wife in an idealized way. Whether we are seeing Cobb's memories or his dreams is difficult to say--even, literally, in the last shot. But she makes Mal function as an emotional magnet, and the love between the two provides an emotional constant in Cobb's world, which is otherwise ceaselessly shifting.

"Inception" works for the viewer, in a way, like the world itself worked for Leonard, the hero of "Memento." We are always in the Now. We have made some notes while getting Here, but we are not quite sure where Here is. Yet matters of life, death and the heart are involved--oh, and those multi-national corporations, of course. And Nolan doesn't pause before using well-crafted scenes from spycraft or espionage, including a clever scheme on board a 747 (even explaining why it must be a 747).

The movies often seem to come from the recycling bin these days: Sequels, remakes, franchises. "Inception" does a difficult thing. It is wholly original, cut from new cloth, and yet structured with action movie basics so it feels like it makes more sense than (quite possibly) it does. I thought there was a hole in "Memento:" How does a man with short-term memory loss remember he has short-term memory loss? Maybe there's a hole in "Inception" too, but I can't find it. Christopher Nolan reinvented " Batman ." This time he isn't reinventing anything. Yet few directors will attempt to recycle "Inception." I think when Nolan left the labyrinth, he threw away the map.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

Now playing

The Listener

Matt zoller seitz.

Peyton Robinson

Little Wing

Marya e. gates.

Simon Abrams

Kiss the Future

Collin souter, film credits.

Inception (2010)

Rated PG-13 for sequences of violence and action throughout

148 minutes

Leonardo DiCaprio as Cobb

Ken Watanabe as Saito

Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Arthur

Marion Cotillard as Mal

Ellen Page as Ariadne

Tom Hardy as Eames

Cillian Murphy as Robert Fischer Jr.

Tom Berenger as Browning

Michael Caine as Miles

Dileep Rao as Yusuf

Pete Postlethwaite as Maurice Fischer

Written and directed by

• Christopher Nolan

Latest blog posts

The People’s Joker and Six Other Films That Were Stuck in Legal Limbo

Metrograph Highlights Remarkable Career of Lee Chang-dong

Female Filmmakers in Focus: Alice Rohrwacher on La Chimera

On Luca, Tenet, The Invisible Man and Other Films from the Early Pandemic Era that Deserve More Big-Screen Time

• International edition
• Australia edition
• Europe edition

Inception review – the virtual reinvention of virtual reality

Christopher Nolan’s cerebro-tech thriller may be short on story, but makes up for it with staggering fantasy set pieces

W ith Christopher Nolan’s new film Tenet doomed to arrive like Achilles racing the tortoise in Zeno’s paradox, approaching and approaching, forever closing the gap but never quite here, it is an interesting time for his adored cerebro-tech thriller Inception to get a re-release on streaming platforms. It’s a measure of Nolan’s towering prestige that a film made a mere 10 years ago can be eligible for classic reassessment status, but there’s also something disconcerting about it.

Rightly or wrongly, Nolan fans and the industry generally had been encouraged to believe in Tenet as the morale-boosting new dawn for post-Covid theatrical life – the flagship for cinema as challenging, spectacular entertainment. So, inevitably, it looks as if Inception is somehow being offered as second best, or as a warmup act hustled hastily on stage to keep the audience quiet because the (similar) main event is still stuck in traffic miles away.

Well, Inception is still very impressive; looking back, I see that I found its tech and technique dazzling , but the narrative inert. Yet maybe that was not doing justice to how staggering its fantasy set pieces were.

Leonardo DiCaprio plays a brain-hacker of the future called Cobb, an industrial-espionage mercenary who specialises in invading plutocrats’ dreaming minds to steal commercially sensitive information. He builds detailed, complex imaginary worlds to seduce the dreamers into letting their subconscious guards down, with the help of a supercool crew of forgers: Eames (Tom Hardy), Ariadne (Ellen Page) and Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). Now a Japanese CEO Saito (Ken Watanabe) wants to hire Cobb to implant a destructive idea inside the head of a rival, Fischer (Cillian Murphy). To do it, Cobb devises a triple-decker dream, a dream-within-a-dream-within-a-dream. But the memory of his late wife Mal (Marion Cotillard) will keep invading this synapse-world.

For me, despite all the Kubrickian brilliance that Nolan often conjures, there is frequent narrative claustrophobia, and I still think that it is only at the level of waking life that real drama and jeopardy exist. But those imagined worlds are breathtaking and in the decade since Inception came out, I’ve seen nothing else come close. It is impossible not to gasp when Cobb takes Ariadne for coffee in Paris, and then shows her how malleable and adaptable an imagined city can be. As for DiCaprio, it is a slight shame that Nolan can’t release in him the comic mischief and vulnerability that Scorsese and Tarantino know how to find, but that, arguably, isn’t the point here. It is a thriller and DiCaprio is the film’s sleekest and sexiest piece of kit.

Watching this, I found myself realising how much I’ve missed seeing Page in the top flight of movies over the past decade, and also noticing how Hardy can sometimes look as pudgy as some bloke in a pub, and sometimes snap mysteriously into shape, athletic as a future Bond. With this film, Nolan virtually reinvented virtual reality.

• Science fiction and fantasy films
• Christopher Nolan
• Leonardo DiCaprio

Comments (…)

Most viewed.

The Definitive Voice of Entertainment News

Subscribe for full access to The Hollywood Reporter

site categories

‘inception’: film review.

In a summer of remakes, reboots and sequels comes 'Inception,' easily the most original movie idea in ages.

By Kirk Honeycutt

Kirk Honeycutt

• Share this article on Facebook
• Share this article on Twitter
• Share this article on Flipboard
• Share this article on Email
• Show additional share options
• Share this article on Linkedin
• Share this article on Pinit
• Share this article on Reddit
• Share this article on Tumblr
• Share this article on Whatsapp
• Share this article on Print
• Share this article on Comment

In a summer of remakes, reboots and sequels comes Inception , easily the most original movie idea in ages.

Now “original” doesn’t mean its chases, cliffhangers, shoot-outs, skullduggery and last-minute rescues. Movies have trafficked in those things forever. What’s new here is how writer-director Christopher Nolan repackages all this with a science-fiction concept that allows his characters to chase and shoot across multiple levels of reality. The Bottom Line In a summer of remakes, reboots and sequels comes "Inception," easily the most original movie idea in ages.

Related Stories

Tessa thompson, joseph gordon-levitt join sci-fi thriller 'ash', netflix: movies and tv shows leaving in october.

Following up on such ingenious and intriguing films as The Dark Knight  and Memento , Nolan has outdone himself. Inception puts him not only at the top of the heap of sci-fi all-stars, but it also should put this Warner Bros. release near or at the top of the summer movies. It’s very hard to see how a film that plays so winningly to so many demographics would not be a worldwide hit.

