The film'snon-linear narrative is presented as two different sequences of scenes interspersed during the film: a series inblack-and-white that is shown chronologically, and a series of color sequences shown in reverse order (simulating for the audience the mental state of the protagonist). The two sequences meet at the end of the film, producing one complete and cohesive narrative.[7]
Memento premiered at theVenice Film Festival on September 5, 2000, and was theatrically released in the United States on March 16, 2001. It was acclaimed by critics, who praised its nonlinear structure and themes of memory, perception, grief, and self-deception. It was also a commercial success, earning $40 million against a $9 million budget and gained acult following.Memento received many accolades, including theWaldo Salt Screenwriting Award at theSundance Film Festival, andAcademy Award nominations forBest Original Screenplay andBest Film Editing.[8] In 2017, the United StatesLibrary of Congress deemed the film "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected it for preservation in theNational Film Registry.
The film starts with aPolaroid photograph of a dead man. As the sequence plays backward, the photo reverts to its undeveloped state, entering the camera before the man is shot in the head. The film then continues, alternating betweenblack-and-white and color sequences.
The black-and-white sequences begin with Leonard Shelby, a former insurance investigator, in a motel room speaking to an unseen and unknown caller. Leonard hasanterograde amnesia and is unable to store recent memories, the result of an attack by two men. Leonard explains that he killed the attacker who raped and strangled his wife Catherine, but a second clubbed him and escaped. The police did not accept that there was a second attacker, but Leonard believes the attacker's name is "John G" or "James G". Leonard investigates using notes, Polaroid photos, and tattoos to keep track of the information he discovers. Leonard recalls Sammy Jankis, another anterograde amnesiac, from his insurance industry days. After tests confirmed Sammy's inability to learn tasks through repetition, Leonard believed that his condition was at best psychological and turned down his insurance claim. Sammy's distraught wife repeatedly asked Sammy to administer herinsulin shots for herdiabetes, hoping he would remember having recently given her a shot and avoid giving her a fatal overdose. However, Sammy administered each injection, and his wife died.
The color sequences are shown reverse-chronologically. In the story's chronology, Leonard self-directively gets a tattoo of John G'slicense plate. Finding a note in his clothes, he meets Natalie, a bartender who resents Leonard because he wears the clothes and drives the car of her boyfriend, Jimmy Grantz. After understanding Leonard's condition, she uses it to get Leonard to drive a man named Dodd out of town and offers to run the license plate as a favor through the Department of Motor Vehicle's database. Meanwhile, Leonard meets with a contact, Teddy, who helps with Dodd, but warns about Natalie. Leonard finds that he had previously annotated his Polaroid of Teddy, warning himself not to trust Teddy. Natalie provides Leonard with the driver's license for a John Edward Gammell, Teddy's full name. Confirming Leonard's information on "John G" and his warnings, Leonard drives Teddy to an abandoned building, leading to the opening where he shoots him.
In the final black-and-white sequence, prompted by the caller, Leonard meets with Teddy, an undercover officer, who has found Leonard's "John G", Jimmy, and directs Leonard to the abandoned building. When Jimmy arrives, Leonard strangles him fatally and takes a Polaroid photo of the body. As the photo develops, the black-and-white transitions to the final color sequence. Leonard swaps clothes with Jimmy, hearing him whisper "Sammy". As Leonard has only told Sammy's story to those he has met, he suddenly doubts Jimmy's role in his wife's murder. Teddy arrives and asserts that Jimmy was John G, but when Leonard is undeterred, Teddy reveals that he helped him kill the real attacker a year ago, and Teddy has been using Leonard ever since. Teddy points out that since the name "John G" is common, Leonard will cyclically forget and begin his search again and that even Teddy himself has a "John G" name. Further, Teddy reveals that Sammy's story is Leonard's own story, a memory Leonard has repressed to escape feelings of guilt.
