Inception

Christopher Nolan spent a decade developing Inception, and every year of that gestation shows in the final product. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Dom Cobb, a thief who specializes in extracting secrets from people’s dreams. When he’s offered a chance to have his criminal record erased, he must attempt inception — planting an idea deep enough in a target’s subconscious that they believe it’s their own. The concept is staggeringly complex, but Nolan’s execution is so precise that the audience never loses the thread, even as the film layers dream within dream within dream.

The action sequences are among the most original ever conceived. The zero-gravity hallway fight, choreographed and performed practically by Joseph Gordon-Levitt in a rotating set, is a landmark achievement. The ski fortress assault, the Paris cityscape folding in on itself, the van falling in slow motion while three simultaneous timelines converge — Nolan makes the impossible feel tactile because he insists on practical effects wherever possible.

Inception earned $837 million worldwide, won four Academy Awards, and sparked debates about its ending that continue to this day. The spinning top. Does it fall? Nolan will never tell you, and that ambiguity is the film’s final, greatest trick.