Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is the most emotionally devastating science fiction film of the 21st century — a love story told backwards through the process of memory erasure. Charlie Kaufman's screenplay takes a single speculative premise — a company that can erase specific memories from your brain — and uses it to explore the entire landscape of a failed relationship with painful, hilarious, and heartbreaking honesty.

Jim Carrey delivers the performance of his career as Joel Barish, a quiet, introverted man who discovers that his ex-girlfriend Clementine has had him erased from her memory. In retaliation, he undergoes the same procedure — but as his memories of her dissolve, he realizes he does not want to forget. The sequence where Joel drags Clementine through his disintegrating memories, trying to hide her in childhood humiliations and forgotten corners of his mind, is filmmaking at its most inventive and moving.

Kate Winslet's Clementine is chaotic, impulsive, infuriating, and utterly alive. She is the opposite of Joel in every way, and their relationship is presented with brutal honesty — the joy, the fights, the boredom, the betrayal. Gondry's visual effects are handmade and lo-fi: faces blur, walls crumble, beaches collapse into the ocean. It looks like memory feels. The ending — Joel and Clementine choosing to try again despite knowing they will hurt each other — is the most realistic and devastating conclusion to any love story in modern cinema.