Machinist (2004) vs. Memento (2000)

Both are psychological thrillers with a similar twist in which the protagonist suffers brain damage because of a murder they committed and projects their guilt onto other people.

It's clear that Machinist drew directly from Memento with its plot, but all movies have influences (how many zombie and spy movies are there). But Machinist does it very well, emphasizing the hallucination and projection aspect. Plus, I'm a bit more empathetic to the Machinist's protagonist since the movie is more focused on him.

Memento is the more complex movie though. Whereas Machinist is a mostly linear movie except with the original event that triggered it all at the end, Memento (while having a sense of progression) is completely out of order. Also, with Memento, the characters have more degrees of separation and you have to look at it from 3 points of view. In Machinist, the characters are isolated and never meet each other because they're all viewed through David's perspective only.