30 Memory Loss Movies To Alter Your Realities!

Chelsea Wrots
Onedio Member
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Imagine you lose your memory and don’t remember anything about your past. You try to find your identity. Your beloved ones are now strangers. You were maybe a bad person in your past, but now it's the opposite. The words 'real' and 'unreal' have lost their meaning. When thinking about all these, the inevitable question comes up, 'How significant is our memory in making us who we are?' Here are the mind-bending movies that uniquely study this topic..  

Movies are ranked based on IMDb ratings and all the storylines are retrieved from IMDb’s website. Enjoy..

30. Unknown (2006)

IMDb: 6.5

Five men wake up in a locked-down warehouse with no memory of who they are. They are forced to figure out who is good and who is bad to stay alive.

29. Pandorum (2009)

IMDb: 6.8

Two crew members are stranded on a spacecraft and quickly - and horrifically - realize they are not alone. Two astronauts awaken in a hyper-sleep chamber aboard a seemingly abandoned spacecraft. It's pitch black, they are disoriented, and the only sound is a low rumble and creak from the belly of the ship. They can't remember anything: Who are they? What is their mission? With Lt. Payton staying behind to guide him via radio transmitter, Cpl. Bower ventures deep into the ship and begins to uncover a terrifying reality. Slowly the spacecraft's shocking, deadly secrets are revealed...and the astronauts find their own survival is more important than they could ever have imagined.

28. The Vow (2012)

IMDb: 6.8

Leo and Paige are a couple who just got married. After an accident, Paige is left unconscious, and when she awakes she doesn't remember Leo. Her parents, whom she hasn't seen since she and Leo got together, come and visit her. She can't believe that she hasn't seen them for such a long time. Leo wants to bring her home with him but her parents want her to go with them. She goes with Leo but when she doesn't recognize anything, she goes to her parents. And she wonders why did she cut off contact with her family. She also runs into her ex and wonders why they broke up. Leo tries to win her back by courting her again.

27. 50 First Dates (2004)

IMDb: 6.8

Henry Roth lives in a Hawaiian paradise with the company of endless women with no strings attached. This is until he meets Lucy Whitmore. Both Henry and Lucy enjoy the company of each other and feel the start of a serious relationship occurring. Approaching Lucy the next day, Henry is confused when Lucy fails to recognize him. This is the moment Henry discovers that Lucy actually suffers from short term memory loss and can't remember each individual day. Henry won't let this stop him and is prepared to make her fall in love with him all over again, each and every day.

26. Spider (2002)

IMDb: 6.9

Dennis Clegg is in his thirties and lives in a halfway house for the mentally ill in London. Dennis, nicknamed 'Spider' by his mother has been institutionalized with acute schizophrenia for some 20 years. He has never truly recovered, however, and as the story progresses we vicariously experience his increasingly fragile grip on reality.

25. Vanilla Sky (2001)

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IMDb: 6.9

Incarcerated and charged with murder, David Aames Jr. is telling the story of how he got to where he is to McCabe, the police psychologist. That story includes: being the 51% shareholder of a major publishing firm, which he inherited from his long deceased parents; the firm's board, appointed by David Aames Sr., being the 49% shareholders who would probably like to see him gone as they see him as being too irresponsible and immature to run the company; his best bro friendship with author, Brian Shelby; his 'friends with benefits' relationship with Julie Gianni, who saw their relationship in a slightly different light; his budding romance with Sofia Serrano, who Brian brought to David's party as his own date and who Brian saw as his own possible life mate; and being in an accident which disfigured his face and killed the person who caused the accident. But as the story proceeds, David isn't sure what is real and what is a dream/nightmare as many facets of the story are incompatible to be all real. The mysterious man in the restaurant may be able to shed some light on David's confusion.

24. Trance (2013)

IMDb: 7.0

A fine art auctioneer mixed up with a gang joins forces with a hypnotherapist to recover a lost painting. As boundaries between desire, reality and hypnotic suggestion begin to blur the stakes rise faster than anyone could have anticipated.

23. The Jacket (2005)

IMDb: 7.1

The film centers on a wounded Gulf war veteran who returns to his native Vermont suffering from bouts of amnesia. He is hitching and gets picked up by a stranger, things go pear shaped when a cop pulls them over and is murdered by the stranger. The vet. is wrongly accused of killing the cop and lands up in an asylum. A quack doctor prescribes a course of experimental therapy, restraining him in a heavy duty straight jacket-like device, and locks him away in a body drawer of the basement morgue. During course of his treatment he gets flashbacks and visions of his future, where he can foresee he is to die in four days time. The catch is he doesn't know how. Thus commences the classic race against time.

22. Ghajini (2008)

IMDb: 7.3

Medical student, Sunita, is driven by curiosity to study the case of Sanjay Singhania, who is afflicted with short-term memory loss. She runs into him, befriends him, and finds out that he is out to kill a seemingly benevolent citizen, Ghajini Dharmatma. After warning the latter of the impending danger, she subsequently comes across a number of diaries written by Sanjay and attempts to put together a jigsaw puzzle as to how a successful and wealthy businessman became a crazed recluse, who re-lives his past through tattoos on his body, notes and Polaroid photographs on the wall of his Hiranandani Complex flat, and his sole obsession of carrying out his deadly mission - little knowing that Ghajini and his goons are out to erase every bit of evidence he has gathered and thus ensure that he ends up remembering nothing.

