3. Memento
In the movie that put Christopher Nolan on the map, Memento takes on some of the usual tropes of the noir genre. There's the troubled first person narrator, not a detective per se but Leonard Shelby certainly has the chops in the field of deduction to rival Jake Gittes and Philip Marlowe. But this film also flipped the genre on its head and reinvigorated it for a new generation with its backwards narrative style. Shelby received a traumatic brain injury in the same incident that took his wife's life. Now unable to form any long-term memories, he collects information about his assaulter and wife's murderer via photographs and tattoos. As Leonard goes through time and attempts to put the pieces together, he acts as the audience's host and tour guide, talking with himself not only to re-orient to his surroundings, but to clue the audience in on what he's experiencing.