Tenet · written by Christopher Nolan · 2020

Split across forward and inverted selves, Sator tortures the Protagonist and shoots Kat with an inverted round to force the truth, before both Sators vanish into the turnstile machine.

Scene 165 of 275 · ≈ 3 min on screen · Act two

Midpoint
Five-Act Structure: Climax
Save the Cat: All Is Lost
Sator
Protagonist
Kat
Paramilitary Sergeant

Act oneAct twoAct three

Begins 1:21 into a 2:28 film

The story so farBefore scene 165

An unnamed intelligence operative, recruited into a shadow war fought through time-inverted weapons and objects, teams with an enigmatic ally to stop a dying Russian oligarch from using technology gifted by a dying future to erase the present.

Scenes 1–17
The Protagonist in his zone of comfort — a skilled, anonymous field operative, competent and confident inside the Kiev operation.
Scenes 18–20
Broken by torture and 'killed,' he needs a new purpose; Fay offers one that transcends the nation-state loyalties that just got his team killed.
Scenes 21–32
He enters the wholly unfamiliar situation of Tenet — the wind turbine, the password test, and Barbara's proof that time itself can run backward.
Scenes 33–144
Mumbai, London, Oslo, and Amalfi — he adapts to the world of inverted physics and Sator's inner circle, paying costs (Kat's trust, his own safety) to get close to the target.
Scenes 145–158
The Tallinn ambush succeeds — he gets what the mission wanted, extracting the plutonium '241' from the armored convoy.
Just before
Scene 162
The Protagonist forces his way into the moving Audi, frees Kat, and pulls the brake before gunfire and a collision let Sator's men recapture them both.
Scene 163
Dragged from the trunk, the Protagonist watches Sator march Kat, through a fence, toward a different freeport entrance.
Scene 164
He is marched past the weapons table and through mysterious red doors.
Scene 165
This scene

165INT. TURNSTILE, TALLINN FREEPORT – CONTINUOUS

Into A LONG CHAMBER DIVIDED IN TWO BY A GLASS WINDOW – A MUCH BIGGER VERSION OF THE ROTAS VAULT. The Russians push the Protagonist into a chair. This side is lit by RED LIGHT.

On the other side of the glass, lit by BLUE LIGHT, Sator ‘ENTERS’ BACKWARDS, ‘PULLING’ Kat, who is now in a respirator. Sator ‘SHOVES’ her hard into a chair, removes his own respirator, ‘FLIPPING’ it up onto a hook on the wall.

The Protagonist looks into Kat’s frightened eyes... between them, embedded in a whirl of cracked glass, is a BULLET... Sator TURNS to meet the Protagonist’s gaze – his movements have the surreal edge of backwards motion as he places his GUN AGAINST KAT’S HEAD and pulls out his phone...

He holds his PHONE up and plays a recording IN REVERSE –

SATOR

(via recording)

If you’re not telling the truth,

she dies.

Sator moves the phone to his lips, SPEAKING IN REVERSE... the Protagonist stares at him, bemused.

PROTAGONIST

I don’t know what you’re talking

about.

Sator listens to this played backwards...

SATOR

(via recording)

You left it in the car not the fire

truck, right?

PROTAGONIST

Who told you that?

SATOR

(via recording)

Tell me, now! Is it really in the

BMW?

PROTAGONIST

I don’t know!

SATOR

(via recording)

Tell me or I’ll shoot her again!

The Protagonist looks at Kat, who is TERRIFIED –

KAT

(pleading)

Tell him!

– then at Sator –

PROTAGONIST