Not that the film doesn’t have its antecedents. Dreamscape (1984) featured a man who could enter and manipulate dreams, and, of course, in The Matrix (1999) human beings and machines battled on various reality levels created by artificial intelligence.

In Inception , Nolan imagines a new kind of corporate espionage wherein a thief enters a person’s brain during the dream state to steal ideas. This is done by an entire team of “extractors” who design the architecture of the dreams, forge identities within the dream and even pharmacologically help several people to share these dreams.

Leonardo DiCaprio plays Dom Cobb, a master extractor, who is for what initially are vague reasons on the run and cannot return home to his children in the States. Then along comes a powerful businessman, Saito (Ken Watanabe), who offers Dom his life back — if he’ll perform a special job.

Saito wants Dom to do the impossible: Instead of stealing an idea, he wants Dom to plant one, an idea that will cause the mark, Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy), to break up his father’s multibillion-dollar corporation for “emotional” reasons.

Dom’s late wife, Mal (Marion Cotillard), haunts his own dreamworld like a kind of Mata Hari, intent on messing with his mind if not staking a claim to his very life. He doesn’t let on about this, but Dom’s new architect, Ariadne (Ellen Page), figures it out — which makes her realize how dangerous it is to share dreams with Dom.

A good deal of the first hour is spent, essentially, selling the audience on this sci-fi idea. As you witness an extraction that fails and then Dom’s recruitment of his new team around the world, the movie lays out all the hows, whys, whos and what-the-hells behind “extractions.”

If you don’t follow all this, join the club. It will perhaps take multiple viewings of these multiple dream states to extract all the logic and regulations. (At least that’s what the filmmakers hope.)

Something else might come more easily on subsequent viewings: With incredibly tense situations suspended across so many dreams within dreams, all that restless energy might induce a kind of reverse stress in audiences, producing not quite tedium, but you may want to shout, “C’mon, let’s get on with it.”

This is especially true when the hectic action in one dream, a van rolling down a hill with its dreamers aboard, causes a hotel corridor to roll in another, producing a weightless state in the characters. Even Fred Astaire didn’t dance on the ceiling as much as these guys do.

Page too displays sharp intelligence and determination in the face of this absolute jumble of reality. Especially surprising is Murphy as the mark; you find yourself genuinely sympathetic to a guy who just wanted to catch a little shut-eye and finds his mind kidnapped.

It also is nice that Nolan strives to keep CG effects to a minimum and do as many stunts in-camera as possible. This photo-realism certainly helps to keep the dream realities looking more plausible.

Credit cinematographer Wally Pfister with so neatly blending the real and surreal without any hokey moments. Ditto that for production designer Guy Hendrix Dyas and the various stunt coordinators and effects teams. Meanwhile, editor Lee Smith does a Herculean job of juggling those different realities.

Sometimes originality comes at a cost though: At the end, you may find yourself utterly exhausted.

THR Newsletters

Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day

More from The Hollywood Reporter

Hunter schafer faces horrors at german resort in neon’s ‘cuckoo’ trailer, minnie driver claims ‘hard rain’ producers denied her a wetsuit because “they wanted to see my nipples”, carla gugino says it was “physically totally impossible” that she played a mother in 2001’s ‘spy kids’, bambi goes on a rampage in first teaser for poohniverse movie ‘bambi: the reckoning’, ‘boiling point’ director philip barantini to helm dennis lehane adaptation ‘a bostonian’ (exclusive), ‘the first omen’ director arkasha stevenson says classic horror franchise has plenty of stories left.

Cinema as Pleasure Principle

Inception : Film, Dreams and Freud

Colin McGinn has written extensively and compellingly about the similarities between film watching and dreaming (192-3, 202-3):

Movies delve into our dreaming self, that submerged and seething alter ego that emerges when the sun goes down. In the cinema we relive the life of the dreaming self. Movies thus tap into the dreaming aspect of human nature. Moreover, they improve upon our dream life. They give us the dreams we yearn for. It is a rare individual who is not fascinated by his own dreams, with their raw ability to reveal, their magical expressiveness, movies partake in this fascination. The impact of movies stems, then, at least in part, from the primal power of the dream. To be sure, the dream component of the movie experience is augmented by the special qualities of the medium, but the primary emotional hook originates in the evocation of the dream… The best directors – Luis Buñuel, Alfred Hitchcock, David Lean, Stanley Kubrick, Steven Spielberg, and others – seem to me to recognize the essentially dreamlike character of the movie world, and they trade upon it in their films. What is A Clockwork Orange but an audacious dream adventure insidiously combining nightmare and wish fulfilment? [1]

Dreams are also of particular importance in psychoanalytic thought. Freud famously described them as being “the royal road to the unconscious”.

This then creates an interesting three way relationship between film, dreams and psychoanalysis with the latter having been among the most dominant forces in film theory and criticism for the past few decades.

Christopher Nolan’s Inception manifests and coalesces these three things. It is filmmaking on a huge scale with the very best production values of modern Hollywood which takes as its subject matter the interrogation of dreams and whose emotional narrative (as opposed to the functional narrative about corporate espionage) is essentially the working through of the psychoanalytic process.

For a filmmaker within the Hollywood system, Christopher Nolan is unusually pre-occupied with psychological human states to the degree that they often act as the primary theme of his films. Memento??’s narrative structure is built around the short term memory limitations of its protagonist. ??Insomnia explores the affects of extreme sleep deprivation as its lead character struggles to function in a state in which he is never fully awake or asleep, throwing into question his ability to interpret events accurately or remember them fully. Even Nolan’s Batman films are, at their core, concerned with creating a representation of the psychological state of someone who we can believe would turn himself into a vigilante and dress up as a bat. The Prestige sits somewhat outside of this theme but also shares similarities with Inception in its playing with the dichotomy between perception and reality.

Christopher Nolan does a few things very well in terms of his deployment of certain aspects of film grammar and technique, particularly cross cutting. With Inception Nolan spends the first hour setting up the premise of having the characters simultaneously occupy multiple levels of dream space which then allows him to play out all of these together using this technique. His confidence and competence in this regard is crucial to ensuring that the audience is free to follow what might be a very complicated concept and concentrate instead on the ever more complex plot machinations.

In Inception , Cobb (Leonardo Di Caprio) describes one of the interesting aspects of dreaming that allows the characters to infiltrate a subject’s dream world, “in a dream we create and perceive simultaneously.” [2] McGinn reminds us that this simultaneously active and passive process is analogous to the experience of film watching (p155), “We passively receive, through our sense organs, the images that populate the screen… But we also interpret what we see: we employ our imagination to construct the characters and story line, and this is an active business. This kind of imaginative seeing is an amalgam of active and passive, construction and reception.” [3] Nolan cleverly acknowledges this parallel as Ariadne (Ellen Page) actively manipulates the world around Cobb on the streets of Paris at one point creating two large mirrors that she makes face each other to reveal the infinite reflection within a reflection (symbolic of the infinite complexity of the unconscious mind perhaps, paralleling the notion of dreams within dreams). The camera draws attention to itself in this scene by its very absence where it should have appeared in the reflection (removed via camera trickery or CGI ). Although not explicitly ‘breaking the fourth wall’ by revealing the camera and ruining the suspension of disbelief, the ‘fourth wall’ is implicitly broken and Nolan reveals himself to be creating the world of the dream within the film as Ariadne is.

