*SPOILER WARNING* Inception was brilliant. It’s definitely the best movie I’ve seen in a long time. If you haven’t, stop what you’re doing and buy the Inception DVD immediately. If you have seen Inception, you may have been confused by the ending, no matter how impressed you were with the film. So I created an infographic with a theory about the ending of Inception.
Since infographics big in social media for visualizing information, this Inception Ending Explained Infographic is still somewhat on-topic. And as a disclaimer, yes, I am fully aware that I am a dork.
Download the Inception Ending Explained Infographic PDF
You’ll notice that there is a two distinct levels: Cobb’s Dream and Limbo. My theory on this stems from the fact that at the very end (and beginning) of the movie, Saito is old while Cobb is still the same age. Many people guess that it’s because Saito loses grip on what’s really reality while Cobb realizes that limbo is a dream so he doesn’t age, but I don’t buy that. I think a more reasonable explanation is that Saito dies in Eames’ dream from the gunshot wound before Cobb dies of the stab wound from Mal in Cobb’s dream, so Saito spends more “time” in limbo before Cobb dies and gets to limbo.
Backing this theory up is the fact that Ariadne “kicks” herself from Cobb’s dream by jumping off the building. If Cobb’s dream really was limbo, that kick would have been unsuccessful, as the only way out of limbo is to kill oneself. If Ariadne’s fall had killed her, she would have gone directly to reality (the plane). Instead, she joins the rest of the team and swims out the van in Yusuf’s dream.
Oh, and as for the question if the VERY ending is a dream or reality for Cobb? It’s reality. The top gets wobbly, and supposedly you can hear the thud of the fall a few seconds into the ending credits (though I admit I have to go see the movie again to verify). Also, throughout the movie Cobb wears his wedding rings in all dreams, and not in reality. At the very end, he is not wearing the ring, and therefore is in reality. His wedding ring may have been another totem. If you argue that the children are the same age at the end as throughout his memories, I have this question for you: do we know how long ago Mal died before the Inception mission takes place?
And to give credit where it’s due, this infographic was inspired by the awesome infographic by DeviantART. I wanted to see one with more visualizations, such as the cast and the imagery of the levels, and I thought the timeline element was a bit confusing, so I wanted to make one of my own!
EDIT: To answer the emails I’ve been getting asking how I made this infographic: PowerPoint is more awesome than you think. Also made some minor tweaks in Photoshop (image sizing and white silhouettes). Also, I respect all other theories out there; that’s the beauty of this movie, there are so many ways to interpret it.
What is your theory about the ending of Inception? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
- Maybe their wardrobe needed updating. hehe. I can't explain this one except to say perhaps they really liked those outfits and happened to wear the same ones from Cobb's memory.
- He couldn't see their faces in his visions because he didn't want to settle for living in a dream. Mal (at least, his mind's vision of Mal) kept trying to convince him to stay with her in his dreams, but he didn't want to accept anything except his real children in reality. At least, that was my interpretation.
- This is awesome. :0)
In an interview with the costume designer she states that the ending clothes are actually different than those worn on Cobb’s projections.
Evidence that this is true comes from Eames. When Fischer is shot and Cobb says they failed, Eames says something like “I really wish we could find out what was in the vault.” If Ariadne/Eames had planted Fischer Sr. in the vault, Eames would already know what was in there.
One more thing I noticed when I saw the movie again last night:
In the scene where Ariadne tries to show Cobb her layout, she says that she built a hospital into level 3, “so Fischer will put his father there.”
Regarding the kids: Their clothing is different at the end. Throughout the movie, Cobb remembers Philippa wearing a pink dress with pink sleeves. At the end, Philippa has a pink jumper with a white t-shirt underneath (white sleeves).
I think Nolan deliberately made the clothing similar, to cause just this confusion.
I'm a little confused about the timeline on how the movie starts with Cobb washed up to a beach talking with Saito, an old man. Then at the end of the movie they are back in limbo, there is a repeat of the opening scene of the movie but slightly different words exchanged as they had in the beginning.
