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The 25 Greatest Time-Travel Movies Ever Made

It must say something, surely, about humans, how often time-travel movies are about returning to the past rather than jumping to the future. As Mark Duplass’s forlorn character says in Safety Not Guaranteed , “The mission has to do with regret.” With all the potential to explore the unknown world of the future, so often when our minds conspire to bend the rules of time it’s instead to rehash the old. It’s compelling to watch a character in a movie do what we cannot — right past wrongs or uncover the reason for or meaning behind the events in their lives, whether they be emotionally catastrophic or merely geopolitically motivated.

So absent is the future from the canon, in fact, that when it is involved, typically future dwellers are leaving their own time to come back to the present. Back to the Future Part II aside, it seems as if there’s something about going forward in time that just doesn’t track for humans. (Of course, you could argue that this is because the present-day concept of bidirectional time travel would infinitely multiply or change beyond recognition any future that may occur, but that’s a knot for another article.)

In any case, the time-travel stories deemed worthy of Hollywood budgets aren’t always straightforward in their mechanics. Some films on this list barely qualify as time-travel movies at all; others could hardly qualify as anything else. There are movies about trips through time but also ones about the bending and fracturing and muddying thereof; then there are those about, as Andy Samberg aptly puts it in Palm Springs , “one of those infinite time-loop situations you might have heard about.” There’s even a movie in which we get only 13 seconds’ worth of time travel, when it functions more like a joke whose punch line hits at the film’s climax.

What these films all do have in common is a fascination with changing the way time works. That being said, the list leaves out movies in larger, more extended franchises in which time meddling is a one-off dalliance thrown into a sequel with little by way of foreshadowing: think Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban , Avengers: Endgame , and Men in Black III . (It also leaves off perhaps the Ur-time-travel movie, Primer , and the quite good Midnight in Paris because their directors don’t deserve the column inches.) We’re looking at self-contained stories using time mechanics from the start, with preference given to those that involve themselves more intently with the ins and outs of time travel; that ask questions about time, aging, memory and so forth; and that try to succeed at it in new and interesting ways. So let’s get to it.

25. Galaxy Quest (1999)

Does Galaxy Quest really count as a time-travel movie? Some compelling reasons argue that it doesn’t: Time travel isn’t a major factor in the plot, and the time traveling that does occur is, yes, only a 13-second jump. But its use of time travel is meaningful insofar as the movie itself is a loving spoof of Star Trek , which makes use of time travel in three films ( one of which made this list ), not to mention dozens of episodes across its various TV iterations. Tacking on time travel as a deus ex machina for the actors in a Star Trek– like show pressed into service as an actual space crew by an endangered alien race is the exact right amount of ribbing in a movie that’s as on point as it is hilarious.

Galaxy Quest is available to rent on Amazon .

24. Happy Death Day (2017)

Pick away at the surface of a time-loop movie and you find a horror movie. Most of the entries on this list are covered in enough feel-good spin to land as comedies, but Happy Death Day stares the horror of the time-loop phenomenon right in the face. (It’s also quite funny.) Reliving the same day over and over is an unimaginably potent form of psychological torture, and adding murder to the equation does little to dull that edge. The film follows a college-age protagonist struggling to escape from a masked slasher hell-bent on killing her again and again while she tries to solve the mystery of how she got stuck in a time loop.

Happy Death Day is available to rent on Amazon .

23. Back to the Future Part II (1989)

Seriously, this may be the only good movie in which the film’s whole focus is using a time machine to travel into the future. The fact that it’s a sequel is telling — the characters already traveled into the past in the first movie , and the filmmakers decided to save “traveling even further into the past“ for the third film in the trilogy. Still, Back to the Future Part II is a fun time that makes great use of sight gags and references, recasting scenes from the first film in the distant future year of 2015 with all its hoverboards and self-lacing Nikes.

Back to the Future Part II is available to rent on Amazon .

22. See You Yesterday (2019)

It’s a dirty little secret of time-travel movies that they tend to be, well, pretty white. Tenet ’s Protagonist aside, if Hollywood’s sending someone through time, they’re almost certainly not a Black person, and for obvious reasons: Most of post-contact North American history is deeply unfriendly to people of color, and the problems a person running around out of time and place is going to encounter are deeply compounded if they’ll likely be the target of racist abuse or violence — which makes See You Yesterday all the more compelling. Produced by Spike Lee and featuring one of filmdom’s most famous time travelers in a cameo role, it follows a Black teenage science prodigy who uses a time machine to try to save her brother from being killed by a police officer.

See You Yesterday is streaming on Netflix .

21. Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989)

No offense to the Back to the Future franchise, but time travel never looks more fun on film than it does in the first Bill & Ted movie. It’s a concept that feels distinctly of a different era, so pure is its zaniness, that it’s hard to imagine anyone concocting it today. The titular duo, Californian high-school students in the ’80s, travel through the past looking for historical figures in order to ace a history project, then bring them all back to the present. High jinks ensue! We get Genghis Khan in a sporting-goods store and Mozart on an electric keyboard. What more could you want?

Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure is streaming on HBO Max .

20. Source Code (2011)

Time-travel-film aficionados know this won’t be Jake Gyllenhaal’s only stop on this list, but no matter. Source Code finds him repeating the same eight minutes over and over as he struggles to find the culprit in a train bombing — with each replay ending in his own death by explosion. For some reason, a romantic subplot is shoehorned into this, along with a bunch of frankly unnecessary technical mumbo-jumbo, but the core idea is a compelling mix of the time-loop movie and the train whodunit that Gyllenhaal is a perfect fit for.

Source Code is available to rent on Amazon .

19. 12 Monkeys (1995)

Some sort of law of nature dictates that every genuinely good idea and/or piece of true art has to at some point be turned into a Hollywood movie. Thank God La Jetée was adapted into something that can stand on its own feet artistically. 12 Monkeys may not retain its source material’s black-and-white look or stripped-down, static-image presentation, but it is a rollicking good time nonetheless. That’s in no small part due to director Terry Gilliam getting the best out of Bruce Willis and a young Brad Pitt, and recasting World War III as a planet-decimating virus. Which, like at least one other movie on this list , “speaks to the present moment,” or whatever.

12 Monkeys is available to rent on Amazon .

18. Run Lola Run (1998)

Unlike almost all of the other films on this list, the terms time travel and time machine don’t show up anywhere in Run Lola Run . Rather, it’s a sort of de facto time-loop scenario in which the protagonist tries repeatedly to pay a ransom to save her boyfriend’s life. In fact, if not for a few key details, it could easily be characterized (and often has been) as an alternate-endings movie rather than a time-travel film. But the fact that Lola seems to be learning from her past attempts with each successive one suggests that she is, indeed, using knowledge gained from previous loops to bring a satisfactory end to this situation.

Run Lola Run is available to rent on Amazon .

17. Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

One of the most striking things about Groundhog Day is the mutability and replicability of its core conceit. Perhaps the best case in point is Edge of Tomorrow , sometimes known as Live. Die. Repeat. after its original tagline. It’s the kind of physically grueling movie only an actor as genuinely unhinged as Tom Cruise could pull off. A noncombatant thrust into a war against invading aliens, Cruise’s character finds himself reliving day one of combat over and over, slowly but surely refining his techniques in order to survive the extraterrestrial onslaught. Like the central twosome in the much less violent Palm Springs , he winds up with a partner in (war) crime, teaming up with the similarly time-trapped Emily Blunt, and the explanation for the replay glitch here is actually pretty satisfying.

Edge of Tomorrow is streaming on Fubo TV .

16. Star Trek (2009)

If you could create some sort of an advanced stat to measure controversy generated per unit of interesting filmmaking decisions, J.J. Abrams would have to be near the top in terms of his ability to rig up movie drama from almost nothing. This is a guy whose filmography is like Godzilla rip-off, Spielberg homage, safe reboot of cherished IP, repeat. Star Trek may be his best film, though, a sure-footed reinvention of a dorky sci-fi franchise that made it, well, cool. Somehow, the beauty of Spock and Kirk’s bromance being woven through chance encounters with future selves kind of … works?

Star Trek is available to rent on Amazon .

15. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2006)

There’s a relative dearth of time travel in animated film, which perhaps is a function simply of the fact that it’s less impressive to stage in a world that’s already unreal. If you can Looney Tunes your way through physics, what’s so special about grabbing the flow of time and tying it into a bow? Still, the original Girl Who Leapt Through Time deserves mention here. It’s a beautiful story that interlaces the complexity of time leaping with the intensity of teenage emotion and the thorny process of growing up where the opportunity to redo things leads, over time, to growth — a less shitty Groundhog Day , in a way.

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is available to rent on Amazon .

14. Safety Not Guaranteed (2012)

She may not be the most famous, decorated, or emulated actress of her generation, but Aubrey Plaza is someone whose personality spoke to the irony-soaked 2010s in a way that simply could not be denied. Her character on Parks and Recreation , April Ludgate, was, by all accounts, created specifically to channel Plaza’s real-life personality to the screen, and she plays essentially the same character in Safety Not Guaranteed . Here, she’s a sarcastic intern at a magazine working on a story about a would-be time traveler and using her feminine wiles to slowly gain his trust. The chemistry between Plaza and Mark Duplass is probably the film’s high point; the subplot about the FBI feels like it was clipped out of a bad X-Files episode.

Safety Not Guaranteed is streaming on Tubi .

13. La Jetée (1962)

At only a 28-minute run time, La Jetée is arguably too short to merit inclusion on this list. However, what it lacks in content (and in, well, moving images; it’s almost exclusively a collection of static black-and-white shots set to voice-over), it more than makes up for in inventiveness and influence, and it would be a travesty to leave it out in favor of more recent by-the-book fare. Tracing the tale of a man held prisoner in post-WWIII Paris being used in time-travel experiments as his captors seek to remedy the postapocalyptic state of the world, he’s sent into both the future and the past and ends up unraveling a lifelong personal mystery while he’s at it.

La Jetée is streaming on the Criterion Channel .

12. Planet of the Apes (1968)

Unlike the worse but more straightforwardly time-traveling Tim Burton remake, the relationship between the original Planet of the Apes and time travel is inexact — technically, the astronaut crew that lands on the titular planet does travel forward 2,000 years, but it’s not done via a time machine. The travel isn’t instantaneous: It literally does take them 2,000 years to get there; they’re just unconscious and on life support. Still, the way the film’s ending handles the iconic reveal is exactly in line with the best of the time-travel canon, the telescoping, mise en abyme feeling of the world shifting in front of your very eyes without your moving an inch.

Planet of the Apes is available to rent on Amazon .

11. Groundhog Day (1993)

The famous Bill Murray vehicle essentially invented the infinite-time-loop genre (and it’s hardly a movie that succeeds on the strength of its concept alone), but the idea at its core is so steeped in the casual misogyny of late-’80s and early-’90s cinema that it’s hard to watch today without cringing. Murray’s character employing what amounts to PUA-style techniques over and over and over in a desperate bid to fuck his hapless co-worker just doesn’t hit the way it did back then. If the story arc didn’t present a guy detoxifying himself of the worst aspects of masculinity in order to be worthy of a woman’s love as the primary way for a 20th-century white man to achieve full personhood, this would be much higher on the list.

Groundhog Day is streaming on Starz .

10. Predestination (2014)

This is probably the most complicated film on the list. Following a “temporal agent” (played by Ethan Hawke) who’s trying to prevent a bombing in 1970s New York, it’s based on a Robert A. Heinlein short story and features Shiv Roy herself, Sarah Snook, in a star-making turn as someone with a complicated backstory and a secret. Like the best sci-fi, the film’s premise raises all kinds of fascinating questions about the titular concept and throws in some interesting musings on sex, gender, and the self in the process.

Predestination is streaming on Tubi .

9. Looper (2012)

Wes Anderson gets a lot of flak for his overwrought twee visuals, but Rian Johnson has a knack for making movies that feel and function like dioramas even if they don’t look it. Narratively speaking, everything here is constructed just so — and there’s a certain beauty in that — but who ever had a profound experience of art by looking at a diorama? Looper was probably Johnson’s least precious pre– Star Wars film, which is nice because the temptation to drastically overmaneuver the mechanics of a time-travel story can lead to disaster. The tech used to Bruce Willis–ify Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s face is distracting, and the third act’s retreat from the postapocalyptic city of the future to the postapocalyptic corn farm of the future is a brave choice that the film struggles to land. Still, Johnson’s vision of a future in which organized crime runs time travel is compelling and well worth a watch.

Looper is streaming on Netflix .

8. Donnie Darko (2001)

Donnie Darko is a bit of a genre mash-up. Part high-school movie, part sci-fi flick, part bleak meditation on the soullessness of late-’80s America, it’s nevertheless a weirdly successful piece of filmmaking that makes fantastic use of a young Jake Gyllenhaal, a great supporting cast (Maggie Gyllenhaal, Drew Barrymore, Jena Malone, and Patrick Swayze among others), and an absolutely iconic haunting cover of Tears for Fears’ “Mad World.” Watching high schoolers navigate parallel universes, wormholes, and time travel is a dicey proposition, but director Richard Kelly makes it work, somehow.

Donnie Darko is streaming on HBO Max .

7. Back to the Future (1984)

While it’s clearly superior to the sequel (and leagues ahead of the final film in the trilogy), the original Back to the Future is a bit of a mess (John Mulaney was right , to be honest). Its racial and gender politics are cringey, and the incest subplot is weird (“It’s your cousin Marvin. Marvin Pornhub . You know that new plot element you’ve been looking for?”), but there’s a clear interest in time travel beyond its shimmering surface: the very real addressing of the “grandfather problem” in time travel via the slow disappearance of Marty from his family photo, the accidental invention of rock music, and a genuine curiosity about the nuts-and-bolts mechanics of time machines. Ahh, what the hell. It’s a romp.

Back to the Future is available to rent on Amazon .

6. Palm Springs (2020)

No offense to Gen-Xers and boomers, but the best time-loop movie of all time is Palm Springs . The film isn’t without its missteps, but it’s much more curious about life than Groundhog Day was through the eyes of Murray’s misanthrope. Cristin Milioti and Andy Samberg‘s characters, stuck in the loop together, are a perfect comedic match, and their shared humanity makes for a beautiful arc. The film raises questions about what’s worth doing in life when nothing lasts and how to stay sane when every day is the same. Of course, as a sort of polar opposite of Tenet , it benefited from coming out during the pandemic by speaking, as it does, to the experience of lockdown.

Palm Springs is streaming on Hulu .

5. Tenet (2020)

Interstellar wasn’t enough for Chris Nolan, apparently. Tenet ’s legacy may end up being little more than that of the COVID action movie no one saw — a bloated thriller that Nolan fought to get into theaters and bar from home viewing reportedly to swell the size of his own pockets. It really did suffer from bad timing, though, because this is genuinely a quintessential big-screen popcorn movie whose absurdity is all the more palatable when it’s given the audiovisual bombast it deserves. Ambitious in scope as it traces a war on the past by the future (yes, you read that right), Tenet is as enamored of action tropes as it is in bucking them, and its investment in rendering visible the brain-bendingly knotty mechanics of moving through time is laudable, even when the movie itself remains opaque — as impenetrable as the future, as hazy as the past.

Tenet is streaming on HBO Max .

4. The Terminator (1984)

A partner to Blade Runner in the mid-’80s invention of sci-fi noir, The Terminator is a stunning film in many ways, despite the third act’s now-iffy visual effects. While it’s not James Cameron’s debut, and it would go on to be bested by its sequel , it functions as an incredible showcase for an emerging young director who would exclusively make big stories for the rest of his career. Arnold Schwarzenegger is perfectly cast as the relentless, unemotional killer cyborg sent back from the future to terminate the mother of the eventual resistance leader, and the film’s romantic subplot has just the perfect amount of time-travel-induced cheesiness for it to work.