21. The English Patient (1996)

IMDb: 7.4

Beginning in the 1930's, 'The English Patient' tells the story of Count Almásy who is a Hungarian map maker employed by the Royal Geographical Society to chart the vast expanses of the Sahara Desert along with several other prominent explorers. As World War II unfolds, Almásy enters into a world of love, betrayal, and politics that is later revealed in a series of flashbacks while Almásy is on his death bed after being horribly burned in a plane crash.

20. Still Alice (2014)

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IMDb: 7.5

Alice Howland is a renowned linguistics professor happily married with three grown children. All that begins to change when she strangely starts to forget words and then more. When her doctor diagnoses her with Early-onset Alzheimer's Disease, Alice and her family's lives face a harrowing challenge as this terminal degenerative neurological ailment slowly progresses to an inevitable conclusion they all dread. Along the way, Alice struggles to not only to fight the inner decay, but to make the most of her remaining time to find the love and peace to make simply living worthwhile.

19. Total Recall (1990)

IMDb: 7.5

Douglas Quaid is haunted by a recurring dream about a journey to Mars. He hopes to find out more about this dream and buys a holiday at Rekall Inc. where they sell implanted memories. But something goes wrong with the memory implantation and he remembers being a secret agent fighting against the evil Mars administrator Cohaagen. Now the story really begins and it's a rollercoaster ride until the massive end of the movie.

18. Source Code (2011)

IMDb: 7.5

Army Captain Colter Stevens finds himself working on a special program where his consciousness can be inserted into another human being. The only catch is can only be there for 8 minutes at any given time. That morning, a bomb exploded on a commuter train just outside Chicago. He occupies the body of teacher going to work on that train and is confused as to what he is doing or why he is there as his last memory is of flying his helicopter on a combat mission in Afghanistan. Those in charge of the program explain to him that there is a bomb on the train that must locate it. More importantly, he must identify the bomber as another bombing is expected later that day. He is also told however that he cannot change the past and can only gather information. As he develops a liking for his traveling companion Christina, he sets out to test that theory.

17. Away from Her (2006)

IMDb: 7.6

Fiona and Grant are an Ontario couple who have been married for over 40 years. Now, in the oncoming twilight of their years, they are forced to face the fact that Fiona's 'forgetfulness' actually is Alzheimer's Disease. After Fiona wanders away and is found after being lost, they agree she must go into a nursing home. For the first time in the five decades their relationship has spanned, they are forced to undergo a long-time separation since the nursing home has a 'no-visitors' policy for the first 30 days of a patient's stay, so they can adjust to their new surroundings. When Grant visits Fiona after the orientation period, he is devastated to find out that not only has she seemingly forgotten him, Fiona has transferred her affections to another man. The other man is Aubrey, a wheelchair bound mute patient at the nursing home. As the distance between husband and wife grows, Grant must draw upon his love for Fiona to perform an act of self-sacrifice in order to ensure her happiness.

16. Spellbound (1945)

IMDb: 7.7

The head of the Green Manors mental asylum Dr. Murchison is retiring to be replaced by Dr. Edwardes, a famous psychiatrist. Edwardes arrives and is immediately attracted to the beautiful but cold Dr. Constance Petersen. However, it soon becomes apparent that Dr. Edwardes is in fact a paranoid amnesiac impostor. He goes on the run with Constance who tries to help his condition and solve the mystery of what happened to the real Dr. Edwardes.

15. Lost Highway (1997)

IMDb: 7.7

Fred Madison, a saxophonist, is accused under mysterious circumstances of murdering his wife Renee. On death row, he inexplicably morphs into a young man named Pete Dayton, leading a completely different life. When Pete is released, his and Fred's paths begin to cross in a surreal, suspenseful web of intrigue, orchestrated by a shady gangster boss named Dick Laurent.

14. Dark City (1998)

IMDb: 7.7

John Murdoch awakens alone in a strange hotel to find that he has lost his memory and is wanted for a series of brutal and bizarre murders. While trying to piece together his past, he stumbles upon a fiendish underworld controlled by a group of beings known as The Strangers who possess the ability to put people to sleep and alter the city and its inhabitants. Now Murdoch must find a way to stop them before they take control of his mind and destroy him.

13. The Machinist (2004)

IMDb: 7.7

Trevor Reznik is a lathe-operator who suffers from insomnia and hasn't slept in a year. Slowly, he begins to doubt his sanity as increasingly bizarre things start happening at work and at home. Haunted by a deformed co-worker who no one seems to think exists, and an ongoing stream of indecipherable Post-It notes he keeps finding on his fridge, he attempts to investigate what appears to be a mysterious plot against him and, in the process, embroils two women in his madness.

