Film director Christopher Nolan is known for his puzzling films that stretch the limits of reality and dive into metaphysics. Nolan's "Inception," written and directed by Nolan, was released in 2010 and received rave reviews from audiences and critics alike. Considered one of the greatest films of the decade, the film was nominated for eight Academy Awards and won four. Nolan's Legacy of Inception paves the way for several other films that replace realistic and metaphysical themes, prompting audiences to think outside their traditional box.
In the film, professional thief and international fugitive Don Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) has a special ability to infiltrate people's dreams and extract valuable information from the subconscious. Cobb's rare skills have made him sought after in a complex and corrupt world of corporate espionage. While Cobb is popular among some of the world's largest corporate figures, his work has cost him his life and everything he loves. When Cobb has a chance to redeem himself and regain control of his life, he is willing to do whatever it takes. The new task, however, was more difficult than his previous job, and Cobb had to implant an idea in his head instead of stealing one.
Inception is both interesting and makes the audience think about larger philosophical and metaphysical ideas beyond norms. With an excellent cast, stunning cinematography, and an incredible storyline, Inception has been popular with audiences for more than a decade since its release. The film also led to a renaissance of sophisticated and intelligent science fiction, as there hasn't been a film of this nature since The Matrix in the '90s. If you're still scratching your head over the ending of Inception, dive into these puzzling movies that are reminiscent of Inception and its themes.
Island of Confinement
Known for his thrilling crime epics, Martin Scorsese took a detour from traditionally explored themes and directed the psychological thriller Confinement Island. In 1954, U.S. Marshal Edward " Teddy Daniels and his new partner, Chuck Ole (Mark Ruffalo), investigate the case of a missing patient at Ashecliffe Hospital on Shutter Island. Once you think you've mastered the plot, the movie pops up and completely shakes your mind with a plot twist that no one expected. Like Inception, Confinement Island allows your brain to understand the complex worlds in which your characters live.
Truman Show
"We accept the reality we face. This quote sums up the overall theme of Peter Weir's The Truman Show. Since his birth, Truman Burbank (Jim Carey) has been part of a secret TV show called the Truman Show. The show is led by executive producer Christopher (Ed Harris), who secretly broadcasts his daily life and activities without Truman's knowledge. To distract Truman from this secret, Christopher constantly implanted new scenes in his life, distorting his view of reality until Truman became suspicious of the world around him. With the theme of alternating reality and mind control, Truman Show captures the essence of Inception with a unique storyline
prestige
Director Christopher Nolan, released four years before the release of Inception, explored magic and the unknown in Prestige. Set in London in the 1880s, the pairs of magicians Alfred Borden (Christian Bell) and Robert Angel (Hugh Jackman) are shocked by the tragic death of an assistant during a show. When Boden performs the ultimate magic trick, teleportation, Angel frantically tries to discover his secrets, test the limits of reality and the relationships around him, and become a master of his craft. With twists and turns along the way, Nolan uses tactics similar to those he used in Inception to shock the audience with a stunning ending.
creed
In Inception, Don Cobb tests the limits of reality by traveling into dreams. In The Tenant, also written and directed by Christopher Nolan, CIA agents (John David Washington) travel through time and accomplish a special mission: prevent the outbreak of World War III. What are the reasons behind a potential world war? Russian oligarch Andrei Sato (Kenneth Branagh) is dying of cancer. Because he was a billionaire, Sarto believed he should be spared suffering and wanted the rest of the world to suffer with him, and he decided to build a nuclear bomb to wipe out all of humanity.
Memory fragments
Christopher Nolan's breakthrough film Memento earned the director his first Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay, which has since been selected by the Library of Congress as part of the National Film Registry. Fragments of Memory centers on the protagonist, Leonard Shelby (Guy Pierce), who is looking for the perpetrator of the rape and murder of his wife. However, this proved difficult as Shelby suffered from short-term memory loss and was unable to retain new memories. Shelby's illness complicates his mission, but a series of Polaroid photographs may contain clues he needs to do justice for his late wife.
The Matrix
As far as pop culture is concerned, in the late '90s and early 2000s, no single film had the same impact as The Matrix. Written and directed by Lana and Lilly Wachowski, The Matrix explores the idea of alternative realities, similar to Inception. The film tells the story of computer programmer and hacker Thomas Anderson (Keanu Reeves) (aka Neo) trying to uncover the truth about his reality, which is actually controlled by evil forces. Since its release in 1999, the Matrix series has produced three more films that have been released in theaters, with one of which, The Matrix Resurrection, debuted in December 2021. The first movie, like Inception, makes you question everything because nothing is what it looks like.
Become John Markovich
Director Spike Jonze's Being John Malkovich centers on puppet actor Craig Schwartz (John Cusack), who works for a man named Dr. Lester. Lester's man served as a new document clerk. The job seems simple, but at work, Craig encounters a secret portal that, surprisingly, goes straight into the mind of actor John Markovich. After he found out, Craig informed his colleague Maxine Lund (Catherine Keener), and the two worked together to profit from the experience. Quirky and funny, but bold and daring, John Markovich takes the viewer on a frantic journey to try to understand alternative reality.
