Inception

Dom Cobb is a skilled extractor who steals corporate secrets by entering other people's dreams. When he's offered a chance to return to his children, he has to attempt something no one has done before, inception, planting an idea deep enough that it will grow on its own. Cobb recruits a specialist team, including Arthur, Ariadne, Eames, and others, to design layered dream worlds and the safeguards those layers need. As the plan gets more elaborate, personal memories and unresolved guilt from Cobb's past start bleeding into the operation, making the rules less reliable and the stakes much higher. The film tracks the planning, the mechanics of creating shared dreams, and the moral cost of altering a mind.

Released in 2010, Inception was written and directed by Christopher Nolan. It was an original screenplay, shot with a mix of practical and digital effects, and led by Leonardo DiCaprio with key support from Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tom Hardy, Ken Watanabe, and Elliot Page.

Inception earned multiple Academy Award nominations and won four Oscars, including honors for cinematography and visual effects. It also picked up awards and nominations from BAFTA and various industry guilds for its technical and design achievements.

Scenes like the rotating hallway fight, the Paris folding sequence, and the film's ambiguous spinning top finale became instantly recognizable. Those images and the concept of layered dreams entered pop culture, inspiring parodies, homages, and frequent discussion about where the line between dream and reality lies.

Critics generally praised the film's ambition, score, and technical craftsmanship, while some reviewers found the plot densely constructed. Audiences responded strongly, reflected in an 8.4/10 vote average from 38,429 votes. Major themes include memory and grief, the reliability of perception, and the ethical questions that come with manipulating someone else's inner life.