Tenet
Movie, 2020, The 2020s, Set in Time running backwards
Tenet is #11 of 13 in release order and #11 of 13 in chronological order in the Christopher Nolan.
The story
Armed with only one word - Tenet - and fighting for the survival of the entire world, the Protagonist journeys through a twilight world of international espionage on a mission that will unfold in something beyond real time.
Tenet recap
Tenet (2020) recruits a CIA agent known only as the Protagonist into a secret war against the future, fought with objects whose entropy runs backwards. Christopher Nolan wrote and directed it. John David Washington plays the Protagonist, who after a staged siege at a Kyiv opera house learns of "inverted" bullets and is given one word, Tenet. With his handler Neil (Robert Pattinson), he tracks the inverted arms to Andrei Sator (Kenneth Branagh), a Russian oligarch, through Sator's estranged wife Kat (Elizabeth Debicki), an art appraiser trapped in the marriage. A heist at the Oslo Freeport, a highway robbery in Tallinn and turnstiles that send people backwards in time follow. Sator is collecting nine pieces of an Algorithm that, assembled, could invert the whole world and wipe out the past; he has terminal cancer and plans to take everyone with him. Tenet follows Dunkirk and precedes Oppenheimer in Nolan's career.
Tenet ending explained
Tenet ends with a "temporal pincer" at the abandoned city of Stalsk-12, where one team moves forward in time and another backward while the Protagonist and Ives seize the Algorithm. On a yacht in Vietnam, Kat kills Sator before his dead-man switch can fire. Neil reveals he was recruited long ago by a future Protagonist, and goes back to die opening a locked door during the battle. The Protagonist realises he is the founder of Tenet and later kills the arms dealer Priya to protect Kat. Released in September 2020 during the pandemic, Tenet has no sequel.
Post-credits scenes
No. Tenet has no mid- or post-credits scene.
Where to watch Tenet
Tenet isn't on a US streaming service right now. You can rent or buy it on Amazon, Apple TV, and Google Play.
Ratings
IMDb 7.3/10, Rotten Tomatoes 70%
Where it fits
- Release order: after Dunkirk, before Oppenheimer.
- Chronological order: after Dunkirk, before Oppenheimer.
Cast
- John David Washington as Protagonist
- Robert Pattinson as Neil
- Elizabeth Debicki as Kat
- Kenneth Branagh as Sator
- Dimple Kapadia as Priya
- Michael Caine as Crosby
- Martin Donovan as Fay
- Fiona Dourif as Wheeler
- Yuri Kolokolnikov as Volkov
- Himesh Patel as Mahir
- Clémence Poésy as Barbara
- Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Ives
Directed by Christopher Nolan.