Tenet

Tenet is a 2020 science fiction spy film directed, written and co-produced (with his wife Emma Thomas) by Christopher Nolan. A co-production between the United Kingdom and the United States, it stars John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, Dimple Kapadia, Michael Caine, and Kenneth Branagh. The film follows a Central Intelligence Agency agent who learns how to manipulate the flow of time to prevent an attack from the future that threatens to annihilate the present world. Nolan continued his relationship with Warner Bros. and Syncopy for both the production and the distribution of the film. Nolan took more than five years to write the screenplay after deliberating about Tenet's central ideas for over a decade. Pre-production began in late 2018, casting took place in March 2019, and principal photography lasted six months, from May to November, in Denmark, Estonia, India, Italy, Norway, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema shot on 65 mm film and IMAX. After being delayed three times because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Tenet was released in the United Kingdom on August 26, 2020, and in the United States on September 3, 2020, in IMAX, 35 mm, and 70 mm. It was the first Hollywood tent-pole to open in theaters after the pandemic shutdown, and grossed $363 million worldwide, making it the fifth-highest-grossing film of 2020. The film received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised its ambition, direction, score, visual effects, action sequences, and Washington, Debicki and Pattinson's performances, but criticized its story, characters, and sound mixing. It won the award for Best Visual Effects at the 93rd Academy Awards, where it was also nominated for Best Production Design.