50 Essential Sci-Fi Films of the 21st Century (So Far)

Part rom-com, part hallucinatory science fiction experience, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind melds Michel Gondry’s aesthetic sensibilities and love of dream imagery with Charlie Kaufman’s complex and habitually tricksy writing.

We are invited into Joel Barish’s (Jim Carrey) life at totally the wrong time, as he has lost his true love (Kate Winslet’s Clementine Kruczynski) and is wallowing in his despair. To add insult to injury, he discovers she has had her memories of him wiped completely, meaning that even when they come face to face, she no longer knows who he is. As any loser in love would do, Joel opts to undergo the same treatment out of spite, only to decide halfway through that he doesn’t actually want to forget her and will do anything he can to hold on. What follows is a surreal journey through Joel’s memories, where his love blossoms and falls apart while he tries to hide Clementine in the corners of his mind where he hopes the procedure can’t find her.

This is the film that proves Jim Carrey is so much more than a comic, with him and Winslet selling themselves as the oddball couple, and demonstrating a profound magnetism. The sci-fi mind-wiping tech is interesting, but the way Gondry uses it to break, bend, and bleed his scenes is where it really comes into its own - and few people, Christopher Nolan included, have made dreams and memories look this convincing.