Summary

• Tenet ranks as the tenth most popular movie on AVOD in the U.S. in June.
• The Christopher Nolan movie was a commercial failure upon its release in 2020, and the response from critics and audiences was mixed by Nolan standards.
• Tenet has since become a more appreciated entry in Nolan's filmography due to the impressive filmmaking on display and the ambition of the project.

Christopher Nolan's Tenet stars John David Washington as The Protagonist, a CIA operative recruited to a secret organization who uses time inversion to face off against a powerful arms dealer. The film, which also stars Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, and Kenneth Branagh, received somewhat mixed reviews, at least by Nolan standards, and struggled to make an impact at the box office.

New data from Reelgood now reveals that Tenet was the 10th most popular movie on AVOD in the U.S. for the month of June. The title falls short of other movies like Klute (1971), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), and Sound of Freedom (2023). Check out the full top 10 AVOD movies list below:

Is Christopher Nolan's Tenet Underrated?

The Sci-Fi Blockbuster Wasn't A Big Hit In 2020

Tenet was released in theaters at the height of the pandemic in 2020. Though it was positioned as a film that would help struggling movie theaters, Tenet's box office gross capped at only $365.3 million worldwide on an estimated budget of $200 million, making it a fairly major disappointment. This is on top of lukewarm reviews, with the film currently holding a 69% critics score and 76% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, the filmmaker's lowest-ever scores.

Tenet was re-released in theaters earlier this year and ended up being a notable draw for audiences, especially in IMAX 70mm formats.

Tenet's confusing story and general lack of emotional depth are major reasons why the film struggled to resonate, and its release at a time when many theaters around the world were shut down meant not that not many people actually saw it. In the years since, however, Tenet seems to have become more appreciated and more widely seen. While many criticisms of the movie still certainly stand, Nolan's sheer ambition with the project is undoubtedly irable.

In an age when many major blockbusters are overly-reliant on muddy CGI visuals and simple stories that will appeal to as many people as possible, Tenet is a refreshing outlier. The film features the kind of practical action sequences that only Nolan can deliver and, when taken as an experience rather than an intellectual exercise, it can truly be thrilling. Tenet's latest position on the AVOD chart above suggests that the Nolan film may continue to become more appreciated in the years ahead.

Source: Reelgood