I thought Cobb was in limbo only two times. The first with Mal and the second towards the end when he was getting Saito back to reality. Btw, thank you for doing this and great job with the graph. It helped me a lot.
Oooh cool. Definitely something to remember to take note of during my next viewing, haha.
The beginning of the movie is like a flashforward of what's to come. Kind of like how at the beginning of Forrest Gump, he's sitting on the bench at the bus stop, and then tells his story. haha Not sure why the dialog is different…
Nice graphic!
I would disagree with you about Cobb's dream being separte from Limbo.
When Fischer died in Eams' dream, Fischer went to Limbo (a shared concious state, that has not been developed by the architect).
Cobb and Ariadne used a futher boost of drugs to leave Eams' dream and reach that deeper state of limbo.
Airadne and Fischer escaped limbo by inducing that falling sensation and riding the kicks back up to reality. Presumably, that fall could have also killed them, also alowing them to leave limbo.
Cobb did not die when Mal stabbed him.
Rather he chose to stay in limbo to find Saito.
Due to the new drugs they used, when you die in a dream, you slip into limbo (a very deep state) rather than wake up.
It is only when you die in limbo that you wake up (hence the train running over Cobb and Mal).
It is difficult to realize when you are in limbo, so Saito accepted his world and grew into an old man. Since Cobb had been there before, he maintained a hold on reality.
When Cobb found Saito, he explained that they have to leave the limbo world and presuambly they both used the gun that was in reach to kill themselves and wake up.
Also wanted to add, that there is a reason why the limbo land where we find Saito is so similar to the place where Cobb first tried to steal information from Saito.
As Cobb explained, limbo is made up of fragments of our other dreams. During the inital attempt to steal from Saito, the architect used a Japaneese pagoda house. Saito used this residual fragment to help him create normalcy while in limbo.
Another note, no one is the dominant dreamer in limbo. You “wash up on the shore” of someone's mind!
I think this is because the movie itself is designed to make you part of the shared dream, and I think the perceived “reality” in the movie was some level of a dream for him. Once you get to old Saito second time around, you and Cobb are more aware of the dream, which is why Cobb knew what Saito was going to say. I think the most important thing to figuring out what really happened is paying attention to Cobb's dialogue with Saito and how they tie directly into a lot of Cobb's dialogue with Mol. Both Saito and Mol tell Cobb to “take a leap of faith”. Both times, a string of events happen to Cobb following those statements. Both Saito and Mol have conversations about growing old. Cobb and Saito repeat the same dialogue, in slightly different ways, about becoming an old man, alone. Likewise, Cobb and Mol seem to always go back to the theme of growing old together. Same with the line “honor our arrangement”. Both Saito and Mol have some kind of arrangement with Cobb, both arrangements have them asking Cobb to take a leap of faith, and both revolve around growing old some way or another.
Also, numerous times, characters seem to nudge at Cobb, jabbing at him about reality vs the dream and HIS perception of it. Michael Caine's character, the old man running the shared dream under the chemist's shop, finally Mol in limbo does it. Another thing I noticed is that whenever the movie puts you in Cobb's shoes, things are just dream-like. One example, when he is being chased by some corporate thugs, he reaches an alley that seems to close up and not let him through (how many times have you experienced something like that in a dream).
It felt to me like there were clues planted everywhere, but I also REALLY felt like characters were constantly throwing clues at Cobb, almost like the real inception was happening to him, and in a way, the audience.
My final thing…the music in this film is everything. If anyone reading this watches it, make sure you pay attention to the score. It will make it more emotional (every time Mol appears or is referred to, she has her own melody), it serves up clues (the loud trumpet blasts ties in directly with the song they use to signal the dreamer to wake up or get ready for the kick) and it makes the entire piece operatic. The ending has a musical theme that reaches a crescendo, then repeats when Cobb is reunited with his kids at a very quiet, minimal level, which is just perfect.