A lot of what has been written by critics about Inception has focused on its originality. I too think the film is original in some ways but not in the same ways that most critics have proposed.

Inception is an amalgamation of various genres and heavily references and pays homage to other films throughout. Cobb’s relationship with his ex-wife, Mal (Marion Cotillard), is hugely reminiscent of Clooney’s character’s journey in Steven Soderberg’s Solaris for example. The film’s action and globetrotting scenes have been openly discussed by Nolan as an attempt to recreate the scale and sense of the early Bond films, in particular On Her Majesty’s Secret Service , with its snow set base and ski chase sequence. Echoes of The Matrix abound as characters simultaneously ‘plug in’ to the same dream space and fight in gravity defying environments. Inception at times feels like a pure heist movie in the vein of Ocean’s Eleven , or with an espionage twist à la Mission: Impossible . The shoot-out on the streets of Yusuf’s (Dileep Rao) dream is highly reminiscent of Heat (unsurprising given Nolan’s openness about sighting Michael Mann as an influence on The Dark Knight ). The chase scene in Mombasa recalls The Bourne Ultimatum??’s Tangier based segment. Tangiers actually stood in for Mombasa as a filming location in ??Inception . The opening of the film in Saito’s dream world is very similar to Rhas Al Ghul’s mountain side lair in Batman Begins , and the room in which Robert Fischer approaches his dying father in Eame’s dream has an air of the design of 2001: A Space Odyssey (another of Christopher Nolan’s favourite films apparently). These examples are just a few of the many similar references throughout the film.

The fact that Nolan’s film does not feel like a patchwork of the best sequences of other people’s films is a testament to his skill as a filmmaker and his approach to referencing which acts in the service of his film rather than being plagiaristic or gratuitous.

In thinking of how the film is original, critics have tended to focus on how Inception problematizes our knowledge of what is real and what is a dream. Whilst this intellectual investigation may in itself be philosophically worthy, Inception does not seem at first sight to add a lot more to this notion that has not already been done before in numerous other big budget films such as Total Recall , Vanilla Sky , The Matrix , et al.

What I think is original about Inception is rather its integration of the psychoanalytic process into the very fabric of the narrative. There have been a number of films in which psychoanalysis is used as central to character development, Ordinary People or Good Will Hunting for example, and many more that explore psychoanalytic themes or which lend themselves highly to psychoanalytic interpretation ( Vertigo , Psycho , Eyes Wide Shut , to name just a few). Inception does something different , however, which I will address by invoking some of the fundamental concepts of psychoanalysis.

1. At its core psychoanalysis posits the notion that all of us have a part of our mind which is unconscious whose contents are unknown in any explicit sense to us. The unconscious is made up of feelings and desires, some of which we may never have been aware of and others which we have repressed as either a defence mechanism or for purposes of social compliance. The unconscious mind of the individual is a mass of contradictions and by definition remains uncontrolled and unordered.

Inception takes as a given the existence of the uncontrolled unconscious world of the subject which is best exemplified by the scene in which Ariadne and Cobb navigate through his dream world and he cannot prevent aspects of his own mind from attacking her (culminating in Mal stabbing her) despite his conscious desire to prevent this.

2. Psychoanalytic theory argues that during sleep the barrier weakens and the unconscious bubbles out, albeit often in disguised form. “A dream is recognised as a form of expression of impulses which are under pressure of resistance during the day but which have been able to find reinforcement during the night.” [4] As such, elements of our repressed feelings and wishes reveal themselves, now only partly concealed, in our dreams.

We see this notion very early on in Inception when Mal, who we find out to be dead in the real world and just a representation in Cobb’s subconscious, enters into the shared dream world in which Cobb, who cannot prevent her appearance, and team are trying to conduct an extraction from Saito’s mind, much to the annoyance and subsequent endangerment of Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt).

3. Another foundation of psychoanalytic thought is the overwhelming significance of the child’s relationship with its parents. These primal relationships are burdened with largely unconscious problems which in turn affect all subsequent relationships with everyone the individual encounters.

In the film, when brainstorming as to how to execute the Inception of a business strategy into the mind of Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy), the team soon agree that this can only be done by tampering with the unconscious relationship with the father, as this will be at the cornerstone of the subject’s sense of self identification.

4. The unconscious self has a huge impact on how we interact with the world and with others. Typically it has a more powerful effect on how we react to people and how we feel about our relationships with others than our actual conscious selves. “The unconscious must be assumed to be the general basis of psychical life. The unconscious is the larger sphere, which includes within it the smaller sphere of consciousness.” [5] Neurosis and psychosis are expressions of the dominance of the unconscious in our lives. These conditions can only be significantly improved by identifying their unconscious causes and by the process of uncovering and understanding them. To a large extent this is exactly what psychoanalysts do. They help their patients by employing techniques to facilitate this self realisation process.

This seems to me to be clearly the emotional core of Inception . Cobb is unable to function effectively in the real world, even from a practical perspective, in that his job is negatively affected and impacted, until he can delve into his own unconscious and reconcile himself with his feelings and memories of his deceased wife. These feelings include disappointment with her and guilt for his complicity in her being damaged mentally and emotionally. His uncovering of all this then allows him to return to the world cured of his neurosis and able to re-engage in a meaningful relationship with his (and her) children again. The fact that the practical barriers to him seeing his family are removed simultaneously is cleverly interwoven by Nolan as the emotional narrative (Cobb’s self reconciliation) and functional narrative (the corporate espionage heist which includes Saito providing the necessary authority for Cobb to re-enter the country on successful execution of the inception) run in tandem, culminate and merge together. This process of two seemingly unrelated concepts being brought together to create shared meaning is, Freud tells us, one of the aspects of dream creation and furthermore, if dream world and the real world are confused with each other, the “real and imaginary events appear in dreams…as of equal validity.” [6]

5. Psychoanalytic theory has also provided us with important insights into human fantasies (most notoriously and controversially the Oedipal fantasy). This does not necessarily refer to fantasies as we might usually think of them as more or less conscious constructions, but rather addresses fantasies which are more unconscious, which are intertwined with our view of ourselves and the world and, crucially, which we do not recognise as fantasies. The psychological pull of the fantasy is all the greater when we perceive it as simple reality.