After hearing Teddy confess all of this, Leonard burns the photograph of the dead Jimmy and the photo of himself right after killing the real attacker a year ago, pointing to his chest where he would get a tattoo to document his successful revenge. In amonologue, Leonard explains that he is willing to lie to himself in order to get justice against anyone who has wronged him. He, therefore, targets Teddy by ordering a tattoo of Teddy's license plate number and writing a note to himself that Teddy is not to be trusted so that he will mistake Teddy for John G and kill him. Leonard drives off in Jimmy's car, confident that, despite this lie, he will retain enough awareness of the world to know that his actions have consequences.
The film is structured with twotimelines: color sequences are alternated with black-and-white sequences. The latter are put together in chronological order. The color ones areordered in reverse. Chronologically, the black-and-white sequences come first, the color sequences come next.
Using the numbering scheme suggested by Andy Klein—who took numbers from 1 to 22 for the black-and-white sequences and letters A–V for the color ones in his article forSalon magazine[7]—the plotting of the film as presented is: Opening Credits (shown "backward"), 1, V, 2, U, 3, T, 4, S, ..., 22/A, Credits.
There is a smooth transition from the black-and-white sequence 22 to color sequence A, which occurs during the development of a Polaroid photograph.
The chronological order of the story can be viewed as a "hidden feature" on the 2-Disc Limited EditionRegion 1DVD[9] and the 3-Disc special EditionRegion 2 DVD.[10] In this special feature, the chapters of the film are put together into the chronological order and is shown: Ending Credits (run in reverse), 1, 2, 3, ..., 22/A, B, ..., V, then the opening title runs "backward" to what was shown (the opening title sequence is run in reverse during the actual film, so it is shown forward in this version).
Stefano Ghislotti wrote an article inFilm Anthology[11] which discusses how Nolan provides the viewer with the clues necessary to decode the plot as we watch and help us understand the chronology. The color sequences include a brief overlap to help clue the audience into the fact that they are being presented in reverse order. The purpose of the fragmented reverse sequencing is to force the audience into a sympathetic experience of Leonard's defective ability to create new long-term memories, where prior events are not recalled, since the audience has yet to see them.
In July 1996, brothersChristopher andJonathan Nolan took a cross-country road trip fromChicago toLos Angeles, as Christopher was relocating to theWest Coast. During the drive, Jonathanpitched the story for the film to his brother, who responded enthusiastically to the idea.[12] After they arrived in Los Angeles, Jonathan left forWashington, D.C., to finish college atGeorgetown University. The mysterious killer character known only as "John G." was actually an homage to Jonathan's Georgetown University screenwriting professor at the time, John Glavin.[13] Christopher repeatedly asked Jonathan to send him a first draft, and after a few months, Jonathan complied.[14] Two months later, Christopher came up with the idea to tell the film backwards, and began to work on the screenplay. Jonathan wrote the short story simultaneously, and the brothers continued to correspond, sending each other subsequent revisions of their respective works.[15] Christopher initially wrote the script as a linear story, and then would "go back and reorder it the way it is on screen to check the logic of it."[16] Nolan was also influenced by the short story "Funes the Memorious" byJorge Luis Borges. "I thinkMemento is a strange cousin to 'Funes the Memorious'—about a man who remembers everything, who can't forget anything. It's a bit of an inversion of that."[17]
Jonathan's short story, titled "Memento Mori", is radically different from Christopher's film, although it maintains the same essential elements. In Jonathan's version, Leonard is instead named Earl and is a patient at amental institution.[18][19] As in the film, his wife was killed by an anonymous man, and during the attack on his wife, Earl lost his ability to create new long-term memories. Like Leonard, Earl leaves notes to himself and has tattoos with information about the killer. However, in the short story, Earl convinces himself through his own written notes to escape the mental institution and murder his wife's killer. Unlike the film, there is no ambiguity that Earl finds and kills the anonymous man.[19]
