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15 Movies Like Inception That You Absolutely Must See

By Nathan Kamal | Updated

inception

Mind-Bending Movies: It Starts With Inception And Then...

We are currently in a Golden Age of weird, mind-bending movies like Inception, the 2010 Christopher Nolan film that saw Leonardo DiCaprio becoming a mind thief and trying to get Cillian Murphy to sell his dad’s company. That particular multi-leveled dream film is just a taste of the kind of trippy films out there that make you stare blankly after watching as you try to work out exactly what just happened. We put together a list of some of the best Inception-style movies, so you don’t have to.

Inception

15. Primer (2004)

Filmmaker Shane Carruth’s debut feature film Primer is one of the best examples of hard sci-fi in cinema, applying actual scientific principles and theory to the idea of time travel. But unlike, say, Back to the Future, Primer is complex enough that you will probably need a flowchart to know exactly what happened.

14. Memento (2000)

Years before Inception, Christopher Nolan was already experimenting with twisting, convoluted plots, as proven by his breakout film Memento. This neo-noir (adapted from his brother Jonathan’s short story “Memento Mori”) was acclaimed for its use of non-linear storytelling, which is even more complex than it appears at first.

prequel

13. The Matrix (1999)

Inception is famous (or perhaps notorious) for leaving viewers unsure of exactly what is reality and what is a dream, but The Matrix got there years before. The Wachowskis’ mind-bending, action-filled classic hit pop culture with a seismic impact in 1999, instantly creating arguably the most significant science fiction story in decades.

Inception

12. Shutter Island (2010)

Adapted from a novel by Dennis Lehane, Shutter Island stars Dicaprio as a duly appointed U.S. Marshal in 1954 investigating the disappearance of a patient at a hospital for the criminally insane, only to begin to doubt the real identity of the missing woman, the intentions of the sinister staff, and even his own sanity.

11. The Prestige (2006)

Between Batman movies, Christopher Nolan took some time out to make one of the most underrated movies in his filmography, the period-piece mystery The Prestige. Much like Memento, the movie draws in viewers with multiple overlapping timelines, in which we see 19th-century stage magicians Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale enter into a rivalry that grows weirder and more deadly as it goes on.

10. Cloud Atlas (2012)

Where Inception has multiple levels of dream-reality, the Wachowskis’ Cloud Atlas takes place over hundreds of years, with each time period obliquely communicating to others and cutting back and forth. This movie (adapted from the novel by David Mitchell) may be the most ambitious of the lot, which is pretty impressive considering the level of reality disruption we’ve listed so far.

9. Coherence (2013)

In this one, eight friends meet for a reunion dinner, unaware that a comet passing nearby the Earth will cause unthinkable consequences for them all. As the group’s long-buried conflicts begin to rise to the surface, they discover that the comet seems to have duplicated everything around them, including perhaps their own selves.

parallel universe movies

8. Donnie Darko (2001)

Richard Kelly’s cult science fiction film Donnie Darko helped make a star out of a young Jake Gyllenhaal and turned Gary Jules’ sorrowful cover of Tears for Fears’ “Mad World” into a number-one hit, which is already pretty impressive. But when you consider this spooky movie also deals with teen angst, culture wars, child abuse, and a giant skeletal rabbit creature named “Frank,” it is downright amazing.

7. Interstellar (2014)

Christopher Nolan is well-represented in mind-bending movies, with Memento, Inception, and now, Interstellar. This Matthew McConaughey film is undoubtedly the grandest in scope of his movies, as a dying Earth attempts to find a new planet to save the future of the human species.

6. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

Widely acclaimed as Jim Carrey’s greatest performance (for those who haven’t seen The Cable Guy), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind combined the actor’s shocking sensitivity, the immense talents of co-star Kate Winslet, the twisty filmmaking abilities of director Michel Gondry, and the dense writing of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman.

5. The Butterfly Effect (2004)

The Butterfly Effect is likely the darkest movie on this list, with Ashton Kutcher (not usually known for his intensely grim performances) playing a young, deeply traumatized man who finds that his early experiences of blackout amnesia were actually caused by his ability to travel back in time and attempt to change the future for the better.

jake gyllenhaal

4. Source Code (2011)

Jake Gyllenhaal is back, this time in a much more stripped-down but no less trippy movie. Source Code (directed by Duncan Jones) stars Gyllenhaal as a U.S. Army pilot who finds himself waking up in the same eight minutes on a train over and over, only to realize he’s part of a simulation to discover who bombed the train. Or is he?

3. Predestination (2014)

This film was based on the short story “—All You Zombies—” by science fiction grandmaster Robert Heinlein, which might key some of you in as to the nature of the title. Ethan Hawke stars as an unnamed time traveler attempting to stop the mysterious “Fizzle Bomber” from killing thousands in the 1970s, only to find himself unable to stop it in time.

2. Triangle (2009)

Director Christopher Smith sets up a classic horror film premise in Triangle, and then just makes it stranger and darker. Melissa George stars as the stressed mother of an autistic child who takes a boat trip with a group of acquaintances, only to end up stranded on a deserted, spooky ocean liner after a sudden storm capsizes them.

1. Arrival (2016)

Arrival is a science fiction film that deals with one of the most intriguing concepts in the genre: humanity’s first contact with aliens. Unlike many other movies, however, director Denis Villeneuve (working from a short story by acclaimed writer Ted Chiang) is focused on the mechanics of communication, and how humans could possibly interact with creatures with a literally otherworldly perception of the universe.