Inception's Ending Spoiler: What Happens in Christopher Nolan’s Movie

The latest film to send critics into a love-it/hate-it tizzy is Christopher Nolan’s mind-twisting thriller Inception, about a group of dream “extractors” who can enter people’s dreams and manipulate them. The film is as easy to follow as a meta doctoral thesis, but what’s really got people up in arms (and spewing theories) is the film’s ending. MAJOR SPOILER ALERT AHEAD! After running in and out of people’s subconscious, Mission: Impossible-style, lead dream thief Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) finally extracts himself from his own dream-reality. Or does he? The film’s final image—a spinning top—suggests perhaps not, and has sent the blogosphere into its own meta-discussion. Some claim that how you understand the ending “could be telling about one’s personality.” And DiCaprio has said that the anti-conclusion signals a change in the way Hollywood movies will be made from now on.