Inception explicitly discusses the desire to live in the fantasy world and the simultaneous rejection that the fantasy is not reality. Think of the room full of dreamers which Cobb and team come across in Mombasa, who yearn so desperately for the fantasy world that it has become their ‘real’ world. Actual reality is the nightmare they want to escape. Here, the film comes close to exploring Jungian ideas of collective unconscious as Juan Galis-Menendes notes. [7] More central to the film even than this is Mal who yearned so badly for the fantasy that she refused to believe real life was not a dream and killed herself in order to return to this reality which never existed other than in her shared unconscious with Cobb. Cobb too is tempted by the fantasy to return to a life with his wife which can exist only in his dreams. The film charts the emergence of his psychological maturity in which he is able to recognise it for what it is.

Inception is at its core the symbolic rendering of the psychoanalytic process through the representation of the dream world, which in a manifest form, functions as the narrative of the text and is the very architecture and location of the world(s) Nolan creates. It turns psychoanalytic ideas into a tangible narrative in order to explore them in a new way. In doing this it loses a good degree of the nuance, complexity and psychologically challenging aspects of psychoanalytic theory, but nevertheless Nolan produces a rather compelling case for the concepts of Freudian theory via such a creative, clever and ambitious work.

In terms of functional narrative, like Memento , Inception suffers from being a bit too obscure and clever for its own good/sake. It wraps itself in knots and leaves much unexplained, leaving audiences eager to unravel the plot. This is a never ending task and effectively amounts to the equivalent of a game of Sudoku, a bit of a workout for the brain, but one which is ultimately an exercise lacking meaning. However, as I have attempted to argue, Inception has a greater payoff than Memento for those wanting to engage with it as a more serious work.

Understanding important aspects of the human condition often involves grappling with ideas which are obscure and ambiguous. This can lead to obscurity masquerading as intellectualism. I would argue that obscurity and ambiguity are not valuable in and of themselves. They are valuable only when they help us to understand the nuances of reality. I initially interpreted the final shot of Inception as a pretty meaningless and somewhat clichéd touch designed and employed to keep the eager Sudoku players ever guessing and unravelling the intentionally obscure. Indeed, this final shot of the film is not the first time we are given visual reasons to question whether we are watching reality or not. The overhead shot of Cobb running away from his pursuers in Mombasa creates the very maze/labyrinth that he had Ariadne draw for him in training for dream architecture creation. In the same chase he must squeeze through a narrowing wall, clearly a visualisation of the stuff nightmares are made of. However, I have come to appreciate the note on which the film finishes, not because I think it is important to wonder whether Cobb was actually still in a dream at the end but rather because it addresses the limitations of human perception in which our fantasies colour our perception of everything. The human condition is such that we are imprisoned in our subjective selves. We are destined never to know reality as it simply is, but only as we perceive it. As our perceptions are soaked with our own theories and fantasies, determining absolute reality will forever be beyond our grasp. Separating dream, or fantasy, from reality is in fact not so easy as it might at first appear. Indeed what is this last shot other than the dream (Cobb’s wish to see his children again) becoming reality? The two worlds of fantasy and reality have coalesced. Indeed, for the individual, they are never really fully separate.

It is genuinely difficult to make a film (or indeed write a song or paint a picture) in which important intellectual issues are addressed and make it have a positive message. Most works of art that are genuinely thoughtful, demanding and revealing of the human condition are not upbeat. Intellectual import and insight is more often than not synonymous with poignancy and melancholy. What is upbeat is usually superficial. It is for this reason that what I consider to be the very best films are often not my favourites in the usual sense of the word in that I do not have a desire to re-watch and re-experience them regularly. Nolan works a bit of magic with Inception , creating the dream blockbuster – it manages to be fantasy fulfilment for our less discerning selves; it has a creative and thoughtful examination of psychological elements of the human condition for our more critical and mature selves; and it executes an emotionally satisfying and, crucially, positive storyline.

A pleasure then, and not even a guilty one.

1 McGinn, Paul (2005) The Power of Movies: How Screen and Mind Interact , United States: Vintage Books, pp.192-3, 202-3

2 Inception , 2010. Film. Directed by Christopher Nolan. USA : Warner Bros. Pictures

3 McGinn, Paul (2005) The Power of Movies: How Screen and Mind Interact , United States: Vintage Books, p.155

4 Freud, Sigmund (1913) The Interpretation of Dreams , London: Hogarth, p.652

5 Freud, Sigmund (1913) The Interpretation of Dreams , London: Hogarth, p.651

6 Freud, Sigmund (1913) The Interpretation of Dreams , London: Hogarth, p.323

7 Galis-Menendes, Juan (2010) Inception: A Movie Review

Essay submitted August 2010

Leon Saunders Calvert works in a financial information media company in London. He has a BA Hons from the University of Essex in Philosophy and Literature, including film studies, and an MSc in International Management from the University of Reading. He believes that the study of philosophy and culture can be fundamental to providing us with a better understanding of the world we live in and the ways in which it can be improved, rather than undertaken as a kind of intellectual workout, as is so often the case. Leon has published reviews in Film International and The Film Journal .

• More by Leon

Volume 15, Issue 5 / May 2011 Essays   montage   psychoanalysis   science fiction  

• Film Reviews
• Capsule Reviews
• Buck A Review
• Blu-ray/DVD
• Book Reviews
• Festival Reports
• Issue Archive
• Offscreen Ebooks

Advertise on Offscreen

Also in Volume 15, Issue 5

A novel telling in The Limey : Non-continuity montage in mainstream American cinema

Guan-Soon Khoo

Segments of Madness in Emmanuel Carrère’s La Moustache

Alessandra M. Pires

The Worth of Children and Their Parts: Never Let Me Go and Inhale  

Daniel Garrett

Sweet Karma (2010, Andrew Thomas Hunt)

Donato Totaro

Related Articles

100 and 101 Years Ago: The Best Films of 1922 and 1923

The 27th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (PӦFF)

Joshua Polanski

PӦFF (Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival ) Interview: Director Deimantas Narkevičius on Twittering Soul

Dark Mirror: The Films of Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder

Donald Brackett

• Contributors
• Offscreen Notes
• Contributor Guidelines

© 1997 – 2024 Offscreen, ISSN 1712-9559

Advertisement

Supported by

Everybody’s a Critic of the Critics’ Rabid Critics

• Share full article

By A.O. Scott

• July 21, 2010

IF I had to issue a one-sentence manifesto for film criticism, it would be this: Any movie worth seeing is worth arguing about, and any movie worth arguing about is worth seeing.

But nothing is ever that simple, as demonstrated by “Inception,” a movie that makes a show of complicating everything in its path. In case you have been sleeping through some other movie, or pursuing dreams of your own, “Inception” is the new film from Christopher Nolan (director of “The Dark Knight” and “Memento,” among others), in which Leonardo DiCaprio, playing an unlicensed plumber of the subconscious named Dom Cobb, frets and fights his way through various dreamscapes, the number and nature of which is very much in dispute.