The Terminator is streaming on Amazon Prime Video .

3. Interstellar (2014)

It’s not inaccurate to say Christopher Nolan is a director who’s more interested in scale and scope than in expressing the minutiae of the human experience in its purest form. But in Interstellar, a Nolan movie in its titular ambitions, there’s a core element of time travel wrought not as sci-fi fireworks but as a paean to the sheer force and will of the power of love. It both does and doesn’t work, depending on your capacity for cheese in space, but even besides that, Nolan’s use of time as story arc — the way Miller’s planet functions, in particular — is conceptually masterful in the best kind of time-travel-movie way.

Interstellar is streaming on Paramount+ .

2. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

Whereas the franchise’s first movie spends more time on the question of time travel, in the second it takes a bit of a back seat to the action itself. It’s hard to fault director James Cameron for this decision; T2 remains one of the best action movies of the ’90s and — along with Jurassic Park and The Matrix — one of the decade’s best when for special effects. The groundbreaking T-1000 would honestly be enough to get this movie on the list; a tween John Connor grappling with questions of predestination and the fact that he is vicariously responsible for his own conception feel almost like icing on the time-travel cake. Much as in 12 Monkeys , time travel here is mistaken for delusion, as valiant Sarah Connor, in a Cassandra-esque nightmare, has to battle against the future only she knows is coming. Of course, Cassandra never had access to any firepower stored in underground desert arsenals.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day is streaming on Netflix .

1. Arrival (2016)

It’s fair to wonder whether Arrival really is, in fact, a time-travel movie. The Ted Chiang short story it’s based on isn’t about time travel per se; rather, it’s an exploration of alternate forms of temporal understanding. The linguist protagonist, played by Amy Adams, doesn’t travel through time so much as come to experience it differently. Still, the plot ends up hinging on foreknowledge that she is granted not via visions but by actually experiencing her future simultaneously with her present and past. For our purposes, though, that’s time fuckery enough to merit inclusion, and boy howdy does the film deliver in overall quality. Partly, that’s simply a question of the source material. Chiang is arguably the most talented (and possibly the most decorated) American sci-fi writer of his generation. But the source story is not especially Hollywood friendly, and director Denis Villeneuve has adopted it lovingly, borrowing a plot device from another of Chiang’s stories, the more straightforwardly time-travel-based “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate,” in order to add some third-act blockbuster flavor. The result is a beautiful meditation on love, choice, and courage that packs art-film ethos into a genuine sci-fi blockbuster.

Arrival is streaming on Hulu and Paramount+ .

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The 20 best time-travel movies – ranked!

As Adam Driver accidentally winds up 65m years ago , facing not just dinosaurs but an asteroid, we count down the best films about going backwards, or forwards, through the ages

20. Timecop (1994)

Regardless of what anyone says, I believe in my heart that Timecop was greenlit because someone showed a studio executive a picture of Jean-Claude Van Damme and said the word “Timecop” out loud, at which point they had to throw a script together as quickly as possible. Nothing about Timecop makes sense. It is the most 90s film ever made.

19. Tenet (2020)

I have to be careful here, because Tenet might not be a time-travel movie. Certainly time passes in it and some of the people are going backwards in time in it. But I’ve seen this movie twice now, and it mainly just seems to be about people mumbling everything, except for Kenneth Branagh, who gets to shout very loudly three times. Anyway, here it is.

18. Cavegirl (1985)

Finally, a film that uses time-travel for the correct reason; to allow a horny 1980s high school student to go back to prehistory so that he can convince a smoking hot, bikini-wearing cavegirl to have it off with him. You will note I’ve ranked this above Tenet .

17. Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999)

Weird to think that Austin Powers was originally a fish-out-of-water comedy, in which the promiscuous titular character had to navigate the (then) uptight world of the 1990s. That all fell apart for the sequel, where Powers was sent back to the 60s to shout his catchphrases at people who actually appreciated them. That makes it a time-travel movie, right?

16. The Butterfly Effect (2004)

God, this film. In summary: Ashton Kutcher plays a man who experiences blackouts, only to learn some years later that he can travel back in time and inhabit his younger self’s mind during the blackouts. But in doing so, he unleashes a world of unintended consequences. He becomes a murderer and loses limbs. Seek out the director’s cut if you can, because it ends with Kutcher’s character deliberately strangling himself in the womb with his umbilical cord. No, really.

15. The Tomorrow War (2021)

Wherein Chris Pratt is drafted into a war that takes place 26 years later, because the invading aliens have already killed all the soldiers who were alive at the time. It’s a great premise for a film – we all pay the price for the actions of other generations – let down by a truly confusing ending. Admit it, you forgot this film even existed, even though it cost $200m to make and only came out 18 months ago.

14. The Time Travelers (1964)

A 1964 movie made on the cheap with genuinely terrible effects, The Time Travelers is about a group of scientists who travel to the future, fight some mutants and then return. What sets it apart, though, is its crazed ending. The film ends with the scientists venturing into the distant future, whereupon the film plays through again, faster and faster and faster until it cuts away to a still of the galaxy. Are they trapped in a loop? Is free will an illusion? Did the producers just run out of money? We may never know.

13. The Adam Project (2022)

In which a young boy’s life is turned upside down when he is visited by an older version of himself from the future. The good news? He grows up to be a fighter pilot. The bad news? He also grows up to have all the cadences and surface-level snarky patter of Ryan Reynolds. What follows is a buddy movie where the two buddies are the same person.

12. Hot Tub Time Machine (2010)

So seminal that it was namechecked in Avengers: Endgame . A flat-out comedy that primarily exists to allow a bunch of middle-aged men to act like teenagers, Hot Tub Time Machine is a film about an enchanted Jacuzzi that sends people back to the mid-1980s. Possibly a bit too bawdy for its own good, there’s a hint of a message about the unreliability of nostalgia here.

11. Flight of the Navigator (1986)

This family film involves a young boy who goes missing in a Fort Lauderdale ravine, only to show up eight years later having not aged. There are UFOs and rubbery little creatures and whatnot, but there’s a real emotional wallop to the moment when the boy realises that the world has moved on without him, right down to the scene (that plays out like a horror movie) where the boy realises that his parents have become unrecognisably ancient, even though they are probably only in their early 40s.

10. Primer (2004)

Some see Shane Carruth’s Primer as the gold standard of what a time-travel film should be. It’s the sort of movie that seems unnervingly realistic, from the down-at-heel engineers to the unshowy nature of time travel itself, where people in effect just get in and out of some boxes. Almost entirely unwilling to explain itself, for years Primer fans have come to rely on a series of graphs and charts to figure out what the film actually is.

9. Safety Not Guaranteed (2012)

A time-travel movie that may or may not have any actual time-travel in it, Colin Trevorrow’s Safety Not Guaranteed is a delicate wonder of a thing. A man places an ad in a magazine asking for a time-travel companion – “Must bring your own weapons. I have only done this once before” – and the respondents slowly come to realise that all is not quite as it seems.

8. Planet of the Apes (1968)

If you haven’t seen Planet of the Apes, then the fact that I’ve put it on a list of time-travel movies is probably quite a heavy spoiler, and for that I’m sorry. But what a reveal this is – what seems at first like a silly movie about Charlton Heston being persecuted by some monkeys quickly becomes something darker and much more sinister. That new Adam Driver movie probably could have achieved something similar, if it hadn’t blabbed its big secret in the trailer.

7. Avengers: Endgame (2019)

Endgame is a lot, so much so that it is effectively a time-travel movie bookended by two entirely separate movies. And, yes, it takes a lot of liberties with time-travel, from Tony Stark’s “Huh, I did it” invention to the lazy referencing of other time-travel movies as a shorthand for what the characters can do. Nevertheless, when they get to it, the film nails it. The Battle of New York is the obvious highlight, with Captain America fighting Captain America and the Hulk embarrassed by his unreconstructed former self, but the heart of the film really comes when Tony meets his father as a man and learns to let go of the past.

6. Interstellar (2014)

Interstellar is also a lot. But at its core is a simple ethical quandary: would you try to save the world if it meant missing your children’s entire lives? Matthew McConaughey has to touch down on a planet during a space trip. The problem is that every hour he spends there is equal to seven years on Earth. Is the trip important enough for him to miss seeing the wonder of his children grow into adults? Technically, if you want to be fussy about this, Interstellar is a time dilation movie rather than a time-travel movie. But it gets a pass, largely because McConaughey sells the agony of the moment so beautifully.

5. Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989)

There are times when Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure feels like it was written by a toddler off his face on pop. But that’s a deliberate ploy, a way to camouflage all the careful rigour that underpins the script. The lead characters are initially reluctant to embark on their time-travel adventure, until they’re visited by versions of themselves from the near future who compel them to do it; a beautiful and hilarious example of predestination in action. Extra points are awarded thanks to the film’s total lack of interest in consequences. Swiping Abraham Lincoln and Napoleon from their respective eras has no bearing on world history whatsoever, which is probably quite lucky.

4. Looper (2012)

One problem with time-travel movies is that the rules always need to be explained upfront. In lesser hands, this can lead to all manner of clunky, stilted exposition. But when Rian Johnson dabbled in the genre with Looper , he gave us a masterclass in “show, don’t tell”. The sequence where poor Paul Dano’s character is tortured at two different points in time simultaneously, with the older version following instructions carved into the younger version’s arm, is arguably one of the most inventive uses of time-travel in the entire history of cinema. All that plus this is Bruce Willis’s last truly great performance.

3. The Terminator (1984)/Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

The lure of the first two Terminator movies were the killer robots running around murdering everyone. But they were very smartly built around a framework of pure time-travel. We only see the future in brief flashes, but what’s important is the present. It is very, very important that Kyle Reese (a guy from the future) has sex with Sarah Connor (a woman from the present), because only that will save humanity as we know it. It’s a hell of a pickup line, but the device also elevates what could have simply been a shonky B-movie into the realm of the classics.

2. Idiocracy (2006)

The smartest time-travel movies use the device as a mirror, telling us more about the times we live in now than the times the characters visit. Enter Idiocracy, Mike Judge’s stinging satire about modern times. An average person is cryogenically frozen and wakes up in the future, shocked to discover that the global IQ has fallen off a cliff in the intervening years. Surrounded by aggressive stupidity, he single-handedly saves the US from famine by suggesting that they use water – and not an electrolyte drink – to grow crops. We are conservatively 15 years from this happening in real life.

1. Back to the Future (1985)/Back to the Future Part II (1989)

The only conceivable first choice. The first two Back to the Future films (the third, which is basically just a western, is far less imaginative) have come to define time-travel as a genre. They deliver a complex set of hard sci-fi rules about what can and cannot happen during time-travel and – miraculously – manage to do it in a way that kids can understand. Good music, cool clothes, a million catchphrases and, in the case of the second film, an unnervingly prescient prediction of how Donald Trump would turn out. Just perfect.

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The 23 best time travel movies of all time

From Back to the Future to Looper to Palm Springs, the time travel narrative traverses the film spectrum. Here are EW’s picks for 23 of the best. 

Despite time travel being considered more of a science fiction trope, there is something positively enchanting about the idea of being able to go back to another time or forward into the future, even if just for a moment. While this list deals with a mix of films, some of which consider the hazards of time travel (mostly through time loops), for the most part, these films see time travel as a net positive. Time travel is also a sphere that is mostly occupied by television, thanks to shows like Doctor Who , Quantum Leap , and Lost , even though the number of time travel movies has shot up over the past two decades or so.

Unfortunately, the earliest this list goes is 1962; while there are some time travel movies from the Old Hollywood days, they lack a lot of the imagination and thoughtfulness about the nature of time that the movies on this list bring. This list is a mix of straight dramas, killer action, rollicking comedies, and heartfelt romance — and sometimes, all of those elements exist in a single movie. This list is unranked, and mostly grouped together according to each movie's particular "genre" of time travel: conventional time machines, time loops, magical circumstances, and missions to save the past and the future at the same time. These are 23 of the best time travel movies of all time.

La Jetée (1962)

Kicking off an unranked list of time-travel movies chronologically seems like a good place to start, actually. La Jetée is also probably the most experimental of the films on this list. A French Left Bank short film set in a post-nuclear apocalypse future told through narration and photographs, this is not the first time-travel film by any means, but its impact on the time-travel movies that came after, like 1995's 12 Monkeys , cannot be understated.

A young prisoner (Davos Hanich) is forced to undergo torturous experiments to induce time travel by using impactful memories — and unlike those who came before him, he succeeds, but he ends up discovering a time loop in the process. This is an incredibly stylish telling of what is now a familiar type of story, but in 1962, it was absolutely revolutionary. Honestly, because of its unique technical and visual elements, it still is.

Watch La Jetée on Criterion Channel

Time After Time (1979)

Nicholas Meyer is behind not one, but two brilliant time-travel movies that made this list. For this particular film, he not only wrote the screenplay but also made his directorial debut. The tale of two 19th-century former friends, H.G. Wells ( Malcolm McDowell , unusually wide-eyed and adorable) and John Leslie Stevenson a.k.a. Jack the Ripper ( David Warner , never more menacing yet charming), as they chase each other through 1979 San Francisco thanks to Wells' time machine, Time After Time doesn't spend too much time on the science of time travel, and it's better for it.

This is, in essence, a romantic thriller, as Wells falls for quirky bank clerk Amy ( Mary Steenburgen , delightfully independent) while in search of his old friend turned enemy. It has chase scenes, interrogation sequences, gory murder (courtesy of Jack), and a delightful sense of humor as Wells learns to navigate the future. He thought it would be a utopia; instead, he finds a world in sore need of his idealism, kindness, and dedication to justice.

Where to rent or buy Time After Time

The Back to the Future trilogy (1985, 1989, 1990)

While it's true that the first Back to the Future movie is probably one of the greatest time-travel movies of all time, with its two sequels living in its shadows, all three are essential to understanding the character of Marty McFly ( Michael J. Fox ). The Back to the Future trilogy is an '80s version of a bildungsroman about a teenager who has to learn that there's much more to life than being, well, a teenager. The first film, confidently directed by Robert Zemeckis , is imbued with so much humor and heart, it's all too easy to get sucked into a plot that should be convoluted, but that works so awfully well.

Back to the Future Part II evokes a bit less feeling than the original, and it's significantly grittier, but it's still " another fantastic voyage " as EW's Ira Robbins wrote, flinging Marty and Doc Brown ( Christopher Lloyd ) into a slightly prescient future version of 2015. Back to the Future Part III , meanwhile, restores the heart, but its story is slighter as it wraps up Marty's saga, sending Doc off on a brand new adventure all his own. While the first Back to the Future movie is required viewing for any time travel enthusiast, stick around for the rest of the trilogy, too: Even if this franchise's view of time travel is riddled with potential paradoxes, they are entertaining paradoxes nonetheless.

Watch the Back to the Future trilogy on Tubi

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989)

"Be excellent to each other" is the reigning philosophy of Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure , the adventurous, fun-loving, stoner time-travel comedy that spawned a franchise, including a third installment released in 2020. Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves absolutely triumph in the roles of lackadaisical teenagers Bill and Ted, respectively, as they journey through time to bring back legends in order to pass their history class.

If the film seems silly, that's because it is meant to be. Whereas the Back to the Future franchise intended to craft a legend, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure kicks off the journey with George Carlin as the duo's time travel guide and mentor, Rufus, who intends to enlighten the pair on their mission and destiny. In any other film, the two budding legends, with their free-wheeling ideals and misadventures, would bring down the fabric of time and space itself. However, Excellent Adventure is not a time-travel film that forces you to think too hard about its premise; instead, it invites you to just kick back and have a good time.

