History Film / Tenet

* DoomedHometown: Example for the villain, Andrei Sator. He was born and raised in Stalsk-12, a Russian [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_city closed city]] that was the site of a nuclear explosion that wiped everyone there out... save for Sator, who climbed out with information and gold bars addressed to him from the future, and a newfound ambition. In the Protagonist's meeting with Crosby regarding Sator, Crosby makes mention of an explosion that recently occurred at Stalsk-12, on the same day as the Kiev opera siege. [[spoiler:Stalsk-12 – on the date of this explosion – becomes the site of the FinalBattle between Tenet and Sator's men, with both sides employing "temporal pincer movements" against each other. The explosion was meant to ensure the Algorithm's burial; Tenet's mission becomes extracting the Algorithm while letting the explosion also take place.]]

* WesternTerrorists: To the extent Ukraine counts as Western, the masked terrorists involved in raiding the National Opera House are this. The KORD anti-terror responders wipes them out during the raid.

* WesternTerrorists: The masked terrorists involved in raiding the National Opera House. The KORD anti-terror responders wiped them out during the raid.

* TheAirNotThere: Averted. An inverted person must carry their own inverted oxygen supply because their inverted lungs cannot absorb normal air. In long-term inverted missions, they also must stay in an airlocked environment conditioned to have breathable air as well.

* TimeTravel: PlayedWith. What inversion happens to be, or rather, inversion is the effect of time travel on the traveller/travelling object here, with travel taking the form of TheSlowPath.

->''"Mission accomplished."''\\

*** In fact, this is part of the larger palindrome of the Sator square, “Sator Arepo Tenet Opera Rotas”. The film uses all five words.

* NoPlansNoPrototypeNoBackup: The Algorithm, the device that can invert the entire planet, is the only one of its kind, invented by a woman who destroyed all records of its creation, inverted the pieces, then [[DrivenToSuicide killed]] [[ShootTheBuilder herself]] so no one would be able to force her to recreate it.

* MistakenForCheating [[spoiler:Kat thinks that Sator was having an affair because she saw a woman jump off his yacht. It turns out the woman was her from the future.]]

* NeverTheSelvesShallMeet: {{Downplayed}}. The Tenet operative says that an inverted person coming into physical contact their normal-time self is “bad”, but it is "skin on skin" contact only. [[spoiler:The Protagonist, entirely covered in body armor and combat gear,]] getting into a fight with his past self does not provoke anything nefarious because there's no direct contact.

** Second, during the original Freeport break-in, Neil seemed oddly focused on heading the Protagonist off the GasMaskMook that suddenly appeared from the Oslo Freeport Turnstile. [[spoiler:While inverted, the Protagonist, wearing full-body armor, winds up fighting his earlier self. Because earlier-Protagonist (like us) had no idea that it's himself, the "Mook's" actions here take on a whole new meaning: he was going on the defensive the entire time, all to get himself to the Turnstile. Even the gun that he "reassembled" was just the Protagonist's last-ditch effort to avoid hurting either version of himself. Furthermore, once he un-inverts himself and bolts away, earlier-Neil chases him and tears off his mask and helmet. Recognizing him and realizing what's going on, earlier-Neil wordlessly tosses the Protagonist his gear back and runs off to stop his partner from unknowingly killing himself. Neil later confirms this when they get Kat to an ambulance and drive away.]]

* PoorCommunicationKills: One of the tenets of the Tenet organization is "knowledge divided". People only know what they need to know, when they need to know it, lest things go very wrong. If someone [[HeKnowsTooMuch knows something they should not]], that someone is assassinated, because it's the only way to be sure what they know doesn't make it to the future antagonists.
* PossibleWar: InUniverse; the [[SecretGovernmentWarehouse Secret Government Filing Cabinet]] holds inverted fragments of technology, assumed to be "the detritus of a coming war."

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: The heroes managed to stop Sator from destroying the world but can never go back to live normal lives again. The Protagonist's knowledge of the Algorithm means he will always be a target, either from enemies in the future, and from Ives who must silence him because HeKnowsTooMuch and thus, he will not see Kat again except as her guardian angel from afar. However, it turns out that in the future, ''he'' will become the new head or even the founder of Tenet! Also, to complete the StableTimeLoop, Neil must go back in time and make a HeroicSacrifice to save The Protagonist so he can complete this mission in the first place. And [[EarnYourHappyEnding Kat, as mentioned, is free to live without Sator hanging over her, able to take care of Max in peace]].]]

* FaceDeathWithDignity: An inverted corpse who resurrects to assist the protagonist is revealed at the end to be [[spoiler:Neil]]. At the end of the mission, he calmly bids the Protagonist a fond farewell and goes to meet his fate smiling.

