In an effort to combat confusion, television broadcasts in Japan include text in the upper-left corner of the screen to remind viewers which level of the dream a specific scene takes place in.

In an interview with "Entertainment Weekly", writer, producer, and director Christopher Nolan explained that he based roles of the Inception team similar to roles that are used in filmmaking, Cobb is the director, Arthur is the producer, Ariadne is the production designer, Eames is the actor, Saito is the studio, and Fischer is the audience. "In trying to write a team-based creative process, I wrote the one I know", said Nolan.

Ariadne's hair is in a tight bun in the hotel sequence, so filmmakers didn't have to figure out how her hair should move in zero-gravity.

In spite of this movie's extensive surreal effects sequences, the majority of visual effects throughout the movie, such as the Penrose stairs, rotating hallway, mountain avalanche, and zero-gravity sequences, were created through practical methods, not through the use of computer graphics imagery. This movie only has around five hundred visual effects shots, as opposed to most other visual effects epics, which can have upwards of two thousand visual effects shots.

Writer, producer, and director Christopher Nolan first pitched this movie to Warner Brothers after the completion of his third movie, Insomnia (2002), and was met with approval from the studio. However, it was not yet written at the time, and Nolan determined that rather than writing it as an assignment, it would be more suitable to his working style if he wrote it as a speculation script, and then presented it to the studio whenever it was completed. So he went off to write it, thinking it would take "a couple of months", but it ultimately took nearly eight years.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt performed all but one of his own stunts during the fight scene in the spinning hallway.

According to cinematographer Wally Pfister, Warner Brothers executives approached Christopher Nolan about making this movie in 3-D, but he refused the idea, claiming "it will distract the storytelling experience of Inception."

If you take the first letters of the main characters' names, Dom, Robert, Eames, Arthur, Mal and Saito, they spell "Dreams". If you add Peter, Ariadne, and Yusuf, the whole makes "Dreams Pay", which is what they do for a mind thief.

Christopher Nolan has said that the snow-based third-level dream was inspired by his favorite James Bond movie On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969).

During production, details of this movie's plot were kept secret. Christopher Nolan, who wrote the script, cryptically described it as a contemporary science fiction action thriller "set within the architecture of the mind."

Leonardo DiCaprio was writer, producer, and director Christopher Nolan's and producer Emma Thomas' only choice for the role of Cobb.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt went to his audition after a brief character summary, wearing a full suit "just in case", unknowingly matching his character's wardrobe perfectly.

The name of the character Cobb references Henry N. Cobb, an American architect notable for designing skyscrapers. The world Cobb and Mal made in Limbo consists mostly of skyscrapers.

The role of Saito was written exclusively for Ken Watanabe, because writer, producer, and director Christopher Nolan felt that although he had appeared in Batman Begins (2005), he did not have much screentime, and should therefore be given a more prominent supporting role.

When explaining why he thinks implanting an idea is not possible, Arthur says "don't think about elephants" to actually make Saito think of them and thus "insert" an idea into his mind. The line is a reference to the title of a famous cognitive semantics book, "Don't Think of an Elephant" by George Lakoff. The book describes conceptual framing, the use of certain words to literally insert certain ideas about a subject into the listener's mind in a surreptitious way (implanting the idea that taxes are a bad thing by using the phrase "tax relief").

Just like Christopher Nolan's previous movie The Dark Knight (2008), no second unit team was hired for making the movie. All of the shots were filmed by Nolan with Wally Pfister.

The sixth Christopher Nolan movie (out of the eight) to enter the IMDb Top 250, along with Memento (2000), Batman Begins (2005), The Prestige (2006), The Dark Knight (2008), The Dark Knight Rises (2012), Interstellar (2014), and Dunkirk (2017).

Kate Winslet was approached for the role of Mal, but turned it down, citing that she couldn't see herself as the character.

In the city scene on the first level of the dream with Fischer, the state motto on the license plates of the cars reads "The Alternate State".

Despite prominent billing, Sir Michael Caine has only three minutes of screentime.