Watch Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure on Amazon Prime Video

Meet the Robinsons (2007)

Meet the Robinsons received mixed reviews when it first debuted, but of the 3-D animated movies that came out of Disney Animation in the 2000s, it's probably the most imaginative and outstanding of the bunch. Following a young orphan as he goes on a fantastic voyage into the future with another young boy who is a time traveler (kind of), Robinsons is stylish to a point and is filled with heart. It's probably also the most kid-friendly entry on this list, but its good-natured humor and complicated emotional palette will appeal to adults, too.

It also fits neatly into a more classic genre of time travel, with time machines, eccentric inventors, and kids looking to make an impact — not just on their time, but on the time they find themselves in, be it the near future or the distant past.

Watch Meet the Robinsons on Disney+

Run Lola Run (1998)

This is, in many ways, the time loop movie; debuting in 1998 to rave reviews, Run Lola Run , a German experimental thriller, is one you will not be able to shake, long after you've finished a viewing (or even a second, to catch what you missed the first time). The protagonist, Lola (Franka Potente, in a punishingly physical performance), is forced to relive a scenario, again and again, involving saving her boyfriend Manni (Moritz Bleibtreu) from certain death.

Potente's performance alone is worth the watch, and of the films on this list, Run Lola Run is actually one of the shorter ones, using its 80-minute runtime to its full advantage. The other time loop movies on this list are also worthy viewing experiences in a lot of ways, but for a pure shot of adrenaline, you can't miss the film EW deemed "a masterful pop piece, humming with raw romance, youth, and energy." If you're interested in more of director Tom Tykwer 's work, he also codirected 2012's Cloud Atlas with the Wachowskis , which, while not a pure time-travel movie, certainly plays with the intertwined nature of time and memory.

Where to rent or buy Run Lola Run

Source Code (2011)

Duncan Jones made a splash with his 2009 feature directorial debut Moon , a moody, philosophical insight into possible lunar labor practices in the future. He followed that thoughtful film up with Source Code , which, while not a movie that could always be described as "thoughtful," could certainly be described as moody. Hitchcockian in a sense, Source Code follows the misadventures of a U.S. Army pilot ( Jake Gyllenhaal ), as he attempts to stop a terrorist attack on a Chicago commuter train — repeatedly.

Source Code does have something to say about the commodification of bodies and minds in the service of the so-called "greater good"; while Gyllenhaal's Captain Stevens' services are no doubt helpful, are they necessary, the film asks. Is it really a good idea to force someone to relive an incredibly stressful idea, over and over again? The movie has its funny moments, even in the thick of all the intense chase scenes through the train; EW noted back in 2012, "The director finds moments of humor in unlikely corners of that train of fools." Indeed. If you enjoyed a film like The Commuter (2018), but thought it could use a time loop and the potential of alternate realities, Source Code is your next mandatory viewing.

Watch Source Code on Showtime

Looper (2012)

Before Rian Johnson introduced us to Benoit Blanc or journeyed to a galaxy far, far, away , he made the tangled time-travel film fittingly called Looper . Starring Bruce Willis , Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a younger Bruce Willis, and Emily Blunt , Looper tells the tale of a contract killer sent after his next target: himself. This is a complicated film, and it is imperfect in a lot of ways, but its brutal appraisal of a possible dystopian future, and the efforts one man takes to prevent that future, are worth the amount of head-scratching you might find yourself doing throughout.

That Johnson likes his narratives to be impenetrable Gordian knots that only his designated protagonist can solve can perhaps be frustrating to the audience. However, if there's one thing that the Knives Out franchise seems to have reinforced, it's that not trying to unpack the mysteries of his work might work to your advantage as a viewer, because Johnson will probably have someone explain what just happened by the end, anyway. Like most of his films, Looper has a social conscience lurking within it as well. As EW's Lisa Schwarzbaum noted , "It's time to wipe the drops from our eyes or else get stuck in a loop, an endless cycle, a rut" about Looper 's core tenet back in 2012. It's a worthy takeaway from a film obsessed with self-fulfilling prophecies people find themselves within.

Watch Looper on Freevee

Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

Time loop movies need some incredible editing in order to really succeed, and Doug Liman 's enthralling Edge of Tomorrow certainly does so on that point. While Tom Cruise is the lead as a cowardly lion–turned–near-super soldier, all eyes are on Emily Blunt as Rita Vrataski, who rules this movie as one of the few heroes this dystopian, post-alien invasion world actually has left. While the quest Cruise and Blunt go on may be a bit convoluted, the film is so incredibly entertaining because it's so sharply cut, keeping up the pace even as we see similar things over and over and over again.

A tip of the hat must, of course, go to the action, which is as compelling as you would expect from a mega-star who seems determined these days to do all of his own stunts. In an era of often depressing science fiction, Edge of Tomorrow , as EW's Chris Nashawaty mentioned , is a fun, "deliciously subversive kind of blockbuster" to immerse your senses in for two hours, if nothing else.

Watch Edge of Tomorrow on Max

Interstellar (2014)

While this film might technically be considered more of a space opera than a time-travel movie, there's no reason it can't be both. Christopher Nolan 's Interstellar is a dazzling portrait not just of space travel, but of the love between a father and daughter that stretches over the thin fabric of both time and space. Matthew McConaughey as the astronaut father has never been so serious, but acclaim needs to go to Jessica Chastain and Anne Hathaway as Nolan's strongest women characters to date.

Interstellar varies between being almost too tense to stand, and, at other points, utterly relaxed. As a cinematic experience, it feels all-encompassing, using every possible outstanding special effect to draw its viewers in before the script hits them with emotional truth. While Nolan can certainly be considered " cold and clinical " as EW noted, his space-journeying meditation on the intersection between love and time is anything but.

Watch Interstellar on Paramount+

Palm Springs (2020)

Releasing a time loop movie during a global pandemic where life felt increasingly repetitive and bizarre was certainly a strategy for Hulu and Neon with Palm Springs , but it paid off. While the film was certainly developed long before COVID-19, the scenario of two wedding guests trying to escape the situational loop they've found themselves definitely resonated at the time, and it still does. Palm Springs may seem serious from the above description, but it is actually a fun sci-fi-tinged tale that is largely driven by the comedic skills of leads Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti .

EW noted that the movie avoids " true discomfort comedy ," and honestly, it's all the better for it. If Palm Springs had been angrier, it wouldn't hit home so hard, and it also wouldn't be nearly as entertaining. Instead, it's an often sweet rom-com that doesn't take itself or its completely made-up time loop physics too seriously. It was a Sundance darling for a reason, never quite letting up on the wild ride it takes its characters or its viewers on over the course of its 90 minutes.

Watch Palm Springs on Hulu

Somewhere in Time (1980)

Somewhere in Time might employ one of the strangest methods of time travel of all the movies on this list: time travel by hypnosis, of all things. (And self-induced hypnosis, for that matter.) Time travel on such shaky ground can't possibly hold up, and it somewhat doesn't, in the end. Science fiction great Richard Matheson adapted his own novel into a lackadaisical screenplay for this film, starring Christopher Reeve in a perfectly tragic role as the young man who gives his all for a woman (Jane Seymour) he can never really have.

In many ways, Somewhere in Time feels like a curio of the era from which it came, serving as a time capsule of how stories were told in the late-'70s and early-'80s. That is actually not a mark against it; this is a film that is just a peak tragic romance in a lot of ways; special nods must also go to Christopher Plummer as the young woman's cynical mentor, who seems to possess a certain foresight about the impossibility of Reeve's character. If you want a time-travel movie that is beautifully romantic, from its iconic score to its grand cinematography, you shouldn't stray from Somewhere in Time .

Watch Somewhere in Time on Tubi

Peggy Sue Got Married (1986)

The tale of a grown, about-to-be-divorced woman forced to relive her high school days and her courtship with a dorky-cool musician, Peggy Sue Got Married might be one of Francis Ford Coppola 's most small-scale movies, but it decidedly has the most soul of his catalog of mostly epics. Peggy Sue ( Kathleen Turner , in an Oscar-nominated performance) just wants to leave Charlie (Nicolas Cage) behind, but her time-traveling coma dream conspires against her to force her to reconsider. (It forces Charlie to become a better person, too.)

The film combines the cynicism of a rightfully embittered '80s housewife with the unbridled idealism of a '60s teenager to make one heck of a sincere cinematic concoction. That the film starts at a high school reunion could mean it becomes awkward very quickly, but instead, it's completely joyful. Whether Peggy Sue Got Married started a tradition of "person has some sort of crisis and subsequently ends up in another time" movies is unclear, but it does have a rather clear descendant in one of our next entries.

Where to rent or buy Peggy Sue Got Married

Kate & Leopold (2001)

Doesn't everyone want a young Hugh Jackman from the 19th century to fall out of the sky and into their lives? Leopold (Jackman) is a foppish and geeky, if not perfect, gentleman who quickly has Kate ( Meg Ryan ) falling for him despite her modern understanding of the world. That so many time-travel movies somehow end up in romantic territory is an interesting phenomenon, but one that does make sense. There is something appealing about falling for someone whose time is not your own.

Kate & Leopold is decidedly not a perfect film, although it is the first of director James Mangold 's and Jackman's collaborations (see 2017's Logan for the much grittier future fruits of their labor). It's fluffy, it's light, and it creates a paradox without even really acknowledging it. Someone looked at the Meg Ryan comedies of the '80s and '90s and asked, "But what if we made them science fiction?" It works in spite of itself, with Jackman's physical comedy as he plays " a doll of a boyfriend " and Ryan's sardonic tone carrying the day.

Watch Kate & Leopold on Paramount+

13 Going on 30 (2004)

When a 13-year-old girl is crushed after being tricked at her own birthday party, she makes a wish to be "30, flirty, and thriving," quickly waking up the next day to find herself just that, in the body of Jennifer Garner . Instead of traveling back to the past à la the protagonist of Peggy Sue Got Married , Jenna (Garner, Christa B. Allen) ends up in a potential future, where she is all the things she wished for, but definitely not as happy as she thought she would be.

The 2004 rom-com is a magical time travel tale — there's literally "magic wishing dust" — but that doesn't take away from the hilarity that comes with a 13-year-old trying to navigate an adult woman's life. Of course, in the end, Jenna learns her lesson — it's okay to just be young, for a little bit longer — but the journey she goes on as she discovers not just herself but also her true love ( Mark Ruffalo ) is worth all the silliness in the end.

Watch 13 Going on 30 on Max

Mirai (2018)

This lovely little gem directed by Japanese animation visionary Mamoru Hosoda tells the story of a little boy who unhappily gets a baby sister and ends up learning a lot of lessons about the past and the future. Kun (Moka Kamishiraishi) gets a chance to meet not only the grown, future version of his sister Mirai (Haru Kuroki) but also members of his family at different points in their lives. Mirai is a delightfully imaginative film with some gorgeous animation that contains some " mind-boggling visuals " as EW's Christian Holub pointed out.

It is also a genuinely heartwarming tearjerker; while all ends well for little Kun, the meditations this film offers on the nature of family bonds over the course of multiple generations might just leave you in a state of reflection on your own ties that bind. While many time-travel movies tell their stories from the perspective of youth, few unveil them through the eyes of a rambunctious preschooler, and gaining that perspective, in this case, allows for a truly precious journey.

Where to rent or buy Mirai

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)

If you know anything about Star Trek , you know the fourth film is "the one with the whales," but if you don't know anything about the franchise, you probably also know that this one is "the one with the whales." Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home often gets acclaim as the funny Star Trek movie, but it brings a lot more than just comedy. The original crew of the Enterprise fling themselves back in time to save humpback whales in the past in order to save the future from a strange probe that threatens Earth...and will stop, but only if it hears some natural whalesong.

The crew finds themselves in 1986 San Francisco, so it's great that Time After Time's Nicholas Meyer returned to the franchise not as director (he helmed Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan ), but as a screenwriter. Watching these characters from a literal utopia navigate a world not designed for them creates not only dynamic humor but great tension as well. As they almost always do, the Enterprise team breaks all the rules in order to save the future as well as the whales. Or, as EW noted in a tribute to the film: "It has heart, and passion — Save the Whales! — and a tremendous sense of fun."

Watch Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home on Max

Star Trek: First Contact (1996)

Star Trek: First Contact doesn't particularly feel as much like a Star Trek movie as Voyage Home does, and EW, in fact, says it harnessed "a sleek, confident style fully independent of its predecessors." As a Trekkie, this may not be the most complimentary way of looking at it, but as a film fan, however, it might be the highest honor someone could bestow upon a movie within this franchise. Captain Jean-Luc Picard ( Patrick Stewart ) turns from a peace-loving diplomat to a Borg-slaying action star while the rest of his crew tries to get the inventor of the Warp Drive (the technology upon which the future relies) to stop drinking so much and actually invent the thing. James Cromwell, as the inventor, Zefram Cochrane, serves as the comedic relief for a remarkably serious and often scary film.

The Borg, '90s Star Trek 's biggest villain, are the main antagonists here, and they do provide some chilling action, even if the introduction that they can easily time travel would really wreck things for some future Trek series. Stewart manages the transition from his mild-mannered diplomat to traumatized warrior well, turning in one of his most ferocious performances. Star Trek: First Contact also gives us a look at a post-apocalyptic world in the midst of a recovery, and in that respect, it makes it both a thoughtful entry in the Trek canon and a time travel action-thriller with a brain.

Watch Star Trek: First Contact on Max

The Terminator (1984) and Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

What would a best time-travel films list be without including at least one of the Terminator movies? While an often brutal franchise with diminishing returns after James Cameron 's first two installments, the misadventures of an evil cyborg-turned-good (played to physical perfection by Arnold Schwarzenegger ) in a consistently dangerous world are always thrilling and entertaining.

Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor, mother of the future's savior (and much, much more), is also due an acknowledgment; while the films are remembered for Schwarzenegger's portrayal of the T-800, Hamilton is the heart of this franchise a great deal of the time, as she refuses to die or let her son face the same fate, either. The first two Terminator films are so much more than "scary robots take over the world, everybody dies" – they're action-packed, bloody thrillers with startling narratives, pioneering visual effects, and, of course, time travel as the catalyst.

Watch The Terminator on Max

Where to rent or buy Terminator 2: Judgment Day

Safety Not Guaranteed (2012)

"Wanted: Somebody to go back in time with me. This is not a joke...I have only done this once before. SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED": This is part of the joke classified ad from which this movie was inspired. You might inspire a more risky movie from the tone of the ad, but what you get is a light comedy that served as the first leading film role for Aubrey Plaza . This Colin Trevorrow -directed film isn't so much about time travel as it is about the cultural assumptions that surround the concept, and those who think it might be possible.

In that sense, it's a meta-narrative on nearly every time travel story which has come before it, and quite possibly, that will come after it. EW called it " a fable of 'redemption' "; redemption, and the acts of salvaging something, anything, for the benefit of the future, is a regular time travel theme, from all those time machines to all those time loops. Safety Not Guaranteed manages to explore these themes with a lot of irony and a splash of heart.

Where to rent or buy Safety Not Guaranteed

Related content:

• The Terminator movies, ranked
• Back to the Future cast: Where are they now?
• Let's talk about the plot of Interstellar

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The 25 Best Time Travel Movies of All Time, Ranked

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Time travel movies have been done to death, and many time travel movies suck because they rehash the same old predictable tropes and cliches. But there's still a lot of potential left to be mined in the genre!

Despite the vast number of lackluster time travel movies, there have also been many notable films that came out in the past few decades—and that's on top of the sci-fi classics that still hold up.

At the end of the day, all movies are meant to deliver an entertaining experience for the viewer. With that in mind, here are what I consider to be the best time travel movies of all time.

Warning: I hate spoilers as much as anyone, so I've taken care to exclude spoilers from all movie descriptions in this article. However, knowing that a movie involves time travel could itself be a spoiler! Read on at your own risk.