12. The Butterfly Effect (2004)

IMDb: 7.7

Evan Treborn grows up in a small town with his single, working mother and his friends. He suffers from memory blackouts where he suddenly finds himself somewhere else, confused. Evan's friends and mother hardly believe him, thinking he makes it up just to get out of trouble. As Evan grows up he has fewer of these blackouts until he seems to have recovered. Since the age of seven he has written a diary of his blackout moments so he can remember what happens. One day at college he starts to read one of his old diaries, and suddenly a flashback hits him like a brick!

11. Open Your Eyes- Abre los ojos (1997)

IMDb: 7.8

A once handsome playboy, César finds himself in a mental facility and he can't remember why. All he can remember is meeting the love of his life for one day, and then getting into a car accident which left his face horribly disfigured. But the pain of becoming physically undesirable may help him to find the truth.

10. The Hangover (2009)

IMDb: 7.8

Three friends - Doug Billings, Stu Price, and Phil Wenneck head to Las Vegas for a promising epic bachelor party. They take along Alan Garner, Doug's fiancée's unhinged brother - along for the ride. What happens in the next 24 hours they will never forget - or remember. Alan, Stu, and Phil all wake up in a luxury villa at Caesar's Palace - to find Doug, the guest of honor - missing. They also find a chicken, a tiger, a random baby, a missing tooth, and a parking stub. As they put together the pieces of the night before they soon realize that there is more to this story than once thought. And did Stu get married to a stripper? And where is Doug?

9. The Notebook (2004)

IMDb: 7.9

The movie focuses on an old man reading a story to an old woman in a nursing home. The story he reads follows two young lovers named Allie Hamilton and Noah Calhoun, who meet one evening at a carnival. But they are separated by Allie's parents who disapprove of Noah's unwealthy family, and move Allie away. After waiting for Noah to write her for several years, Allie meets and gets engaged to a handsome young soldier named Lon. Allie, then, with her love for Noah still alive, stops by Noah's 200-year-old home that he restored for her, 'to see if he's okay'. It is evident that they still have feelings for each other, and Allie has to choose between her fiancé and her first love.

8. Hiroshima mon amour (1959)

IMDb: 8.0

A French woman and a Japanese man have an affair while she is in Japan making a film about peace and the impact of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, The man, an architect, lost his family in the bombing. She recalls her lover during the war, a 23 year-old German soldier who later died. Despite the time they spend together, her attachment appears minimal and they go forward into the future.

7. The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

IMDb: 8.0

Major Ben Marco (Frank Sinatra) is an intelligence officer in the U.S. Army. He served valiantly as a captain in the Korean war and his Sergeant, Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey), even won the Medal of Honor. Marco has a major problem however: he has a recurring nightmare, one where two members of his squad are killed by Shaw. He's put on indefinite sick leave and visits Shaw in New York. Shaw for his part has established himself well, despite the misgivings of his domineering mother, Mrs. Eleanor Shaw Iselin (Angela Lansbury). She is a red-baiter, accusing anyone who disagrees with her right-wing reactionary views of being a Communist. Raymond hates her, not only for how she's treated him but equally because of his step-father, the ineffectual U.S. Senator John Iselin (James Gregory), who is intent on seeking higher office. When Marco learns that others in his Korean War unit have nightmares similar to his own, he realizes that something happened to all of them in Korea and that Raymond Shaw is the focal point.

6. Mulholland Dr. (2001)

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IMDb: 8.0

A bright-eyed young actress travels to Hollywood, only to be ensnared in a dark conspiracy involving a woman who was nearly murdered, and now has amnesia because of a car crash. Eventually, both women are pulled into a psychotic illusion involving a dangerous blue box, a director named Adam Kesher, and the mysterious night club Silencio.

5. The Bourne Series (2002) (2004) (2007)

IMDb: 7.9 | IMDb: 7.8 | IMDb: 8.0

Based very loosely on Robert Ludlum's novel, the Bourne Identity is the story of a man whose wounded body is discovered by fishermen who nurse him back to health. He can remember nothing and begins to try to rebuild his memory based on clues such as a Swiss bank account, the number of which is implanted in his hip. He soon realizes that he is being hunted and takes off with Marie on a search to find out who he is - and why he is being hunted.

4. Paris, Texas (1984)

IMDb: 8.1

A man wanders out of the desert after a four year absence. His brother finds him, and together they return to L.A. to reunite the man with his young son. Soon after, he and the boy set out to locate the mother of the child, who left shortly after the man disappeared.

3. A Moment to Remember (2004)

IMDb: 8.3

A Korean love story about a young couple's enduring love, which is tested when 27 year old Sun-jin is diagnosed with a rare form of Alzheimer's disease.

2. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

IMDb: 8.4

A man, Joel Barish, heartbroken that his girlfriend Clementine underwent a procedure to erase him from her memory, decides to do the same. However, as he watches his memories of her fade away, he realizes that he still loves her, and may be too late to correct his mistake.

1. Memento (2000)

IMDb: 8.5

Memento chronicles two separate stories of Leonard, an ex-insurance investigator who can no longer build new memories, as he attempts to find the murderer of his wife, which is the last thing he remembers. One story line moves forward in time while the other tells the story backwards revealing more each time.