Interstellar
Another wonderful film written and directed by Christopher Nolan, Interstellar pushes the limits of your imagination and makes you think about the existence of another universe. In 2067, engineer and former NASA pilot Joseph Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) lives with his two children and father-in-law on their hometown farm. The state of the planet and humanity is currently threatened by strong sandstorms and crop blight. Cooper and a team of researchers were selected by NASA physicist John Brand (Michael Kane) to travel through wormholes to determine if there were other planets that could safely support humans. Interstellar explores similar themes from Nolan's past films, such as Inception, including time travel, alternative universes, and metaphysics.
Hallucinations of death
In 1988, teenager Donnie Darko narrowly escaped death when an airplane engine fell from the bedroom ceiling. Downey can attribute his survival to a rabbit named Frank, who lured him outside shortly before the incident. Frank told Downey that the world would end in 28 days and continued to manipulate Downey's mind by encouraging Downey to commit crimes and acts of destruction. In The Illusion of Death, viewers try to figure out if Downey is experiencing hallucinations or if it's part of his reality.
Requiem of Dreams
Director Darren Aronofsky, best known for his films Wrestler and Black Swan, took audiences on an unsettling and uncomfortable journey in 2000's Requiem For a Dream. The film revolves around four characters whose lives are interconnected by a desire to experience their own personal climax. Sara (played by Ellen Burstyn) desperately wants to be a guest of her favorite exit show, and her desperate drive leads her to engage in harmful behaviors and delusions. Sarah's son, Harry (Jared Leto), is a drug addict whose goal is to become one of the highest-paid drug dealers with his friend Tyrone (Marlon Waynes). Harry's girlfriend, Marion (Jennifer Connery), has her own addictions that stand in the way of what she really wants. The reality of each character's life is suppressed by their addiction, leading to dire consequences.
Eternal sunshine of a beautiful mind
Joel (Kim Carey) sadly discovers that his longtime girlfriend Clementine (Titanic heroine Kate Winslet) has no memory of him or their relationship after undergoing surgery to erase him from memory. Heartbroken, Joel decides to undergo the same surgery, and his memory of her fades away. Still, Joel discovers that he still loves Clementine and struggles to remember what they did together. Similar to Inception, the film explores the theme of memory and how our emotions affect the way we remember and perceive reality. In addition to Carey and Winslet, Eternal Sun's cast includes Kirsten Dunster and Mark Rufallow.
Fight Club
Famous director David Fincher, like Christopher Nolan, is known for making physiological thrillers that upset you. Fight Club revolves around an unnamed protagonist (Edward Norton) who is an office worker who lives a boring and fulfilling life. In addition to the troubles of a lackluster job, he suffers from insomnia, which he tries to cure by going to support groups and pretending to have multiple ailments. After he meets Tyler Duten (Brad Pitt), the two create an underground fight club to help smooth the worldly melancholy of their lives. When the club began to take control of his life, Norton's character was forced to rethink what he really wanted.
butterfly effect
If you had the opportunity to go back in time and change everything in your life, would you? This is the main issue explored in the 2004 film Butterfly Effect. Evan Treburn (Ashton Kutcher) discovers that he can travel through time to prevent himself from experiencing blackouts and memory loss, which affected him as a child. In order to improve his and his friends' lives, Evan dramatically changed the path of their lives and changed their reality, which had a negative impact.
Escape from Desperate Town
Jordan Peel's directorial debut, Breaking Bad, was a huge hit immediately after its release, earning Peel an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. The film explores the power of the mind and how easily the mind is manipulated by the wrong people. The film tells the story of a successful black cinematographer, Chris Washington (Daniel Kalua), who meets the family of his white girlfriend Rose Armitage (Alison Williams). After meeting his family, Chris slowly begins to uncover a dark family secret and try to defeat their evil plans. The film has more twists and turns than you can count, and you're sure to put your chin on the floor.
source
Army Captain Colt Stevens (Jack Gyllenhaal) is confused when he is awakened by the body of a man named Sean Fentress on a Chicago commuter train. However, he soon discovered that he was part of an experimental government project called "Siege castles." During the mission, Stevens must impersonate Fentress and find the perpetrator of the bomb that will explode on the train in eight minutes. Both time travel and alternative reality are themes of the film, which also appear in Inception. Source code is a wild journey that will make your heart beat faster.
Others
The ending of Inception leaves the audience with a puzzling question about the fate of the characters, similar to The Others. At the end of World War II, Grace (Nicole Kidman) lives in a mansion with her daughter Anne and son Nicholas. The family waited alone for husband/father Charles to return from the war. The children suffered from a disease that prevented them from being exposed to the sun, and Grace sought the help of three servants in her daily chores. However, after the servants work at home, Grace and the children begin to experience strange events that make them question their motives.