** A passing train obscures The Protagonist's torture at the hands of Russian mercenaries.

* InstitutionalAllegianceConcealment: In the opening hostage scene at the Opera House, the protagonist's team wait until the local KORD team shows up, then put on KORD patches on their [=BDUs=] from a tray holding patches for different police divisions.

* MercyLead: At the end of the film, [[spoiler:Ives draws a gun on both The Protagonist and Neil, since they both know the existence of the world-ending weapon Algorithm, but he decides to give them a head start instead, only planning to kill them if he crosses paths with them again.]]

* RetroactivePreparation: Happens during the FinalBattle. The Protagonist and Ives arrive at the cave, but there's a locked door between them and Sator's right-hand man Volkov, who is [[spoiler:burying the Algorithm for the people from the future to find. Fortunately, an inverted corpse springs back to life, takes a bullet meant for The Protagonist, and opens the door, allowing The Protagonist and Ives to overpower Volkov and retrieve the Algorithm. When the battle is over, it is implied Neil will eventually invert so he can open the door and [[HeroicSacrifice take the bullet]].]]

* SecretTestOfCharacter: Russian mercenaries torture The Protagonist for hours by pulling his teeth out with pliers. He chooses to take a colleague's (fake) CyanidePill rather than give up his team. He wakes up from the induced coma in a hospital bed.

* ShortDistancePhoneCall: Kat calls The Protagonist; coincidentally, another phone rings nearby. Turns out he was right behind her the whole time.

* ShortDistancePhoneCall: The Protagonist calls Kat from behind her back when she is in front of her son's school.

''Tenet'' follows an unnamed CIA operative (Washington) as he and his team go undercover in an opera house siege in Kiev, which ends with the team getting wiped out and the operative taking a cyanide pill before he can talk...[[DeathFakedForYou only to wake up some time later, officially declared dead]]. An organization has recruited the "Protagonist" for the aim of [[SavingTheWorld securing everyone's survival]] from, as he will learn, antagonists from the future. Now armed with one word — [[TitleDrop Tenet]] — and a goal that transcends national interests, the Protagonist must navigate his way through a twilight world of international espionage, gaining allies for a mission that will unfold in something beyond real time.

''Tenet'' (stylized in all capital letters as ''TENET'', [[https://www.pinkbike.com/news/tenet-the-film-updates-logo-after-tenet-components-complaint.html formerly]] ''TENƎꓕ'') is a 2020 science fiction [[SpyFiction spy film]], written and directed by Creator/ChristopherNolan. It stars Creator/JohnDavidWashington, Creator/RobertPattinson, and Creator/ElizabethDebicki, with Dimple Kapadia, Creator/AaronTaylorJohnson, Creator/ClemencePoesy, Creator/MichaelCaine, Creator/KennethBranagh and Creator/MartinDonovan in supporting roles. It is also the first Nolan blockbuster, and his first film in 15 years, not to be scored by Music/HansZimmer due to his prior commitment to ''Film/Dune2021''; Music/LudwigGoransson was chosen in his place.

* BulletCatch: Inverted guns do this with inverted bullets. Laura, who introduces the Protagonist to them [[MsExposition while explaining inversion]], even says "You're not shooting the bullet; you're catching it". Two other notable instances of this include the inverted GasMaskMook that the Protagonist fights in Freeport, and the Rotas interrogation scene where Kat is shot with a bullet that is buried in the glass behind her.

* ClipboardOfAuthority: {{Lampshaded}} by Laura along with the Reflective Vest of Authority, both used as the Protagonist's disguise when he makes to visit her for information on the threat.

* MrExposition: Laura's appearance in the film is dedicated to trying to familiarize [[AudienceSurrogate the Protagonist]] and the audience on the nature of inversion and how inverted objects work in forward-moving time.

** Fay's last words imply that he failed the same test that the Protagonist just passed, leaving him in a position that is far removed from Tenet's operations--and a purposefully-minor character in the plot, like Barbara/Laura (the scientist) and Crosby (the informant).

--->'''Laura:''' You're not shooting the bullet; you're catching it.\\

** Laura has a room full of "inverted objects", such as small gears and bullets that rise into the air into one's waiting hand. She tells the Protagonist that "someone manufactured [these objects] in the future", hence their inherent inversion.
** Wheeler also explains more rules of the phenomena before the Protagonist runs through the reversed aftermath of the heist.

* WorldWarIII: What Laura says that Tenet is trying to prevent, at least, "as [she] understand[s] it". It is not going to involve nuclear warfare, at the very least. [[spoiler:Instead, it will be a war between people from the present and the future, with the stakes being [[ApocalypseHow total annihilation]].]]

'''Laura:''' No. Something worse.