Your logic about the ring is faulty. Note the credits cite two sets of actors. Also, note the phone call Cobb has with his children, in which the oldest child is obviously closer to 11 or 12, and jaded by her father's absence. Everybody wants to believe that the end is reality, and does so by justifying the ring theory, but what if the ring theory symbolizes something else, like Cobb's connection to his wife, simply. It then becomes less meaningful. The obvious facts are that the children are the exact same age, wearing the same clothes, and in the same position as they are in his dreams. The ending throws a wrench in the ring theory. But America loves it's happy endings, so you delude yourself into believing the happy ending is the real one.
the kids where actually older and wearing different cloths, they actually even used 2 different actors for the girl. and the ring didn’t just disappear at the end, it was every time he left.
Closer to 11 or 12? Wow. You must have been a slow eleven-year-old.
The credits cite two sets of actors, yes. One for the younger set of children, when James was 20 months and Phillipa was 3, and one for when James was 3 and Phillipa was 5.
Five-year-olds are perfectly capable of saying what Phillipa did on the phone, and James did sound about three.
So the logic that’s faulty is yours, Jessica.
Also, did anybody notice that Cobb said Mal and him grew old together, then flashing to a scene where Mal and Cobb are old walking hand-in-hand in limbo. But, they “killed themselves” on the train tracks, and that's when they woke up, and they were young. Part of me believe Mal was right, not just some hysterical woman, but a maternal woman, who knew where her children were, her real, living children. And Cobb, so obsessed with what he had created, lost touch. Maybe he did, and she didn't.
If it was Eames’s dream, how did they plant the thought in Fischer’s subconscious mind?
Here’s my short take at Inception Ending Explained
*SPOILER*
At the end of his travels through various dream/real states, Dom has chosen a spinning top – a “totem” – to represent his connection to reality. The character has been told that if the top keeps spinning, the dream world is still in effect. But if it stops, he’s living in reality. Nolan stops short of telling the audience what exactly happens to that top, but we have an idea.
There is a THIRD possibility — It neither stopped… nor kept spinning. The story ended before either could happen.
*SPOILER*
The Inception was made to Cobb. The inception of the film is the moment when the seed was left in his mind. He then believes he is dreaming since the beginning which then make he finally believes that when he woke up in the plane he is in the reality. The Architect (Ariadne) is the key. She is a lot more skilled than Cobb, she knows how to manage gravity (so the totem) and made Cobb and all spectator believe that the inception mission to Fischer was the reality. Observe also that Ariadne learned a lot about Cobb’s psychology and Limbo, she is the only one allowed or that had succeeded to enter his Limbo so whenever she got that she would be able to architect the “reality” Cobb was looking for.
The Architect could manage gravity into the dreams so did it..
Although I agree the ending it not supposed to tell the audience whether the final scene is in a dream or not I think its because of different reasons. We don’t see the top fall because we never really know for sure whether are dreaming or not. And it symbolizes the blurred line about what we perceive and whether it is reality or our imagination.
“he just gets knocked out” They said that he DIED, later of course he was “resurrected”, but in that moment he was dead, and where do people go after dying in a dream? To limbo, exactly, and there isn’t any statement about “the only way out from limbo is death and it leads inmediately to reality, only cobb and mol jumped back to reality without passing other levels after limbo probably because they probably killed themselves in a dream so they got to limbo and they couldnt wake up for about 10 hours, after the 10 hours(?) passed they were able to leave limbo by commiting suicide and they got back to reality because there was no other dream level for them. So I think fischer got to limbo because he was goddamn shot in the heart I dont think it simply knocks out people and even if it does why would they need to defibrillate him if he is just “knocked out”? And after he got back to feet he seemed to be pretty much okay like he was never shot. Probably cobb and ariadne “connected” to fischer or simply cobb was able to return to limbo even without killing himself so they could enter limbo like it was just an other dream level. And the difference between the age of saito and cobb is because saito got shot in lvl 1 so he was already dead when the van hit the water and cobb later drowned.
“It’s reality” maybe, maybe not it isnt a coincidence that nolan didnt let us know which one is it, there isnt a statement about that. it is your choice.
“The top gets wobbly” which is still not his totem
And his wedding ring symbolised the connection between him and mol so the dissapearence of the ring in the end means nothing either
Diana, this is cool. My questions:
Why didn’t Cobb just have his dad bring the kids to France?
