The 12 Hottest Movie Amnesiacs
Celebrate Memorial Day with women who can’t remember their own names.
Celebrate Memorial Day with women who can’t remember their own names.
Like war, the teaching profession, and horrifying lab accidents, movies make amnesia seem like the coolest thing ever. One minute, you think you’re a boring worker drone and WHAM! Suddenly you remember you’re an ass-kicking secret agent. (It never works the other way around, although we’d love a Bourne sequel where he discovers he worked at Best Buy all along). To honor Memorial Day, a day of remembrance, we celebrate those movie women who have no idea who they are.
12. Samantha Caine/Charly Baltimore
(Geena Davis – The Long Kiss Goodnight)
Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures | Licensed to Alpha Media Group 2012
You know how guys say they want a lady on the street but a freak in the bedroom? Well, how about this: A doting, sweet-natured housewife one minute, a bottle-blonde, vodka-chugging assassin the next? Just try and step-up to Charly Baltimore and see how far you can walk without your kneecaps.
11. Lucy Whitmore
(Drew Barrymore – 50 First Dates)
Photo: Columbia Pictures | Licensed to Alpha Media Group 2012
Hollywood thinks there’s nothing more adorable than short-term memory loss. Lucy has to be re-introduced to Adam Sandler’s Henry Roth every single time she meets him, which is a great thing for a Sandler flick since she’s the only person who doesn’t realize he’s playing the same character he has in at least 4 other movies. (This was a remake of Memento.)
10. Joanna Stayton/Annie Proffitt
(Goldie Hawn – Overboard)
Photo: MGM | Licensed to Alpha Media Group 2012
Joanna/Annie’s ordeal, though comic, illuminates a very important point about the human condition. No matter how we are raised, what kind of environment we come to call our own, or who we allow into our lives, if you are given the choice to live with Kurt Russell you seize that opportunity with both hands you never let go. That man is a feather-haired angel. (This was later remade as Memento.)
9. Paige
(Rachel McAdams – The Vow)
Photo Courtesy of Screen Gems | Licensed to Alpha Media Group 2012
We can sympathize with anyone who can’t quite place Channing Tatum’s face (was he in Step Up? Did I go to high school with him? Where do I know that dude?), but Paige’s story is a classic case of Hollywood turning lemons into lemonade. Suggesting that horrifying car crashes can lead you to even deeper, more loving relationships is just as dangerous as saying that gamma radiation will make you awesome.
8. Elizabeth Harris
(January Jones – Unknown)
Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures | Licensed to Alpha Media Group 2012
January’s inherent iciness makes it tough to determine if she doesn’t remember being married to Liam Neeson or is just messing with his mind. Either way she looks amazing even when furrowing her brow in confusion. It’s a shame she had to forgot Liam’s romantic proposal dinner: champagne, caviar, Liam on one knee looking her in the eye and saying, “I can tell you I don’t have money. But what I do have is a very particular ring; a ring I have acquired over a very long career. A ring that make me a dream for people like you. If you say no now, that’ll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don’t, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will marry you.”
7. Miranda Grey
(Halle Berry – Gothika)
Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures | Licensed to Alpha Media Group 2012
Miranda wakes up as an inmate in the insane asylum where she used to work, with no memory of how she got there. That’s messed up enough, but she also may have killed Charles S. Dutton! Not Roc! Say it ain’t so! Miranda’s sole comfort is that she happens to work at the world’s most attractive loony bin, where the inmates look like her and Penelope Cruz. That’s crazy hot.
6. Clementine Kruczynski
(Kate Winslet – Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind)
Photo Courtesy of Focus Features | Licensed to Alpha Media Group 2012
The Crayola-haired Clementine treats her memories like regrettable tattoos, and willingly undergoes traumatic operations to get rid of them. That kind of impulsive recklessness would normally be a red flag, but if a mopey Jim Carrey can woo her then she’s definitely got low standards and that’s right in our wheelhouse, right? UP TOP!
5. Roberta Glass
(Rosanna Arquette – Desperately Seeking Susan)
Photo: Orion Pictures Corporation | Licensed to Alpha Media Group 2012
We get the whole “romantic fantasy” thing, but if blows to the head made people more interesting, more adventurous, and more creative, then how do you explain Floyd Mayweather? Roberta doesn’t come close to out-Madonna-ing Madonna, but her loss of those traumatic “living in suburban New Jersey” memories (shudder) do make her a lot more fun to be around.
4. Dory
(Ellen DeGeneres – Finding Nemo)
They say the best thing about Alzheimer’s is that you meet someone new every day. The adorable (and if paired with some melted butter, delicious) Dory has that beat by meeting someone new every six seconds. And yes, we realize we have no problem putting a cartoon fish on the list ahead of Gena Rowlands. To the comments section!
3. Allie Calhoun
(Rachel McAdams – The Notebook)
Photo Courtesy of New Line CInema | Licensed to Alpha Media Group 2012
OK, OK, so technically it’s the older Allie (played by Gena Rowlands) who doesn’t remember her years of hot Ryan Gos-loving, but honestly if we slapped a picture of Gena Rowlands up here you’d run to the comments section so fast you’d drop all your evil, mean-spirited epithets along the way. This also marks Rachel McAdams’ second appearance on this list – we had no idea anyone could actually get typecast as “forgetful.”
2. Telly Paretta
(Julianne Moore – The Forgotten)
Photo: Columbia Pictures | Licensed to Alpha Media Group 2012
Finally, someone sat Hollywood down and said, “Look, instead of making amnesia a gateway drug to being really, really amazing and cool, can you provide a more somber and perhaps realistic take on the affliction?” And Hollywood took the lolly out of its mouth long enough to sputter, “Aliens take memories!” Sigh. That’s OK, Hollywood. You’re trying…at least you cast a hot, red-headed MILF to make your inanity easier to watch.
1. Betty Elms/Diane Selwyn/Rita
(Naomi Watts and Laura Harring – Mulholland Dr.)
Photo: Universal Pictures | Licensed to Alpha Media Group 2012
We can’t even begin to explain what the hell is going on in this David Lynch movie, but suffice it to say it involves two incredibly hot women who have no idea who they really are but STILL find time for hot, Sapphic sex. We’ll call you ladies whatever name you want, just so long as we can keep watching.