In July 1997, Christopher Nolan's girlfriend (later wife)Emma Thomas showed his screenplay toAaron Ryder, an executive forNewmarket Films. Ryder said the script was, "perhaps the most innovative script I had ever seen",[20] and soon after, it was optioned by Newmarket and given a budget of $4.5 million.[5] Pre-production lasted seven weeks, during which the main shooting location changed fromMontreal, Quebec toLos Angeles, California, to create a more realistic andnoirish atmosphere for the film.[21]
Brad Pitt was initially slated to play Leonard. Pitt was interested in the part, but passed due to scheduling conflicts.[22][23] Other considered actors includedCharlie Sheen,Alec Baldwin,Aaron Eckhart (who would later work with Nolan onThe Dark Knight), andThomas Jane, but the role went toGuy Pearce, who impressed Nolan the most. Pearce was chosen partly for his "lack of celebrity" (after Pitt passed, they "decided to eschew the pursuit ofA-list stars and make the film for less money by using an affordable quality actor") and his enthusiasm for the role, evidenced by a personal phone call Pearce made to Nolan to discuss the part.[24][25][26]
After being impressed byCarrie-Anne Moss's performance asTrinity in the 1999science fiction filmThe Matrix, Jennifer Todd suggested her for the part of Natalie. WhileMary McCormack lobbied for the role, Nolan decided to cast Moss as Natalie, saying, "She added an enormous amount to the role of Natalie that wasn't on the page".[27] For the corrupt police officer Teddy, "comedianDenis Leary was mentioned, though proved unavailable".[28] Moss suggested her co-star fromThe Matrix,Joe Pantoliano.[29] Although there was a concern that Pantoliano might be too villainous for the part, he was still cast and Nolan said he was surprised by the actor's subtlety in his performance.[28]
The rest of the film's characters were quickly cast after the three main leads were established.Stephen Tobolowsky andHarriet Sansom Harris play Sammy Jankis and his wife, respectively.Mark Boone Junior landed the role of Burt, the motel clerk, because Jennifer Todd liked his "look and attitude" for the part (as a result he has re-appeared in minor roles in other productions by Nolan).[30] Tobolowsky said that he took the role of Sammy Jankis as he liked the script and also he knew the role was perfect for him as he had suffered from amnesia in real life.[31]
Filming took place from September 7 to October 8, 1999,[32] a 25-day shooting schedule. Pearce was on set every day during filming, although all three principal actors (including Pantoliano and Moss) performed together only on the first day, shooting exterior sequences outside Natalie's house. All of Moss' scenes were completed in the first week,[33] including follow-up scenes at Natalie's home, Ferdy's bar, and the restaurant where she meets Leonard for the final time.
Pantoliano returned to the set late in the second week to continue filming his scenes. On September 25, the crew shot the opening scene in which Leonard kills Teddy. Although the scene is in reverse motion, Nolan used forward-played sounds.[34] For a shot of a shell casing flying upwards, the shell had to be dropped in front of the camera in forward motion, but it constantly rolled out of frame. Nolan was forced to blow the casing out of frame instead, but in the confusion, the crew shot it backwards.[34] They then had to make an optical (a copy of the shot) and reverse the shot to make it go forward again. "That was the height of complexity in terms of the film", Nolan said. "An optical to make a backwards running shot forwards, and the forwards shot is a simulation of a backwards shot."[35]
The next day, on September 26, Larry Holden returned to shoot the sequence where Leonard attacks Jimmy.[36] After filming was completed five days later, Pearce'svoice-overs were recorded. For the black-and-white scenes, Pearce was given free rein to improvise his narrative, allowing for a documentary feel.[35]
The Travel Inn inTujunga, California, was repainted and used as the interior of Leonard's and Dodd's motel rooms and the exterior of the film's Discount Inn. Scenes in Sammy Jankis' house were shot in a suburban home close toPasadena, while Natalie's house was located inBurbank.[37] The crew planned to shoot the derelict building set (where Leonard kills Teddy and Jimmy) in a Spanish-styled brick building owned by a train company. However, one week before shooting began, the company placed several dozen train carriages outside the building, making the exterior unfilmable. Since the interior of the building had already been built as a set, a new location had to be found. An oil refinery nearLong Beach was used instead, and the scene where Leonard burns his wife's possessions was filmed on the other side of the refinery.[38]