Why would he incept a bad idea in his wife?
Okay, so what happened with Cobb and Mal’s idea was this.
They were in limbo in their world, and Cobb knew he couldn’t live like that forever, but Mal didn’t want to leave, so Cobb incepted the idea into Mal’s head. The idea was: ‘the world I am currently in is not real, and the way to get back to reality is to kill myself.’
So, then, obviously, Mal thought the idea was hers, admitted Cobb was right, they killed themselves, etcetera, etcetera.
Flash forward to when they’re back in reality. The idea Cobb incepted into Mal’s head stayed there. It adapted itself. Now she thinks this world isn’t real, her kids are projections, and the other world, limbo, is where they belong.
And she tried to get back to limbo with Cobb.
I’m not sure how you kept track of this with a single viewing. I’d say it’ll take two or three viewings just to put together your infographic, much less explain it all.
I did not hear the top fall during the credits, and maybe I was just not paying attention, but I believe it fell because it did start getting wobbly before fading to black.
I agree with you completely: the level to which Cobb takes Ariadne is not the limbo, it’s his dream, one where he is the architect. I think that he was planning to go there all along, even if he wasn’t going to get Fischer back. His main goal was to confront Mal and end his guilt. You make a good point: if it was Limbo, than when Ariadne and Fischer fall off the balcony, they would have woken up in the airplane (dying in Limbo means waking up in reality). That doesn’t happen: they wake up in the snow dream (Aimes’s dream). I don’t think Mal stabbed Cobb: Ariadne shot her before she could do it. How did Cobb got to the Limbo? There are two possible explanations: he kills himself ( he had a gun remember); in the van dream (Yusuf’s dream) Cobb falls into the water without being awake, which means that he drowns. We have seen before that what happens in one dream level reflects in others (remember that when we first see him in Limbo he shows up in the water). The Limbo is where he meets Saito and it’s implied that they kill themselves (or each other) in order to come back to reality (the airplane).
Your biggest flaw is that it was all Fischer’s dream. They entered his dream on the plane and the levels were to dive deeper into his subconscious. They dove deeper into his dream when they threw him into the van. The people staying back was because they were the ones setting off the kicks. It wouldnt make sense for them to be awake if thats the dreams that the others were diving into. The Snow one was them diving even deeper into Fischer’s dreams because they tricked him into thinking that they were going into Eame’s dream but I remember them clearly saying that they were going into Fischer’s dream. Thats why he was able to crack the safe so easily because he already knew the combination since it was hiw own mind.
It was supposedly Fisher’s godfather’s dream but he was just a projection made by Fisher, that’s why they were in Fisher’s dream. I think that the dream didn’t collapse because it was another part of Fisher’s mind entirely. It was so deep (possibly his unconscious, not just his subconscious) that even without him there, it was still up. You can be knocked out and your unconscious is the only reason you’re still alive.
Nolan wanted level4 as limbo also.
Cobb for Fischer in level3: “There’s no use in reviving him, his mind’s already trapped DOWN THERE. It’s all over”
Cobb at level 4 = “Saito’s dead by now, that means he’s DOWN HERE SOMEWHERE . That means I have to find him.”
..so i guess you ll have to correct the graph…
even if i also liked level4 as a seperate dream also…
…and there is no statement “way out from limbo is death and to reality” in the movie…
Ati & Ste are correct.
I thought the movie was epic! But the end I think Cobb’s stab would from Mal was fatal, he died in limbo, then the snow place, and then woke up in the car. He must’ve lived.
No, you stubborn ass, it says it´s FISCHER’S who is trained!! Fischer is Cillian Murphy, just in case you don´t remember.
Watch the movie again and this time don´t get up to go to the bathroom.
Haha! You’re awesome.
Hehehe Love it…
I know the real meaning of the ending – but if I told you, I’d have to wake you up.
In my opinion, though Cobb believes that Mal is delusional, the twist in the story is that he is in fact delusional and since he has been in and out of dreams and in limbo, the deeper you go, the more you lose grip of what’s real. At the beginning of the movie, clearly the talk with Saito is just part of a dream as well. So at the end of the movie when they all return to the plane, they came back to where they started-which was a dream. That explains why the totum kept spinning at the end.
