Over a decade later and Inception is still one of the coolest movies ever. With mind-blowing cerebral concepts and visuals, along with well-delivered explanations to describe said concepts and visuals, Inception takes viewers on a detailed tour through the world of our own mind – an unconscious world that affects our conscious reality.
Leonardo Dicaprio is Don Cobb, an expert in corporate espionage who is tasked with assembling a team that can achieve inception – the infiltration of a person’s dream-state to plant an idea for organic growth within the mind. This is a highly sought-after skill among the wealthy elite, and the ability to manipulate the mind’s interpretation of its dreamed reality comes with a big payout, but perhaps even bigger consequences. Cobb agrees to take on this final job – a job that will push him to the limits of sanity, with memories projected from his own mind threatening to jeopardize the entire mission and the very lives of his team.
The movies on this list also bend and manipulate the limits of reality, and that might even set audiences off on some existential pondering of their own – and existential pondering is a Christopher Nolan specialty, so you shouldn’t be surprised to find so many of his films made it onto the list. Of course, they’re not all Nolan, but each of these films is visually interesting, has that overall slickness factor – the thing that makes Inception so darn cool. Whether it’s recurring actors and other behind-the-scenes people, or that plots and concepts that question the nature of reality, the movies here are similar to each other in some form or another. So, if you liked the mind-trip that is Inception, buckle up for 12 more cerebral movies to watch next.
Table of Contents
Shutter Island
Shutter Island evokes the sort of visceral response that its title suggests and is quite a bit darker than Inception. The film is based on the 2003 novel by Dennis Lehane and connects multiple recurring players found on this list, including Leonardo Dicaprio, Ben Kingsley, and Martin Scorsese. Following a trail of clues and codes left by mysterious characters, U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels (Dicaprio) is investigating the disappearance of a patient from Ashecliffe Hospital; a facility for the criminally insane, located on the rainy and isolated Shutter Island, outside of Boston. Daniels has a personal attachment to this case, as one particularly mysterious patient on the island may hold the key to unlocking the truth behind the tragic death of Daniels’ wife – a truth that inevitably calls into question everything Daniels believes about who he is as an officer, WW2 soldier, and husband, prompting a new sort of investigation into just what exactly he’s doing on Shutter Island in the first place.
Like Inception, Shutter Island explores the concept of planting an idea into another person’s mind, and it also depicts Daniels experiencing dreams within dreams. Similar to Dicaprio’s Cobb in Inception, Teddy Daniels is haunted and manipulated by the memory of his dead wife. The ending of Shutter Island may also be open to interpretation, much like Inception, with a keen viewer of the film left wondering if Teddy Daniels was actually fully aware of the real implications in the final scene. The cinematography of Shutter Island is beautifully gritty and gray, and the musical score ominously complements the unsettling exploration of the disturbed minds housed at the institution. For trivia fans, there’s a bonus connection fitting to the theme of this list: the music sampled at the very beginning of the film comes from the soundtrack of The Shining, the 1980 film adapted from Stephen King’s novel, starring Jack Nicholson. Nicholson would later star alongside Dicaprio in The Departed – the next flick on this list.
The Departed
Continuing our examination of the Scorsese-Dicaprio-Nicholson connection, we have The Departed — another Boston-based cop thriller, and perhaps the least overtly Inception-ish movie on this list. The Departed is like Inception in that it’s a tense crime thriller and involves lots of double-crossing and spying, gun-firing, and suit-wearing. But it’s definitely one of the more raw and violent films on this list. So, for audiences with delicate sensibilities, prepare yourself for a plethora of f-bombs, exploding headshots, and even more f-bombs.
The Departed stars an A-list cast including the already mentioned Leonardo Dicaprio and Jack Nicholson, as well as Matt Damon, Alec Baldwin, Mark Wahlberg, and other great talent. The dialogue alone highlights the Boston setting that plays such a role in the film itself, and I can’t get enough of the hilarious work from Wahlberg in this movie, who steals every scene he’s in. If you like the psychological head games played in Inception, then you’re sure to like The Departed. And as for the final few minutes of the film? Try not to leave your jaw on the floor.
Tenet
Tenet is a movie that feels like Inception. In fact, I think it’s a movie that really just wants to be Inception. I will say, though, that it does have that overall “slick” vibe – the cool Nolan-esque signature defined by cerebral concepts, stunning imagery, epic musical scores, and, let’s face it, dudes in suits. Tenet is totally a “dudes in suits” movie (as are many of the movies on this list). It’s also an intricate maze of a movie, and beyond that, it’s a puzzle – a palindrome in more ways than one. Like the spelling of its title, Tenet is a palindrome: it has the same composition moving forward as it does backward, a fitting touch to the time-inversion premise of the film. Basically, the timeline and structure of the film itself become inverted, with the second half of the film actually being the first half, in reverse.