One of the reasons why Christopher Nolan cast Tom Hardy as Eames was because of his performance in RocknRolla (2008). Hardy stated that he thought he was cast because of his role in Bronson (2008). He arrived on-set, only to learn that Nolan has never even seen Bronson (2008).

The movie's runtime (two hours and twenty-eight minutes) is a reference to the original length of Édith Piaf's song "Non, je ne regrette rien", which lasts (on its first recorded edition) two minutes and twenty-eight seconds.

Ariadne, in Greek mythology, was the daughter of King Minos of Crete and his Queen, Pasiphaë. She aided Theseus in overcoming the Minotaur by giving him a ball of red fleece thread that she was spinning, so that he could find his way out of the Minotaur's labyrinth. The myth was also the basis for Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal's opera "Ariadne auf Naxos," a play-within-a-play, just as the movie is about a dream within a dream.

The Édith Piaf song "Non, je ne regrette rien" is used as a plot device. Marion Cotillard played Piaf in La Vie En Rose (2007). Christopher Nolan has stated that this is "pure coincidence". After Cotillard was cast, Nolan intended to change the song to eliminate speculation on the subject, but composer Hans Zimmer persuaded him to keep it.

Dom Cobb's main objective is to get home. Dom is the word for "home" in most Slavic languages (Polish, Russian, and Croatian), derived from the Latin word "Domus". Words like "domesticated" and "domicile" all share the same "dom" root.

A direct translation of the lyrics for the song "Non, je ne regrette rien" as performed by Édith Piaf is: "I regret nothing/no, I have no regrets/I regret neither the good things that were done to me nor the bad things/They are all the same to me/...The past is payed, swept away, forgotten/I don't care of the past anymore/I set my memories on fire/My agonies, and my pleasures/I don't need them any more/Swept away in the agonies of love/Swept away forever, I'm restarting with nothing..." Writer, producer, and director Christopher Nolan has made a point of saying that he chose the song specifically for this movie, which is heavily concerned with the effect of memories on the psyche, and specifically the disastrous effect that not letting go of memories of love-gone-wrong can have on the subconscious, exactly what the song discusses. Also of note: in the original French, "I regret neither the good things done to me nor the bad things" is "Ni le bien qu'on m'a fait ni le mal", and since Cobb's wife is named Mal, that gives the line a double meaning.

"Yusuf" is the Arabic form of "Joseph", the Biblical figure from Genesis 37-50, who had the gift of interpreting dreams. He was sold out by his brothers to slavery. Through his gift of dream interpretation, he helped Pharaoh to prepare for the disaster of the "seven lean years", and was rewarded as a result. The same story is also told in the Quran.

The "Penrose stairs" (with a woman perpetually picking up papers) that Arthur shows Ariadne is a reference to a lithograph print by the Dutch graphic artist M.C. Escher. The print is usually called "Ascending and Descending" or "The Infinite Staircase", and was first printed in March 1960; Escher is well-known for his drawings exploring optical illusions and real architectural, mathematical, and philosophical principles rendered in fantastical ways.

Writer, producer, and director Christopher Nolan's first movie since his feature debut, Following (1998), that is a completely original work. All of his movies between them are either remakes or based on comics, novels, or short stories.

A series of numbers keeps appearing: the number that Fischer gives Cobb/Arthur is 528491, The two hotel rooms used are rooms 528 and 491, the number that Eames (as a woman) gives to Fischer is 528-491, the combination to the strongroom starts with 52, and the combination to the safe is 528-491. This is all to reinforce the importance of the number throughout this movie. Mathematically, the number 528491 is a prime number.

While shooting the snowmobile chase, there were intermittent wind gusts. In order to preserve continuity during the takes without natural wind, the camera helicopter was used to blow snow into frame.

This was the last movie shot on film to win an Academy Award for Best Cinematography. All of the winners since were shot digitally until 2016, when La La Land (2016) broke the streak.

Just as Cillian Murphy's character was named Robert Fischer as a tribute to champion chess player Bobby Fischer, his father's (Pete Postlethwaite's) character is named Maurice Fischer as an homage to artist M.C. Escher (full name Maurits Cornelis Escher), whose art was an inspiration for many of the visual effects in this movie.

