Memento Is An Early And High-Quality Ambitious Effort From Christopher Nolan

In March of 2001, Christopher Nolan's second movie (following his low-budget 1999 effort Following which received barely a theatrical release domestically), Memento, made its way to movie theaters. We all know his name today, making him one of the few modern day filmmakers to have real cache as a name, but back then he was just another unknown indie filmmaker looking to get people to give his small-scale thriller with an unorthodox narrative structure a look-see. Though he'd grow in scope in the years to come, numerous traits that would be heavily associated with this auteur can be found in Memento while the high level of quality found in many of his subsequent works is also very much here.

Red Planet Is The Most Boring Movie Ever Made About Astronauts Evading A Robot On Mars

If you want a fantastic high-quality motion picture all about a human being looking to survive on Mars and get back home to Earth, complete with thoughtful cinematography, a tremendous lead performance and loads of edge-of-your-set fun, then go check out Ridley Scott's The Martian, that's a sublime piece of cinema. If you want the super boring Asylum knock-off of The Martian that somehow got made 15 years before that Ridley Scott movie even came out, well, why would you want such a movie? That being said, if that's what you crave, the 2000 sci-fi "thriller" Red Planet should scratch that itch you shouldn't even have in the first place!

Nearly Two Decades Later, The Matrix Is Still A Thrilling Game-Changer

Despite being a movie that hinges entirely on the concept of what technology and computers could accomplish in at the tail end of the 1990's, The Matrix has aged surprisingly well in its seventeen years of existence. In fact, the concept of having an alternate persona or even an alternate world nestled within technology feels very much like an idea of the moment considering how prominent Twitter,. Tumblr and Facebook are in so many peoples lives. The plot of this super fun movie is similarly timeless, taking Joseph Campbell's conventional Heroes Journey plot structure and adding in dashes of kung-fu and technology paranoia for good measure.