* YouAlreadyChangedThePast: The 'summoning an inverted object to your hand' trick only works if you will have actually dropped it in the immediate future, which will be the object's immediate past. That requires the appropriate hand gesture, such as "scooping up a bullet" to pull it from the table or "pulling your fingers away from a bullet" to drag it toward you, as seen with Laura's explanation.

%% ZCE * SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong: Providing you have access to a time inversion machine.

''Tenet'' (stylized in all capital letters as ''TENET'', [[https://www.pinkbike.com/news/tenet-the-film-updates-logo-after-tenet-components-complaint.html formerly]] ''TENƎꓕ'') is a 2020 science fiction [[SpyFiction spy film]], written and directed by Creator/ChristopherNolan. It stars Creator/JohnDavidWashington, Creator/RobertPattinson, Creator/ElizabethDebicki, Dimple Kapadia, Creator/AaronTaylorJohnson, Creator/ClemencePoesy, Creator/MichaelCaine, Creator/KennethBranagh and Creator/MartinDonovan. Music/LudwigGoransson composed the soundtrack.

''Tenet'' follows an unnamed CIA operative (Washington) as he and his team go undercover in an opera house siege in Kiev, which ends with the team getting wiped out and the operative taking a cyanide pill before he can talk...[[DeathFakedForYou only to wake up some time later, officially declared dead]]. An organization has recruited the "Protagonist" for the aim of [[SavingTheWorld securing everyone's survival]] from, as he will learn, antagonists from the future. Now armed with one word—[[TitleDrop Tenet]]—and a goal that transcends national interests, the Protagonist must navigate his way through a twilight world of international espionage, gaining allies for a mission that will unfold in something beyond real time.

* GenreMashup: It is a spy, science-fiction, conspiracy, war, and heist film with a TimeRewindMechanic mixed in.
* GoryDiscretionShot

...[[WhamLine Hasn't happened yet.]]

!!''"Wake up the tropes."'':

-->'''Sator:''' Look at me! And understand… you don’t negotiate with a tiger. You admire a tiger until it turns on you, and then you feel its true ''fucking'' nature!

** Sator’s body hides his caving a mook's head in for stealing his gold.

** Evil arms dealer wants you dead and tries to intimidate you? [[spoiler:Promise to work with him.]]

* RefugeInAudacity: The Protagonist’s MO when dealing with situations. It helps him get out of where less confident people would have died.

* TimeCapsule: Andrei’s mysterious benefactors use inverted time capsules to recruit Andrei and fund his activities.

* GenreBusting: It is a spy, science-fiction, conspiracy, war, and heist film with a TimeRewindMechanic mixed in.

* ControlFreak: Sator’s entire motivation and lifestyle. He even compares himself to a tiger and proclaims how everyone should only admire him.

* EvilIsPetty: As a ControlFreak, Sator commits horrible actions for the smallest of slights.
** His entire motivation for refusing to release Kat and [[spoiler:ending the world comes as a severe case of IfICantHaveYou, even if he has no love or want for either.]]
** In the one element of his life he could not control, [[spoiler:his death]], he still must choose a time and place for it to happen.
** As Kat puts it, Sator always sees failure as betrayal. And he does not take to betrayal kindly. He treats Kat so harshly because she sold him a forged painting and beats a Mook to death personally because he tried to steal a gold bullion.
** He orders The Protagonist killed upon his first meeting because The Protagonist successfully foiled his attempt at roughing him up.
** He admits that he got the angriest in his entire life because [[spoiler:The Protagonist successfully tricked him into shooting his wife for no reason. He was angrier in this moment than when his wife pulled a gun on him and he got into a firefight with Tenet soldiers.]]

* TheAirNotThere: Averted. A person who is inverted must carry their own inverted oxygen supply because normal air can't be absorbed by inverted lungs. In long-term inverted missions, they also have to stay in an airlocked environment conditioned to have breathable air as well.

* AlwaysSaveTheGirl: The Protagonist repeatedly jeopardises his plans in order to save or protect Kat, [[spoiler:and even continues protecting her from afar once the mission is over. That said, it pays off when she proves invaluable in the final operation, fooling Sator (who had left her to die in the Rotas firm in Tallinn) for as long as she did.]]
** During the post-heist car/inverted-car chase, Sator's inverted vehicle pulls up to show the man himself pointing a gun at Kat and counting down. The message is clear: "give me the goods or I'll shoot her". After hesitating, the Protagonist complies. Then, once Sator and his men abandon Kat in the moving vehicle, the Protagonist and Neil move to stop the vehicle before they smash into held-up traffic.