The running time of the movie on DVD is exactly 8888 seconds.

The exterior of Fischer's snow fortress is based on, and actually contains some elements of, the Geisel Library at the University of California, San Diego, designed by famed futurist architect William L. Pereira.

Marion Cotillard's character is named "Mal", which is short for "Malorie", a name derived from the French word "malheur", meaning misfortune or unhappiness. The shorter version "mal" means wrong/bad or evil (when a noun) in French, as well as some other Latin-based languages. Years after appearing in this movie, Cotillard appeared in the French movie From the Land of the Moon (2016), whose original title is "Mal de Pierres" (Stone Pain/Stone Ache).

Marion Cotillard, Tom Hardy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Cillian Murphy, and Sir Michael Caine worked with Christopher Nolan on The Dark Knight Rises (2012).

Cillian Murphy (Robert) doubled for a young Maurice Fischer (with glasses and a mustache) in the bedside photo.

The theme music for this movie, composed by Hans Zimmer, is named "Time".

This is one of the top fifty highest grossing movies of all time. (2015)

Cable listings for this movie show the run time as 2 days 9 hours and 14 mins. The length of time it would take if watched in the dream world.

Contrary to popular belief, Hans Zimmer did not compose the music that appeared in the third trailer for this movie. The track, titled "Mind Heist", was composed by Zack Hemsey.

Eames is named after Charles Eames and Ray Eames, a married couple well-known in the fields of furniture design, buildings architecture and avant-garde/documentary filmmaking.

Before Ellen Page was offered and accepted the role of Ariadne, writer, producer, and director Christopher Nolan considered casting Evan Rachel Wood, Emily Blunt, Rachel McAdams, Emma Roberts, Jessy Schram, Taylor Swift, and Carey Mulligan.

The IMAX 65mm format was earlier considered, as used in The Dark Knight (2008), but it was eventually ruled out due to extensive hand-held camera usage throughout the shoot. Due to its weight, it cannot be operated hand-held.

The only characters that call Dom Cobb by his first name are Mal (Marion Cotillard) and Miles (Sir Michael Caine).

The labyrinthine style of the movie's logo resembles the logo of Christopher Nolan's production company Syncopy.

Prints of the movie were shipped to theaters under the name "Hour Glass".

James Franco was in talks with writer, producer, and director Christopher Nolan to play Arthur, but was ultimately unavailable due to scheduling conflicts.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy appeared in The Revenant (2015).

When Cobb and Miles are first shown, Cobb mentions "Extradition between France and the United States is a bureaucratic nightmare." In Catch Me If You Can (2002), Leonardo DiCaprio's character is arrested in France and later extradited to the United States.

This is the fourth of eight Christopher Nolan movies, in which Sir Michael Caine appeared. The others are: Batman Begins (2005), The Prestige (2006), The Dark Knight (2008), The Dark Knight Rises (2012), Interstellar (2014), Dunkirk (2017), and Tenet (2020).

In an interview with French website AlloCiné in 2016, Marion Cotillard stated that Mal is one of her favorite roles.

There are five Academy Award nominees in the cast: Tom Berenger, Tom Hardy, Pete Postlethwaite, Ken Watanabe, and Ellen Page, and three Academy Award winners: Leonardo DiCaprio, Sir Michael Caine, and Marion Cotillard.

There is a series of numbers that keep appearing, on the front of the train the number is 3502 and the taxi number is 2053.

This movie used University College London as a location for several scenes, including when Miles introduces Cobb to Ariadne. Not only did Christopher Nolan study at the university, he has used it as a location for several of his other movies, such as Batman Begins (2005) and The Dark Knight Rises (2012).

The barrel chairs in Saito's dining room were designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1937 for Wingspread, the Herbert Johnson house in Wisconsin. Saito sits at the head of the table in a copy of the Willow Chair designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh in 1903. This further plays on the Architect theme that is prevalent throughout the movie.

