Memento (2000)

All Critics (156) | Top Critics (38) | Fresh (154) | Rotten (12) | DVD (58)

More a puzzle than a meaningful story, it reminds me of how Edmund Wilson compared reading a mystery to eagerly unpacking a box of excelsior, only to find a few rusty nails at the bottom.

September 27, 2011 Full Review | Comments (14)

Jonathan Rosenbaum

Chicago Reader

Top Critic

Memento is one of those jigsaw puzzles whose pieces snap together more tightly with each viewing. Fueling it all is a performance by Guy Pearce that's as indelible as the tattoo ink covering his body.

February 17, 2011 Full Review | Comment (1)

Chris Nashawaty

Entertainment Weekly

Top Critic

I am neither upset nor disturbed by Memento , only vaguely dissatisfied. I simply don't buy Jonathan Nolan's thesis that audiences know all the tropes and tricks of crime thrillers backward and forward.

April 27, 2007 Full Review | Comments (11)

Andrew Sarris

New York Observer

Top Critic

There's grade A work from all concerned, especially Pearce, but in the end this is Nolan's film. And he delivers, with a vengeance.

February 9, 2006 Full Review

Derek Adams

Time Out

Top Critic

It's all pretty confusing, but then again, so were many of the classic film noirs.

September 26, 2002 Full Review | Comment (1)

Peter Rainer

New York Magazine

Top Critic

Christopher Nolan's extraordinary film is a brainteaser and a heartbreaker.

September 7, 2001 Full Review

Eleanor Ringel Gillespie

Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Top Critic

treats the audience with respect without being overly pretentious

January 2, 2013 Full Review

John A. Nesbit

Old School Reviews

Occasionally the film trips over its own complexity, but it's tense, devious and evokes Leonard's disorientation quite brilliantly. Operation of heavy machinery after watching is a definite no-no.

September 27, 2011 Full Review

Film4

A brilliantly told mindbender, a perfect example of how the right approach to storytelling can elevate a film

March 18, 2011 Full Review

Mike Scott

Times-Picayune

To believe in the objectivity of the image and the word is to be lead into darkness in Christopher Nolan's extraordinary meta-noir.

March 3, 2011 Full Review

Chris Cabin

Slant Magazine

Nolan built a better mousetrap of a neo-noir, using the tricky gimmick of a complex, purposefully disorienting narrative. [Blu-ray]

February 22, 2011 Full Review

Peter Canavese

Groucho Reviews

Innovative movie with a mature premise.

January 1, 2011 Full Review | Comments (2)

Carly Kocurek

Common Sense Media

More than an enigmatic, jittery, occasionally funny treatise on vengeance's fruitlessness, "Memento" never abandons an emotional quandary: How can a man unable to feel time expect to heal? Leonard loses himself, as we all do, in habit and repetition.

September 19, 2010 Full Review

Nick Rogers

Suite101.com

Christopher Nolan's breakthrough feature is a terrific film noir, witty, inventive, thrilling and intriguing from the first frame to the very last.

July 16, 2010 Full Review

Emanuel Levy

EmanuelLevy.Com

Nolan's sophomore effort is a near peerless psychological thriller.

July 10, 2009 Full Review

Dan Jardine

Cinemania

"Memento" is a crime-revenge story that relies on its one big gimmick.

May 20, 2009 Full Review | Comments (42)

Cole Smithey

ColeSmithey.com

Writer-director Christopher Nolan toys with our minds as each scene ends where the previous scene began in a sort of tidal regression and progression of story and character.

August 7, 2008 Full Review

Mark Halverson

Sacramento News & Review

The film is cool, contemplative, a puzzle movie in which you see the finished puzzle right up front and then watch as it disassembles itself.

March 11, 2008 Full Review

Rob Gonsalves

eFilmCritic.com

Of all the ironies which fill the film, the most complementary may be that this is film which will not soon be forgotten.

July 14, 2007 Full Review

Joe Lozito

Big Picture Big Sound

Just when you thought film noir was dead and buried, along comes the memorably mind-bending Memento.

October 23, 2006 Full Review

Thomas Delapa

Boulder Weekly

There are plenty of questions swirling around to make this little snow globe fascinating. Even moments in the narrative that could be obvious are given an interesting twist because of the main character's condition.

September 16, 2006 Full Review

James Plath

Movie Metropolis

• 1. Leonard: OK, so what am I doing?
  2. Leonard: Oh, I'm chasing this guy.
  3. Leonard: No, he's chasing me.
  – Submitted by RAHUL B (2 months ago)
• 1. Leonard: I met Sammy through work. Insurance. I was an investigator. I'd investigate the claims to see which ones were phony. I had to see through peoples' bullshit. It was a useful experience, 'cause now it's my life.
  – Submitted by Kia M (2 months ago)
• 1. Teddy: You're not a killer, that's why you're so good at it.
  – Submitted by Kia M (2 months ago)
• 1. Leonard: These tracks are just a few days old.
  2. Teddy: What are you, Pocahontas?
  – Submitted by Kia M (2 months ago)
• 1. Leonard: I found you, you fuck.
  – Submitted by Kia M (2 months ago)
• 1. Teddy: Leonard you don't know what's going on you don't even know my name.
  2. Leonard: Teddy.
  3. Teddy: That's because you read it off a fucking picture.
  – Submitted by joseph j (4 months ago)