Inception (2010) and Sightseers (2012)

Ah-ha! Two of the most acclaimed British directors of the 2010s take centre stage in this episode, albeit with very, very different films. Christopher Nolan originally envisaged his dreamy heist movie Inception as a low budget feature. But just after he'd made Insomnia, he got 80 pages into what he felt the film should be and hit a stumbling block. Two Batman movies and The Prestige later and he finally began to crack it - and things built from there. It was a lengthy journey too to bring the dark British comedy Sightseers to the screen, a road that began when Alice Lowe and Steve Oram started working on the two lead characters in an Ealing comedy club. And - with a helping hand from Edgar Wright - their work would come to the attention of a fast-rising director by the name of Ben Wheatley... The stories of both films are told in this episode. --- Film Stories print magazines can be found at store.filmstories.co.uk --- Find Simon on Twitter and Bluesky at @simonbrew, and the podcast can be found at @filmstories Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices