Tenet is a 2020 science-fiction action thriller written and directed by Christopher Nolan, starring John David Washington as a CIA operative known only as the Protagonist. After a failed operation at an opera house, he is drawn into a secret conflict involving inverted time, future warfare and a Russian arms dealer named Andrei Sator. The film combines espionage, heist mechanics and large-scale action with one of Nolan’s most complex time concepts, where objects and people can move backwards through time while the rest of the world continues forward. Rather than explaining everything in a conventional way, Tenet works as a puzzle-like thriller built around momentum, secrecy, physical spectacle and the idea of a war being fought from both directions in time.
The film was shot across Estonia, Norway, Denmark, Italy, India, the United Kingdom and the United States, giving it a genuinely international scale. Tallinn in Estonia is one of the film’s most important locations, with Linnahall used for the opening Kyiv opera-house sequence and Laagna Road used for the major car chase involving forward and inverted movement. Oslo appears through the Opera House roof and The Thief hotel, while the fictional Oslo Freeport was created through a combination of locations rather than one single building. Italy supplies the Amalfi Coast and the yacht material connected to Sator and Kat, while Mumbai provides the Protagonist’s entry into Priya’s world through locations such as the Gateway of India, the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel and the Colaba area. In Denmark, the Nysted Wind Farm is part of the film’s maritime world, while England and Los Angeles provided studio work, interiors and additional controlled environments. Together, these locations give Tenet a cold, sleek and global atmosphere, moving from brutalist Baltic architecture and Nordic modernism to Mediterranean luxury, Indian cityscapes, offshore wind farms and large-scale studio-built action.
Oslo Opera House
As a screen location, the Oslo Opera House has been used in Pax (2011), 22 July, The Snowman (2017), The Worst Person in the World (2021) and Tenet (2020).
Tallinna Linnahall
Tallinna Linnahall is best known as a filming location from Tenet (2020), where it stands in for the Kyiv Opera House during the film’s opening sequence.
Tjuvholmen
The 2020 Christopher Nolan film Tenet filmed key action scenes at Tjuvholmen, specifically around Olav Selvaags Plass and near the Thief Hotel.