** Sator leaves the Protagonist to die in a car that explodes, [[spoiler:but because he, the car ''and'' the explosion are all inverted, the explosion dies out almost immediately against the non-inverted air around them and is replaced with a harsh drop in temperature. The Protagonist nearly dies of hypothermia instead of burning to death, so he's easily revived by Neil, who is amused by the {{Irony}}.]]
** Next time, Andrei just [[WhyDontYouJustShootHim orders his mook Volkov to shoot the Protagonist]]. [[spoiler:An inverted Neil is lying dead before them; having [[TakingTheBullet Taken The Bullet]], he just comes back to life when Volkov pulls the trigger.]]
* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: The heroes managed to stop Sator from destroying the world, but can never go back to live normal lives again. The Protagonist's knowledge of the Algorithm means he will always be a target, either from enemies in the future, and from Ives who has to silence him because HeKnowsTooMuch, and thus he won’t be able to see Kat again except being her guardian angel from afar. However, it turns out that in the future, ''he'' will become the new head or even the founder of Tenet! Also, in order to complete the StableTimeLoop, Neil has to go back in time and make a HeroicSacrifice to save The Protagonist so he can complete this mission in the first place. And [[EarnYourHappyEnding Kat, as mentioned, is free to live without Sator hanging over her, able to take care of Max in peace]].]]
* BlackmailIsSuchAnUglyWord: During their initial meeting, Kat calls the Protagonist out for using the term "making arrangements" instead of simply calling it blackmail, as Andrei Sator has to her.

** The Protagonist's first and last meetings with [[spoiler:Priya involve him holding an arms dealer at [[HollywoodSilencer silenced]] gunpoint. In their first meeting, he has Priya's husband (her front as an ArmsDealer) at gunpoint, but doesn't fire since Priya is a member of Tenet. In their last meeting, he pulls the trigger on Priya and her mook for not keeping to her word to him, the person who will found Tenet]].

* CantKillYouStillNeedYou: When Kat throws her abusive husband overboard to drown, the Protagonist has to dive in and save him, much to Kat's anger. [[spoiler:Which is just as well as we later discover he's wearing a DeadManSwitch that will set off the Algorithm, so they can't even kill him until they're sure it's been deactivated.]]

* CentralTheme: The theme of ''Tenet'' is about a person's belief about reality. Neil believes that "what's happened, has happened"; he later clarifies that it's his expression of faith in the mechanics of the world. Sator believes that the world is effectively in the palm of his hand, regardless of whether he is right about that. His backers, the unseen antagonists from the future, believe that they can destroy their ancestors without being erased in the process, regardless of whether they are right about that.

** The red-string backpack trinket belonging to the masked agent who saves the Protagonist at the beginning. [[spoiler: The inverted corpse that [[TakingTheBullet takes the bullet]] for the Protagonist is wearing it. The WhamShot at the end reveals that it's ''Neil's'' trinket--he was the same agent who saved the Protagonist in the opera house and the cavern.]]
** Sator's fitness tracker [[spoiler:is linked to trigger the Algorithm upon his death. In the climax, Kat has to delay Sator's death to give the Tenet forces enough time to disarm the Algorithm and prevent the apocalypse.]]
** The phone that the Protagonist hands to Kat before [[spoiler:both head out for their respective missions in Stalsk-12 and Sator's yacht]]. He tells her to use it if she thinks she's ever in danger; "Posterity" will receive the message. [[spoiler:The phone allows the Protagonist to counteract Priya's attempt to assassinate Kat in the denouement, presumably by means of inverting Kat's message for the Protagonist to receive.]]

* ColdBloodedTorture: The Protagonist is subjected to this early on in the film--his teeth were pulled out with rusty pliers, among other things. Despite it all, he refuses to sell out his teammates, which leads to him getting recruited for Tenet's mission (which came with fixing the damage to said mouth while he was unconscious).

* CutHisHeartOutWithASpoon: Sator threatens the Protagonist by saying that he'll cut his testicles off and insert them into a small hole cut into his throat so he'll choke to death on them.
* CyanidePill: The Protagonist is subjected to a SecretTestOfCharacter where he chooses to take a colleague's (fake) Cyanide Pill rather than give up his team.

* DealWithTheDevil: Imagine you're a lowly Soviet worker assigned a suicidal clean-up duty at a radiation accident, with nothing to look forward to other than a lingering death, and then you dig up a message from the future addressed specifically to you, promising a life of luxury, power, advanced medical treatment to delay your death, marriage to a beautiful aristocrat who will give you a son... [[spoiler:All you have to do is help bring about the end of the world.]]
* DeathFakedForYou: The Protagonist takes a suicide pill that is revealed to be fake, allowing others to extract him and officially pronounce him dead.
* DisarmDisassembleDestroy: The Protagonist is shown using this move in the ActionPrologue. When he later enters the time-travel vault and sees a dissembled pistol on the floor and bullet holes in the window glass, it's obvious what's about to happen, if not exactly ''[[TimeRewindMechanic how]]''.
* DismantledMacGuffin: The Algorithm has been fragmented into nine pieces. [[spoiler:After retrieving it from the hypocenter, Ives breaks the Algorithm into thirds, giving Neil and the Protagonist one third each in order to make sure the future can never get to use it.]]