Where the characters of Inception utilize time to their advantage through manipulation of a person’s dream-state, the protagonists of Tenet – that’s what the lead character is literally referred to as, The Protagonist — are using technology to harness time itself. While Tenet lacks the emotional depth and character connection that makes Inception such an enduring classic, it surely doesn’t lack the existentially mind-bending concepts and signature Nolan style. If you enjoyed the fast-action plot and corporate espionage backdrop of Inception, then you should definitely check out Tenet.
Memento
Tenet isn’t the only film where Nolan takes the structure of the thing and flips it on its head; much of the mechanics and actual imagery in Tenet is reminiscent of Nolan’s 2000 breakout film, Memento. The film opens with a bright blonde Guy Pearce appearing to fire a gun in reverse — or, actually, the scene consists of him firing the gun while the action’s played in reverse. In the opening shot, a polaroid also develops in reverse. With Memento we get classic Nolan “dude in a suit,” as Pearce’s Leonard seeks vengeance and answers following the traumatic death of his wife.
It’s bad enough that police don’t agree with Leonard’s version of what happened the night his wife was brutally murdered, but matters are made confusingly surreal with the added “condition” of Leonard’s mind since the incident. You see, Leonard can no longer form new short-term memories, and he can only remember his life up until the night of his wife’s death. Thanks to a useful, albeit imperfect, system of instant polaroid photos and permanent body tattoos to leave himself clues, Leonard develops a rough ability to track down potential suspects who were overlooked by police. Like Inception, Memento examines the concept and phenomenon of false and distorted memories, and also leaves a lot open to interpretation. Though, in the case of Memento, the ending is just the beginning, and vice versa. If that sort of cinematic mind-loop piques your interest, then you should give Memento a watch.
Paprika
When a device used by therapists to enter the dreams of their patients is stolen, the conscious and unconscious realities of those involved soon become blurred – the people controlled. It’s up to one young and brave researcher, Chiba, to enter the unreal reality of the dream world and make things right. Can she, along with the help of her small team of friends, succeed in saving humanity?
Paprika is a 2006 Japanese anime film that is just as (if not more) visually stunning as other entries on this list. Paprika is like the prototype film to Inception, and deals heavily with parallel themes of dream manipulation, technological interference, and even mind-control. So if you dig the storyline of Inception, then you’ve got to give Paprika a look.
Self/less
Self/less stars Ben Kingsley and Ryan Reynolds, and is a sleek, sexy, and overlooked 2015 gem of a movie. Kingsley plays aging and rapidly declining Damian, a real estate pioneer of New York City and leader of the corporate elite. Feeling that he still has useful work to be done, Damian undergoes a very cutting-edge, very secretive procedure, which transfers his consciousness and memories to the unanimated body of a younger donor (Reynolds).
Like Inception, Self/less involves high stakes decisions made by a dying, wealthy man – decisions that revolve around a strained parent-child relationship. And, again similar to the characters of Inception, the corporate elite like Damian are able to experience lives within lives as a result of corporate body-hacking, which inevitably leads Damian to a discovery of his reality that he could’ve never imagined. Self/less delivers the quick-moving plot and all the action of Inception, along with a stunning city backdrop, high-tech concepts, and – you guessed it – plenty of dudes in suits.
The Prestige
When you think of cerebral movies like Inception, a period piece set in the late 1800s may not immediately come across your radar. But with Christopher and Jonathan Nolan behind the scenes, and Christian Bale and Michael Cain on screen together before their Batman days, you can bet that The Prestige belongs on this list! We can’t leave out Hugh Jackman leading the cast, along with David Bowie as Tesla. Yes, that’s David Bowie, the rockstar, as Nikola Tesla, the energy genius.
The 2006 film features Bale and Jackman as rival magicians who consistently wow both the onscreen and real-life audiences, and deliver twist upon twist and layer upon layer of deception to the story, constantly elevating their rivalry toward dangerous, violent consequences. And again, yes, real-life historical figure Nikola Tesla is somehow weaved into the plot in a very satisfying way. The reveal at the end of the movie can only be described with a visual: imagine my hands making a slow-motion explosion movement around my head. The setting and imagery in the film are visually stunning — the detail of the timeframe being just downright neat to look at. For cerebral entertainment that flies under the radar, check out The Prestige.