Early in this movie, during Mal and Cobb's conversation in a room within Saito's estate, Mal comments on a painting in the background. Cobb replies stating that Saito "is partial to postwar British painters". This is referring to the artist, Francis Bacon. The painting, "Study for Head of George Dyer", is of his late lover, whom he painted long after Dyer's death to perpetuate his memory.

Mal's totem, a spinning top, is (probably) a reference to the Clifford D. Simak's story "Ring Around the Sun", where the spinning top is used as a way to skip from one parallel Earth to another (by way of helping characters to concentrate).

Former The Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr played the guitar on some of this movie's soundtracks.

In this movie, the characters are from five different continents across the globe, performing a major heist. Cobb, Arthur, and Mal are from the U.S. (North America). Cobb fetches Ariadne from Paris, France (Europe); Eames and Yusuf are from Mombasa (Africa), Saito is from Japan (Asia), and Fischer is from Australia.

Except for Dom Cobb, Robert Fischer, and Eames, every other person working in the extraction job, including Saito, are never called by his or her second name in the whole movie.

Included amongst the "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die", edited by Steven Schneider.

In 2014, Harper's Bazaar Magazine listed Marion Cotillard's Mal as one of the "Best Film Femme Fatales".

The two mirror scene with the Droste Effect on the bridge in Paris is a reference to two other movies also directed by Christopher Nolan, Memento (2000) and Doodlebug (1997).

Don Johnson was Christopher Nolan's first choice for the role of Peter Browning, but he turned it down.

This is the fourth movie featuring Marion Cotillard to feature a song by Édith Piaf. The previous were Chloé (1996) and Love Me If You Dare (2003), both movies have "La Vie en Rose" in the soundtrack, while this movie has "Non, je ne regrette rien". Cotillard won the Academy Award for Best Actress portraying Piaf in La Vie En Rose (2007).

Working title: Oliver's Arrow, after both Christopher Nolan's second son Oliver and the character "Oliver Queen, Green Arrow" from a comic book published by DC, who also produces Batman, of whom Nolan made three movies.

The painting that Mal stares at in Saito's dream, greatly resembles work done by Francis Bacon. Christopher Nolan and Heath Ledger used Bacon's artwork as a visual reference for the character of The Joker in The Dark Knight (2008).

Ariadne is the name of a figure from Greek mythology who helped Theseus find his way out of the Labyrinth after killing the Minotaur.

Marion Cotillard and Ellen Page appear in this movie together. They were both nominated for the "Best Actress" category at the BAFTAs, and for the Academy Award in 2008. Cotillard for La Vie en Rose (2007), and Page for Juno (2007). Cotillard won both awards.

The word "Cobol" from Cobol Engineering, the company Dom Cobb worked, is actually a high level language for business data processing.

The character Cobb is an architect in this movie. Alex Haw, who played another character also named Cobb in Christopher Nolan's Following (1998), is actually an architect in real life.

Tom Hardy and Cillian Murphy appeared on Peaky Blinders (2013).

This movie contains many cast members from The Dark Knight trilogy, which was also written, directed, and produced by Christopher Nolan, Sir Michael Caine and Cillian Murphy appeared in all three movies as Alfred Pennyworth and The Scarecrow, respectively, Ken Watanabe appeared in Batman Begins (2005) as Ra's al Ghul, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tom Hardy, and Marion Cotillard were in The Dark Knight Rises (2012), as John Blake, Bane, and Miranda Tate, respectively.

Sir Michael Caine appeared in seven of Christopher Nolan movies. The music of each Christopher Nolan movie, in which he appeared, was composed by Hans Zimmer, except The Prestige (2006), which had music by David Julyan.

The music for the third trailer is "Mind Heist", composed by Zack Hemsey. He later released an EP "Mind Heist", in which each song has a different artwork. The change in the artworks (from a dark area with a rail to a train coming closer to revealing the scene was in a tunnel) is a reference to the scene where Cobb and Mal lay on a rail waiting for a train to come and kill themselves. The names of the songs also referenced this scene.

Was the third most pirated film of 2010 (9.72 million downloads on BitTorrent), after Avatar (2009) (16.58 million downloads) and Kick-Ass (2010) (11.4 million downloads).