David Julyan composed the film'ssynthesized score. Julyan acknowledges several synthesized soundtracks that inspired him, such asVangelis'sBlade Runner andHans Zimmer'sThe Thin Red Line.[39] While composing the score, Julyan created different, distinct sounds to differentiate between the color and black-and-white scenes: "brooding and classical" themes in the former, and "oppressive and rumbly noise" in the latter.[40] Since he describes the entire score as "Leonard's theme", Julyan says, "The emotion I was aiming at with my music was yearning and loss. But a sense of loss you feel but at the same time you don't know what it is you have lost, a sense of being adrift."[41]
Initially, Nolan wanted to useRadiohead's "Paranoid Android" during the end credits, but he was unable to secure the rights.[42] Instead,David Bowie's "Something in the Air" is used, although another of Radiohead's songs, an extended version of "Treefingers", is included on the film's soundtrack.[43]
Finding American distributors proved more troublesome.Memento was screened for various studio heads (includingMiramax chiefHarvey Weinstein) in March 2000. Although most of the executives loved the film and praised Nolan's talent, all passed on distributing the picture, believing it was too confusing and would not attract a large audience.[46] After famedindependent film directorSteven Soderbergh saw the film and learned it was not being distributed, he championed the film in interviews and public events,[47] giving it even more publicity, although he did not secure a distributor. Newmarket, in a financially risky move, decided to distribute the film itself.[46]
After the first few weeks of distribution,Memento had reached more than 500 theaters and earned a domestic total of $25 million in its box-office run. The film's success was surprising to those who passed on the film, so much so that Weinstein realized his mistake and tried to buy the film from Newmarket.[48]
Jonathan Nolan designed the film's official website. As with the marketing strategy ofThe Blair Witch Project, the website was intended to provide further clues and hints to introduce the story, while not providing any concrete information.[49] After a short intro on the website, the viewer is shown a newspaper clipping detailing Leonard's murder of Teddy. Clicking on highlighted words in the article leads to more material describing the film, including Leonard's notes and photographs as well as police reports.[50] The filmmakers employed another tactic by sending out Polaroid pictures to random people, depicting a bloody and shirtless Leonard pointing at an unmarked spot on his chest.[51] Since Newmarket distributed the film themselves, Christopher Nolan edited the film's trailers himself.[51] Sold to inexpensivecable channels likeBravo andA&E, and websites such asYahoo andMSN, the trailers were key to the film gaining widespread public notice.
The Special Edition DVD's menus are arranged as items in apsychological test. Highlighting certain objects leads to special features.
Memento was released onDVD andVHS in the United States and Canada on September 4, 2001, and in the United Kingdom on January 14, 2002. The UK edition contains a hidden feature that allows the viewer to watch the film in chronological order. The Canadian version does not have this feature but the film chapters are set up to do this manually or through DVD programming. The original US release does not have the chronological feature nor are the chapters set up correctly to do it.
The film was later re-released in a limited edition DVD that features an audio commentary by Christopher Nolan, with four different endings; the original short story by Jonathan Nolan on which the film was based; and an episode of theSundance Channel seriesAnatomy of a Scene documenting the making of the film.[52] The limited edition DVD also contains a hidden feature that allows the viewer to watch the film in chronological order.[52]
The Limited Edition DVD is packaged to look like Leonard's case file from a mental institution, with notes scribbled by "doctors" and Leonard on the inside.[52] The DVD menus are designed as a series ofpsychological tests; the viewer has to choose certain words, objects, and multiple choice answers to play the movie or access special features.[52] Leonard's "notes" on the DVD case offer clues to navigating the DVD. Some of the "materials" seem designed to induce paranoia and uncertainty (a picture of one person whispering to another is captioned, "They know what you did"), alluding to Shelby's mental state.