The Machinist
We have another Christian Bale feature on our list, with Bale playing the role of Trevor Reznik in the gritty 2004 film, The Machinist. Bale is known for his extreme body transformations in preparation for a role, with this being one of the most striking examples. Bale’s Reznik is a gaunt, miserable insomniac, who earns a meager living as a machinist at a factory. According to Reznik, he hasn’t slept in a year. And as the audience witnesses, things are starting to get weird. Like Pearce’s Leonard from Memento, Trevor Reznik tries to keep a grip on his reality with an obsessive system of notes he leaves for himself. But as the isolation, paranoia, and general lack of sleep all begin to wear on Reznik, he may have finally found the solution which will break this cycle of insomnia – and perhaps his complete psyche – once and for all. The Machinist has the raw and visceral feel of Memento and The Departed, along with the overall cerebral quality of this list.
The Matrix
Thomas Anderson is just an average guy — an office drone by day, who likes to dabble in the world of computer hacking by night. Mr. Anderson is known online to other hackers as Neo, and will soon come to be known by the awakened humanity as “The One.” The Matrix, as shown to Neo, is the artificial world that encompasses every single human on Earth, enslaving them within a computer system that most people have no idea they’ve been born into. As Morpheus, fellow hacker and guide to the real world explains to Neo, “The Matrix is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.” For Morpheus and others like him who have awoken within the Matrix, Neo is the savior figure who’s been prophesied to deliver mankind to its salvation from the system.
The Matrix was released in 1999 and remains a definitive movie about questioning the nature of reality. Keanu Reeves heads up the cast as Neo, and is accompanied by Laurence Fishburne as the wise sage, Morpheus, and Carrie-Anne Moss in the role of the beautiful and mysterious (and completely badass) Trinity. Joe Pantoliano can also be found in the supporting cast, who later teamed up with Moss to star in Memento. The always versatile Hugo Weaving embodies the artificial intelligence of the Matrix in its human appearance, known in the film simply as Agent Smith — prototypical dude in a suit. But it’s not just all dudes in suits with The Matrix, and the classic is celebrated decades later for its game-changing fight-scene choreography, cool visuals, and even cooler black leather ensembles and trench-coat action.
Anon
Anon is an edgy cyber-thriller with the hacker-flair of The Matrix and the heist-vibe of Inception. The 2018 flick places Clive Owen and Amanda Seyfried in a steamy game of cat and mouse, set in a future city where society is biologically connected to the technology and internet – the “ether.”
Dude in a suit, Sal (Owen), is a city detective who utilizes this connected technology to fight crime, and is totally dependent on the system’s identification and remote viewing capabilities. When a murderer runs rampant through the city, targeting wealthy socialites and hacking into the ether to erase visual records of the murders, Sal must go undercover to find this hacker/murderer and bring them to justice. That is, if Sal’s own life isn’t hacked first.
Interstellar
Interstellar really is an absolute mind-boggler, and is sure to create the most existential branch of armchair philosophers. The 2014 film is set in the not-so-distant future and follows the mission of the Endurance – an interstellar spacecraft and crew tasked with traveling through a black hole in search of habitable planets for the people of Earth. Much like Inception, Interstellar explores the nature of reality and time – especially related to Einstein’s Theory of Relativity – and what that means for those exploring these unchartered territories of space and time. Pretty metaphysical, right? The elegant presentation of the scientific concepts and theories within the film can be rivaled only by their stunning visual representations, with a soundtrack composed by Hans Zimmer taking the whole thing to the next level. If you find the architectural building highlighted in Inception impressive, then the world-building details and depictions of entire planets in this film should catch your attention.
And we make another connection with Matt Damon! I just love it when my favorite films overlap. Matt Damon makes a somewhat surprising cameo in Interstellar, alongside an equally stellar cast lead by Matthew McConaughey, and including Anne Hathaway, Casey Affleck, Jessica Chastain, and even Michael Cain. I mean, it is a Nolan movie, so Michael Cain’s presence should really be of no surprise.
Arrival
Arrival is a film with Interstellar-level cerebral concepts, and deals in ideas of space travel, intricate interpretations of time, and unique perceptions of language and linguistics. Amy Adams stars in Denis Villeneuve‘s film adaptation of Ted Chiang’s novel, and the story explores Einsteinian interpretations of our existence akin to Interstellar — specifically related to illusions of the past, present, and future. Like some other entries on this list, Arrival doesn’t exactly follow a chronological order of events. At least, not the sort of linear-based order that we humans experience as time. And that, in a nutshell (eggshell?) is the time-twisting premise of Arrival.
The megalithic quality of the egg-like spacecraft that arrive in the film is on-par visually with the massive city-scapes created in Inception, and the movie’s mind-bending treatment of time, language, and even gravity, is pretty out there, too. Like Inception and Interstellar, Arrival is one of those thinking kinds of movies – the kind that you might even get more out of with a second watching. So if you’re ready to turn two cool movies into four viewings, check out Arrival after Inception.
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