Despite a near-flawless resume, some wondered if director Christopher Nolan could top The Dark Knight or his other widely-acclaimed indie hit that put his career on the map, Memento. Low and behold, Nolan had been brewing an idea for many years; an original idea, something foreign to Hollywood and summer blockbusters these days. Could he pull it off?

The basic premise of the film is almost impossible to fully detail without robbing you of the pleasure of seeing it unfold for yourself. In short, Dom Cobb (DiCaprio) is an expert in the art of mind crime (entering peoples’ minds through their dreams to steal their secrets), but he is also a deeply tortured man who is given an opportunity to return home if he can complete one final job. This barely scratches the surface of Inception or its outstanding ensemble cast of characters, but it would be a disservice on my part to elaborate much further. It’s very rare these days to be able to go into a film not knowing what to expect or how the story will unfold, so Inception is even more precious in that regard for any movie-lover. At its core, Inception fills not one genre, but instead, combines many to create one all its own.

Nolan had been building and writing Inception throughout his entire career and the result is a gateway into the mind of one of cinema’s most original and innovative filmmakers. In fact, it may be the most genuine large-scale vision from a writer-director that we, as audiences, have ever been given the privilege of witnessing without interference from outside writers and studio heads. Nolan was given free reign and a significant amount of trust to make this $200 million-budgeted intellectual blockbuster based on an original concept. Hollywood take note: it has paid off.

Nolan challenges his audiences with some heavy-but-necessary exposition early in the film, but still keeps a pitch-perfect pace (also thanks in part to Hans Zimmer’s exceptional musical score). This isn’t the kind of film you watch casually the first time. Virtually every frame offers something integral to the unfolding enigma of Nolan’s creation while, simultaneously, succeeding as a genuine visceral experience. The final product is a film that may represent the next step forward in big-budget films being given a chance to thrive without creative interference.

Through red herrings galore and a constant elevating desire to nudge toward the edge of your seat, no Hollywood film in recent memory has dared an audience’s imagination to run this wild. Where most writer-directors would falter, Nolan has crafted one of the rare pearls in a sea of Hollywood mediocrity: a perfect blockbuster that will satisfy the hunger for catharsis in the end, yet still leave you walking out of the theater with the ability to debate exactly what you just saw. In essence, through his many inspirations he has performed “inception” on his own audience. The sci-fi elements of The Matrix, the action and espionage of James Bond, the cerebral and character-driven story of Memento, and the scale of The Lord of the Rings all combine to turn the riveting and emotional experience of Inception into nothing less than a cinematic symphony that will unquestionably stand the tests of time.