Some movies don’t just end when the credits roll they stay in your mind, quietly replaying themselves in the background of your thoughts. You keep revisiting the story, the dialogues, the emotions, and the questions they left behind. These are not just films; they’re experiences that make you reflect on life, memory, and the human mind itself.
For me, Shutter Island, Inception, and Memento are exactly that three stories that explore the fragile space between illusion and truth, dream and reality, sanity and surrender.
Shutter Island
I can’t exactly recall how many times I’ve watched the movie and I remember every dialogue. It’s leaving Netflix which is sad.
I still love the twist in the ending because I love to believe that Andrew’s last line of dialogue, and his failure to respond to being called Teddy, has led many fans to speculate that Andrew had not actually regressed, and was voluntarily submitting himself to a lobotomy so he did not have to live with his sins and the monster he had become.
Inception
I know according to the story if the totem keeps spinning then Cobb is in the dream and in the final scene we didn’t see the totem fall which means he might be still dreaming. Whereas I have always loved to believe that Totem might have stopped spinning.
However, Christopher Nolan had always said that Cobb doesn’t care if he’s dreaming or not.
Michael Caine had once given an interview about ‘Inception’ to Esquire magazine. There he said that Nolan had told him, ‘Well, when you’re in the scene it’s reality.’
So if we go by Caine’s words then it means that if he’s in the scene, it’s reality. If he’s not, it’s a dream.
Memento
Then comes Memento another film that I could never stop thinking about. It’s one of those movies that make you question what is real, what is memory, and how much of what we “remember” is just our mind trying to protect us.
Leonard Shelby’s story isn’t just about memory loss. It’s about the human need for closure even if that closure is built on lies. The movie runs backward, piece by piece revealing how Leonard is stuck in a loop, rewriting his reality to give himself purpose. Every tattoo, every note, every clue is part of his desperate attempt to make sense of a world that doesn’t make sense anymore.
What breaks me most is how his search for truth becomes his prison. He isn’t chasing justice anymore he’s chasing the comfort of believing he still has control. By the end, you realize that Leonard doesn’t just forget; he chooses to forget.
And maybe that’s the darkest part of all that sometimes, our minds rewrite reality not to deceive us, but to help us survive it.
All three movies : Shutter Island, Inception, and Memento are more than psychological thrillers. They’re portraits of the human mind, raw and unsettling. They remind us that sometimes reality is not a solid ground we stand on, but a story we tell ourselves so we can keep moving forward.
Maybe that’s why I keep going back to them. Not to find answers, but to sit with the questions they leave behind the kind that make you look inward and wonder what your own mind might be hiding.
I’ve been putting off Shutter Island and Memento for years, but now I really want to see what you mean about reality and illusion.