* DoomedHometown: Example for the villain, Andrei Sator. He was born and raised in Stalsk-12, a Russian [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_city closed city]] that was the site of a nuclear explosion that wiped everyone there out...save for Sator, who climbed out with information and gold bars addressed to him from the future, and a newfound ambition. In the Protagonist's meeting with Crosby regarding Sator, Crosby makes mention of an explosion that recently occurred at Stalsk-12, on the same day as the Kiev opera siege. [[spoiler:Stalsk-12--on the date of this explosion--becomes the site of the FinalBattle between Tenet and Sator's men, with both sides employing "temporal pincer movements" against each other. The explosion was meant to ensure the Algorithm's burial; Tenet's mission becomes extracting the Algorithm while letting the explosion also take place.]]

* DrivenToSuicide: The Protagonist learns from Priya that many generations into the future, the scientist who discovered inversion realized that her work could be abused and--among destroying her research and inverting the Algorithm into the present--killed herself to try and prevent it from getting out.
* DroneOfDread: Drone sounds can be heard during intense action scenes like the car chase.

* EcoTerrorist: PlayedWith. [[spoiler:The instigators of the attack from the future are supposed to have initiated their plan because of the ravaged state previous generations have left the world in by their time. Somehow, they don't seem to fear risking their own destruction by their plans coming to fruition; their intent is claimed to be to ''colonize'' the more ecologically viable past instead of making sure their own future becomes viable.]]
* ElitesAreMoreGlamorous: Tenet has a commando force on standby, Ives and Wheeler among them, which was deployed to assist the Protagonist and Neil.
* FaceDeathWithDignity: An inverted corpse who resurrects to assist the protagonist is revealed at the end to be [[spoiler:Neil]]. At the end of the mission, he calmly bids the Protagonist a fond farewell and goes to meet his fate smiling.
* FailedASpotCheck: Wheeler warns the Protagonist that the side effects of being inverted in an uninverted world include distortions in one's vision and hearing. [[spoiler:This seems to be how both the Protagonist and the audience fail to spot the Algorithm piece in the Saab that he will bring to the Rotas firm. He did search the car before heading out, but only realizes the piece was in his car as earlier-Protagonist tossed it in before/after Sator sent him crashing.]]
* FamousLastWords: [[spoiler:"Then you had better tie up those loose ends." --Priya, just as she sets the rearview mirror back and the Protagonist shoots her.]]

** The Protagonist and Neil's relationship to Kat and Sator's. The former starts out professional and grows into friendship whilst the latter (presumably) started off romantic and then became antagonistic. The former is deeper than it seems at first glance (since Neil [[spoiler:is actually a longtime friend and ally)]], whilst the latter is shallower due to [[spoiler:Sator's motivation to possess her as one of the things he was essentially granted in a deal to eventually destroy the world.]]

** When Sator's goons take the Protagonist into a restaurant kitchen to be roughed up, Kat has no intention of hanging around, but her driver refuses to leave until a battered body rolls down the steps. And it does, but it's the last of Sator's goons. As the driver floors the gas, Kat sees the ''Protagonist'' calmly walk out the door having disposed of all the mooks, so the 'lesson' wasn't quite what Sator wanted. As the Protagonist has left his phone number with Kat, she calls him the next day for help.
** The Protagonist is forced to watch Sator shoot Kat in the chest with an inverted bullet.

** The word "tenet" itself is a palindrome--it remains the same word when reading backward. The original movie material has additional fun with it by rotating the last two letters one-hundred-and-eighty degrees clockwise.
*** In fact, this is part of the larger palindrome of the Sator square, “Sator Arepo Tenet Opera Rotas”, all words of which are used in the film.

* GenreBusting: It's a spy, science-fiction, conspiracy, war and heist film with a TimeRewindMechanic mixed in.

** The Protagonist's torture at the hands of Russian mercenaries is obscured by a passing train.
** Sator caving a mook's head in for stealing his gold is hidden by his body.

* GunsDoNotWorkThatWay: Minor case in the scene with the Protagonist and the concrete slab full of inverted bullets. When he makes one of the bullets fly back into his handgun by pulling the trigger, he finds it in the previously empty magazine although it should've been in the gun's chamber instead. Can be forgiven because showing the audience a bullet in a chamber is much less obvious than showing one in a magazine.

