Film

Remainder

Name: Remainder
Genre: Drama
Released: 2015
Cast: Ed Speleers, Tom Sturridge, Cush Jumbo, Nicholas Farrell, Adrian Schiller

A man hit by debris develops elaborate reconstructions of his forgotten past, obsessively recreating moments and scenes across London. It's a fractured, experimental film about memory, identity, and the gap between lived experience and its performance. For viewers drawn to cerebral, formally inventive cinema that treats the mind as fundamentally unreliable.

TMDb rating

2.7

If you liked this

Memento2000

Nolan's labyrinthine puzzle about a man building meaning from fragmented memory, told backwards and through photographs. Like Remainder, it asks what identity is when continuity vanishes.

But The formal trickery can feel more clever than moving; some find the constant reversals exhaust rather than illuminate.

A Ghost Story2017

A meditation on time, memory, and presence that unfolds with supernatural slowness. Both films treat memory as a physical, almost architectural problem that can be inhabited.

But It's glacially paced and willfully obscure about its meaning. Long stretches ask patience rather than reward it.

Synecdoche, New York2008

Kaufman's film about a director recreating life within life—blurring performance and reality until they're indistinguishable. The same recursive spiral into obsessive reenactment.

But Genuinely bewildering and self-indulgent. It resists interpretation so firmly that some viewers feel actively frustrated by it.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Remainder

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Mulholland Drive2001

Both use elaborate reenactment and reconstruction as a way to investigate the difference between what happened and what we've decided to believe about it.

Lynch's LA nightmare where memory, performance, and identity collapse into each other. Like Remainder, it's obsessed with how we reconstruct narratives from fragmented experience—but through film grammar rather than physical performance.

But Deliberately cryptic; refuses to confirm what's real or false. The dream-logic resists the neat resolution Remainder attempts.

The Machinist2004

Christian Bale's gaunt insomniac slowly unravels his own past through fragmented memories and recurring encounters. A taut psychological descent into fabricated memory.

But The plot twist feels contrived in retrospect, and the bleakness offers little warmth or respite.

Enter the Void2010

A Tokyo-set descent through memory, dream, and consciousness itself, told through first-person hallucinatory vision. Both films treat the mind as labyrinthine space to navigate.

But Extremely experimental and disorienting; long sequences of neon abstraction and incomprehensible narrative flow.

Under the Skin2014

Glazer's elliptical, dialogue-sparse film about identity and performance. Like Remainder, it's fascinated by how meaning is constructed through repetition and observation.

But Almost aggressively vague about plot and meaning. Long, static scenes provide little conventional narrative satisfaction.

Take Shelter2011

Michael Shannon's man obsessively prepares for a catastrophe only he perceives—constructing and reconstructing his own interpretations of reality. Shared fixation on building towards invisible truth.

But Slow-burn paranoia that never fully resolves. The dread accumulates without payoff that everyone wants.

The Double2014

Ayoade's Kafkaesque film about a man encountering his doppelgänger, fragmenting identity and reality. Both films explore how performance and reconstruction can splinter the self.

But Deliberately stylized and airless; the monochrome palette and theatrical staging can feel suffocating rather than compelling.

Gerry2002

Gus Van Sant's deadpan film about two men getting lost in a desert. Minimal dialogue, extended scenes of physical experience. Focuses on presence and embodiment over conventional narrative.

But Almost nothing happens in conventional terms. Some experience it as profound observation; others as austere boredom.

The Act of Killing2012

Both use performance and reconstruction as a method to understand memory, but where Remainder is absurdist and personal, this confronts whether reenactment can ever lead to accountability.

A documentary where Indonesian death-squad perpetrators recreate their own crimes for the camera, performing themselves. Like Remainder, it examines what happens when people reenact their own past—but with devastating moral weight.

But Extremely disturbing; asks you to watch real participants replay mass murder. The formal similarity to Remainder masks something far darker and genuinely unsettling.