Cobb didnt even bother waiting to see if the totum fell. This is unusual for someone who was ready to blow his head off at the hotel room in the event the totum kept spinning. Therefore, it is more that he accepted what he wanted to be real – to be with his kids.
In my theory, Mal is the one who was correct. She understood that they were still in a dream and when she jumped off the building, she got herself back into reality.
at the end of the movie i think he was still dreaming. Think about it in regard to the top, every time he spins it in the movie he waits and watches it fall over, at the very end he spins it where it moves in a circle and not completely straight as if it is going to fall over, yet he never watches it fall but rather runs to his kids. It cuts back to the top spinning straight up and down and not in the spiral pattern when he spun it. When he was watching the top it didn’t spin perfect because he didn’t want it to telling him this was reality. Then when he isn’t watching it ( aka running at his kids) it begins to spin perfectly again.
also how does he survive mal stabbing him at least twice in the chest with a butchers knife?
You have a great diagram, just change the first three dreams as Fisher’s. Remember they were inflitrating Fisher’s mind.
MOL Mol MoL! NOT MAL!
If you switch on the subtitles of the film, her name appears as ‘Mal’, but is pronounced ‘Mol’.
Nolan’s Comment: “The kids are not wearing the same clothes at the end! And they do age! We were working with two sets of kids.”
Nolan’s Comment: “The kids are not wearing the same clothes at the end! And they do age! We were working with two sets of kids.”
i like that theory, but can’t understand one thing. if cobbs dream was not limbo than why is he telling ariadne that sieto is somwhere there and he is not going with ariadne because he have to find sieto. sieto daied and suppose to be in limbo. cob knows it. if this is right at the end thy are in limbo. and if it is limbo than why isn’t fisher as old as sieto is. even older he must be. he would stayed there longer than sieto. i;m asking one year after the last comment but hope you’ll answer
sory for my poor english but hope you;ll understand the main point =))
im glad to see someone saw it the same as i did
I think that Cobb’s dream after level 3 is ‘Limbo’. At one point Cobb says “Satio’s dead by now which means he must be down here”. Doesn’t that mean that Satio’s in the level that Cobb and Ariadne are in? Also when fisher dies in the snow scene (meaning he falls into Limbo) is also the place where Cobb and Ariadne end up and they find fisher in the porch. They kill themselves in the level 4 dream (Limbo) to get back into the snowy place on the perfect time (synced kick). If the stab from his wife did kill him, the possibilities are that Cobb woke up in a van then died again in the water going back into Limbo. By that time, Satio must of aged. So lets say 5 minutes in the level 1 dream is about 50+ years in Limbo. If the stab from his wife didn’t kill him, it meant that he had to look for Satio and he could of saved him 50+ years of limbo time. There is a part where Cobb says “I have to find him” (Satio). But that doesn’t explain that scene where he ends up in the water again. So i would say that Cobb wasn’t expecting to die by his wife’s stab and wanted to stay behind to find Satio, but unfortunately for Satio, Cobb died and Satio was left in Limbo alone for 50+ years. When Cobb died in the water again in level 1 dream, he arrived at the beach then freed Satio from limbo by killing him and himself with a gun so Cobb could return back to his children in the US.
Wow! Your mind is amazing!
I love that movie and I thought also that he was in reality at the end. I’ll have to watch it all over again with my girlfriend, now that you have stimulated new thoughts about the movie. Thanks.
If the third dream was fischer’s dream and he got shot, why didn’t the snow
World collapse. It was said that they were going in fischers mind to
Help steal his own sub conscious as it was said in the hotel room prior
To going to the snow base. I’m having a hard time understanding the rules
And also the death rules. If u could just go into limbo and kill yourself why
Would u even need the kick? Adrienne and Fischer fell from a building hence
The kick so they woke up. But when Cobb looks for Saito then gets killed in limbo (getting
A gun shot was heavily implied) they just Wake up. I just watched this movie twice and
I’m finding things that doesn’t make any sense. Any help is appreciated. Thanks in advance!