* HeKnowsTooMuch: A young Andrei Sator is shown killing the man who finds the time capsule with the message from the future. The Protagonist worries that Kat will be killed once she's outlived her usefulness. [[spoiler:And he and Neil find their fellow team member draws a gun on them once they've retrieved the Algorithm, due to the risk of knowing that a world-ending weapon of this nature even exists.]]

* HollywoodTactics: During the final assault, the Tenet forces' strategy mainly consists of running straight in fairly tight columns.

* IfICantHaveYou: Outright stated by Andrei to his estranged wife. [[spoiler:Turns out that's why he's willing to go along with a plan to destroy the world--he's dying of radiation-induced cancer and wants to [[TakingYouWithMe take the world with him]].]]
* ImprovisedWeapon: During a fistfight, the Protagonist uses a ''cheese-grater'' against an opponent, ramming it against the guy's face and dragging his head into a metal shelf. Thankfully, we don't see the actual damage to the mook's face.

* InsertCameo: The heavy breathing in the film score, meant to represent Sator, is Nolan's own breathing.
* InspiredBy: The opening scene was obviously inspired by the 2002 [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_theater_hostage_crisis Moscow theater hostage crisis]].

* {{Irony}}: During the Tallinn heist, the Protagonist disguises himself in a fireman's jacket and boards the fire engine as part of the plan. [[spoiler:While inverted, Sator crashes the Protagonist's car, then blows him up...which results in the Protagonist almost dying of hypothermia instead, thanks to reversed heat transfer.]]
* LeaningOnTheFourthWall: The Protagonist occasionally acts like he's aware that he's the hero of a movie; he outright refers to himself as "the Protagonist" and two masked men he fights in Oslo as "antagonists" ([[spoiler:though he was unaware that the "antagonists" were really his future self trying to reach the Freeport Turnstile]]).
* LogoJoke: Hinting at the film's ColorMotifs before they're properly introduced, the Creator/WarnerBros logo is tinted red with normal music; while the Syncopy logo is blue with reversed music.

* MeaningfulName: Several people and things of the film are named after the words of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sator_Square Sator Square]]:

** "Arepo": the Goya forger, whose work is used by Sator as blackmail against Kat.

* MindScrew: How inversion works, and how it affects some action scenes (such as the Freeport incident with the inverted GasMaskMook, the red-room/blue-room interrogation scene, and the battle of Stalsk-12 in the climax), can be pretty hard to grasp for many viewers. The important thing to keep in mind is that such scenes ultimately have to make sense going backwards ''and'' forwards (i.e. "palindromic continuity").

* NeverTheSelvesShallMeet: {{Downplayed}}. If you're inverted, physical contact with your normal-time-course self apparently spells doom, but it's "skin on skin" contact only. [[spoiler:The Protagonist, entirely covered in body armor and combat gear,]] getting into a fight with his past self does not provoke anything nefarious because there's no direct contact.

** First, while experiencing the chase in reverse, [[spoiler:the inverted Protagonist's perspective from the inverted silver Saab shows that A.) ''he'' was the guy driving that car; B.) his past self had seen him and tossed the Algorithm piece into his car; C.) because of B. currently happening ''backwards'', the Algorithm piece that was in the silver car all along winds up in Neil's car, along with its orange case (given/"taken" by Sator); and finally D.) Sator saw this unfold during the hand-off, prompting him to grab his car's steering wheel and send it against the Protagonist's, causing it to crash in the first place. From a normal-time perspective, the inverted Protagonist brought a third car to the handoff, received the Algorithm piece from his earlier self, drove backwards all the way to Rotas Tallinn, and stepped backwards into the airlock, leaving the piece to be collected by Sator's men.]]
** Second, during the original Freeport break-in, Neil seemed oddly focused on heading the Protagonist off of the GasMaskMook that suddenly appeared from the Oslo Freeport Turnstile. [[spoiler:While inverted, the Protagonist, wearing full-body armor, winds up fighting his earlier self. Because earlier-Protagonist (like us) had no idea that it's himself, the "Mook's" actions here take on a whole new meaning: he was going on the defensive the entire time, all to get himself to the Turnstile. Even the gun that he "reassembled" was just the Protagonist's last-ditch effort to avoid hurting either version of himself. Furthermore, once he un-inverts himself and bolts away, earlier-Neil chases him and tears off his mask and helmet. Recognizing him and realizing what's going on, earlier-Neil wordlessly tosses the Protagonist his gear back and runs off to stop his partner from unknowingly killing himself. Neil later confirms this when they get Kat to an ambulance and drive away.]]
* PoisonedWeapons: Getting shot with an inverted bullet is even worse than getting shot with a normal one, due to the weird interactions between objects running on opposite clocks. [[spoiler:When Kat is shot by Sator while the latter is inverted, she has to be inverted to heal her, it takes a week for her to stabilize, Neil and the Protagonist have to sneak her into the Oslo freeport heist as it unfolds (in both directions) in order to return her to normal time, and the whole ordeal leaves her with a nasty scar on her abdomen.]]
* PoorCommunicationKills: One of the tenets of the Tenet organization is "knowledge divided". People only know what they need to know, when they need to know it, lest things go very wrong. If someone [[HeKnowsTooMuch knows something they shouldn't]], that someone is assassinated, because it's the only way to be sure what they know doesn't make it to the future antagonists.
* PossibleWar: InUniverse; the [[SecretGovernmentWarehouse Secret Government Filing Cabinet]] contains inverted fragments of technology, assumed to be "the detritus of a coming war."

