London Breeze’s first screening of 2026 is a preview of Disremember, a gripping psychological thriller that won our Best Feature Fiction award last October. Disremember was created entirely by a one-man-band filmmaker, Matthew Simpson, who is also the sole star of the film as Rob, a damaged, alcoholic ex-military man who is quickly losing his grip on reality in a battle against his own mind.
Experiencing unpredictable, dangerous, and increasingly frequent blackouts, Rob decides to record himself and keep a diary to regain control and find out what his mind is trying to prevent him from seeing.
As I was watching Disremember, its themes of memory, mental illness, paranoia (and the use of surveillance to either feed or abate it), addiction, and the trope of the unreliable narrator, brought a few films to mind that I feel would make for excellent companion viewing.
Here is a list of films to watch either in preparation for our Disremember screening (on 27th January 6.15pm at Riverside Studios) or afterwards, if you enjoyed it and want more twisty, seedy psychological thrillers for your watchlist:
Bug (2006) dir. William Friedkin
This film is, like Disremember, claustrophobic, intense and bursting with paranoia. It follows Agnes (Ashley Judd) as she welcomes the mysterious drifter Peter (Michael Shannon) into her grimy motel room. Both characters have a lot in common with Rob. Agnes drowns her sorrows in drugs and alcohol, and Peter is an army veteran dealing with PTSD and various other mental health issues. His paranoia and psychosis soon takes over and they begin to spiral into madness together.
The Machinist (2005) dir. Brad Anderson
Notorious for Christian Bale’s dramatic appearance- he dropped to just 110lbs to play Trevor Reznik, an insomniac whose mind begins playing tricks on him at his work as a lathe operator. However, there is much more to this film than Bale’s skeletal frame. It deals with heavy themes, and viewers will definitely see aspects of Rob in Trevor- both tortured souls with trauma fighting to stay hidden.
Memento (2000) dir. Christopher Nolan
Leonard (Guy Pearce) suffers from anterograde amnesia, and like Rob, attempts to retrace his steps and fill in the blanks by writing down everything that he remembers, even tattooing himself to ensure that he won’t lose any important information. He also uses a visual aid, similar to Rob’s video recordings, in the more analogue form of Polaroids.
The award for best performance in a supporting role goes to: Sticky Notes- for their work in Disremember, Memento, The Machinist, and more!
The Girl on the Train (2016) dir. Tate Taylor
The Girl on the Train follows Rachel, a divorced, recently unemployed, recovering alcoholic who becomes obsessed with watching her former home- and the next-door neighbours- from the train as it passes by. When she believes that she sees something suspicious taking place in the neighbour’s garden, she gets involved in the investigation. A classic unreliable witness due to her addiction, lapses in memory and unhealthy mental state, Rachel’s obsessive hunt for answers despite her inability to completely trust herself puts her in the same boat as Rob and the other characters in this list.
Shutter Island (2010) dir. Martin Scorsese
Teddy (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a US Marshal who has been sent, with his partner Chuck (Mark Ruffalo), to put the puzzle pieces of a disappearance case together and to make sense of the mysteries of Shutter Island. With multiple accounts and versions of the same story, Teddy- and the audience- is made to question everything. Teddy is Rob’s kindred spirit in his search for the truth, whilst battling his own demons, along with the sense of fear of what he might discover in the process.
Honourable mentions: Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation (1974), The Lives of Others (2006) dir. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954), and Peeping Tom (1960) dir. Michael Powell.
