Our take
Memento is a right of passage movie – the kind of movie 19 year olds watch and decide, “holy hell, cinema is cool.” Call it the most cinematic mainstream film or the most mainstream serious film of the last 20 years, Memento also marks the beginning of the reign of Christopher Nolan. A deep and gripping meditation on forgetting helmed by a technical virtuoso, Memento is a puzzling emotional trip.
What it won
Oscars
2 noms
Venice
1 nom
Golden Globes
1 nom
Sundance
1 win
Nat. Board of Review
1 nom
The story
Leonard Shelby is tracking down the man who raped and murdered his wife. The difficulty of locating his wife's killer, however, is compounded by the fact that he suffers from a rare, untreatable form of short-term memory loss. Although he can recall details of life before his accident, Leonard cannot remember what happened fifteen minutes ago, where he's going, or why.
Elsewhere
"The young British writer and director Christopher Nolan, who has every intention of putting us through the mill, doubles his fun by running the whole story backward."
— Anthony Lane
"It's all pretty confusing, but then again, so were many of the classic film noirs."
— Peter Rainer
The details
Streaming arrival
Who picked it
Bilal Zouheir is the founder of A Good Movie to Watch. He is based in the US and a member of the Nevada Film Critics Society. He grew up in Morocco, where he learned English from watching movies. Bilal's work with A Good Movie to Watch is focused on offering an alternative to streaming algorithms, which are often used as commercial tools by streaming services.
The story of Leonard mixes constantly with Sammy history, a old client that suffers from the same condition. The movie runs backwards but have a really impressive organization and logical thinking. The end it’s not what you were waiting for, leaving the viewer desperately trying to pick up all the facts and coming to logical outcome. The story itself it’s not the most important part of the movie, but the way the director narrate it that is memorable.