* PracticalEffects: The production team purchased and then crashed a real 747 airplane into a hangar. The stunt was all practical effects, with no visual effects or CGI. Christopher Nolan had originally planned to use miniatures and set-piece builds; however, while scouting for locations in Victorville, California, the team discovered a massive array of old planes and it became apparent that it would actually be more efficient to buy a real plane of the real size, and perform the sequence for real on camera.

-->'''Sator:''' Look at me! And understand… you don’t negotiate with a tiger. You admire a tiger until it turns on you, and you feel it’s true ''fucking'' nature!
* RandomlyReversedLetters: On the first poster as well as on the film's webpage, the last E and T in the "Tenet" logo is upside down, appearing as two "TEN"s joined together at the "N". This palindrome design, along with the design of a later poster featuring the Protagonist pointing a gun in two different scenarios (pictured above), was in keeping with the film's overarching forwards/backwards motifs. The original "Tenet" logo design was discontinued after [[https://ridetenet.com/pages/a-letter-from-nolan a complaint from a bike company]] with a very similar logo. That being said, some of the marketing, such as the Final Trailer, alludes to that earlier design by having the "ET" in "Tenet" appear on the screen upside-down as before, but morphing into their right-side-up shapes as the logo fully appears.

* RetroactivePreparation: Happens during the FinalBattle. The Protagonist and Ives arrive at the cave, but there's a locked door between them and Sator's right-hand man Volkov, who is [[spoiler:burying the Algorithm for the people from the future to find. Fortunately, an inverted corpse springs back to life, takes a bullet meant for The Protagonist, and opens the door, allowing The Protagonist and Ives to overpower Volkov and retrieve the Algorithm. When the battle is over, it's implied Neil will eventually invert so he can open the door and [[HeroicSacrifice take the bullet]].]]
* RiddleForTheAges: Exactly who in the future wishes to destroy the past, and why, is never revealed. Andrei disparages the Protagonist as a fanatic fighting a war he barely understands. He implies that the future world is ravaged due to climate change (or some other environmental catastrophe) and whatever future faction he's working with views destroying the past as their best option.
* SadisticChoice: Sator gave Kat the option of leaving him, but never being allowed to see her son Max again. [[spoiler:She admits that the worst thing was that though she didn't go through with it, [[MomentOfWeakness she actually]] ''[[MomentOfWeakness considered]]'' [[MomentOfWeakness abandoning her son just to be free of Sator]], and Sator knew it.]]

* SecretHandshake: Members of Tenet identify themselves and each other by intertwining their fingers with their palms apart and slipping the word "[[TrustPassword tenet]]" into a sentence. The gesture represents normal and inverted objects colliding with each other as their time flows in opposite directions.
* SecretTestOfCharacter: The Protagonist is tortured for hours by having his teeth torn out with pliers, then chooses to take a colleague's (fake) CyanidePill rather than give up his team. He wakes up from the induced coma in a hospital bed.

* TheSlowPath: Works in both directions. In the world of ''Tenet'', TimeTravel to and from specific points ''a la Series/DoctorWho'' is impossible. Instead, one can invert themselves and experience time backwards, eventually ending up at the desired point. As long as there's an available Turnstile to set them forward again, the person can then turn around and eventually reach their original starting point. With some adjustments such as airtight containers and portable oxygen, inverted people largely experience time just like regular people do...just with the large inverted elephant in the room.

** Kat fills the quasi-BondGirl role in this film, but unlike the TropeCodifier, Kat is not treated as a LoveInterest or conquest who dies before the end. On the contrary, the Protagonist respects Kat as her own person, and takes risks in order to save her from Sator's machinations. [[spoiler:Kat even becomes integral to the final mission on the 14th, sneaking onto his yacht in Vietnam and distracting Sator while Tenet works to retrieve the Algorithm. When Kat realizes that she's about to run out of time before her past self returns with Max, she takes the opportunity to kill Sator himself and escape. In the end, Kat returns home to take care of her son, her safety ensured by the Protagonist.]]

