10 Greatest Murder-Mystery Films That Fooled Us All

5. Memento

Suffering from anterograde amnesia, Leonard Shelby is on a vengeful path to discover the second man responsible for his wife's rape and murder; Shelby knows there were two attackers that night - one of which he has already killed - but no one believes him.

Like pieces of a puzzle, the movie is shot in two different sequences. One is in black and white, and shows the order of events chronologically, while the other is shot in color, and shows the order of events in reverse. Christopher Nolan deliberately confuses us; he desires us to view the events as Leonard sees them - in disjointed, discontinuous images. And it works.

We can't tell up from down, left from right, and as Shelby gets closer and closer to discovering his killer, so do the color and black and white images. We, as well as Shelby, are haunted by the name "John G." - who is he and why does Shelby insist on tattooing the name on his body? The movie ends, the way it begins - with a man taking a bullet to the head and Shelby walking away from the scene.