25. Project Almanac (2015)

Directed by Dean Israelite

Starring Jonny Weston, Sofia Black-D'Elia, Virginia Gardner

Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi (1h 46m)

6.3 on IMDb — 38% on RT

Project Almanac is an underrated time travel movie that probably flew under your radar. Don't let the fact that it seems like a teen drama deter you from checking it out.

A group of high schoolers find something strange in an old home video, which spurs them to investigate—and uncover secrets plans for a time machine. They build it, of course, and that's when the trouble starts.

24. ARQ (2016)

Directed by Tony Elliott

Starring Robbie Amell, Rachael Taylor, Shaun Benson

Action, Sci-Fi, Thriller (1h 28m)

6.3 on IMDb — 43% on RT

A strange energy-providing device causes a couple to be stuck in a time loop while being forced to defend the device against a group intent on stealing it. The setup is strange, the ending is stranger.

This low-budget film is really nothing more than a popcorn flick, but it's a fun ride as long as you don't think too deeply about it. Compared to other thought experiment-type time travel movies, this one's pretty good.

23. Click (2006)

Directed by Frank Coraci

Starring Adam Sandler, Kate Beckinsale, Christopher Walken

Comedy, Drama, Fantasy (1h 47m)

6.4 on IMDb — 34% on RT

Using a magical universal remote, a workaholic finds himself able to skip ahead or rewind back to various points in his life. During those skipped times, his body continues to live on autopilot.

Don't be turned away by the fact that this is an Adam Sandler movie. In one of his best performances ever, Sandler effectively carries this funny-but-heart-wrenching story on his back.

22. Time Lapse (2014)

Directed by Bradley King

Starring Danielle Panabaker, Matt O'Leary, George Finn

Horror, Mystery, Sci-Fi (1h 44m)

6.5 on IMDb — 74% on RT

When three friends discover a machine that can take photos 24 hours in the future, things take a dark turn as each photo reveals more than they could've anticipated.

Smart writing makes up for the mediocre performances in Time Lapse . If you go into this indie film without much in the way of expectations, you'll be pleasantly surprised.

21. The Endless (2017)

Directed by Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead

Starring Aaron Moorhead, Justin Benson, Callie Hernandez

Drama, Fantasy, Horror (1h 51m)

6.5 on IMDb — 92% on RT

Sci-fi horror done well tends to be pretty rare, but The Endless is a shining example of when it goes right.

The film centers on two brothers who used to belong to an alleged UFO death cult when they were young. Years later, after they'd escaped, they both have different memories of what the cult was like—so they agree to return for one day to set the record straight.

What they find is that the supposed UFO death cult is nothing like how either of them imagined, and they end up embroiled in all kinds of mysterious happenings, including a time loop.

20. The Adam Project (2022)

Directed by Shawn Levy

Starring Ryan Reynolds, Walker Scobell, Mark Ruffalo

Action, Adventure, Comedy (1h 46m)

6.7 on IMDb — 67% on RT

The Adam Project stars Ryan Reynolds as Adam Reed, a man from the future who goes back in time to save his wife. He's injured and takes refuge in his childhood home, but is accidentally discovered by his younger self. They work together to complete Adam's mission of saving his wife.

It's a simple story with Ryan Reynolds basically playing Ryan Reynolds—which is great, if you're into that—but what sets The Adam Project apart is the deeply moving emotional threads that undergird the characters and weave together into a surprisingly cathartic climax.

19. Primer (2004)

Directed by Shane Carruth

Starring Shane Carruth, David Sullivan, Casey Gooden

Drama, Sci-Fi, Thriller (1h 17m)

6.8 on IMDb — 73% on RT

Four entrepreneurs accidentally invent a time travel machine, which ends up ruining their lives when they decide to give it a spin. Primer is the quintessential time travel film and a must-see movie for time travel fans who love poring over the tiniest details.

It's short (only 77-minute runtime) but insanely dense—the kind of movie you have to watch multiple times to really understand what actually happened, and even then you may not fully get it.

18. Safety Not Guaranteed (2012)

Directed by Colin Trevorrow

Starring Aubrey Plaza, Mark Duplass, Jake Johnson

Adventure, Comedy, Drama (1h 26m)

6.9 on IMDb — 91% on RT

Safety Not Guaranteed is a comedy romance film centering on three magazine staffers who go out to interview a strange man who's looking for a partner for his upcoming time travel mission. They think it's all a joke, but the truth slowly shows itself to be something more.

While the actual act of time traveling doesn't play a huge role, Safety Not Guaranteed is a must-watch for anyone who's looking for a heartfelt drama that's well-written and infused with depth by a solid cast.

17. Triangle (2009)

Directed by Christopher Smith

Starring Melissa George, Joshua McIvor, Jack Taylor

Fantasy, Mystery, Sci-Fi (1h 39m)

6.9 on IMDb — 80% on RT

In the wake of a yachting accident, a group of friends are rescued by what appears to be a mysteriously empty cruise ship. As they further explore the ship's interior, they encounter horrors unknown.

Again, well-done science fiction horror films are hard to come by, and Triangle stands out for its premise and execution, particularly in how time travel is revealed and incorporated. There's nothing groundbreaking here, but it's certainly interesting and memorable.

16. The Time Traveler's Wife (2009)

Directed by Robert Schwentke

Starring Eric Bana, Rachel McAdams, Ron Livingston

7.1 on IMDb — 39% on RT

In The Time Traveler's Wife , Henry is a man who has a genetic anomaly that causes him to time travel. The thing is, he can't control when or where he travels to, and thus struggles to keep his marriage alive.

Based on the novel by the same name, The Time Traveler's Wife may not be able to capture the full magic that made the book so great—there's just too much content to fit into one movie—but it's still a stirring romantic drama with several twists and moving moments.

15. Timecrimes (2007)

Directed by Nacho Vigalondo

Starring Karra Elejalde, Candela Fernández, Bárbara Goenaga

Horror, Mystery, Sci-Fi (1h 32m)

7.1 on IMDb — 90% on RT

In the Spanish-language Timecrimes , an average man accidentally travels back in time one hour, unleashing a series of disastrous events. That's all you really want to know about this film before diving in.

More to the tune of mystery than action, Timecrimes is a flawless example of a "What actually happened?" narrative that asks you to puzzle things together as events unfold before you. The twists are plentiful here.

14. Palm Springs (2020)

Directed by Max Barbakow

Starring Andy Samberg, Cristin Milioti, J. K. Simmons

Comedy, Fantasy, Mystery (1h 30m)

7.4 on IMDb — 94% on RT

Palm Springs takes place at a wedding in Palm Springs, California. Two guests inadvertently get stuck in a time loop, reliving the same exact wedding day over and over, and try to find a way to escape.

The premise may not seem like anything special, but the performances by Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti elevate this film to new heights. Infused with comedy, drama, and romance, Palm Springs makes full use of its time loop situation to tell an impactful story.

13. Predestination (2014)

Directed by Michael Spierig and Peter Spierig

Starring Ethan Hawke, Sarah Snook, Noah Taylor

Action, Drama, Sci-Fi (1h 37m)

7.4 on IMDb — 84% on RT

A time-traveling agent's final assignment is to track down the one criminal who he's never been able to capture. But the further down the rabbit hole he goes, the more mind-bending the truths become.

Predestination isn't just a time travel film. What sets this film apart from most sci-fi movies is how deftly it handles its deeper themes, how deep it's willing to go with its characters, and how expertly the narrative unfolds. It's truly one of the most complex time travel movies ever made.

12. The Butterfly Effect (2004)

Directed by Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber

Starring Ashton Kutcher, Amy Smart, Melora Walters

Drama, Sci-Fi, Thriller (1h 53m)

7.6 on IMDb — 34% on RT

A man discovers he has the ability to change the present by traveling back into the mind of his younger self, but around every corner await unintended consequences.

You've heard of "the butterfly effect" before, and The Butterfly Effect effectively takes that concept and turns it into a dark thriller. Ashton Kutcher stars in this film against type and delivers a surprisingly great performance in this gripping film about regret and control.

11. About Time (2013)

Directed by Richard Curtis

Starring Domhnall Gleeson, Rachel McAdams, Bill Nighy

Comedy, Drama, Fantasy (2h 3m)

7.8 on IMDb — 70% on RT

A man who can travel through time decides to use his power to woo the girl of his dreams, but things aren't as easy as they seem—and the limits of his power cause him to make a tough and important decision.

With Domhnall Gleeson and Rachel McAdams taking the lead, About Time ends up being a romantic comedy that's far better than it has any right to be, complete with a superbly moving ending that's completely earned.

10. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)

Directed by Alfonso Cuarón

Starring Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint

Adventure, Family, Fantasy (2h 22m)

7.9 on IMDb — 90% on RT

It's Harry Potter's third year at Hogwarts and this time Lord Voldemort isn't his main concern. Instead, Sirius Black—the one who was suspected as betraying his parents—has escaped from Azkaban Prison and rumor has it that he's coming to finish Harry off.

Often praised as the best film in the Harry Potter franchise—thanks to impeccable direction by Alfonso Cuaron— The Prisoner of Azkaban isn't just a standout for its time travel subplot but also for its cohesive narrative that combines numerous themes with stellar cinematography.

9. Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

Directed by Doug Liman

Starring Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt, Bill Paxton

Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi (1h 53m)

7.9 on IMDb — 91% on RT

In the face of an alien invasion, a soldier somehow ends up reliving the same day over and over every time he dies. He must somehow use this to his advantage and defeat the invading aliens while also finding a way to escape the endless loop in which he's trapped.

As far as time loop movies go, Edge of Tomorrow is one of the better executed ones. Not only is the tight story well-paced, but stars Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt put in excellent performances that carry the narrative forward from start to finish.

8. The Man From Earth (2007)

Directed by Richard Schenkman

Starring David Lee Smith, Tony Todd, John Billingsley

Drama, Fantasy, Mystery (1h 27m)

7.8 on IMDb — 100% on RT

During a retirement party, an aging professor reveals that he's been alive longer than his colleagues can imagine.

The Man From Earth is best described as a "play caught on camera," delivering an engaging mystery that's built on the foundation of an interesting thought experiment.

Not many dialogue-only films are this riveting, which is why you should definitely give this one a watch.

7. Arrival (2016)

Directed by Denis Villeneuve

Starring Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker

Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi (1h 56m)

7.9 on IMDb — 94% on RT

When aliens arrive on Earth, a linguist is brought to the frontlines to decipher their language and establish communications.

Easily one of the most cerebral science fiction movies ever made, Arrival takes things to the next level by exploring deep themes and ideas that few other films have dared to touch. You won't ever forget this one.

6. 12 Monkeys (1995)

Directed by Terry Gilliam

Starring Bruce Willis, Madeleine Stowe, Brad Pitt

Mystery, Sci-Fi, Thriller (2h 9m)

8.0 on IMDb — 88% on RT

In the year 2035, a convict is sent back in time to 1996 with one mission: to investigate the cause of a man-made virus that decimated the world. But his mission is sidetracked when he's sent back to the wrong time period and ends up in a mental hospital.

Featuring one of Bruce Willis's best performances, 12 Monkeys starts off slow but ends with a bang. There's a lot to love about this mind-bending movie if you can get through the slow but necessary setup.

5. Donnie Darko (2001)

Directed by Richard Kelly

Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Jena Malone, Mary McDonnell

Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi (1h 53m)

8.0 on IMDb — 87% on RT

A high schooler begins to see visions of a man in a deranged bunny suit who warns him that the world is going to end in a few days—and convinces him to commit all sorts of crimes and unsavory deeds to prevent the oncoming apocalypse.

Donnie Darko is a strange film with time travel elements that aren't as overt as in other time travel films. But if you're itching for a uniquely surreal film experience, it doesn't get much weirder than Donnie Darko .

4. Groundhog Day (1993)

Directed by Harold Ramis

Starring Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell, Chris Elliott

Comedy, Drama, Fantasy (1h 41m)

8.0 on IMDb — 94% on RT

An insufferable weatherman finds himself caught in a time loop, reliving the same mundane day over and over again with seemingly no way out of it—and after thousands of repeats, it starts to take its toll on him.

Groundhog Day is a hilarious comedy that's also surprisingly deep if you're willing to unpack it, acting as a lesson in what really brings about happiness and self-improvement. If you're a fan of Bill Murray and haven't seen this yet, what have you been waiting for?!

3. Your Name (2016)

Directed by Makoto Shinkai

Starring Michael Sinterniklaas, Stephanie Sheh, Kyle Hebert

Animation, Drama, Fantasy (1h 46m)

8.4 on IMDb — 98% on RT

One day, a high school boy in Tokyo and a high school girl in the countryside start swapping bodies, seemingly at random but only when they go to sleep. But then the swapping stops. The boy is compelled to find the girl, but investigating leads to a heartbreaking answer.

Your Name isn't just one of the best animated movies of all time, nor simply one of the best Japanese movies of all time, but one of the best, period. It's incredibly heartfelt with a climax that'll hit you in the gut.

2. Back to the Future (1985)

Directed by Robert Zemeckis

Starring Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson

Adventure, Comedy, Sci-Fi (1h 56m)

8.5 on IMDb — 93% on RT

A teenage boy from 1985 accidentally goes back in time thirty years with his mad scientist friend. Not only does he need to find a way home, but he accidentally puts his own existence in danger and must make sure his future parents end up falling in love.

Back to the Future is a classic time travel movie and you owe it to yourself to make it the next movie you watch if you've never seen it. Look past the 1980s cheesiness and you'll see an engaging story beneath it all.

1. Interstellar (2014)

Directed by Christopher Nolan

Starring Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain

Adventure, Drama, Sci-Fi (2h 49m)

8.7 on IMDb — 73% on RT

With Earth on the brink of extinction, a team of astronauts must travel through a wormhole to find a new planet for humans to colonize. But journeying through outer space comes with all kinds of complications, and finding a habitable planet isn't going to be so easy.

For all its flaws, Interstellar packs a thrilling story on top of dazzling visuals and one of the most moving soundtracks of any film, period. This is the kind of film that'll have you thinking long after the credits roll, and for many reasons beyond just time travel.

The 35 Best Time Travel Movies

Ready for 1.21 gigawatts of sci-fi greatness?

These are the 35 best sci-fi films that explore the fluidity of time.

🤯 You love mind-bending science. So do we. Let’s nerd out over it together.

35. Timecop

Jean-Claude Van Damme is a cop who polices time. Don’t need to say more, but I guess I will. In 1994, time travel becomes a favorite pastime of criminals, and timecops like Van Damme must catch any chronal abusers and bring them to justice. As is often the case, Van Damme’s own time-muckery with the past creates different and divergent timelines that not even Doc Brown’s chalkboard could work out. But Timecop isn’t exactly a film that’s going for narrative clarity here.

34. The Final Countdown / The Philadelphia Experiment

Although most people would file this film under “flop,” The Final Countdown contains such an amazing premise it has to be recognized. The crew of the U.S.S. Nimitz enters a storm vortex and is transported to Pearl Harbor in 1941, turning a favorite imaginary war-game scenario into real life. Although the actual film elements aren’t necessarily memorable, it does give us an incredibly good look at the Nimitz (the film was shot on the actual carrier).

We tossed in The Philadelphia Experiment at the same spot, since it’s essentially the reverse of The Final Countdown .

33. Men in Black 3

By the time director Barry Sonnenfeld directed Men in Black 3 in 2012, the franchise was 15 years removed from its fun and campy original, and Men in Black 2 had sucked out much of the charm. That’s why MiB 3 , despite its faults, is still a surprising underdog of a film.

Agent J (Will Smith) goes back in time to stop an alien from mucking up the past and killing Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones/Josh Brolin). The film recaptures much of the original’s fun, and Josh Brolin’s portrayal of a young Tommy Lee Jones playing Agent K is simply awe-inspiring. Honestly, that acting work alone earns this spot for MiB 3.

