Directed by Christopher Nolan • 2000 • United States
Starring Guy Pearce, Carrie-Ann Moss, Joe Pantoliano

A virtuoso high-wire act of nonlinear storytelling, Christopher Nolan’s breakthrough second feature deploys a complex time-hopping structure to evoke the fractured psyche of Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce), a man suffering from anterograde amnesia—a form of perpetual short-term memory loss that continually erases the present—who uses an elaborate system of notes, Polaroid photographs, and even tattoos to aid him as he attempts to track down the killer who murdered his wife. Shifting between two timelines—one that unfolds chronologically, the other backwards—that gradually converge, MEMENTO is both a dazzlingly constructed psychological thriller and a gripping exploration of grief, identity, and our very understanding of reality.