Memento was re-released in the UK on a 3-disc Special Edition DVD on December 27, 2004. This release contains all the special features that are on the two US releases in one package plus a couple of new interviews. The menus appear as tattoos on Leonard's body and are more straightforward than the US 2-disc limited edition DVD.
Memento was released onBlu-ray on August 15, 2006. This release lacks the special features contained on the Limited Edition DVD, but does include the audio commentary by director Christopher Nolan. The single-layer disc features anMPEG-21080p transfer andPCM 5.1 surround audio. The film was also released oniTunes as adigital download.
The film was re-released on the Blu-ray and DVD in the US on February 22, 2011, by Lionsgate following the 10th anniversary of the film. Both the Blu-ray and DVD have a new transfer that was also shown in theaters. Aside from the transfer, the Blu-ray contains a new special featurette by Nolan on the film's legacy.[53]
Memento was a box office success. In the United States, during its opening weekend, it was released in only 11 theaters, but by week 11 it was distributed to more than 500 theaters.[54] It grossed over $25 million in North America and $14 million in other countries, combining for a total worldwide gross of $40 million.[4][3] During its theatrical run, it did not place higher than eighth in the list of highest-grossing movies for a single weekend.[54]
Memento was met with critical acclaim. On review aggregatorRotten Tomatoes, the film received an approval rating of 93% based on 184 reviews, with an average rating of 8.8/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Christopher Nolan skillfully guides the audience throughMemento's fractured narrative, seeping his film in existential dread."[55] OnMetacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 83 out of 100 based on 34 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[56]
Film criticJames Berardinelli gave the film four out of four stars, ranking it number one on his year-end Top Ten list and number sixty-three on his All-Time Top 100 films.[57][58] In his review, he called it an "endlessly fascinating, wonderfully open-ended motion picture [that] will be remembered by many who see it as one of the best films of the year".[59] Berardinelli praised the film's backwards narrative, saying that "what really distinguishes this film is its brilliant, innovative structure", and noted that Guy Pearce gives an "astounding ... tight, and thoroughly convincing performance".[59] In 2009, Berardinelli choseMemento as his #3 best movie of the decade. William Arnold of theSeattle Post-Intelligencer writes thatMemento is a "delicious one-time treat", and emphasizes that director Christopher Nolan "not only makesMemento work as a non-linear puzzle film, but as a tense, atmospheric thriller".[60] Rob Blackwelder noted that "Nolan has a crackerjack command over the intricacies of this story. He makes every single element of the film a clue to the larger picture ... as the story edges back toward the origins of [Leonard's] quest".[61]
Not all critics were impressed with the film's structure. Marjorie Baumgarten wrote, "In forward progression, the narrative would garner little interest, thus making the reverse storytelling a filmmaker's conceit."[62] Sean Burns of thePhiladelphia Weekly commented that "For all its formal wizardry,Memento is ultimately an ice-cold feat of intellectual gamesmanship. Once the visceral thrill of the puzzle structure begins to wear off, there's nothing left to hang onto. The film itself fades like one of Leonard's temporary memories."[63] WhileRoger Ebert gave the film a favorable three out of four stars, he did not think it warranted multiple viewings. After watchingMemento twice, he concluded that "Greater understanding helped on the plot level, but didn't enrich the viewing experience. Confusion is the state we are intended to be in."[64]Jonathan Rosenbaum disliked the film, and commented in his review ofEternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind thatMemento is a "gimmicky and unpoetic counterfeit" ofAlain Resnais's 1968 filmJe t'aime, je t'aime.[65]
Many medical experts have citedMemento as featuring one of the most realistic and accurate depictions ofanterograde amnesia.Caltech neuroscientistChristof Koch calledMemento "the most accurate portrayal of the different memory systems in the popular media",[71] while physician Esther M. Sternberg, Director of the Integrative Neural Immune Program at theNational Institute of Mental Health, identified the film as "close to a perfect exploration of the neurobiology of memory."[72]
Sternberg concludes:
This thought-provoking thriller is the kind of movie that keeps reverberating in the viewer's mind, and each iteration makes one examine preconceived notions in a different light.Memento is a movie for anyone interested in the workings of memory and, indeed, in what it is that makes our own reality.
