Dead Again (1992)

In Dead Again, an engrossing romantic thriller, amnesiac Emma Thompson is tormented by nightmares of a murder committed before she was born. Then she meets dreamboat Kenneth Branagh (Henry V), a private detective who takes a stab at resolving her transcendental trauma. Soon the two feel as if they've known each other all their lives, and in fact they have: Under the spell of a hypnotist (Derek Jacobi), they discover that they're reincarnated lovers linked by a crime of passion. With its stylized black-and-white sequences and fast-paced melodramatic plot, this homage to film noir is both intense and purposely self-conscious — and on the small screen, where remote-happy viewers are already used to genre jumping, star-director Branagh's time-shifting technique is particularly effective. A-