Some filmmakers just don’t want to (or can’t) tell a straightforward story. They prefer to twist their narratives in various ways or send their protagonists on wild and loopy journeys that take place mostly inside their psyches.

Christopher Nolan, who took the “mind benders” clique by storm ten years ago with the cult favorite Memento, returns to his crime scene of choice – the mind – with Inception, which is releasing this weekend. It’s a great chance to look at the best (in my opinion) cinematic mind benders.

1. Vertigo

Alfred Hitchcock, the master of suspense, chose to eschew the mere following of crimes and investigations in order to play tricks on poor James Stewart’s mind.

A retired police detective, hired for the seemingly simple job of following a young woman around San Francisco, slowly succumbs to his dangerous obsessions. He takes the viewers along in what is considered one of Hitchcock’s finest films.

2. 12 Monkeys

Traveling through time has always been fertile ground for playing tricks on the mind, and not many time travel tales are as elaborate as Terry Gilliam’s 1997 sci-fi fantasy about a prisoner from 2025 sent to the 1990s in order to stop the apocalypse.

Apart from inciting chaos, he also discovers some disturbing truths about his past (or is it his future?). In true postmodern manner, Gilliam also adds a neat homage to master mind bender Hitchcock

3. Donnie Darko

You don’t have to be a deadly convict on a heroic mission to get involved in all sorts of bizarre happenings. Sometimes attending high school is enough, as demonstrated in Richard Kelly’s captivating cult story about a teenager whose life is saved by a giant, menacing rabbit. With that kind of premise, no wonder brains bend while watching…

4. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Michel Gondry’s bittersweet 2004 romantic drama mixes heart- and mind-bending to great effect. The usual “boy meets girl” story takes some original turns thanks to Charlie Kaufman’s nonlinear script, which stars Jim Carrey (in his best role) and Kate Winslet in an unlikely combination of romance and failed memory-wiping.

5. Mulholland Drive

David Lynch has been dabbling with all sorts of warped cinematic forms for most of his career. In this 2001 mystery he successfully brings his notorious sensibilities to Hollywood, in a story about obsession in the show business. Having two mysterious leading ladies certainly doesn’t help the viewer in deciphering the film’s convoluted storyline…

6. Blow Up

Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni’s films focus mostly on themes of estrangements and alienation; yet in this 1966 stylish thriller, based on a short story by Julio Cortázar, he examines the borders of perception and reality. Set in swinging London, the film follows a photographer who investigates a murder that may or may not have been captured on his camera. As expected, his view of the world begins to unravel.

7. Schizopolis

Not all mind-benders are serious and deal with life, death, time, memory and the ways we perceive them. Some can be funny in an offbeat way, as exemplified by Steven Soderbergh’s 1996 independent experiment, a film with narrative so unhinged its own VHS box read “All attempts at synopsizing the film have ended in failure and hospitalization.”

8. That Obscure Object of Desire

Luis Buñuel, the father of all surreal film, stays loyal to his style in his last film, depicting an obsessive and destructive relationship between a young woman and an older man. One of the most blatant ways Buñuel shows his contempt to standard cinematic conventions is the casting of two thoroughly different looking actresses in the leading role and inexplicably switching between them.

9. Life on Mars

Mind-bending themes go well with mystery and investigations on the small screen as well, as proved by BBC’s hit crime drama (which was remade and sequelled) about a modern-day police detective who’s injured in an accident and finds himself back in the middle of an investigation… in 1973. Unable to tell whether he traveled through time or just hallucinated while comatose, Sam Tyler must fight both crime and his own unreliable mind.

10. Inception

Aside from Memento, Christopher Nolan became strongly associated with the revival of the Batman Franchise, and while injecting a lot of atmosphere into it, his two Batmans are not really mind-bending masterpieces. It will be interesting to see whether he’ll succeed in returning to his mind-bending origins in the first film based on an original script since Memento. With Inception, Nolan digs deeper than before, and places a large part of the film out of the actual world and inside the characters’ minds, allowing freedom from any physical constraints: freedom that results in what seems to be some unadulterated surreal action.

Judging from the enthusiastic early reviews, Nolan has succeeded in reworking his magic, creating a clever summer movie – no small feat these days.

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