Depending on how you interpret certain key images and motifs, there are either three or four levels of dreaming explored by Cobb and his crew. Much else that happens within the film’s packed and hectic 148 minutes — which in third-level dream time is at least a month, and which for some deep slumberers may last forever, or at least feel that way — has occasioned intense and contentious speculation on the Internet. The discourse is marked by the ritualistic incantation of two words that may at this point be redundant: spoiler alert.

So consider yourself warned. But, in the manner of the movie itself, which seems to begin in an uncanny present only to jump abruptly backward in time, let’s cut to a flashback, the kind that in a more literal-minded movie would be established by the words “three weeks earlier.” Remember? It was a more innocent time, when families were flocking to “Toy Story 3.” Back then all that was known of “Inception” was that it was, after months of elliptical “teaser” advertisements and trailers, arriving soon in theaters.

Well, maybe a little more than that; the cast and pedigree of “Inception” granted it a special, almost official status as the most anticipated movie of the summer of 2010. Mr. Nolan, after all, was responsible for “The Dark Knight,” the most widely viewed, intensely debated, passionately embraced movie of the summer of 2008, and the spell that the movie cast over that season has proven remarkably durable. People are still fighting about its stature and its allegorical meanings.

Mr. DiCaprio, meanwhile, starred in the surprise cinematic conversation piece of last winter, Martin Scorsese’s “Shutter Island,” which shows an interesting thematic kinship with “Inception.” In both films Mr. DiCaprio plays a troubled professional with a shaky grip on reality and an unresolved, guilt-tinged relationship with his vanished and beloved wife.

“Shutter Island” divided critics — some said classic , others junk — and engaged audiences with its lurid period atmosphere and its rug-pulling final plot twist. It also, serendipitously, set the table for “Inception” by rehearsing some important terms of debate: Do certain directors inspire unreflecting loyalty from both professional critics and passionate movie fans? Does the perception of this kind of bias plant seeds of skepticism that blossom into overstated negative reactions? What role does expectation (or hype, if you prefer) play in the audience’s experience of a movie?

As soon as the July Fourth weekend was over, these questions began to swirl around “Inception.” Warner Brothers, having screened the movie for select journalists the previous Friday, relaxed its embargo — the standard, routinely flouted prohibition on publishing reviews before opening day — and a burst of raves went up all over the Internet. The name of Stanley Kubrick was duly invoked, and the word “masterpiece” sounded like a trumpet through the blogosphere . The early score on Rottentomatoes.com was a perfect 100.

But then a second round of notices tarnished that luster. David Edelstein of New York magazine, Stephanie Zacharek of Movieline.com and Armond White , the reliably oppositional critic at The New York Press, published pans that ranged from frustrated to weary to vitriolic, decrying the rush to inscribe “Inception” in the pantheon of cinematic greatness. For their efforts these and other similarly unimpressed writers were treated like advocates for national health care at a Tea Party rally, their motives, their professionalism, their morals and their sanity questioned, and not always politely. What seemed to provoke the most ire was that these critics had shown the temerity to mention what other critics had written, and to respond to the aggressive marketing and the early effusions.

The next stage involved a series of commentaries reflecting on these earlier phases, and wondering what it all said about the state of criticism in (oh, my) the age of the Internet. The rage of the movie’s defenders was a particular cause of dismay, since their intemperate howling seemed to attack the very basis of civilized discussion and to impart a personal, emotional tone to the whole debate. How dare you not like what I like? How dare you cast doubt on my reasons for liking it? Shut up and let me watch the movie — which I am sure I will love even though I haven’t seen it yet!

Thoughtful scribblers like Dennis Cozzalio (of the excellent blog “Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule”), Jim Emerson (of the excellent blog “Scanners”) and Roger Ebert warned against this kind of ranting, pausing to muse on the nature of taste, the ubiquity of marketing, and the difficult balance between passion and dispassion that all good criticism requires.

Then an amazing thing happened, a twist in the narrative that, in retrospect, everyone should have seen coming all along. The movie opened. That’s right: everything I have just described — the feverish embrace of “Inception,” the hostile rejection, the angry defenses, the commentary and the metacommentary — unspooled, for the most part, before a ticket had been torn or a kernel of popcorn consumed.

What was left to discuss? As it happens, plenty. My own review , published in the print edition of The New York Times on opening day, having gone up on the Web site the previous afternoon, landed in the middle ground, which is where quite a few of the notices published at that point in the cycle ended up. I was neither as bowled over as, for example, Devin Faraci at CHUD, nor as exasperated as Mr. Edelstein, though in a way I envied the strength and clarity of both of their responses. Love and contempt have antithetical satisfactions that ambivalence — admiration tinged with disappointment, irritation leavened by delight — simply do not. I wondered too if my perspective had been formed inadvertently by knowledge of theirs. I had not read any reviews closely, but by the time I saw “Inception” I was aware — by virtue of having eyes, a brain and a Twitter feed — of how its reception (or prereception) had played out.

So maybe I was subconsciously splitting the difference. Or maybe — like the Nolanistas and anti-Nolanistas who had come before — I was just trying to give an honest account of what I had seen. In the end I don’t believe that the smitten first responders were simply bedazzled by hype, nor that the second-wave skeptics were merely being contrarian. Just as critics need to operate in good faith, so should consumers of criticism proceed from the assumption of good faith. We may be wrong, but we tend to say what we mean. It’s a responsibility of the job, as well as one of the perks.

Nonetheless, over the first weekend of the release of “Inception,” I braced myself for brickbats for both sides. Either I had been suckered by the Hollywood publicity machine, or else I was blind to the visionary genius of a great artist. And some e-mail messages and comments on the Web site did express those views with varying degrees of eloquence and coherence. But for the most part the conversation had shifted away from the criticism of criticism toward other, more relevant matters . What did the last shot mean? Is Cobb still in a dream at the end? Whose dream is it? What’s going on?

What is odd about these questions, which shrewdly invite a second viewing, is that they seem to come at the end of the argument about “Inception” rather than at the beginning. Film culture on the Internet does not only speed up the story of a movie’s absorption of a movie into the cultural bloodstream but also reverses the sequence. Maybe my memory is fuzzy, or maybe I’m dreaming, but I think it used to be that “masterpiece” was the last word, the end of the discussion, rather than the starting point.

But in this case we end up with where we should have started, wondering what the movie is about, what it means, puzzling over symbols and plot points. It’s almost as if we’re all in a movie that’s running backward, like “Memento.” Which was totally overrated. Unless it was a masterpiece. I’m going to have to see it again.

Explore More in TV and Movies

Not sure what to watch next we can help..

“X-Men ’97,” a revival on Disney+ that picks up where the ’90s animated series left off, has faced questions after the firing of its showrunner  ahead of the premiere.

“3 Body Problem,” a science fiction epic from the creators of “Game of Thrones,” has arrived on Netflix. We spoke with them about their latest project .

For the past two decades, female presidential candidates on TV have been made in Hillary Clinton’s image. With “The Girls on the Bus,” that’s beginning to change .

