Lucid Dreaming

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Lore & Background

The film establishes that Nolan wrote an initial 60-page treatment for a heist film set in a dream world in 2001, before Insomnia. He shelved it to gain experience with Batman Begins (2005), The Prestige (2006), and The Dark Knight (2008) before revising the treatment over six months. In the story, Cobb explains that he and his late wife Mal entered "Limbo" while experimenting with dream-sharing, experiencing fifty years in one night due to time dilation. Limbo is described as a world of infinite subconscious where dying typically wakes the dreamer unless heavily sedated. This danger was central to Mal's fate; she refused to return to reality because Cobb had accidentally incepted the belief in her mind that the real world was still a dream.

In Their Own Story

Dom Cobb and Arthur extract secrets from Saito, who offers to clear Cobb's criminal record if he performs inception on Robert Fischer. Cobb assembles a team including forger Eames, chemist Yusuf, and architect Ariadne. They sedate Fischer into a three-layer shared dream on an airplane bought by Saito. Time slows with each layer: the first is a city where projections attack the team; the second is a hotel dreamed by Arthur; the third is an alpine fortress. A music-synchronized "kick" using the song "Non, je ne regrette rien" is required to wake everyone simultaneously. When Yusuf drives off a bridge too early, forcing improvised kicks with explosives in the hotel and fortress, Cobb must rescue Fischer and Saito from Limbo. There, Cobb finds an aged Saito, reminds him of their agreement, and makes peace with his role in Mal's death before Ariadne kills her projection to wake Robert.

Reader's Guide

The film was filmed in six countries, beginning in Tokyo on June 19 and ending in Canada on November 22, with an official budget of $160 million split between Warner Bros. and Legendary. Nolan used his reputation from The Dark Knight to secure a US$100 million advertising expenditure. The premiere occurred in London on July 8, 2010, with a wide release on July 16, 2010. The film grossed $839 million worldwide, becoming the fourth-highest-grossing film of 2010. At the 83rd Academy Awards, it won four Oscars for Best Cinematography, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Visual Effects, while receiving nominations for Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, Best Art Direction, and Best Original Score. In 2025, the Library of Congress selected Inception for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.

Did You Know?

• Leonardo DiCaprio was the first choice for the role of Dom Cobb; Will Smith was approached and turned it down because he didn't want to make a heist movie at the time, while Brad Pitt was never among the primary candidat
• The character Ariadne is named after the Greek myth figure who gave Theseus a ball of string to navigate a labyrinth.
• Ken Watanabe's role as Saito was written specifically for him, but his first contemporary English-language role was in The Last Samurai (2003), not Batman Begins.
• Mal's projection attacks Cobb because she believes the real world is still a dream, a belief Cobb accidentally planted in her mind during fifty years of shared time in Limbo.
• The team uses the French song "Non, je ne regrette rien" as a musical cue to synchronize their wake-ups across three different dream layers.