Memento (2000) on Netflix
An attack left Leonard Shelby unable to form new memories and his wife dead. He hunts her killer, whom he knows only as John G, using notes, Polaroids and tattoos.
- Netflix3.8/5
- IMDb8.4/101,459,423 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes94%
Trailer
Plot summary
Leonard Shelby was an insurance investigator. An attack on him and his wife left him with anterograde amnesia: he recalls his life before the attack but cannot keep new memories. He is hunting the man he holds responsible for his wife's death, whom he knows only as John G. Notes, Polaroid photographs and tattoos on his body stand in for the memory he lacks. During his years in insurance he assessed the claim of Sammy Jankis, another man with the same condition. Natalie, a bartender, and Teddy, a contact, each offer him help. Whenever his path crosses theirs again, their faces and their motives are new to him.
Cast
Show all 13 cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Memento (2000)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Stephen Tobolowsky, who plays the amnesiac Sammy Jankis, said he took the role because he liked the script and knew it suited him: he had suffered from amnesia himself in real life.
- For the reversed opening shot of a shell casing flying upward, the crew dropped the casing in front of the camera, then blew it out of frame and accidentally shot it backwards, so a reversed optical copy was needed. Nolan called it the height of complexity on the film.
- A week before shooting, the train company that owned the brick building chosen for the derelict interior parked dozens of carriages outside it, ruining the exterior. With the set already built, the crew moved the scene to an oil refinery near Long Beach.
- Christopher Nolan wanted Radiohead's "Paranoid Android" over the end credits but could not clear the rights, so David Bowie's "Something in the Air" was used instead.
- Because Jonathan Nolan's short story "Memento Mori" had not been published when the film came out, the Academy treated the script as original rather than adapted, and both brothers were nominated for Best Original Screenplay.
- The killer known only as "John G." was named in tribute to John Glavin, who taught Jonathan Nolan screenwriting at Georgetown University while he was finishing college there.