“Freaknik,” a new Hulu documentary, delves into the rowdy ’80s and ’90s-era spring festival  that drew hundreds of thousands of Black college students to Atlanta.

If you are overwhelmed by the endless options, don’t despair — we put together the best offerings   on Netflix , Max , Disney+ , Amazon Prime  and Hulu  to make choosing your next binge a little easier.

Sign up for our Watching newsletter  to get recommendations on the best films and TV shows to stream and watch, delivered to your inbox.

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Trouble logging in?

By continuing, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes.

Email not verified

Let's keep in touch.

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

• Upcoming Movies and TV shows
• Trivia & Rotten Tomatoes Podcast
• Media News + More

By clicking "Sign Me Up," you are agreeing to receive occasional emails and communications from Fandango Media (Fandango, Vudu, and Rotten Tomatoes) and consenting to Fandango's Privacy Policy and Terms and Policies . Please allow 10 business days for your account to reflect your preferences.

OK, got it!

Movies / TV

No results found.

• What's the Tomatometer®?
• Login/signup

Movies in theaters

• Opening this week
• Top box office
• Coming soon to theaters
• Certified fresh movies

Movies at home

• Netflix streaming
• Prime Video
• Most popular streaming movies
• What to Watch New

Certified fresh picks

• Love Lies Bleeding Link to Love Lies Bleeding
• Problemista Link to Problemista
• Late Night with the Devil Link to Late Night with the Devil

New TV Tonight

• Mary & George: Season 1
• Star Trek: Discovery: Season 5
• Sugar: Season 1
• American Horror Story: Season 12
• Loot: Season 2
• Parish: Season 1
• Ripley: Season 1
• Lopez vs Lopez: Season 2
• The Magic Prank Show With Justin Willman: Season 1

Most Popular TV on RT

• 3 Body Problem: Season 1
• A Gentleman in Moscow: Season 1
• Shōgun: Season 1
• We Were the Lucky Ones: Season 1
• The Gentlemen: Season 1
• Palm Royale: Season 1
• Manhunt: Season 1
• X-Men '97: Season 1
• Best TV Shows
• Most Popular TV
• TV & Streaming News

Certified fresh pick

• We Were the Lucky Ones Link to We Were the Lucky Ones
• All-Time Lists
• Binge Guide
• Comics on TV
• Five Favorite Films
• Video Interviews
• Weekend Box Office
• Weekly Ketchup
• What to Watch

Pedro Pascal Movies and Series Ranked by Tomatometer

Dwayne Johnson Movies Ranked by Tomatometer

What to Watch: In Theaters and On Streaming

Awards Tour

Free Movies Online: 100 Fresh Movies to Watch Online For Free

TV Premiere Dates 2024

• Trending on RT
• Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire
• Play Movie Trivia

2010, Sci-fi/Mystery & thriller, 2h 28m

What to know

Critics Consensus

Smart, innovative, and thrilling, Inception is that rare summer blockbuster that succeeds viscerally as well as intellectually. Read critic reviews

You might also like

Where to watch inception.

Watch Inception with a subscription on Hulu, Apple TV+, rent on Vudu, Apple TV, Prime Video, or buy on Vudu, Apple TV, Prime Video.

Rate And Review

Super Reviewer

Rate this movie

Oof, that was Rotten.

Meh, it passed the time.

It’s good – I’d recommend it.

So Fresh: Absolute Must See!

What did you think of the movie? (optional)

You're almost there! Just confirm how you got your ticket.

Step 2 of 2

How did you buy your ticket?

Let's get your review verified..

AMCTheatres.com or AMC App New

Cinemark Coming Soon

We won’t be able to verify your ticket today, but it’s great to know for the future.

Regal Coming Soon

Theater box office or somewhere else

By opting to have your ticket verified for this movie, you are allowing us to check the email address associated with your Rotten Tomatoes account against an email address associated with a Fandango ticket purchase for the same movie.

You're almost there! Just confirm how you got your ticket.

Inception videos, inception   photos.

Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a thief with the rare ability to enter people's dreams and steal their secrets from their subconscious. His skill has made him a hot commodity in the world of corporate espionage but has also cost him everything he loves. Cobb gets a chance at redemption when he is offered a seemingly impossible task: Plant an idea in someone's mind. If he succeeds, it will be the perfect crime, but a dangerous enemy anticipates Cobb's every move.

Rating: PG-13 (Sequences of Violence|Sequences of Action)

Genre: Sci-fi, Mystery & thriller, Action

Original Language: English

Director: Christopher Nolan

Producer: Christopher Nolan , Emma Thomas

Writer: Christopher Nolan

Release Date (Theaters): Jul 16, 2010  wide

Rerelease Date (Theaters): Jul 31, 2020

Release Date (Streaming): Jun 20, 2013

Box Office (Gross USA): $292.6M

Runtime: 2h 28m

Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures

Production Co: Warner Bros., Syncopy

Sound Mix: DTS, Dolby Digital, SDDS

Aspect Ratio: Scope (2.35:1)

Cast & Crew

Leonardo DiCaprio

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Elliot Page

Ken Watanabe

Cillian Murphy

Robert Fischer, Jr.

Tom Berenger

Marion Cotillard

Michael Caine

Pete Postlethwaite

Maurice Fischer

Christopher Nolan

Screenwriter

Emma Thomas

Chris Brigham

Executive Producer

Thomas Tull

Hans Zimmer

Original Music

Wally Pfister

Cinematographer

Film Editing

Guy Hendrix Dyas

Production Design

Jeffrey Kurland

Costume Design

John Papsidera

Brad Ricker

Supervising Art Direction

Luke Freeborn

Art Director

Dean Wolcott

Set Decoration

Douglas A. Mowat

News & Interviews for Inception

New on Netflix in April 2022

10 Killer Movie Marketing Campaigns

Rank All of Christopher Nolan’s Movies

Critic Reviews for Inception

Audience reviews for inception.

Mind-blowing, amazing, smart, thrilling. That's all.

A truly rare, intelligent summer blockbuster packed with ideas and concepts to keep the audience contemplating long after the credits.

When you have such a great writer/director as Christopher Nolan making his own thing, you can only expect to be mindblown. And I was, but not in the good way. I was blown away by how inconsistant the story felt to me and how boring the characters in the movie turned out to be. I don't doubt the idea behind it and I understand why many people will like this movie, however, it's not a movie that I would ever put my money on. It's a movie that lacks intensity and the many different story aspects are so badly put together that's it's almost like you'd rather watch "The Room." I truly believe that Nolan is much better at doing movies where we has a lot of source material to go out from. That's where this man truly shines.

Inception succeeds on multiple levels thanks to it's brilliant script, wonderful direction and outstanding effects - all of which come together to create a unique, surreal experience unseen in mainstream blockbuster entertainment.