32. Flight of the Navigator

Sort of like E.T. , but with time travel. What Flight of the Navigator lacks in a substantial plot, it more than makes up for in charm.

David Scott Freeman falls into a ravine and is knocked unconscious—for eight years. Although he doesn’t age, everyone he knows does, and he soon finds he’s part of something much larger. It’s a fun film that will never outshine any Spielberg classics, but its campiness is too genuine to ignore.

31. Time After Time

H.G. Wells, Jack the Ripper, and time travel ... that’s it . Just click the arrow.

30. Timecrimes

A film with perhaps the lowest budget on this list, Timecrimes is a Spanish-language movie that follows a typical time travel trope (many copies of one person causing major problems) but creates 92 minutes of truly enjoyable cinema. The fun moments of Timecrimes are the reveal after reveal after reveal, which snowballs into a fascinating plot.

29. Source Code

Source Code is like Groundhog Day and Edge of Tomorrow with a twist. Instead of going back in time as himself, Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) enters the body of someone else as he tries to stop a mass murder attempt. What the film lacks in depth, it more than makes up for in pulse-pumping action, and the premise itself is a refreshing take on the usual time travel idea.

It will likely never be considered an example of high science fiction, but as far as time travel goes, it gets good grades.

28. Donnie Darko

Perfect amounts creepy and perplexing, Donnie Darko is another strange example of time travel, which is why it belongs on this list all the more. Darko (Gyllenhaal again) is a high school kid with a less-than-sunny disposition. But when he begins seeing frightening hallucinations of a deranged and grotesque rabbit, things slowly begin to unravel, going from bad to weird pretty quickly.

For such a small-budget film (that was almost released straight to home video!) it’s made an outsized impact on science fiction and indie filmmaking. It’s a great movie, but also a polarizing one.

27. Safety Not Guaranteed

Director Colin Trevorrow’s debut film Safety Not Guaranteed follows three journalists—well, one journalist and two interns—on a road trip to meet the eccentric Kenneth (Mark Duplass), who placed an ad in a local newspaper looking for a time-travel companion. Although at its heart a romantic comedy, the film explores human perception of time and the indelible regrets, traumas, and even fantasies that fill our memories. Although the idea of actual time travel plays a significant role in the film, it’s used mostly as a symbol to analyze the importance of being present and always looking with hope toward the future.

26. X-Men: Days of Future Past

Smashing together the old X-Men guard with the new is what makes X-Men: Days of Future Past one of the more successful cinematic outings for the mutant team.

In the film, Kitty Pryde sends Wolverine back through time to stop apocalyptic events from unfolding. Maybe that’s not the most original plot, but it’s one that’s too fun to resist (if only for the Quicksilver scene alone ).

25. Predestination

Based on Robert Heinlein’s sci-fi short story “All You Zombies,” Predestination is a head trip, like any proper time travel film should be. With a strong performance from Ethan Hawke and a script that will keep you guessing, the film is one of the more solid time travel entries in recent years and is a film that garners a rewatch so you can catch every detail.

24. Star Trek: First Contact

The Next Generation ’s big screen outings are a mixed bag, to put it nicely, but the best film by far is the time-bending Star Trek: First Contact . Jean-Luc Picard and the crew of the USS Enterprise-E travel to the past to prevent the cybernetic Borg from mucking with Earth’s history. It’s a good film all by itself, but even more excellent if you’re an invested Star Trek fan. We get to see huge, never-before-seen moments in the Star Trek universe, like humanity’s first encounter with the Vulcans, and the Borg are just an excellent adversary.

23. Army of Darkness

“Shop Smart. Shop, S-Mart.”

Depending on who you ask, Sam Raimi’s Army of Darkness is either the best sequel to any film ever, or the worst—there isn’t much room in between. The chainsaw-toting Ashley “Ash” Williams is tossed back to medieval times where he must fight off a horde of undead monstrosities with only his ingenuity and his “boom stick.”

Even though it’s slapstick comedy with wonderfully B-movie action sequences, it remains an absolute joy to watch.

22. Doctor Strange

In this Marvel sleeper hit , Stephen Strange (played by Benedict Cumberbatch) becomes the Sorcerer Supreme, and in typical Marvel fashion, is tasked with saving the world. Although the visuals alone are worthing giving this movie a shot, its manipulation of time as a superpower rather than a world-altering plot device is what sets it apart from the rest.

21. Sleeper

Although not technically time travel (long stretches of cryo-sleep instead), Sleeper is Woody Allen’s sci-fi comedy that’s absurd, hilarious, and strangely poignant. Miles Monroe is a jazz musician and health-food-store owner who wakes up in the 22nd century after a botched gall bladder operation. The world is, as you’d expect, quite different, and Monroe is a hilarious character to explore it with.

Tenet is an “A for effort” addition to this list. The film has all the trappings of a Christopher Nolan flick—stunning cinematography, a star-studded cast, head-scratching plot points, etc., etc. And Tenet does take time travel movies one step further with the introduction of time inversion, the idea that objects and people can travel into the past at the same temporal pace that they can travel into the future. Although a fascinating concept, it’s also a confusing one, which is why Nolan spends much of the film’s 150-minute runtime explaining what’s going on. Tenet is a fascinating time travel story though ultimately one a bit lost in its own exposition.

19. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time

This 2006 award-winning anime is a coming-of-age time travel story that even rivals Back to the Future . After schoolgirl Mokoto Konno discovers a time travel device that gives her the power to leap through time, she uses her new gifts for mundane high school stuff, passing tests, avoiding awkward conversations, and to address her chronic lateness.

When she learns what her time traveling does to others around her, and as the seriousness of her time jumping becomes more apparent, the film blossoms into an important story about loss and friendship.

Crime noir meets science fiction in Rian Johnson’s Looper , and the match is magical. In a future where time travel is invented and immediately made illegal, crime syndicates use the technology for time-hopping assassinations. But to tie off some temporal inconsistencies, the assassin must eventually become the target—and that’s where things get interesting. This isn’t flawless sci-fi, but it’s certainly inventive.

17. Run Lola Run

On its surface, the German film Run Lola Run is about a blazingly red-headed woman running through the streets of Berlin in an attempt to save her boyfriend’s life. However, the twist is that once Lola reaches a dead-end (sometimes literally) in one of her runs, the film starts over from the beginning and Lola runs through Berlin once again, only this time small changes in her path create largely divergent outcomes by the film’s end. Although time is more of a thematic device than a strictly plot-driven one in Run Lola Run, its ruminations on time and the exploration of the Butterfly Effect , the idea that small incidents can have lasting repercussions, makes Run Lola Run one of the most unique films on this list.

16. Avengers: Endgame

What happens when the big purple monster man annihilates half the population? Time travel, baby. Tony Stark and gang concoct a convoluted plan that’ll save the universe from being cleaved in two, including some very inventive scenes that play with time travel. Like most time travel plots, Endgame creates more questions than it answers, but it’s best to just sit back and enjoy.

Darren lives in Portland, has a cat, and writes/edits about sci-fi and how our world works. You can find his previous stuff at Gizmodo and Paste if you look hard enough. 

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55 Best Time Travel Movies Of All Time Ranked

One of the fun things about time travel movies (apart from, you know, the time travel part) is that they're not married to one particular genre. Hopping from one year to the next is a narrative device that benefits everything from romantic comedies to slasher films. If you have a preferred genre, there is a very good chance that there's a time travel film within it just waiting to blow your mind. On the other hand, if you're not picky about your watch habits and are just as keen to watch a Western as a psychological thriller, time travel films are a great way to experience a generous swath of genres while keeping one thematic element consistent: messing with the sanctity of the space-time continuum. 

Below you'll find 55 of the best time travel films that the sub-genre has at its disposal. Along the way, you'll notice a couple of recurring narrative trends. More than one pair of lovers find themselves separated by a decade (or a century). Time-traveling protagonists are forced to accept the messiness of the past after attempting to right the wrongs of history. There are also fish out of water comedies galore, from helicopter-piloting samurai to modern-day teenagers stranded in the Wild West. So with all that said, feel free to take notes, synchronize your watches, and settle in for a look at the best time travel films cinema has to offer ... at least in this timeline.

55. A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court

You may be familiar with that holiest of fish-out-of-water scenarios: "man from the present gets transported back to medieval times." The third installment in the "Evil Dead" franchise, which may or may not feature later on this list, is one example. The 2001 Martin Lawrence vehicle "Black Knight" is another. But there's something especially charming about Tay Garnett's 1949 film, "A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court," which adapts Mark Twain's 1889 novel of the same name. 

Inspired by Twain's text, the film follows a crooning mechanic (Bing Crosby) who is launched back to 6th-century England after receiving a blow to the head. There, he finds allies, lovers, and rivals as his modern ways inevitably clash with the antiquated traditions of a medieval court. "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" is an easy-breezy Saturday matinee flick that highlights Crosby's undeniable charm.

54. G.I. Samurai

Criminally underseen outside of Japan, Kōsei Saitō's 1979 film "G.I. Samurai" follows an elite squad of soldiers who accidentally slip through the cracks of time to an era when roving samurai clans warred in hopes of securing dominance over the country. Starring comedic legend Sonny Chiba (who, as ever, does most of his own stunts), the film is undoubtedly one of the strangest entries on this list. That said, don't let that stop you from checking out this violent genre mish-mash. "G.I. Samurai" (which also goes by the equally accurate name "Time Slip" and the utterly baffling "I Want To") is a charming if eccentric adventure through time.

53. The Visitors

Directed by Jean-Marie Poiré (who also helmed the 2001 English-language remake "Just Visiting"), "The Visitors" follows two poor medieval souls who accidentally stumble into modern times, landing in the early 1990s thanks to a bumbling, not-all-there magician. With his loyal servant (Christian Clavier) in tow, brazen knight Godefroy de Malfête (Jean Reno) must navigate such futuristic horrors as concrete roads, dentistry, and bowl cuts no longer being a fashion-forward haircut choice. Wacky to its core and endlessly over the top, "The Visitors" is a fish out of water time travel romp that's just about as goofy as they come.

52. The Butterfly Effect

While "The Butterfly Effect" wasn't particularly well-regarded when it first premiered in 2004 (as its low score on Rotten Tomatoes testifies), Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber's high-concept time travel film has since enjoyed a modern reevaluation, emerging as one of the more interesting sci-fi horror offerings of the early naughties. The film follows Evan (Ashton Kutcher, playing against type), a young man who struggles to remember his past, thanks to a history of harrowing abuse. By chance, Evan discovers that reading from his old journals allows him to literally embody his younger self, changing the most traumatic parts of his past by making different decisions. Unfortunately, as the film's title suggests, Evan's meddling in the past, however seemingly insignificant, produces a domino effect of tragic consequences for not just his own life, but the lives of those around him.

51. The Final Countdown

Plenty of films on this list have time machines. Heck, one of those time machines is even a DeLorean. But only one film has a time-traveling nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. Released in 1980, "The Final Countdown" tells the story of a US military vessel that has the misfortune of traveling back in time to December 6th, 1941, the day before the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Once the crew (which includes the talents of Kirk Douglas and Martin Sheen) comes to terms with the moral implications of their situation, a "Twilight Zone"-like dilemma breaks out as to whether they ought to intervene and change the course of history, or allow a national tragedy to unfold. Part B-movie science fiction romp, part recruitment tool for the US Navy, "The Final Countdown" is utterly unlike any other time travel film on this list.

50. Somewhere in Time

Released in 1980 and starring three of the hottest people to ever exist (Christopher Reeve, Jane Seymour, and Christopher Plummer, respectively), "Somewhere in Time" follows a young playwright named Richard (Reeve) who has an uncanny experience on the opening night of his first stage play: An old woman, who he has never met before, begs Richard to come back to her. Obsessed by the mystery-laden encounter, Richard does what any self-respecting romantic would do and travels back in time to find her via self-hypnosis. Directed by French filmmaker Jeannot Szwarc (whose 1975 creature feature "Bug" gives William Castle a run for his B-movie money), "Somewhere in Time" is both charming and emotionally devastating. You've been warned!

49. 13 Going on 30

One of the more straightforward romantic comedies on this list, "13 Going on 30" follows a young dorky teen named Jenna who makes a wish on her thirteenth birthday to grow up faster (specifically, she wants to be, "30, flirty, and thriving"). And just like that, Jenna is catapulted into the future, waking up as a 30-year-old woman with 30-year-old problems (first and foremost, the naked man she finds in her new apartment, to her considerable disgust). While the thrills of independence and adulthood are exhilarating at first (what 13-year-old doesn't dream of disposable income?) Jenna soon finds that being older comes with its own set of challenges. A contagiously charming document of all the fashion crimes the early naughties had to offer, "13 Going on 30" is notable for highlighting the considerable talents of its main cast, especially Jennifer Garner, Mark Ruffalo, and the ever-delightful Judy Greer.

48. Déjà Vu

Marking the reunion of director Tony Scott and actor Denzel Washington after 2004's "Man on Fire," "Déjà Vu" is a bombastic (pun intended) time-traveling romance that also dares to be a straight-laced crime thriller. The film follows Doug Carlin (Washington), a federal agent who is summoned to investigate a horrific bombing on the Mississippi River. When Carlin proves himself to be a competent ally, an experimental FBI team invites him to participate in a new, super-secret form of investigation: A device, dubbed "Snow White," that allows users to take brief glimpses back into the past. But as the investigation persists, Doug grows less interested in catching the perpetrator in the present day, instead looking to alter history to prevent the accident from ever happening. With Denzel Washington's engaging presence, "Déjà Vu" is thrilling and heart-wrenching in equal measure.

47. Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery

While there's certainly a debate to be had about whether or not being cryogenically frozen counts as time travel, around these parts we're liable to vote yes. As far as we're concerned, superspy Austin Powers (Mike Myers) going to sleep in the swinging '60s and thawing out in the 1990s absolutely makes the cut. And with his bald-headed nemesis Dr. Evil (also Mike Myers) equally de-thawed and back with a vengeance, it's up to the shagadelic international man of mystery to acclimatize to these modern times in order to save the day. The first (and best) entry in the "Austin Powers" series, Jay Roach's 1997 film is brimming with sly nods and genuinely insightful critiques of its source material (namely, the "James Bond" films). A hoot from start to finish, "Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery" stands tall in the genre of spy parodies.

46. Army of Darkness

The third entry in the flawless "Evil Dead" trilogy, "Army of Darkness" was director Sam Raimi's vision of a horror film set in the past. This tale of the medieval dead reunites us with the series' incredibly groovy hero Ash Williams (Bruce Campbell), who was sucked through a wormhole (book of the dead-hole?) at the end of "Evil Dead II" that transported him to the year 1300 A.D. Somehow goofier than its predecessor, "Army of Darkness" follows Ash as he wins over the hearts, minds, and women of a walled city besieged by nefarious deadites. As he attempts to woo his crush and banish evil from the land, our strong-jawed hero is preoccupied with figuring out how to return back to his own time. Bonkers to its core and unabashedly full of both Raimi and Campbell's love of physical comedy, "Army of Darkness" is a blast from the past in more ways than one.

45. Happy Death Day 2U

Yeah, we hear you: Everything was tied up in one neat little bow at the end of the original 2017 film, "Happy Death Day." How could there be a sequel? What could possibly be worse than getting trapped in a time loop where you are killed over and over again by a killer wearing a creepy baby-faced mask? Well, all of you who answered "getting stuck in a parallel dimension where you're stuck in a time loop again " deserve a pat on the back. Yes, Tree Glebman (Jessica Rothe) may have escaped the maddening time loop in  her dimension, but thanks to the science experiment of some neighboring dorks, she's lost all that hard-won narrative closure and must fight for her life (well, lives ) once again. Matching its predecessor in charm and creativity, "Happy Death Day 2U" is an arguably unnecessary yet still delightful sequel.

