Christopher Nolan shares "correct answer" to Inception ending

Christopher Nolan's Inception may have been released in theatres 13 years ago, but its enigmatic final scene is still having fans talking today.

Ant now, the Oppenheimer director returned to the infamous spinning top totem finale to share the only "correct answer" about what the heck actually happened.

In the final moments of the movie (spoiler alert if you've still not seen it), Leonardo DiCaprio's "infiltrator" Dom Cobb is finally reunited with his children. The protagonist chooses not to find out whether this family reunion happens in reality or in his dreamscape, leaving his totem spinning as he gets up to meet his kids.

But does the spinning top ultimately fall? Nolan says this isn't even the point of that now-iconic final shot.

Related: Oppenheimer true story: What happened to J Robert Oppenheimer?

"It's not a question I comfortably answer," the filmmaker told Josh Horowitz on the Happy Sad Confused podcast. "I went through a phase when the film came out where I was asked it a lot.

"Every now and then I would make the mistake of getting caught outside of a screening where everyone was coming out."

In the chat, Nolan shared that his wife, producer Emma Thomas, is the one who have pointed out the apt explanation for the ending.

"I think it was Emma who sort of pointed out the correct answer, really," he said. "The point of the shot is that [DiCaprio's] character doesn't care at that point."

In case you've forgotten, Nolan's seventh movie follows DiCaprio's Cobb, a professional thief who uses a dream-sharing technology to penetrate his targets' subconscious to extract information.

Related: Christopher Nolan compares Oppenheimer's ending to Inception

He and his associates (played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Elliot Page, Tom Hardy and Dileep Rao) are tasked to perform the titular process, that is planting an idea into the subconsciousness of business empire heir Robert Michael Fischer (played by Oppenheimer leading man Cillian Murphy).

As the movie unfolds, and the characters' layers of consciousness are revealed, Cobb shares a trick to discern dream from reality in the form of an object belonging to his late wife Mal (Marion Cotillard), who he continuously sees in his dreams and nightmares.

And that's when the spinning top comes into play: it if spins and falls, he's awake. If it spins indefinitely, he's sleeping. Sometimes, it seems, it's more comforting not to know.

Inception is available to rent and buy on several platforms, including Prime Video, Apple TV+ and Sky. Oppenheimer is in cinemas now.

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