Movie & TV guides

Play Daily Tomato Movie Trivia

Discover What to Watch

Rotten Tomatoes Podcasts

Common Sense Media

Movie & TV reviews for parents

• For Parents
• For Educators
• Our Work and Impact

Or browse by category:

• Get the app
• Movie Reviews
• Best Movie Lists
• Best Movies on Netflix, Disney+, and More

Common Sense Selections for Movies

50 Modern Movies All Kids Should Watch Before They're 12

• Best TV Lists
• Best TV Shows on Netflix, Disney+, and More
• Common Sense Selections for TV
• Video Reviews of TV Shows

Best Kids' Shows on Disney+

Best Kids' TV Shows on Netflix

• Book Reviews
• Best Book Lists
• Common Sense Selections for Books

8 Tips for Getting Kids Hooked on Books

50 Books All Kids Should Read Before They're 12

• Game Reviews
• Best Game Lists

Common Sense Selections for Games

• Video Reviews of Games

Nintendo Switch Games for Family Fun

• Podcast Reviews
• Best Podcast Lists

Common Sense Selections for Podcasts

Parents' Guide to Podcasts

• App Reviews
• Best App Lists

Social Networking for Teens

Gun-Free Action Game Apps

Reviews for AI Apps and Tools

• YouTube Channel Reviews
• YouTube Kids Channels by Topic

Parents' Ultimate Guide to YouTube Kids

YouTube Kids Channels for Gamers

• Preschoolers (2-4)
• Little Kids (5-7)
• Big Kids (8-9)
• Pre-Teens (10-12)
• Teens (13+)
• Screen Time
• Social Media
• Online Safety
• Identity and Community

Explaining the News to Our Kids

• Family Tech Planners
• Digital Skills
• All Articles
• Latino Culture
• Black Voices
• Asian Stories
• Native Narratives
• LGBTQ+ Pride
• Best of Diverse Representation List

Celebrating Black History Month

Movies and TV Shows with Arab Leads

Celebrate Hip-Hop's 50th Anniversary

Common sense media reviewers.

Intense, complex, brilliant sci-fi thriller; violent scenes.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Amid the intense scenes and images, the movie offe

The main character acts for personal reasons -- to

Positive casting of trans actor Elliot Page in key

Though most violence takes place in dreams and is

The main character pines for his dead wife, whom h

A few uses of "goddamn it" and "Jesus Christ," as

Adult characters drink wine, beer, and champagne,

Parents need to know that Inception is a complex, original science-fiction fantasy movie from the director of The Dark Knight . It has lots of action and violence -- including guns, blood, fighting, car crashes, etc. -- as well as some slightly scary imagery. But it's very light on language ("goddamn"…

Positive Messages

Amid the intense scenes and images, the movie offers positive examples of teamwork and helping others. A subplot involving death and grieving promotes acceptance and moving on. A more ambiguous message is sent by the main story, in which the characters try to plant an idea in someone's head against his will -- but manage to bring him a kind of peace in the process.

Positive Role Models

The main character acts for personal reasons -- to earn the ability to return home to his kids -- and has a job that's slightly on the shady side. But when he's at work, his team shows excellent teamwork, as well as selflessness when it comes to their teammates' well being.

Diverse Representations

Positive casting of trans actor Elliot Page in key role of Ariadne. Otherwise, only two characters of color in minor, non-stereotypical speaking roles. One is a wealthy Japanese businessman (Ken Watanabe) and the other is a South Asian British pharmacologist (Dileep Rao). While part of the film takes place in Mombasa, Kenya, local residents are depicted as faceless or as an angry mob.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

Though most violence takes place in dreams and is therefore not "real," it includes guns and shooting, gunshot wounds with blood, fistfights, rioting, explosions, car chases, car crashes. Characters scream in pain when shot or stabbed. In the movie, being "killed" or committing suicide can "wake" you out of the dream. One character is shot in the head, another is stabbed, another plunges off a building to her death. Frequent suspense/tense scenes. Repeated scenes of a father reaching out for his children who are being separated from him.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

The main character pines for his dead wife, whom he still sees in his dreams. They share some intimate emotional moments, but there's no kissing, nudity, or sex. Two other characters share a brief kiss.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

A few uses of "goddamn it" and "Jesus Christ," as well as "hell," "ass," "a--hole," "bloody," "bastard," "screw," and "damn." Partial use of "f--k."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Adult characters drink wine, beer, and champagne, but not to excess.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Inception is a complex, original science-fiction fantasy movie from the director of The Dark Knight . It has lots of action and violence -- including guns, blood, fighting, car crashes, etc. -- as well as some slightly scary imagery. But it's very light on language ("goddamn" and "a--hole" are as strong as it gets), sexy stuff, and drinking, so teen fans of star Leonardo DiCaprio should be able to handle it. The movie takes place in several different locations around the world but is noticeably short on diversity on-screen. Crowds in one scene in Kenya are simply used as the backdrop to action sequences. It's not an easy story to explain, but it's fairly easy to follow, and it includes positive examples of teamwork and sacrifice. Parents and teens may find themselves talking at length about the story and the notion of a dream within a dream. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Community Reviews

• Parents say (100)
• Kids say (369)

Based on 100 parent reviews

An exciting, wild, and mind bending ride!

Amazing movie, what's the story.

In INCEPTION, Dom Cobb ( Leonardo DiCaprio ) is a skilled "extractor," able to enter people's dreams to find information. A businessman ( Ken Watanabe ) hires Cobb to plant an idea in the mind of a competitor, even though this may not be possible. Cobb assembles a team (which includes Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Elliot Page ) and prepares for the complicated job, which will require creating three dreams-within-dreams. Unfortunately, the subject ( Cillian Murphy ) has been trained for such invasions, and the job will be far more dangerous than planned -- and then there's the fact that Cobb's dead wife ( Marion Cotillard ) keeps unexpectedly turning up inside the dreams and wreaking havoc of her own. But if the team fails, they could end up trapped in a subconscious limbo forever.

Is It Any Good?

Inception is an intense, complex story, but it's always coherent, imaginative, and entertaining. Filmmaker Christopher Nolan has proven himself a master of time juggling; he rarely presents a story in chronological order. He often flips time or stacks time on top of itself, balancing several simultaneous storylines precariously, but with remarkable clarity.

That said, although Inception is a terrific film, it lacks a strong emotional connection with most of the characters -- the movie's roller coaster ride feel means that there's little time to stop and get to know anyone. Likewise, unlike Nolan's The Dark Knight , it doesn't really represent any current fears or desires, save for a vague fear of technology. It's really just a very intelligent, slam-bang popcorn movie. And that's absolutely fine.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about Inception 's violence . How did it affect you? Was it thrilling? Did the fact that it takes place in a dream give it more or less impact?

Was the movie scary? If so, what made it scary?

Why is it important to dream? What do your dreams tell you? Is it right to plant an idea in a person's head, even if that idea makes the person happy?

We learn that Leonardo DiCaprio's character does what he does for a living because of several kinds of loss. Talk about loss and the importance of grief and how to grieve.

