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10. Tenet
One of 2020’s most hotly anticipated films from hit-or-miss heavyweight Christopher Nolan was another gimmicky sci-fi affair, this time a convoluted “time inversion” thriller that, while lacking in the cerebral thrills of his finest work (The Prestige), presented a wealth of stunning location photography and a number of stirring action set pieces that played to the filmmaker’s strengths as a visual storyteller, commanding a large budget and putting all that oversized excitement front and center, for all to see.
It’s a shame that Nolan’s glib dialogue and placeholder characters overpopulate this tale (Clémence Poésy exists wholly to deliver exposition, Kenneth Branagh’s cliché-spewing Russian baddie is a one-note joke, etc), but everyone is sporting such fabulously tailored and very expensive looking suits, that Nolan largely gets away with his smoke and mirrors espionage yarn.