** In some ways it could also be considered one to ''Film/{{Interstellar}}'', as both deal with the nature of time in similar ways. But whilst ''Interstellar'' saves most of the time-related consequences for the third act, ''Tenet'' is about it from the start. They also both involve a group being tasked with SavingTheWorld and contain a central FireForgedFriends relationship as well as a platonic relation between a man and a woman. Finally, both films feature a circumstance that results in a parent not being able to be around to raise their child as part of the narrative and a desire for this parent to protect and be there for their child despite this (Kat being the parent here, Cooper being the parent in ''Interstellar'').

* SpySpeak: Done very inconspicuously: agents identify themselves with a single word, "tenet", combined with a hand gesture. By slipping the word into a seemingly innocuous sentence while making the gesture agents can identify themselves to one another in a way that does not sound at all strange should someone outside the organization hear it.
* StableTimeLoop:

** The inverted GasMaskMook that the Protagonist and Neil encounter during the Oslo heist? [[spoiler:It's the Protagonist again. He's borrowing the Freeport Turnstile to un-invert himself, but can't communicate with his past self and is forced to resort to going on the defensive.]]

* SummonToHand: Inverted objects display this, due to effect happening before cause. You can't call an inverted object to your hand just by thinking it, but you can use appropriate gestures in reverse to achieve the same effect.

* TemporalParadox: Discussed. At one point, the Protagonist is told not to enter a turnstile if he doesn't see his inverted self entering the other side. Otherwise, he won't come out the other side at all.
* TimeCapsule: Inverted time capsules are used to recruit Andrei and fund his activities.
* TimeRewindMechanic: The movie's whole plot hinges on it. It's not actually time travel--as the Protagonist learns, it's a phenomenon called "inversion", the reversal of cause and effect induced by reversing the entropy of a given object. There are numerous instances of this phenomenon, both blatant and subtle.
** A large boat that the Protagonist is performing pull-ups on is going backwards, but the wakes in the water are in ''front'' of it and are going in reverse. Another boat behind it is seen doing the same. [[spoiler: This is because in this scene, the Protagonist is currently inverted, experiencing normal time around him in reverse.]]

** While infiltrating Freeport, Neil and the Protagonist walk into a room where there are bullet holes in the dividing wall's glass windows. When Neil asks what happened, the Protagonist realizes that the event hasn't happened ''yet.'' Cue the Turnstile opening with a man in body armor then going through it in reverse, and attacking the Protagonist; while the same man runs out of Neil's side of the room in normal time. While they are fighting, the man is trying to shoot the Protagonist. From the Protagonist's inverted perspective, the window's bullet holes disappear as the bullets reverse into the man's gun while the Protagonist wrestles it away.

** "We live in a twilight world" and its response phrase "And there are no friends at dusk" is used in the ActionPrologue. [[spoiler:They abandon it because Sator knows the "twilight world" line.]]
** "[[TitleDrop Tenet]]," accompanied by intertwined fingers with palms apart, lets the members of the organization identify each other.
* TurbineBlender: The GasMaskMook who attacks the Protagonist is sucked out of the building right when the jet engine on the crashed 747 explodes. [[spoiler:{{Subverted}} when it turns out to be a coincidence with the GasMaskMook--in truth [[OnceMoreWithClarity the Protagonist]]--just moving that way due to inversion. When the runaway turbine exploded, it blasted the inverted man through the roller shutter, but from the view of those watching in normal time, he appeared to have been sucked out of the room, followed by a big explosion.]]
* TheUnreveal: The movie never reveals the mastermind of revealing the Protagonist's presence in Kiev to Sator's forces. Granted, it's established that the Kiev opera siege was handled by news networks, leaving behind a record for the future to conceivably pass onto Sator in the past.
* VaporTrail: Sator makes the Protagonist's flipped over car explode by performing a ReusableLighterToss onto the end of a fule trail.

* WesternTerrorists: The masked terrorists involved in raiding the National Opera House. They were wiped out during the raid by KORD elements.
* WhamLine: There's quite a few of them, actually, but special mention goes to one of the final lines of dialogue:

* WriteBackToTheFuture: This is {{Inverted}} because of [[TimeRewindMechanic inversion]] ([[IncrediblyLamePun yes]]). Someone in the future recruits Andrei for their scheme via an inverted TimeCapsule (played straight of course from his point-of-view). It's also weaponized in the final battle by having two combat teams, one inverted, with the past team learning from the other's experience. This is referred to as a "temporal pincer movement" through a specific event. [[spoiler:Played straight when the Protagonist gives Kat a mobile phone at the end and tells her to give her location if she ever thinks she's in trouble, which saves her life as the Protagonist can be there to stop any assassination attempt.]]

* HowWouldYouLikeToDie, as calmly asked by Sator: