The future depends on a past he was paid to forget.

Michael Jennings is a genius who's hired – and paid handsomely – by high-tech firms to work on highly sensitive projects, after which his short-term memory is erased so he's incapable of breaching security. But at the end of a three-year job, he's told he isn't getting a paycheck and instead receives a mysterious envelope. In it are clues he must piece together to find out why he wasn't paid – and why he's now in hot water.
Paycheck keeps every mind human — it fights its subject at zero distance. The story fights on E8/E11 of the E0–E14 reality ladder.
Films fighting at the same level of reality, about the same things.
The same preoccupations examined at another scale — one mind versus a nation.
Starship Troopers (1997)E12/E13 · Action, Adventure
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)E13 · Action, Adventure
Death Note: L Change the WorLd (2008)E4/E14 · Action, Mystery
2012 (2009)E12/E14 · Action, Adventure
Independence Day (1996)E12/E13 · Action, Adventure
X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)E9/E10 · Action, AdventureOther films that change a standing rule of their world — ranked first by those bending it at the same rung.
Avatar (2009)alters at E8 · same rung · loose
Inside Out (2015)alters at E8 · same rung · rigorous
Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)alters at E8 · same rung · loose
Inception (2010)alters at E8 · same rung · loose
Ex Machina (2015)alters at E8 · same rung · loose
A Clockwork Orange (1971)alters at E8 · same rung · loose