Christopher Nolan’s smart, moving and intellectual thriller about dream invasion set a new bar for cerebral blockbusters and with Hans Zimmer’s score a new sonic direction in what we think of as the sound of suspense.

Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a professional thief with a difference: the spoils he goes after are not material objects but the thoughts, dreams and secrets buried in the minds of other people’s subconscious. This rare talent, whilst making him a hot commodity in the world of corporate espionage, has also cost him dear, rendering him a solitary fugitive stripped of everything he ever really cared about. So when he is offered a chance for redemption by reversing the process and planting an idea in someone’s mind rather than stealing it, he and his team of specialists find themselves pitted against a dangerous enemy that appears to pre-empt their every move.

Hans Zimmer’s score for Inception is ground breaking on many levels not least for its first use of a sound that has been endlessly adapted, copied or outright sampled in blockbusters ever since – the BRAAAM! And whilst BRAAAM may not work your grey matter as much as your subwoofer, Zimmer’s ingenious weaving of Edith Piaf’s ‘Non, je ne regretted rien’ into the DNA of his score is the stuff of sonic dreams and film score legend.

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