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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Inception

EMAILPRINTWarner Bros. Pictures

Inception reviews
74
8.2 User Score:

Generally favorable reviews

Based on 42 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 918 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info

Genre(s): Mystery  |  Sci-fi  |  Suspense/Thriller

Written by: Christopher Nolan

Directed by: Christopher Nolan

Release Date:
Theatrical: July 16, 2010

Running Time: 148 minutes, Color

Origin: USA | UK

Summary

RATING: PG-13 for sequences of violence and action throughout

Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Ken Watanabe, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Ellen Page, Tom Hardy, Cillian Murphy, Tom Berenger, and Michael Caine

Dom Cobb is a skilled thief, the absolute best in the dangerous art of extraction, stealing valuable secrets from deep within the subconscious during the dream state, when the mind is at its most vulnerable. Cobb's rare ability has made him a coveted player in this treacherous new world of corporate espionage, but it has also made him an international fugitive and cost him everything he has ever loved. Now Cobb is being offered a chance at redemption. One last job could give him his life back but only if he can accomplish the impossible—inception. Instead of the perfect heist, Cobb and his team of specialists have to pull off the reverse: their task is not to steal an idea but to plant one. If they succeed, it could be the perfect crime. But no amount of careful planning or expertise can prepare the team for the dangerous enemy that seems to predict their every move. An enemy that only Cobb could have seen coming. This summer, your mind is the scene of the crime. (Warner Bros. Pictures)

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Boxoffice Magazine Pete Hammond

In terms of sheer originality, ambition and achievement, Inception is the movie of the summer, the movie of the year and the movie of our dreams.

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100

Variety Justin Chang

If Inception is a metaphysical puzzle, it's also a metaphorical one: It's hard not to draw connections between Cobb's dream-weaving and Nolan's filmmaking -- an activity devoted to constructing a simulacrum of reality, intended to seduce us, mess with our heads and leave a lasting impression. Mission accomplished.

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100

Empire Nev Pierce

With physics-defying, thunderous action, heart-wringing emotion and an astonishing performance from DiCaprio, Nolan delivers another true original: welcome to an undiscovered country.

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100

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Nolan blurs the distinction between dreams and reality so artfully that Inception may well be a masterpiece masquerading as a summer blockbuster.

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100

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

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.

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100

Arizona Republic Bill Goodykoontz

The visuals are stunning, perhaps the most fully realized of any film.

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100

Time Richard Corliss

Inception is precisely the kind of brainy, ambitious, grand-scale adventure Hollywood should be making more of.

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100

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

When was the last time you had your mind blown by a movie? Because when Inception ends and the lights come up, you'll be sitting in your seat, staring at the screen, wondering what the hell just happened.

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100

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

A tremendously exciting science-fiction thriller that's as disturbing as it sounds. This is a popular entertainment with a knockout punch so intense and unnerving it'll have you worrying if it's safe to close your eyes at night.

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100

San Francisco Chronicle Amy Biancolli

This is spellbinding, transporting, damn near indescribable and the latest indication that Christopher Nolan might be the slyest narrative tactician making movies today.

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100

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

This is a deeply felt work of art in the form of a big, brassy movie-movie.

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91

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

The film is an imposing, prismatic achievement, and strongly resistant to an insta-reaction; when it’s over, Nolan still seems a few steps ahead of us.

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90

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

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

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88

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

In this wildly ingen­ious chess game, grandmaster Nolan plants ideas in our heads that disturb and dazzle. The result is a knockout. But be warned: Inception dreams big. How cool is that?

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88

USA Today Claudia Puig

The film is easier to admire than to fully grasp or be moved by it. Still, it's worth surrendering to the dream.

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88

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Here, finally, is something you've really never seen before.

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88

New Orleans Times-Picayune Mike Scott

What Nolan has created with Inception is the rare movie that is bound to improve with repeated viewings, both as a means to drink in its brilliance one more time, and to see what sly clues might have flown under your radar the first time around.

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88

ReelViews James Berardinelli

The versatile actor brings the full weight of his talent to bear on a difficult role. DiCaprio has to hint at unpleasant secrets in Cobb's past while forging a bond with the audience. It's up to the performer to make Inception more about human beings than about special effects. He succeeds and that's one reason why this movie isn't only about challenging ideas and eye candy.

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88

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Nolan’s tale is not only a trip through mental labyrinths but a reminder that memories may cripple us, unless we learn to let them go.

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88

Premiere Staff (Not credited)

Inception is one of the best sci-fi movies of the new century, a mind-bender about dreams as public spaces.

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88

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

Inception is that rare film that can be enjoyed on superficial and progressively deeper levels, a feat that uncannily mimics the mind-bending journey its protagonist takes.

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83

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

As engrossing and logic-resistant as the state of dreaming it seeks to replicate, Christopher Nolan's audacious new creation demands further study to fully absorb the multiple, simultaneous stories Nolan finagles into one narrative experience.

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83

St. Petersburg Times Steve Persall

A sensory and intellectual overload from start to finish, a brawny, brainy summer movie that may infuriate as many viewers as it enraptures.

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80

Time Out New York Joshua Rothkopf

Inception, though, is no "Avatar"--instead, it’s the movie that many wanted "Avatar" to be. In a roaringly fast first hour, we’re introduced to a new technology that allows for the bodily invasion of another person’s dreamworld.

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78

Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones

Nolan’s end-act pacing has always felt ponderous – but it’s not enough to ruin what is surely the most intellectually and viscerally engaging action film in years. The soul doesn’t stir, no, but everything else is wildly somersaulting.

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75

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

The film is Nolan's labyrinth all the way, and it's gratifying to experience a summer movie with large visual ambitions and with nothing more or less on its mind than (as Shakespeare said) a dream that hath no bottom.

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75

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

You can’t feel for anyone when nothing feels real. Memo to Christopher Nolan for future outings: Kill the dream, tell a story.

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75

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

For movie buffs, the only real fun to be had at Inception could be toting up the lifts from other movies, including Cocteau’s “Blood of a Poet” and “The Matrix” series and just about anything by Kubrick.

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75

Orlando Sentinel Roger Moore

Inception is an elegant, portentous ride, though I’m not sure Nolan is any closer to visualizing the real (dream) deal than Hitchcock was.

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75

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

One of the best things about Nolan as a director is that he’s not self-conscious. His movies unfold and fold in on themselves without the strain of labor or flash. But that lack of self-consciousness is also Nolan’s downside.

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70

Slate Dana Stevens

At the end of Inception, I hadn't lived through the grueling emotional journey Nolan seemed to think I had, but I'd seen a bunch of cool images and admired some technically ambitious feats of filmmaking.

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63

St. Louis Post-Dispatch Joe Williams

Christopher Nolan's "Memento" was a movie-lover's dream come true, a puzzle that was engaging both intellectually and emotionally. But his Inception is a wake-up call, a blaring reminder that cheap tricks can't compensate for personal investment.

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63

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Stymied by a clunking script, crammed with expository exchanges and urgent blather.

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60

The New York Times A.O. Scott

Though there is a lot to see in Inception, there is nothing that counts as genuine vision. Mr. Nolan’s idea of the mind is too literal, too logical, too rule-bound to allow the full measure of madness -- the risk of real confusion, of delirium, of ineffable ambiguity -- that this subject requires.

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50

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

Inception delivers dazzling special effects and a boatload of stars, but it sags and eventually buckles under the weight of its complicated premise.

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50

The New Yorker David Denby

Inception, is an astonishment, an engineering feat, and, finally, a folly.

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50

Wall Street Journal John Anderson

By convoluting the various planes of experience, by overlapping and obscuring ostensible realities and ostensible dreams, Mr. Nolan deprives us the opportunity of investing emotionally in any of it.

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40

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

For the most part "Inception" is a handsome, clever and grindingly self-serious boy-movie, shorn of imagination, libido, spirituality or emotional depth. Nolan establishes a fascinating world, loaded with trapdoors, symbols and hidden secrets, and then squanders the opportunity on an overpriced "Twilight Zone" episode.

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40

New York Magazine David Edelstein

Inception manages to be clunky and confusing on four separate levels of reality.

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30

Village Voice Nick Pinkerton

It's obvious that Nolan either can't articulate or doesn't believe in a distinction between living feelings and dreams--and his barren Inception doesn't capture much of either.

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30

Movieline Stephanie Zacharek

Everything he (Nolan) does is forced and overthought, and Inception, far from being his ticket into hall-of-fame greatness, is a very expensive-looking, elephantine film whose myriad so-called complexities -- of both the emotional and intellectual sort -- add up to a kind of ADD tedium.

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25

New York Observer Rex Reed

I'd like to tell you just how bad Inception really is, but since it is barely even remotely lucid, no sane description is possible.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 8.2 (out of 10) based on 918 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Tim K gave it a9:
Not hard to understand if you currently attend or have graduated high school. If there was one, solid reason why this movie is so fantastic, it is because of its originality. The idea is so much more than "ex-agent/cop kills everything that moves" or "romantic comedy, enough said." It does make you think, which for me made the movie seem like it lasted forever.

bill gave it a10:
This movie is awesome! Its a well told story with great acting by a well rounded cast and Nolan's really shows off his directing skills. Visually stunning!!! Anyone who says otherwise probably didn't understand it the first time around.

james k. gave it a10:
Excellent, non stop action and interesting story.

Rob W. gave it a10:
Quite possibly the best film I've ever seen. Engrossing throughout and compulsory to re-watch.

Ben G. gave it a9:
Great story, great visual effects, great actors... I'd love to see it again asap, can't wait for the bluray to be released.

Paul L gave it a10:
Amazing movie. Christopher Nolan has done it again. I went to see this movie knowing that it would be great, but it ended up being GLORIOUS! I was amazed by the fight scenes, and was awed by the thought that was put into every detail. I watched it 3 times now and Im planning on seeing it again. A must see, but not for the viewer that lacks the ability to pay attention. Some say it was confusing, but it only was confusing if u didnt pay attention. My 8 year old nephew understood everything, and wouldnt stop analyzing every detail. Beautifully made movie.

Kenny J. gave it a10:
Outstanding!

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