Memento

This dazzling, highly original "anti-thriller" has a complex, jumbled narrative that moves backwards in time. Thus we begin with the climactic murder then regress through the events that led up to it. Matters are complicated by the fact that the protagonist of the story (Guy Pearce) suffers from a rare form of amnesia, leaving him with no short-term memory. The mystery requires a lot of concentration, but the stunning final scene is ample reward. Not just an indulgence, the ingenious structure makes the point that memory, although unreliable, is what we depend upon for our sense of reality. The film announced a brilliantly individual talent in Christopher Nolan, who went on to direct the Batman films starring Christian Bale, as well as Inception, Dunkirk and Tenet.