44. Slaughterhouse-Five

Based on Kurt Vonnegut's novel of the same name, "Slaughterhouse-Five" follows the time-tripping exploits of Billy Pilgrim (Michael Sacks), an aptly named man who is "unstuck in time" after becoming a prisoner of war in 1940s Germany. Slipping in and out of his past, present, and future, Billy trips in and out of decades and major life events (including being abducted by aliens). Directed with a dreamy, atmospheric competence by George Roy Hill (the man behind "The Sting" and "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid"), even Vonnegut himself praised the movie as "a flawless translation ... I drool and cackle every time I watch that film." And if praise from the horse's mouth doesn't do it for you, the film just so happens to enjoy critical acclaim across the board.

If you know one thing about 2004's "Primer," it's that it's famously difficult to explain without sounding like you spent a lot of time in a glue factory. That said, let's have a go at it: "Primer" follows four tech bros who build a machine in their garage that does ... something. They're not sure what, exactly. But it's something . One of the bizarre effects of their creation is that time appears to work differently inside the machine, making it a kind of "time machine," if you will. After much discussion, the foursome decide to experiment with it, only to discover a strange side effect: Whatever passes through the machine creates a double. A puzzle of a film full of paradoxes, loopholes, and sequences of events that overlap, dovetail, and intersect, "Primer" is a feisty, wildly ambitious indie movie that holds its own amidst the bigger blockbusters of the genre.

42. Triangle

Packaged as a typical slasher movie, Christopher Smith's 2009 psychological horror film follows a group of shipwrecked survivors who seek refuge on a mysteriously deserted ocean liner. At first, they think they are alone. Then a shotgun-wielding masked killer emerges out of the woodwork to make an already terrifying situation even worse as they pick everyone off one by one. To say much more than that (or how any of this has to do with time travel) would give away the film's secrets. So we will say no more! Featuring an innovative mid-film plot twist, "Triangle" is an unexpected delight with a captivating lead performance from Melissa George as the mentally fragile Jess. An expectation-subverting watch, "Triangle" will unquestionably win over adventurous fans of the slasher genre.

41. Happy Death Day

Grounded by a charming and sardonic performance by Jessica Rothe, Christopher Landon's 2017 horror-comedy sticks the slasher and time-travel genres in a blender with hilarious results. "Happy Death Day" follows Tree (Rothe), a mean-spirited sorority girl with a tragic past who finds herself reliving the day of her murder over and over again. Some psycho wearing the very creepy mask of their college's mascot has it out for her. And somewhere between being stabbed and electrocuted, Tree starts to suspect that uncovering the identity (and motive) of her die-hard killer is the only way to get out of this cursed time loop. But when the effects of being murdered in a variety of brutal ways start catching up with her, Tree realizes that she doesn't have much time (ironically enough) to solve the mystery. "Happy Death Day" makes dying repeatedly look super fun, and if that isn't a stamp of approval, we don't know what is.

40. Trancers

We have a fair number of time travel methods on this list: cars, hypnosis, telephone booths, you name it. But "Trancers," in all of its 1980s wisdom, takes a different approach: time travel via drugs. Set in the far-flung future of 2247, our hero is the improbably named Jack Deth (Tim Thomerson), a bounty hunter hot on the heels of a psychic villain (Michael Stefani) capable of entrancing his victims with his mind. When Deth finally learns that his foe has traveled back to the 1980s to assassinate the ancestors of future City Council members, it's up to Deth to follow him to the past and stop the nefarious mesmerist from executing his violent scheme. With more laser special effects than you can shake a stick at, "Trancers" comes courtesy of the ingenious low-budget mastermind Charles Band. Ripoffs of "The Terminator" are a dime a dozen, but they're rarely this entertaining.

39. About Time

While you could certainly say that all of the films on this list are about time, only one film is really "About Time." The 2013 sci-fi rom-com follows a young man named Tim (Domhnall Gleeson) who learns that he's inherited the ability to travel in time and change the course of his life. Written and directed by Richard Curtis — a New Zealand-born filmmaker who readers may know from the likes of "Love Actually" and "Four Weddings and a Funeral" — "About Time" has charm to spare, with one of the most lovely onscreen father-son dynamics of the 2010s. A film that is the cinematic equivalent of a warm bowl of soup, "About Time" is a high watermark for one of the more persistent themes in time travel cinema: learning to accept things just as they are.

38. Back to the Future Part II

While admittedly falling short of the lighting in a bottle effect of its predecessor, "Back to the Future Part II" succeeds in being better than most sequels and most time-travel films. Directed once again by Robert Zemeckis, the 1989 film sees scrappy teen Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) and his geriatric pal Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) journeying forward in time to the unthinkably futuristic landscape of 2015. The objective is to stop Marty's future son from making a mistake that will land him in the slammer. As you'd imagine, things don't go exactly according to plan, leaving the future (and the past) a little shaken in the wake of Doc and Marty's meddling. A solid if decidedly more chaotic sequel, "Back to the Future Part II" is full of charms of its own.

37. Frequency

Released in the year 2000 and directed by Gregory Hoblit (the man behind the Richard Gere vehicle "Primal Fear"), "Frequency" follows John Sullivan (Jim Caviezel), a New York City detective who accidentally stumbles on a way to communicate across time with his now-deceased father (Dennis Quaid) using a HAM radio. Overcome with joy at the possibility of saving his father's life, Gregory warns his father of his cause of death, triggering a series of events arguably more tragic than his dad's fiery demise. "Frequency" is a suspense-riddled character study that also makes for a solid (and probably weepy) Father's Day watch.

36. The Muppet Christmas Carol

Are all movie adaptations of Charles Dickens' cautionary ghost story time travel stories? In our estimation: yes. The story spends Christmas with Ebenezer Scrooge, a real jerk who begins his journey to becoming a better person after he is visited by three ghosts that show the miserly curmudgeon his past, present, and future to gain some much-needed perspective. While everyone has their own favorite "Christmas Carol" adaptation, we're going to make an executive decision here: The best "Christmas Carol" movie is 1992's "The Muppet Christmas Carol," the directorial debut of Brian Henson. Roll your eyes all you want at the presence of the titular Muppets, but this film features one of Michael Caine's finest performances as the cold-hearted Scrooge. Also, it's a musical. What more could you want?

35. The Time Machine

Based on H.G. Wells's novella of the same name, which was literally the work that popularized the concept of a "time machine" , George Pal's 1960 film follows a fancy and adventurous Victorian Englishman (Rod Taylor) who travels into the far-flung future only to find humanity divided into two warring factions: the child-like Eloi and the brutish Morlocks. While the inventor had hopes that the future would be a paradise of new, utopic developments, it would seem that the warring tendency in our species is bound to persist throughout the centuries unless we change our ways. Warmly received by critics , the 1960 adaptation of "The Time Machine" is campy in all the right places with plenty of charm to spare.

If you ask us, "Tenet" is less about the convoluted ins and outs of using time travel to prevent World War III than it is about the vibes (and the friendship between John David Washington and Robert Pattinson). Look, it's totally possible to enjoy a movie without having the faintest idea what it's about. Then again, director Christopher Nolan has always been interested in non-linear filmmaking, from the memory-loss of "Memento" to the languid dream logic of "Inception." "Tenet" is Nolan leaning fully into his love of temporal logistics and while it's disorienting, there can be no denying that it's a hell of a good time. Despite any flaws it may have, "Tenet" is what you get when you put James Bond and time travel in a blender (in the best possible way).

33. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

Directed by Leonard Nimoy (yes, the same Leonard Nimoy who plays the pointy-eared Spock), the fourth feature film in the "Star Trek" franchise begins in a far-flung future on the edge of disaster. An alien probe is wreaking havoc on Earth's environment, drying up our oceans and polluting our atmosphere. (Are we sure it's an extraterrestrial threat? Sounds like plain old climate change to us.) In order to save humanity from the impending apocalypse, the swashbuckling Captain Kirk (WIlliam Shatner) and his intrepid crew voyage back in time to the year 1986, where they hope to locate a soon-to-be-extinct animal that can respond to the mysterious probe. Pivoting the series' sci-fi into more comedic waters, "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" leans hard on the chemistry of its cast to buoy the severity of its environmentalist message. If you're going to watch one of the older "Star Trek" films, this is the one to seek out.

32. Peggy Sue Got Married

There is no time machine, per se, in "Peggy Sue Got Married." Instead, the titular character (played by Kathleen Turner) travels back in her own memories. Or maybe it's an especially vivid daydream. Who's to say? When you faint at your high school reunion, anything can happen! In any case, middle-aged Peggy Sue unintentionally travels back to her teenage days in the early 1960s, where she plays with the idea of breaking off her marriage to her high school sweetheart before it even has the chance to start. With a stellar ensemble cast, including Nicolas Cage, Helen Hunt, and Jim Carrey, Francis Ford Coppola's 1986 film is a bittersweet gem.

31. Back to the Future Part III

Very few films as excellent as "Back to the Future" are succeeded by a sequel that doesn't disappoint. And it's even rarer for such a film to produce two excellent sequels. Enter: "Back to the Future Part III," which catapults spunky skateboarder Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) and the white-haired Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) back to the 19th century. The pair find themselves stranded in the Wild West, contending with saloon brawls, rowdy dames, and deadly gunfights. As always, the time-hopping duo must lay low while attempting to find a way back to their own time. There are adorable frontier romances, villains with the faces of modern-day bullies, and plenty of adoring references to old cowboy films. Although it doesn't always get the credit it deserves , "Back to the Future Part III" is a sweet-natured love letter to the Western genre.

30. Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure

In the first of three films charting the time-traveling/dimension-hopping adventures of Bill S. Preston (Alex Winter) and Ted "Theodore" Logan (Keanu Reeves), our titular doofuses are tasked with a harrowing objective: passing history class. Unbeknownst to these two Southern Californian himbos, the fate of humanity hangs in the balance, because at some point in the future, Bill and Ted write a rock song so great it actually achieves world peace. But in order for the dynamic duo to rock out, they first need a passing grade. Armed with a time machine helpfully supplied by an ally from the future (George Carlin), the pair journey through the past to amass a gang of history's most prolific figures. Lighthearted and energetic, "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure" is a profoundly silly journey through history with two of cinema's most radical dudes who have charm (and air guitar riffs) to spare.

29. The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey

A wildly strange film on a list full of kooky adventures, Vincent Ward's 1988 fish-out-of-water time travel jaunt is truly an under-discussed, one-of-a-kind experience. The surreal and atmospheric Australia/New Zealand co-production was selected in competition for  the highest prize at the Cannes film festival and received eleven awards from the Australian Film Institute . With a dream-like approach to storytelling, "The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey" follows a psychic nine-year-old named Griffin (Hamish McFarlane) who has trippy visions of an alternate reality that looks completely different from his 14th-century mining village. With the Black Plague at their door, the villagers heed Griffin's warnings and follow his directions to dig deep below the earth. On the other side, the medieval peasants emerge into a bold and bizarre new land: 20th century New Zealand. Full of fantasy and imagination that flies in the face of the film's modest budget , "The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey" is an underrated classic.

28. Jubilee

"Jubilee" boasts one of the wackiest concepts as far as time travel films are concerned. Get this: Queen Elizabeth I, the Virgin Queen herself, travels forward in time with the help of occult magic to visit 1970s Britain. Instead of a futuristic new world full of utopian progress, Elizabeth (Jenny Runacre) finds a crumbling country riddled with anarchy, social unrest, and debauchery. Directed by Derek Jarman (who also helmed the evocative 1986 biopic "Caravaggio"), "Jubilee" vibrates with undeniable punk rock energy, both critical and celebratory. So, the next time you're living your best nihilistic teenage dream, think to yourself: what  would  Queen Elizabeth I think?

27. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time

Released in 2006, Mamoru Hosoda's animated feature film follows the teenage Makoto (voiced by Riisa Naka), a high school girl who acquires the ability to literally jump into the past after stumbling upon a mysterious device in the science lab. Being a teen, Makoto uses her new gift for trivial, self-serving adjustments, acing pop quizzes and side-stepping embarrassing situations with ease. But when Makoto begins to realize that her adjustments have consequences for others, she resolves to only use her powers for good, and begins uncovering the mystery behind these strange abilities in the process. A decidedly personal (and relatable) approach to sci-fi fantasy, "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time" captures audiences' hearts.

26. Time After Time

This 1979 film may share a name with a melodramatic ballad, but don't be fooled! "Time After Time" is way kookier than anything Cyndi Lauper could dream up. Behold, the plot: "War of the Worlds" author H.G. Wells (Malcolm McDowell) hunts down infamous serial killer Jack the Ripper (David Warner), who has traveled to the 20th century after stealing the writer's time machine. With little interest in its pseudo-science and a romantic subplot that often gets in the way of the suspenseful thrills, "Time After Time" is an odd duck that manages to charm in spite of its idiosyncrasies. Then again, when your lead actors are having this much fun with a premise this bananas, you're bound to conjure up a good degree of movie magic.

25. Timecrimes

Easily scampering away with the best title on this list, "Timecrimes" follows Héctor (Karra Elejalde), a middle-aged nobody whose lazy day is ruined when a blood-soaked madman chases him into a secret lab in the woods. Inside, he meets a suspiciously unfazed scientist (played by writer-director Nacho Vigalondo) who casually instructs Héctor to hide in a big vat of sci-fi liquid. Sure enough, Héctor is launched back in time by one hour, forced to navigate (and solve) a string of disasters perpetrated by different iterations of himself. Few films on this list have a protagonist this stupid. But that is, in effect, part of the charm of "Timecrimes:" Héctor is just some dude who winds up at the center of an increasingly complicated web of cause and effect. Inventive, moody, and effective for its smaller scope and scale, "Timecrimes" is a pure delight.

24. Je t'aime, je t'aime

One of the older films on this list, Alain Resnais' 1968 film blends time travel with romantic obsession. From the director of "Last Year at Marienbad," the film sees a depressed young man named Claude (Claude Rich) reeling after the end of his relationship with Catrine (Olga Georges-Picot). Claude agrees to participate in a human experiment with a time travel device that promises to send its user back in the past by one year, for one minute. But when the machine malfunctions, Claude finds himself stuck reliving his nightmarish past out of sequence. Navigating fluidly through time, memory, and trauma, "Je t'aime, je t'aime" is arguably the most heartbreaking film on this list, an emotionally draining experience that must be seen (and wept over) to be believed.

23. Time Bandits

From the demented, hyper-imaginative mind of director Terry Gilliam, 1981's "Time Bandits" follows a young history nerd named Kevin (Craig Warnock) who is whisked away by six time-hopping criminals on an adventure to steal treasures from different historical eras, thanks to some convenient holes in the fabric of space and time. With whimsy to spare and an approach towards fantasy that charms both kids and adults alike, "Time Bandits" is simultaneously silly as hell and bursting with technical prowess, it contains the absurdism and production design that distinguishes Gilliam's cinematic output.

22. Safety Not Guaranteed

A bizarre ad shows up in the classifieds section of a local Washington newspaper. Someone is looking for a partner to travel back in time with them. They stress that it isn't a joke, and that they have only traveled in time once before. Tasked with covering the ad as an amusing fluff piece, a group of reporters, including the listless college grad Darius (Aubrey Plaza), set off to find and meet this clearly unhinged individual (Mark Duplass).There's no way that this lunatic actually invented a time machine, right? Unapologetically quirky, this indie rom-com could not be more twee if it tried. But sometimes adorable awkward dorks finding happiness and love while trying to journey through the ages together is exactly what the doctor ordered.