We
Jordan Peele's second film, Us, introduces the viewer to the idea of another universe in which our doppelgangers wreak havoc in the world below us. When the Wilsons went on vacation, their home was intruded by four strangers. The family soon discovered that the invaders looked exactly like them, with evil motives to hurt and intimidate them. The film has several different twists and turns, as well as some shocking revelations, and once it's over, you'll be completely shocked, like the ending of Inception. With the excellent performances of Lupita Nyong'o, Winston Duke and Elizabeth Moss, you will think of us for a long time after watching it.
Ring Messenger
The Ring Messenger is a film about time travel set in the near future. Time travel didn't exist at the time, but decades later the technology was successfully invented. The tone of this film is very dark, which is very different from the director's previous work "Broome Brothers". It tells the story of a group of members called "Ring Killers" who specialize in assassinating people from the future for large criminal organizations, and the big bosses will imprison the target of the assassination and secretly send it back to the past from the future, for the "Ring Killer", their job is simply to headshot the target and dispose of the body, so that the target can disappear cleanly in his time and space, which is an effective and foolproof system for the killer. And Joe, the killer played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, meets Bruce Lee on a mission. Willis plays the future self, and all the complicated and dilemma plots erupt here.
Mental games
In David Fincher's The Game, the director blurs the boundaries of reality, as Christopher Nolan did in Inception. Wealth investment banker Nicholas Van Orton (Michael Douglas) was given a special voucher by his brother on his 48th birthday. The coupon is a game for a consumer entertainment services company that promises to change his life. Curious about the so-called "life-changing" game, he decided to give it a try, but he was soon bombarded with a series of harmful pranks that led him to question the game's true motives and those around him. Is there anything like that looks like that?
The Gate of Destiny
Engineers Aaron (Shane Carruth) and Abe (David Sullivan) work with two of their friends to build and sell technology that detects errors. In the course of their work, the team inadvertently created a time machine that they modified to be able to transport humans through time and space. At first glance, they think their inventions are smart, but they quickly discover that their latest inventions have had a negative impact on their work, relationships, and lives. Although it is an independent film, The Gates of Destiny has the same impact on audiences as Inception, involving themes of time travel and human desire to explore.
sixth sense
The Sixth Sense line "I see dead people" may just be one of the most quoted quotes ever made, but it does give us insight into M. Night Shyamalan's supernatural thriller is about something. Child psychologist Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis) is accused at home of former patient Vincent Grey of abusing him as a child, causing Vincent to shoot Malcolm and then shoot himself. Over the next year, Malcolm begins working with Cole Ciel (Hayley Joel Osmente), a 9-year-old who encounters the hallucinations of a dead man after Vincent's defeat. With one of the biggest plot twists in film history, Sixth Sense will completely shake your mind as the end credits roll.
Former destination
In Inception, Dom Cobb is tasked with making a significant impact on the lives of others. Former destinations focus on one person's journey to prevent negative consequences from occurring in the lives of thousands of people. Agent Doe (Ethan Hawke) is a time traveler who is trying to hunt down a criminal who has been kept away from him. The criminal, known as the "failed bomber," aimed to kill as many people as possible by dropping bombs at different locations. Agent Doy should have stopped him before it was too late.
The Seven Deadly Sins
Another David Fincher film, Seven Deadly Sins, will keep you on your guard while disturbing your mind. Retiring Detective Lieutenant William Somerset (Morgan Freeman) is tasked with carrying out a series of brutal killings in his unnamed city. Somerset is paired with young and idealistic detective David Mills (Brad Pitt), and the two slowly begin to piece together, with the killing inspired by the Seven Deadly Sins, each of which represents one of the Seven Deadly Sins. As the two get closer and closer to finding the killer and solving the case, an unexpected twist puts their entire case in trouble.
split
While Christopher Nolan explores metaphysics in Inception, M. Night Shyamalan focuses on the supernatural in his thriller Split. Kevin Wendel Krum (James McAvoy) suffers from dissociative identity disorder and lives with 23 personalities. He tries to suppress these personalities with the help of psychiatrist Karen Fletcher (Betty Buckley), but some of his alternative personalities cause confusion and suffering and lead him to kidnap three teenage girls. The film revolves around Kevin's efforts to restrain his personality while preventing the appearance of the 24th personality, known as "The Beast", as the girls try to escape his anger.
Genius Ripley
Based on a 1955 psychological thriller of the same name, Genius Ripley explores how far a desperate person is willing to go in order to achieve his goals. In Inception, Dom Cobb is willing to take on a dangerous dream implant mission to regain his life. Also in Mr. Genius, the protagonist Tom Ripley (Matt Damon) goes to extremes and creates the life of his dreams. Shipping tycoon Herbert Greenleave (James Rebbhorn) sends Tom to Italy to track down his son Dickie Greenleave (Jude Law), mistakenly believing that Tom is Dickie's former classmate. Ripley soon became obsessed with Dickie's extravagant lifestyle, which put him on a dangerous path to get what he wanted.