Which Christopher Nolan film stars Guy Pearce as Leonard Shelby?

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The Christopher Nolan film starring Guy Pearce as Leonard Shelby is Memento.

Released in 2000, Memento is a neo-noir psychological thriller about Leonard, who has anterograde amnesia and cannot reliably form new long-term memories. He investigates his wife's murder using Polaroid photographs, handwritten notes and tattoos as an improvised memory system.

Nolan adapted the screenplay from a story idea developed with his brother Jonathan Nolan. Jonathan's short story, “Memento Mori,” was published after the film's release, making the movie's unusual screenplay classification a frequent trivia point.

The film is famous for its fragmented structure: colour scenes generally move backward while black-and-white scenes move forward. That design places viewers inside Leonard's uncertainty. Memento was Nolan's breakthrough feature and earned Academy Award nominations for its screenplay and editing.

Source: Wikipedia · fact-checked Aug. 2026

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