20 Most Important Blockbusters That Changed Cinema Forever

17. Inception

It was a long accepted rule that blockbusters need to be dumbed down because otherwise mainstream audiences won't be attracted to them. It turns out that was a barefaced lie.

As a reward for making over a billion dollars with The Dark Knight, Warner Bros. gave $160 million to Christopher Nolan to make whatever movie took his fancy. The result was Inception, an intricately plotted sci-fi heist thriller set in the world of dreams. With exposition dropped constantly throughout the first half and the final hour consisting of massive action set pieces all taking place simultaneously in different levels of reality, it required complete attention throughout to keep up.

And people did; the film was more successful than anyone imagined, earning bucket loads of cash and even getting nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. There was immediately a slew of high-concept, hyper-modern sci-fi commissioned (The Adjustment Bureau, Source Code), while plenty of others picked up on various creative aspects of the film (we just had a mental-time-travel X-Men movie).

The lacklustre performance of Edge Of Tomorrow means Inception may not be the total game-changer we hoped for, but there's no doubt it's made screenwriters up their game.