A sample of Leonardo DiCaprio and Marion Cotillard dialogue in the train scene ("You're waiting for a train...") is featured on the song "Far Away" by nExow at three minutes and twenty-eight seconds.

Between them, the cast of this movie currently, as of the 2016 Academy Awards, has four Oscar wins (two for Sir Michael Caine and one each for Leonardo DiCaprio and Marion Cotillard) and eighteen Oscar nominations (six for Caine, five for DiCaprio, two for Cotillard, and one each for Ellen Page, Tom Hardy, Ken Watanabe, Tom Berenger, and Pete Postlethwaite)

Lukas Haas played The Architect, the member of the team who designs the dreamscape (the world of the dream). In Lathe of Heaven (2002), he plays George Orr, a draftsman (similar to an architect) whose dreams change reality.

One of Japan's famous "Bullet Trains" is seen early in the movie. This is a 700 Series Shinkansen on the Tokaido line from Tokyo to Osaka. Its distinctive "duck bill" nose and tail design helps to reduce the air piston effect as the train enters tunnels at speed.

This is the fourth of six movies in which Marion Cotillard played a femme fatale. The others are Une affaire privée (2002), A Very Long Engagement (2004), La boîte noire (2005), The Dark Knight Rises (2012), and Macbeth (2015).

Inspired by "La vida es sueño/Life is a Dream" by Pedro Calderón de la Barca (1600-1681).

The only Best Picture Oscar nominee that year to be also nominated for Best Visual Effects.

Earl Cameron (Elderly Bald Man) was in the iconic The Prisoner (1967), in which he played the supervisor. The Prisoner (1967) is legendary for many reasons, but, in relation to this movie, in The Prisoner (1967), the unknown controllers used various methods to find the answer to why Number 6 resigned, including hallucinatory drugs, as well as entering into, and trying to control, Number 6's dreams.

Cobb's personal dreams with Mal have musical cues that sound and feel reminiscent of Bernard Hermann's theme for "Vertigo (1958)". Whether Hans Zimmer consciously intended this or not, it makes sense considering the dream-like qualities and obsessive love elements in both films.

When the crew arrives at Level One of Robert Fisher's dream, Yusuf is standing on a street corner in the rain. When Yusuf enters the car, Arthur and Eames tease him, because the downpour was the result of his need to urinate after drinking too much champagne, on the ten-hour flight to Los Angeles ("Couldn't have peed before you went under?"). Dileep Rao also played Dr. Max Patel in Avatar (2009), and has a scene with Grace Augustine where she tells him, "You see, they're just pissing on us without even the courtesy of calling it rain."

The cast contains several actors and actresses who started in movies and television as children: Leonardo DiCaprio first started appearing on television, including as a regular in Parenthood (1990) and Growing Pains (1985), as a young teen; Joseph Gordon-Levitt had his first television roles at age seven; by age ten, Ellen Page had started as a regular on the series Pit Pony (1999); and while still in kindergarten, Lukas Haas made his movie debut in Testament (1983).

Leonardo DiCaprio, Marion Cotillard, and Ellen Page were all in the long list for a BAFTA nomination in 2011 for their performances in this movie. DiCaprio as Best Leading Actor, and Cotillard and Page as Best Supporting Actress, respectively, but they didn't make the final cut.

The father of Robert Fischer is Maurice Fischer; Maurice Micklewhite is the birth name of Sir Michael Caine, who plays Stephan Miles, Cobb's father-in-law.

The song "Non, Je ne Regrette Rien", which is used as the wake up song, also played during the closing credits of The Dreamers (2003).

Miranda Nolan: Christopher Nolan's cousin appeared as an air hostess.

Christopher Nolan: [Murphy's bag] The third Nolan movie in five years in which Cillian Murphy's character spends a significant portion of his on-screen time with a cloth bag over his head.

