Tenet is Christopher Nolan’s 2020 science-fiction action film about inverted time.
The film follows an unnamed CIA operative known as the Protagonist, who is recruited into a secret conflict involving a phenomenon called inversion. Inverted objects and people move backward through the normal flow of time, creating distinctive action sequences in which cause and effect appear to run in opposite directions.
Nolan wrote and directed Tenet, which stars John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, Dimple Kapadia, Michael Caine, and Kenneth Branagh. It was released internationally in August 2020 after delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and opened in North America in September.
Tenet is often grouped with Inception because both are Nolan science-fiction films involving unusual rules and elaborate set pieces. Their concepts differ: Inception explores shared dreams, while Tenet centers on temporal inversion.