The overwhelming majority of amnesic characters in films bear little relation to anyneurological orpsychiatric realities of memory loss. Apparently inspired partly by the neuropsychological studies of the famous patientHM (who developed severe anterograde memory impairment afterneurosurgery to control hisepileptic seizures) and thetemporal lobe amnesic syndrome, the film documents the difficulties faced by Leonard, who develops a severe anterograde amnesia after an attack in which his wife is killed. Unlike in most films in this genre, this amnesic character retains his identity, has little retrograde amnesia, and shows several of the severe everyday memory difficulties associated with the disorder. The fragmented, almost mosaic quality to the sequence of scenes in the film also reflects the 'perpetual present' nature of the syndrome.[73]
By going backward in time, Memento draws the real mystery from viewers learning the first step in Leonard's investigation, the origins of his self-deception. Yes, we also learn what really happened to his wife, what happened to him, and what happened to his killer, and we understand more about Teddy's complicated role in using Leonard for his own purposes. But the most telling revelation, at the end of Memento, isn't limited to his condition: Leonard lies to himself. And when he isn't outright lying to himself, he's guilty of confirmation bias, accepting only the facts that affirm his pre-cooked conclusions, and tossing out all the rest.
Since its release,Memento has been a widely noted topic of film discussion, both for its unique narrative structure and themes. Those searching for explanations of the film's plot have either resorted to online forums, message boards or scholarly material, or have ignored the film's official website and forums to maintain their own personal hypotheses.[75] On the same topic of self-deception, James Mooney of filmandphilosophy.com notes that the film suggests how "our memories deceive us, or rather, sometimes we deceive ourselves by 'choosing' to forget or by manipulating our memories of past events."[76] This is much in line with a psychological analysis of the film, specifically the act ofconfabulation. Leonard's use of confabulation poses the dilemma, as explained bySUNY Downstate Medical Center Professor John Kubie forBrainFacts.org: "InMemento we are faced with the question of how much of Leonard's memory of the past is real and how much constructed from beliefs and wishes."[77]
In an interview with Chuck Stephens forFilmmaker in 2001, Nolan also stated:
The most interesting part of that for me is that audiences seem very unwilling to believe the stuff that Teddy [Pantoliano] says at the end and yet why? I think it's because people have spent the entire film looking at Leonard's photograph of Teddy, with the caption: "Don't believe his lies." That image really stays in people's heads, and they still prefer to trust that image even after we make it very clear that Leonard's visual recollection is completely questionable. It was quite surprising, and it wasn't planned. What was always planned was that we don't ever step completely outside Leonard's head, and that we keep the audience in that interpretive mode of trying to analyze what they want to believe or not. For me, the crux of the movie is that the one guy who might actually be the authority on the truth of what happened is played by Joe Pantoliano ... who is so untrustworthy, especially given the baggage he carries in from his other movies: he's already seen by audiences as this character actor who's always unreliable. I find it very frightening, really, the level of uncertainty and malevolence Joe brings to the film.[79]
Because Jonathan Nolan's short story was not published before the film was released, it was nominated for Original Screenplay instead ofAdapted Screenplay and both Christopher and Jonathan received a nomination.
This section needs to beupdated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.(December 2025)
AMBI Pictures announced in November 2015 that it plans to remakeMemento, one of several film rights that AMBI acquired from its acquisition of Exclusive Media.Monika Bacardi, an executive for AMBI Pictures, stated that they plan to "stay true to Christopher Nolan's vision and deliver a memorable movie that is every bit as edgy, iconic and award-worthy as the original".[114] As of April 2018, the filmwas still in the works.[115]
^Kubie, John (August 27, 2013)."Memento and Personal Identity".blog.brainfacts.org. Society for Neuroscience. Archived fromthe original on September 12, 2017. RetrievedJune 15, 2015.