The slow, gloomy, blaring trombones in the main theme of the score were based on an extremely slowed down version of the fast, high pitched trumpets in the beginning of the Édith Piaf song "Non, je ne regrette rien", which was used as a plot device in this movie. Furthermore, when music is heard by someone who is currently within a dream, the music is perceived as slowed down. Thus, the main theme of the score is almost exactly what the beginning of "Non, je ne regrette rien" would sound like to a dreamer. This thematic device is brought to its logical conclusion when the song plays at the end of the credits, signalling that the audience is about to "wake up" from this movie.

During an interview, writer, producer, and director Christopher Nolan addressed the ambiguous ending, saying he believes Cobb makes it home to his children, although it is open to interpretation by the viewer. He further claimed that the point of not seeing whether or not the top stops spinning is that Cobb no longer obsesses over his dreams.

Not counting flashbacks, Cobb's wedding ring only appeared in scenes where he is dreaming. Many times in this movie, the scene cuts away just as Cobb's left hand comes into view.

When Cobb gave Ariadne the puzzle test, Ariadne's final solution was a diagram of King Minos' Labyrinth. Ariadne is the name of King Minos' daughter in the same mythology.

Cobb and Mal spent fifty years in limbo. At one point, it is stated that ten seconds in the first dream world is three minutes in the next, and sixty minutes in the dream after that. That equates to time increasing roughly eighteen times each dream. Since Cobb was able to be in limbo within the fourth dream, if you break down the math, that equates to about seven and a half days for every ten seconds. Breaking it down further, fifty years would be around ten and a half to eleven hours being asleep. This can be confirmed by the fact that Saito aged into an old man while in limbo during the duration of the flight to Los Angeles.

When Cobb asks his kids what they have been doing at the end of the movie, they answer (turn on captions), "building a house on a cliff", referring one back to the beginning of the movie of Saito's house on a cliff. The movie explains to the audience the significance of Fischer's number, in that it will subconsciously keep reappearing in dreams (the phone number, hotel rooms, safe combo); in light of this, the audience can watch the whole movie prepared and notice that the train that ran Cobb and Mal over in Limbo had a number on it. A combination of those numbers is used on the taxi cab that Mal and Cob get out of in the "real world", as well as in their hotel room in the "real world". Suppose the whole movie was a dream. If it was, then writer, producer, and director Christopher Nolan cleverly made the movie exactly two hours and twenty-eight minutes long for a reason, the song continually played to wake people up "from the dream" is two minutes and twenty-eight seconds.

Whether the final scene is reality or a dream has been one of the most discussed conundrums of this movie. The final answer may come from Sir Michael Caine. In August 2018, during his speech at Film 4 Summer Screen at Somerset House, London, Caine stated: "When I got the script of Inception, I was a bit puzzled by it and I said to him (Christopher Nolan) 'I don't understand where the dream is'. I said, 'When is it the dream, and when is it reality?' He (Nolan) said, 'Well, when you're in the scene, it's reality.' So get that, if I'm in it, it's reality. If I'm not in it, it's a dream." Judging by these words, and having in mind the fact that Caine was in that final scene, the events that took place are reality, and Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) was not dreaming.

The narrative jumps between dream layers and/or the story timeline a total of 223 times.

In the end, when Cobb uses his spinning top, the answer (real vs. dream) is foreshadowed when he clears Customs earlier and you briefly see his left hand as he hands over his passport.

Although Tom Berenger appeared in several scenes, the only scene where his character is "real" (That is, when he's not a projection of someone else's subconscious, or being impersonated by Eames) is his first appearance in Maurice Fischer's office.

As Cobb gets off the train, he gives the reason that he hates trains, this is foreshadowing his and Mal's time together, as she always says, "You are waiting for a train", and that's what kills her in limbo, to take them back to real life.

There are 399 questions asked in this movie, including "tag questions" ("Subconscious is motivated by emotion, right?"). Cobb leads all of the characters with 113, followed by Ariadne (93), then Arthur (44).

Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) intentionally dreams because he can't let go of his deceased wife. In Shutter Island (2010), with Leonardo DiCaprio, he had visions of his deceased wife, and she came to his dreams several times throughout the movie.

This is the second movie directed by Christopher Nolan in which a hospital is blown up. The first one was The Dark Knight (2008).