21. Il Mare

This 2000 South Korean romantic comedy follows a love story that transcends time itself ... literally. When Eun-joo (Jun Ji-hyun) in "Il Mare" abandons her seaside home for the city, she leaves a card in the mailbox for the next owner so that they can forward her any mail. Two years earlier , a young man named Sung-hyun (Lee Jung-jae) receives Eun-joo's letter. The pair soon realize that the beach house's mailbox can traverse time and space, and begin a really long-distance relationship. Remade stateside six years later as the Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock romance "The Lake House," Lee Hyun-seung's original is a captivating love story that is worth seeking out.

20. Predestination

Based on Robert A. Heinlein's short story, "Predestination" follows a time-hopping government agent (Ethan Hawke) who is hot on the heels of a serial terrorist equally unstuck in time. In his quest to catch the notorious Fizzle Bomber, the agent allies with a mysterious individual (Sarah Snook) who writes under the pseudonym "The Unmarried Mother." It is difficult, if not impossible, to dig into the "chicken or egg" delights of "Predestination" without giving away key plot details, so you'll just have to seek this one out to see for yourself. It's ambitious, imaginative, and a must-watch for anyone who enjoys a head-scratcher (you may have to whip out a corkboard and some red string once the credits roll).

Did  you  know that Wong Kar-Wai, the acclaimed Hong Kong director behind "Chungking Express" and "Fallen Angels," made a time travel pseudo-sequel to "In the Mood For Love"? If not, you do now. Spanning multiple timelines, real and imagined, "2046" follows a sci-fi author named Chow Mo Wan (Tony Leung) as he writes about, and lives within, a hotel filled with memories. Like much of Wong Kar-Wai's work, "2046" is deeply interested in missed connections, the painful "what-ifs?" that haunt you long after they've come and gone. With aching melancholy, Chow Mo Wan recounts his experiences with the mysterious titular room and all the lost souls who pass through it. Many films can be summarized by the mournful thesis that "love is all a matter of timing," but few are able to tease out the visual poetry of such a statement quite like Wong Kar-Wai.

18. Source Code

Directed by Duncan Jones, who more than proved himself in the sci-fi genre with 2009's "Moon," "Source Code" tells of Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal), a soldier dropped into the body of an unknown man aboard a commuter train en route to Chicago. Soon enough, he realizes his mission: There's a bomb on board, and he's the only one who can prevent the catastrophe from taking place. Reliving the last eight minutes of his host's life again and again, Colter must piece the clues together to thwart further bombings. More action-heavy than many of the films on this list, "Source Code" is a kinetic take on the time loop format grounded by a brilliant and demanding lead performance by Gyllenhaal.

The third feature film from "Knives Out" director Rian Johnson, 2012's "Looper" takes place in a future where mob bosses use time travel to dispose of bodies. Joe Simmons (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is one such time-traveling hitman, raking in the big bucks with dreams of retiring to a quiet life in France. Then, one day during a hit, Joe is shocked to come face-to-face with his future self (Bruce WIllis). A game of cat and mouse ensues, with mob intrigue, paradoxes, and determinism galore. A thinking man's sci-fi time travel thriller, "Looper" will satisfy viewers who enjoy world-building, masterful plotting, and inventive takes on the noir genre.

16. 16. Midnight in Paris

One of the many entries in the "Rachel McAdams is romantically involved with a time traveler" cinematic universe, "Midnight in Paris" follows Gil Pender (Owen Wilson), an aspiring novelist with his head in the clouds who accidentally stumbles through time while vacationing in Paris with his fiancé (McAdams). Brushing shoulders with literary idols, infamous artists, and starry-eyed creatives, Gil soon finds that the draw of the past easily outweighs his obligations to the present. Featuring an all-star ensemble cast and an undeniably charming romantic attitude, "Midnight in Paris" is an enjoyable viewing experience (especially if you cover your eyes and ears when the director/writer credits flash on screen).

15. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

What's a "Harry Potter" film doing on a list of time travel movies? Well, if you'll recall, the third film in the franchise features a third-act plot device called a Time-Turner that allows our wizarding heroes to rewrite history, saving the father figure of hero Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) from a fate worse than death. Sure, the Time-Turner primarily features in the story as a way for bookworm Hermione (Emma Watson) to attend multiple overlapping classes. But, as we'll quickly learn, rules (and the space-time continuum) are meant to be broken. Directed by Mexican New Wave wunderkind Alfonso Cuarón, "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" follows Harry, Ron (Rupert Grint), and Hermione as they contend with yet another life-threatening development: the escape of notorious convict Sirius Black (Gary Oldman).

14. Donnie Darko

A moody teen named Donnie Darko (Jake Gyllenhaal) narrowly avoids being incinerated by a plane crashing into his bedroom when he is lured outside by a giant, demonic-looking bunny rabbit. You know. Typical teen stuff. The rabbit, Frank (James Duval), informs Donnie that the whole world is going to end in less than a month. As Frank continues to pull the strings of Donnie's life, the teen is nudged to commit mischief, arson, and yes, time travel. Famously confusing, with tangential universes and deterministic quandaries galore, "Donnie Darko" is the kind of film that will make your brain hurt ... hopefully in a good way. Featuring one of the greatest soundtracks of the 1990s (INXS and Tears for Fears? In this economy ?), Richard Kelly's "Donnie Darko" is one of the defining films of the early 2000s.

13. Arrival

While Ted Chiang's 1998 short story was long thought to be unfilmable, director Denis Villeneuve has a talent for bringing high concept stories to the screen (there's a reason he was drawn to "Dune"). In Villeneuve's 2016 film "Arrival," a renowned linguist named Dr. Louise Banks (Amy Adams) is summoned to assist with a bizarre development: Twelve mysterious, smooth-edged alien crafts have touched down across the world. It's up to Dr. Banks to devise a way to communicate with the beings inside the craft and determine if the extraterrestrial visitors are friends or foes. As Dr. Banks discovers, the key to cracking the code may lie in the aliens' nonlinear experience of time. A quiet masterpiece that benefits from repeated viewings, "Arrival" is an intelligent and hopeful slice of science fiction.

12. Palm Springs

Some time travel films see folks hurtling forward (or backward) in time. Others, like 2020's "Palm Springs," have time travelers moving in circles over and over again. One of the most inventive spins on the time loop sub-genre, Max Barbakow's feature film debut follows Nyles (Andy Samberg), a man who has been attending the same wedding over and over again in sunny Palm Springs. After Nyles is shot with an arrow during an impulsive hook-up with Sarah (Cristin Milioti), the depressed maid-of-honor joins the nihilistic Nyles in perpetually sun-drenched purgatory. Released during the beginning of the pandemic when every day really did feel the same, "Palm Springs" embraces the Sisyphean metaphor inherent in the time loop structure.

11. Planet of the Apes

Now, look. If this film's inclusion on this list has you scratching your head, that can only mean one of two things: You haven't seen the original "Planet of the Apes" film,  or you've been living under a pop-culture rock and have somehow avoided stumbling across the iconic twist ending of the 1968 sci-fi classic. Indeed, as we learn at the film's end, our resilient hero George Taylor (Charlton Heston) hasn't actually traveled through space at all ... just time. Directed by Franklin J. Schaffner, "Planet of the Apes" couches some genuine existential horror in the seemingly campy premise promised by its title. It's an oldie but a goodie that will reward the patient viewer with one of the greatest rug-pulls sci-fi filmmaking has to offer.

10. Interstellar

Are all movies set in space time travel movies? It's certainly a question worth asking. Aging in a relativistic biological space-time is one hell of a drug, after all. Without getting too deep into Albert Einstein's twin paradox , long story short: We age slower when we're zipping about in space. Christopher Nolan's 2014 sci-fi film "Interstellar" not only features some heartbreaking moments of time dilation, but a third act reveal that the power of love can bend the fabric of space and time itself. The film begins with an apocalyptic scenario: A global blight is turning Earth into a pile of ash and dust. A plan forms to find humanity a new home planet and a team, including former NASA test pilot Joe Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), is sent out into the galaxy to scout the three potential candidates. Operatic, inventive, and brimming with intergalactic spectacle, "Interstellar" is an epic space saga of the highest quality.

9. 12 Monkeys

In the alarmingly not-too-distant future of 2035, mankind has been driven underground by a deadly viral pandemic. James Cole (Bruce Willis), a mild-mannered, soft-spoken convict, "volunteers" to act as a time-traveling guinea pig. His mission is to voyage back to 1996, the year of the outbreak, and discover its cause. However, when Cole is accidentally transported back too far into the past, his sweaty warnings about the impending disaster come across as the ravings of a lunatic, and he is promptly incarcerated in a mental health facility. There, he meets two individuals who will profoundly impact not only his life, but the future of the human race: a compassionate psychiatrist and a fellow mental patient who just so happens to be the son of a prominent virologist. Directed by the imaginative former Monty Python member Terry Gilliam, "12 Monkeys" balances its gritty surreal gait with an uncomfortable degree of plausibility.

8. Edge of Tomorrow

Arguably the greatest video game movie ever made (despite not being directly based on any one particular video game), "Edge of Tomorrow" (also known by its more plot-accurate title "Live, Die, Repeat") tells of a future in which mankind is engaged in an apocalyptic battle with an alien force that is giving humanity a real run for its money. Major Bill Cage (Tom Cruise), a smooth-talking PR man who's never held a gun (or piloted a mech-suit), finds himself on the frontlines of a naval landing meant to turn the tide. The catastrophic invasion quickly claims the life of the inexperienced Cage, who dies slathered in the corrosive blood of an especially large alien foe. Then Cage wakes up, startled to find that he is very much alive and apparently stuck in a time loop reliving the disastrous day of the invasion over and over again. With creative action set pieces and an inventive approach to the time-loop sub-genre, "Edge of Tomorrow" is a tremendous amount of fun.

7. Run Lola Run

On the face of it, "Run Lola Run" doesn't seem to be an obvious entry in science fiction cinema. The 1998 German film follows a young woman (the titular Lola, played by Franka Potente), whose forgetful boyfriend Manni (Moritz Bleibtreau) accidentally leaves a big chunk of change on a subway car that belongs to a dangerous criminal. It's up to Lola to rustle up the funds and rendezvous with Manni in 20 minutes to avoid disaster. Over the course of the film, we witness three different timelines of Lola's sprint, each deviating significantly thanks to the butterfly effect. Experimental, kinetic, and brimming with undeniable 1990s energy, "Run Lola Run" is a breezy, fast-paced meditation on chaos theory, determinism, and all the mind-breaking side effects time travel entails. "Run Lola Run" might not have a time machine, but its detailed, hyper-specific concern with the fallout of how small decisions shape our lives more than justifies its presence on this list.

6. La Jetée

Directed by the prolific experimental filmmaker Chris Marker, this 1962 French-language film may be short, clocking in at just under 30 minutes, but its influence on science fiction cinema is vast. "La Jetée" follows an unnamed man (Davos Hanich), a prisoner of a future war that has driven all survivors below the surface to survive the post-apocalypse. Tapped as a reluctant test subject to be launched back in time (presumably to learn more about and ultimately prevent World War III), the man is hurtled backward and forward through the decades in search of a solution to humanity's "present" predicament. If this brief plot synopsis sounds familiar, that's because "La Jetée" served as the source material for the aforementioned "12 Monkeys." Still, the 1962 film stands on its own and is absolutely worth checking out, even if you're only familiar with Terry Gilliam's quasi-remake.

5. Groundhog Day

One of the best "time loop" films and one of the best romantic comedies of all time, 1993's "Groundhog Day" follows a grumpy, self-centered weatherman named Phil (Bill Murray) who is dispatched to a small town to cover the titular rodent-related holiday. To Phil's horror (and our amusement), the cranky newsman finds that he can't leave the humble borders of Punxsutawney even if there weren't a snowstorm. Trapped reliving the same day over and over again, Phil's anger and despair eventually transform into something far more endearing and productive. A comedy classic that makes full use of Murray's dual mastery of crankiness and charm, "Groundhog Day" is a cinematic gem worth revisiting again (and again and again).

4. The Terminator

The original 1984 "Terminator" film is the real deal. Straddling genres with mercurial ease (Is it a slasher? Science fiction tech-noir? All of the above?), "The Terminator" follows Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), who finds herself the target of a nightmarish foe: a machine wearing the flesh of a man, tasked to kill her. Unbeknownst to her, Sarah is going to give birth to the leader of the human resistance in an impending machine-led apocalypse. And while the titular muscle-bound hunk of junk (Arnold Schwarzenegger) aims to kill her son before he can be conceived, an agent of the resistance (Michael Biehn) has been tasked to protect her. Textured, brutal, and methodical, "The Terminator" is the slow-stalking progenitor of its much more bombastic follow-ups. Respect where respect is due, we say.

3. Your Name

Do you know what all of these films about time travel were missing? If you answered "romantic comedy body-swapping" you are correct . Directed by Makoto Shinkai (who readers may know from his 2019 film "Weathering with You"), "Your Name" follows the story of two 17-year-old high schoolers, Taki (Ryunosuke Kamiki) and Mitsuha (Mone Kamishiraishi) who repeatedly switch bodies at random. To say much more, or how the story relates to time travel, would give too much away. Suffice to say, "Your Name" was a runaway commercial success , surpassing the international box office of "Spirited Away" and garnering critical praise to match. If you like to cry, "Your Name" is the film for you — a heartbreaking and visually stunning story that features some of the most strikingly well-realized teenage characters in cinema, animated or otherwise.

2. Terminator 2: Judgment Day

"Terminator 2: Judgment Day" holds a number of high-octane superlatives: it's one of the best time travel films of all time, one of the best sci-fi action films ever made, and one of the best sequels. Taking a decidedly punchier approach than its moodier horror-adjacent predecessor, "Terminator 2" sees John Connor, leader of the human resistance against the AI apocalypse, sending Arnold Schwarzenegger's unstoppable machine back in time to protect his younger self (Edward Furlong). After breaking John's survivalist mom Sarah (Linda Hamilton) out of a psychiatric institution, the trio set off to prevent doomsday before it can happen. Hot on their heels is the T-1000 (Robert Patrick), an advanced AI assassin capable of morphing its liquid-metal body to imitate anyone it pleases. Packing a genuinely emotional center into its back-to-back action sequences and time-defying special effects, "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" deserves all the praise it receives.

1. Back to the Future

Spunky teen Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) joins his senior citizen pal, Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) for a nighttime science experiment: a test drive of a time machine that also happens to be a DeLorean. But an unexpected run-in with a gang of terrorists sends Marty fleeing to the year 1955. Through no fault of his own, Marty accidentally threatens his own existence by forming a love triangle with his own parents that would make Freud spin in his grave like a wind turbine. It's up to Marty to make his own parents fall in love and reconnect with the younger version of Doc Brown to find a way back ... to the future. Full of crackerjack silliness and goofy plotting, the secret strength of "Back to the Future" is its simple message that your parents, believe it or not, are people too. Bouncy and full of the charm that makes director Robert Zemeckis a pillar of the 1980s, "Back to the Future" is pure candy-coated perfection.

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The 80+ Best Time Travel Movies

Time travel holds a fascination for both filmmakers and audiences alike, with its endless possibilities and intriguing paradoxes. The concept of altering the past and witnessing historic events, or visiting the future captures the imagination, and cinema provides the perfect medium to explore these ideas. The best time travel movies are those that not only venture into the realm of temporal displacement but also present compelling characters and stories. 

These time travel movies offer a diverse range of cinematic experiences, from blockbuster action-adventures to dramas. Each film has themes of time manipulation and its consequences, featuring strong character development and dynamic storylines that make them captivating. 

