Inception
Warner Bros. Pictures | Release Date: July 16, 2010 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
74
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 42 Critic Reviews
Positive:
33
Mixed:
6
Negative:
3
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Boxoffice MagazinePete 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. Read full review
100
VarietyJustin 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. Read full review
100
EmpireNev 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. Read full review
100
New York PostLou Lumenick
Nolan blurs the distinction between dreams and reality so artfully that Inception may well be a masterpiece masquerading as a summer blockbuster. Read full review
100
Arizona RepublicBill Goodykoontz
The visuals are stunning, perhaps the most fully realized of any film. Read full review
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger 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. Read full review
100
TimeRichard Corliss
Inception is precisely the kind of brainy, ambitious, grand-scale adventure Hollywood should be making more of. Read full review
100
New York Daily NewsElizabeth 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. Read full review
100
Los Angeles TimesKenneth 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. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChronicleAmy Biancolli
This is spellbinding, transporting, damn near indescribable and the latest indication that Christopher Nolan might be the slyest narrative tactician making movies today. Read full review
100
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
This is a deeply felt work of art in the form of a big, brassy movie-movie. Read full review
91
The A.V. ClubScott 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. Read full review
90
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
In a summer of remakes, reboots and sequels comes Inception, easily the most original movie idea in ages. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter 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? Read full review
88
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
Here, finally, is something you've really never seen before. Read full review
88
USA TodayClaudia Puig
The film is easier to admire than to fully grasp or be moved by it. Still, it's worth surrendering to the dream. Read full review
88
Washington PostAnn 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. Read full review
88
ReelViewsJames 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. Read full review
88
Charlotte ObserverLawrence 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. Read full review
88
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike 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. Read full review
88
PremiereStaff (Not credited)
Inception is one of the best sci-fi movies of the new century, a mind-bender about dreams as public spaces. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyLisa 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. Read full review
83
Tampa Bay TimesSteve Persall
A sensory and intellectual overload from start to finish, a brawny, brainy summer movie that may infuriate as many viewers as it enraptures. Read full review
80
Time OutJoshua 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. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleKimberley 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. Read full review
75
Orlando SentinelRoger 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. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeWesley 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. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael 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. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorPeter 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. Read full review
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. Read full review
70
SlateDana 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. Read full review
63
Philadelphia InquirerSteven Rea
Stymied by a clunking script, crammed with expository exchanges and urgent blather. Read full review
63
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe 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. Read full review
60
The New York TimesA.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. Read full review
50
Chicago ReaderJ.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. Read full review
50
The New YorkerDavid Denby
Inception, is an astonishment, an engineering feat, and, finally, a folly. Read full review
50
Wall Street JournalJohn 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. Read full review
40
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
Inception manages to be clunky and confusing on four separate levels of reality. Read full review
40
SalonAndrew 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. Read full review
30
Village VoiceNick 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. Read full review
30
MovielineStephanie 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. Read full review
25
ObserverRex 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. Read full review
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