How did the characters exhibit teamwork to accomplish their mission? Why is teamwork an important character strength ?

Movie Details

• In theaters : July 16, 2010
• On DVD or streaming : December 7, 2010
• Cast : Leonardo DiCaprio , Joseph Gordon-Levitt , Elliot Page , Tom Hardy , Ken Watanabe , Marion Cotillard
• Director : Christopher Nolan
• Inclusion Information : Non-Binary actors, Queer actors, Transgender actors, Asian actors, Female actors
• Studio : Warner Bros.
• Genre : Science Fiction
• Character Strengths : Teamwork
• Run time : 148 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG-13
• MPAA explanation : sequences of violence and action throughout
• Last updated : February 16, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

Suggest an Update

Our editors recommend.

Vanilla Sky

Related topics.

Want suggestions based on your streaming services? Get personalized recommendations

Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.

Sample details

• Cinematography

Movie Review

Related Topics

• Remember The Titans
• The Blind Side
• The Awakening
• My Big Fat Greek Wedding
• Documentary
• Steven Spielberg
• The Graduate
• Slumdog Millionaire
• Rabbit Proof Fence
• Movie Analysis
• The Outsiders
• Call of The Wild
• Once Upon a Time
• The Truman Show

Inception Movie Review

Inception, directed by Christopher Nolan, is a psychological thriller about a group of individuals who enter their clients’ dreams to solve their problems. The movie impresses viewers with its technical innovations, such as the soundtrack by Hans Zimmer and capturing in-camera effects by Wally Pfister. The concept of the movie is what makes it stand out, as it utilizes ideas from Sigmund Freud and Rene Descartes about the nature of dreams and human psychology. The characters’ inability to distinguish dreams from reality proves Descartes’ idea that our senses cannot always be trusted. Overall, Inception is a masterpiece that stands out among modern films due to its deep and innovative content.

Inception is the emotionally stimulating and technically innovative psychological thriller directed by Christopher Nolan. It is about the small group of intellectual adventurers who invade the dreams of their clients to solve some of their problems. In this particular case, two of the best dreams extractors, Cobb and Arthur are hired by one of the very wealthy businessmen with a goal to convince one guy to dissolve his father’s monopoly.

Technically, the movie impresses the viewer with its astonishing soundtrack by Hans Zimmer and capturing in-camera effects by Wally Pfister. Inception gets our attention from the opening scene with the crashing ocean waves and then it flies by keeping us engaged for almost three hours. Lots of hand-held camera work is used during dialogues between characters just like we saw in the previous Nolan’s movies. Sometimes the characters even get slightly blurry that can be result of intentional or unintentional effect of being in a dream.

ready to help you now

Without paying upfront

Gravity-shifting scenes are the most entertaining parts of the movie, as they are the result of excellent directing skills and fascinating visual effects. However, visual part is not something that makes Inception an outstanding work. Instead, it is the conceptual side of the movie. Inception uses ideas of Sigmund Freud and Rene Descartes that they expressed talking about the nature of human’s psychology and the nature of dreams, respectively.

Descartes, for instance, had an idea that the dream is indistinguishable from the reality because what experience in the dream feels the same as it if it was while we are awake, so that all experience could still be a dream and all our supposed knowledge of the world could still be false being a part of our imagination. He came up to the conclusion that it’s impossible to think that you might be dreaming while you are actually dreaming, so that you have to be awake to have such a thought.

Actually, in the movie the main characters are unable to distinguish the dreams from the reality, so they have to use special totems that can always tell them whether they are awake or not. The problem, that they are deceived by their senses, proves another Descartes’ idea that we cannot trust our senses. These are just a couple of messages Nolan sends to the audience in Inception. All in all, the content of the movie is so deep and innovative that makes it stand out as a masterpiece compared to the other modern films. Everything has been built up perfectly and the way the story unfolds is something you have to view with your own eyes.

Cite this page

https://graduateway.com/inception-movie-review/

You can get a custom paper by one of our expert writers

• The Stranger

Check more samples on your topics

Analysis on the movie inception film studies.

The movie Inception ( 2010 ) captured the imaginativeness of many witnesss as one of the best scientific discipline fiction and fantasy films to be produced that twelvemonth. It was produced and directed by Christopher Nolan who besides wrote the book of the film. The development of this book and the narrative line were Nolan

Inception by Christopher Nolan: Review

Inception is a mind blowing experience directed by Christopher Nolan, who has already had success in the past with films such as the dark knight. The film is about a special team of spies who are very skilled extractors that go into the subconscious of their targets in order to get information for business corporations.

Project Deliverable 1: Project Plan Inception

Our Internet-based company with the gross revenues of more than $35 million dollars per year. We are planning to merge with a multinational company of equal size. Our company currently uses operational systems and relational databases but desire to expand into data warehousing. We will be integrating different technologies from different solution providers and incorporating

Inception- Mise-En-Scene Analysis

The scene that is going to be analyzing in this part is the scene in the second dimension of the dream. In the other word, the scene in the hotel or Arther’s dream. Mise-en-scene will covered many details in the shot for example, setting, lighting, character casts with their performance style, costume and make up,

Going to a Movie: Archetypes in the “Star Wars” Movie

Within Star Wars: A New Hope and Return of the Jed, archetypes exist that exemplify the theme that good can triumph over evil through perseverance. Primarily, symbolic archetypes flourish within George Lucas' masterpiece. As an example, the contrast of colors in Luke Jaywalker's clothing represents a loss of innocence in the main character. As a

AVATAR: A movie Review

AVATAR: A movie Review A masterpiece of James Cameron, Avatar is an epic with stunning visual works of art. The impact to the viewers is unquestionable as it is sure to leave you shedding tears at the end of the story. Avatar is about a Jake Sully, a war veteran that was left handicapped. The goal is

Review of the Movie “Moneyball”

The Moneyball movie quotes offer a captivating narrative that surpasses the realm of baseball and sports. Based on Michael Lewis' book, this film presents a fascinating perspective on achieving success in baseball. It centers around Billy Beane, the general manager of the Oakland A's, and his partnership with Peter Brand, an Ivy League-educated computer expert.

A Movie Review: Analysis of Team Building, Leadership and Conflict Management

Conflict Management

  When a boy is on the last day of trial for killing his father in the heat of domestic arguments, twelve jury men are forced to present a verdict. If guilty, it is the one way ticket to the electric chair for the boy. When the jury men decides to quickly end the discussion and

Frozen Movie Review

Anna wants to marry a prince, but Elsa refuses to give her blessing. In a fit of anger, Elsa accidentally freezes the entire city and runs away to the mountains. Anna goes after her to bring her back and save the day. However, during their journey, Anna's heart gets frozen and she needs to find

Hi, my name is Amy 👋

In case you can't find a relevant example, our professional writers are ready to help you write a unique paper. Just talk to our smart assistant Amy and she'll connect you with the best match.