Notable examples of the best time travel movies include Back to the Future, a classic 1985 film that effortlessly blends humor, action, and compelling characters. Another standout is Terminator 2: Judgment Day, a relentless action blockbuster that raises the stakes of the original film while showcasing an intricate exploration of destiny and the human spirit. More recently, Edge of Tomorrow demonstrates the genre's continued evolution by incorporating a gripping sci-fi premise within a high-stakes action-packed setting. These exceptional films represent just a fraction of the extensive collection of time travel movies that captivate viewers. 

Time travel movies have played an instrumental role in shaping the trajectory of cinematic storytelling, proving their timeless appeal and the potential for further exploration. Whether it's revisiting the past, glimpsing the future, or navigating alternate realities, these films create unforgettable and inspiring cinematic experiences. 

Back to the Future

Back to the Future , a legendary science-fiction adventure film directed by Robert Zemeckis, stands as a triumphant depiction of time travel in the 1980s. With exceptional performances by Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd, this movie artfully immerses viewers in the nostalgic world of Hill Valley, 1955, when Marty McFly (Fox) is sent back in time by Doc Brown's (Lloyd) iconic DeLorean-powered time machine. As Marty navigates his new environment, the importance of preserving the past and personal destinies becomes increasingly evident, giving birth to a timeless tale that resonates with audiences across generations. Through its humorous yet tender storytelling and innovative special effects, Back to the Future  remains an essential addition to the pantheon of time-traveling cinema.

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The Terminator

Helmed by visionary director James Cameron, The Terminator  is a gripping sci-fi thriller that solidified Arnold Schwarzenegger's status as a Hollywood superstar. Set against the backdrop of a dystopian future where machines rule over humans, the film tells the story of Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), who finds herself pursued by a relentless, technologically advanced cyborg (Schwarzenegger) sent back in time to change the course of humanity's future. Featuring groundbreaking visual effects and an adrenaline-fueled storyline, The Terminator  became an instant classic upon its release and still captivates viewers with its exhilarating blend of action, suspense, and time-travel intrigue.

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Terminator 2: Judgment Day

The gripping sequel to James Cameron's groundbreaking The Terminator , Terminator 2: Judgment Day  elevates the stakes and pushes the envelope further with its enhanced visual effects, compelling narrative, and poignant character development. In this ambitious follow-up, Schwarzenegger reprises his role as a Terminator, this time tasked with protecting a young John Connor (Edward Furlong) from an even more menacing and advanced cyborg. As the story unravels, themes of redemption, sacrifice, and humanity's struggle against fate take center stage, leaving viewers riveted by the film's immersive storytelling. Terminator 2: Judgment Day  continues to stand as a testament to the power of cinema and the unyielding potential of time-travel tales.

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Back to the Future Part II

In Back to the Future Part II , director Robert Zemeckis reunites Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd for an inventive and thrilling follow-up that expands on the original's narrative and explores new dimensions of time travel. As Marty McFly and Doc Brown embark on a daring quest to save their future, viewers are treated to a visually stunning and expertly crafted adventure that transports them across multiple timelines - from a fascinatingly dystopian 2015 to an alternate version of 1985. With its razor-sharp wit and intricate plot twists, Back to the Future Part II  showcases the boundless creativity of its filmmaking team while solidifying the franchise's standing as a beloved and timeless piece of cinematic history.

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Groundhog Day

Marrying wry humor with a potent dose of existential introspection, Groundhog Day  is a gem of a film that defies conventions and captures the complexities of human nature. Directed by Harold Ramis and led by comedic genius Bill Murray, the film follows the cynical weatherman Phil Connors as he finds himself inexplicably trapped in an infinite time loop, forced to relive the same day over and over again. As Phil grapples with his predicament and searches for meaning amidst the monotony, viewers are drawn into a poignant study of redemption, empathy, and the power of personal transformation within the framework of a seemingly whimsical comedy. Groundhog Day  remains a touchstone of 1980s cinema and serves as an enduring reminder of the potential for growth inherent in every passing moment.

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Edge of Tomorrow

Edge of Tomorrow stars Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt as they embark on a high-stakes sci-fi adventure, filled with adrenaline-pumping action sequences and an intelligent twist on the time travel genre. The film expertly weaves together aspects of extraterrestrial warfare, an unexpected romance, and the concept of repeating the same day to achieve victory against all odds. Cruise's performance as a reluctant hero, paired with Blunt's fierce determination, create a compelling dynamic that drives the film forward. The intricately crafted storyline is bolstered by stunning visual effects, immersing viewers into the palpable tension and excitement of this epic time-traveling battle for humanity.

Masterfully directed by the visionary Terry Gilliam, 12 Monkeys  is a dystopian sci-fi thriller that immerses viewers in a post-apocalyptic world ravaged by a deadly virus. With captivating performances by Bruce Willis, Madeleine Stowe, and Brad Pitt, the film follows a prisoner (Willis) as he is sent back in time to gather information on the origins of the lethal disease and potentially prevent the catastrophe from ever occurring. As the plot unfolds, the intricate narrative blurs the lines between past, present, and future, offering a mesmerizing study of fate, reality, and memory. Boasting stunning visuals and an unforgettable storyline, 12 Monkeys  stands as a masterwork in the time-travel genre and a testament to the power of innovative filmmaking.

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Looper is a mind-bending sci-fi thriller directed by Rian Johnson that boldly ventures into the realm of time travel with a unique twist. In the film's futuristic setting, hitmen known as "Loopers" eliminate targets sent back in time by crime syndicates, thus erasing them from existence. Featuring exceptional performances by Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis, the movie centers on a young Looper (Gordon-Levitt) who faces the ultimate dilemma when he's assigned to eliminate his future self (Willis). As the narrative weaves through a complex web of morality, survival, and destiny, viewers are left spellbound by the film's intensity and thought-provoking themes. Looper  is a gripping cinematic achievement that will have viewers contemplating its intricate story long after the final credits roll.

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Back to the Future Part III

Concluding the beloved time-travel trilogy, Back to the Future Part III  takes Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) and Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) on a thrilling adventure to the Wild West of 1885. Helmed once again by visionary director Robert Zemeckis, this installment seamlessly melds classic Western tropes with the franchise's trademark humor and sci-fi elements, resulting in a highly entertaining and satisfying conclusion to the series. As Marty and Doc work together to return to their own time, they encounter a host of new characters and challenges, further exploring themes of fate, friendship, and love. Back to the Future Part III  is a fitting finale that stays true to its predecessors' charm and leaves audiences with a sense of wistful nostalgia for the adventures they've shared.

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Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure

With its irreverent humor and endearingly quirky cast, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure  remains an iconic '80s comedy that delivers laughs and heart in equal measure. The film follows two lovable yet dim-witted teenagers, Bill (Alex Winter) and Ted (Keanu Reeves), as they embark on an epic journey through time, meeting historical figures such as Napoleon, Socrates, and Abraham Lincoln while attempting to pass their history final. Directed by Stephen Herek, this wildly inventive tale is brimming with hilarious moments, memorable quotes, and an infectious sense of fun that stands the test of time. Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure  captures the spirit of adventure and friendship, reminding viewers of the joys inherent in life's most unexpected journeys.

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Interstellar

Christopher Nolan's Interstellar  is a visually stunning and emotionally charged sci-fi epic that explores the depths of human ingenuity and the complexities of time travel. Featuring powerful performances from Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, and Jessica Chastain, the film follows a group of astronauts as they embark on a perilous journey through a wormhole in search of a new habitable planet for humanity. With its breathtaking visuals, thought-provoking themes, and intricately woven narrative, Interstellar  pushes the boundaries of storytelling, challenging viewers to ponder the future of mankind and the inexorable passage of time.

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The Time Machine

H.G. Wells' classic science fiction tale comes to life in George Pal's 1960 adaptation of The Time Machine , a groundbreaking study of time travel that captivated and inspired generations of filmmakers. Starring Rod Taylor as a Victorian scientist who invents a machine capable of traversing the centuries, the film transports viewers on a thrilling journey through time, from the peaceful countryside of 19th-century England to the far-flung future. Rich in both visual splendor and narrative depth, The Time Machine  is an enduring cinematic treasure that continues to intrigue and entertain audiences more than half a century after its release.

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The Butterfly Effect

The Butterfly Effect is a captivating psychological thriller that delves into the dangerous consequences of altering the past. Starring Ashton Kutcher as a college student who discovers he can change his traumatic childhood experiences through meditation, the film explores the unpredictable ripple effects of tampering with the delicate fabric of time. Directed by Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber, The Butterfly Effect  keeps audiences on the edge of their seats with its intense storyline, inventive plot twists, and compelling study of fate and redemption.

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Avengers: Endgame

Marvel Studios' Avengers: Endgame  serves as the stunning culmination of an epic saga, expertly weaving time travel into its grand narrative to deliver a thrilling and emotionally resonant superhero adventure. As Earth's mightiest heroes race against time to undo the havoc wrought by Thanos, they confront personal challenges, shattered relationships, and the immutable nature of their destinies. Directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, Avengers: Endgame  provides both heart-pounding spectacle and poignant character moments, solidifying its status as a landmark achievement in the annals of sci-fi and comic book cinema.

Planet of the Apes

A groundbreaking work of science fiction, Franklin J. Schaffner's Planet of the Apes  presents a chilling vision of a future where intelligent primates rule over subjugated humans. Charlton Heston stars as an astronaut who crash-lands on a seemingly primitive world, only to discover its terrifying secret – a civilization where apes dominate and humans are enslaved. With its thought-provoking themes, iconic imagery, and unforgettable climax, Planet of the Apes  stands as a cornerstone of 20th-century cinema and continues to captivate viewers with its bold study of the consequences of untamed ambition.

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In Mike Judge's darkly comedic satire Idiocracy , time travel serves as the catalyst for a biting examination of societal decline and human stupidity. The film follows a perfectly average man (Luke Wilson) who is accidentally frozen and awakens 500 years in the future, only to find that society has devolved into a dystopian nightmare of ignorance, commercialism, and environmental catastrophe. With its razor-sharp wit and incisive social commentary, Idiocracy  offers both laughter and sobering reflection on the trajectory of human progress.

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Frequency combines elements of sci-fi, thriller, and drama to weave a gripping tale of a father and son separated by time yet connected through a miraculous radio signal. Starring Jim Caviezel and Dennis Quaid, this unique time-travel narrative unfolds as father and son attempt to solve a murder, even as their actions in the past precipitate unforeseen consequences in the present. Directed by Gregory Hoblit, Frequency  is a suspenseful and emotionally resonant film that deftly navigates the complexities of time travel while exploring themes of family, love, and destiny.

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X-Men: Days of Future Past

Merging the original X-Men with their younger counterparts, X-Men: Days of Future Past  is an ambitious and thrilling installment in the long-standing superhero franchise. Directed by Bryan Singer, the film employs time travel to bridge the gap between past and present, as Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) is sent back to the 1970s to prevent a cataclysmic event that could alter the course of history. With its star-studded ensemble cast and compelling narrative, X-Men: Days of Future Past  delivers action-packed entertainment while exploring themes of redemption, unity, and the endless potential for change.

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Minority Report

An exhilarating blend of mystery, action, and speculation, Steven Spielberg's Minority Report  presents a chilling vision of a future where psychic technology enables law enforcement to predict and prevent crimes before they occur. Tom Cruise stars as a pre-crime investigator who becomes a fugitive when the system he once believed in implicates him in a crime he has yet to commit. As he seeks the truth, he confronts a web of intrigue, deception, and moral quandaries. Minority Report  is a thrilling cinematic odyssey into a dystopian future, offering both edge-of-your-seat excitement and thought-provoking commentary on fate, free will, and the price of security.

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Galaxy Quest

In the beloved sci-fi comedy Galaxy Quest , time travel plays a crucial role in the uproarious adventures of a group of washed-up actors unwittingly recruited by real aliens to save their species. Starring Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, and Alan Rickman, this hilarious send-up of both classic Star Trek and fan conventions showcases the power of love, friendship, and courage in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. With its delightful humor and heartfelt moments, Galaxy Quest  remains a cherished favorite among fans of lighthearted time-travel escapades.

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J.J. Abrams' 2009 reboot of the iconic Star Trek franchise boldly goes where no film has gone before, utilizing time travel to create an exciting and refreshing take on the beloved sci-fi universe. Featuring a fantastic ensemble cast led by Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto, this modern retelling introduces a new generation of fans to the thrilling adventures of Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, and the USS Enterprise crew, while staying true to the spirit of the original series. Brimming with dazzling special effects, kinetic action sequences, and heartfelt character moments, Star Trek  is a thrilling ride that has breathed new life into the storied franchise.

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Donnie Darko

Richard Kelly's enigmatic cult classic Donnie Darko  offers a haunting and atmospheric study of time travel, destiny, and mental health. Starring Jake Gyllenhaal as the troubled titular character, the film follows Donnie's descent into a surreal world of prophetic visions, mysterious occurrences, and sinister manifestations. As he confronts the prospect of an impending apocalypse, Donnie finds himself navigating a labyrinthine narrative that deftly interweaves elements of horror, science fiction, and coming-of-age drama. Donnie Darko  remains a deeply evocative and mesmerizing cinematic experience that continues to haunt and engage viewers nearly two decades after its release.

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It's a Wonderful Life

Frank Capra's enduring masterpiece It's a Wonderful Life  is a timeless study of the impact of a single life on the world around it. In this heartwarming tale, James Stewart stars as George Bailey, a down-on-his-luck man who contemplates ending his life on Christmas Eve. Through the intervention of a bumbling guardian angel, George is granted the opportunity to witness an alternate reality where he never existed, ultimately realizing the profound effect his life has had on those around him. Though not typically viewed as a time-travel narrative, It's a Wonderful Life  thoughtfully demonstrates the ripple effect of our actions through time and serves as a powerful reminder of the importance of compassion, gratitude, and human connection.

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This 2002 adaptation of H.G. Wells' groundbreaking novel, directed by Simon Wells, plunges viewers into a thrilling and visually stunning journey through time. Starring Guy Pearce as a brilliant inventor who creates a time machine to change the tragic course of his past, the film introduces audiences to an array of fantastical settings, from Victorian London to a distant, post-apocalyptic future. Though differing from its literary source material in several key aspects, The Time Machine retains the spirit of Wells' work, offering an engrossing study of human ambition, love, and the inexorable march of time.

Star Trek: First Contact

Star Trek: First Contact is an exhilarating installment in the iconic science fiction franchise, blending elements of action, adventure, and time travel to create a thrilling cinematic experience. As the USS Enterprise crew, led by Patrick Stewart's Captain Jean-Luc Picard, confront the malevolent Borg, they find themselves transported back in time to the pivotal moment of humanity's first contact with an alien race. Faced with the responsibility of preserving history and ensuring the future of mankind, the crew embarks on a desperate mission to thwart the Borg's sinister plans. Directed by Jonathan Frakes, Star Trek: First Contact  is a gripping and emotionally charged journey through time and space, celebrating the spirit of exploration and unity at the heart of the long-running franchise.

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In Richard Curtis' charming romantic comedy About Time , time travel serves as a poignant metaphor for the beauty and fragility of life's fleeting moments. The film follows Tim (Domhnall Gleeson), a young man who discovers he has the ability to travel through time, and uses his newfound power to find love, fix mistakes, and bring happiness to those around him. With its whimsical humor, heartfelt performances, and beautiful cinematography, About Time  artfully explores themes of love, family, and the importance of cherishing every moment of our lives.

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The Time Traveler's Wife

Based on Audrey Niffenegger's bestselling novel, The Time Traveler's Wife  is a deeply moving study of love, loss, and the complexities of time travel. Starring Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana, the film tells the story of Clare (McAdams), who falls in love with Henry (Bana), a man with a rare genetic disorder that causes him to involuntarily travel through time. As their relationship unfolds across the years, the couple faces numerous challenges and heartbreaks, resulting in a poignant and bittersweet portrait of devotion in the face of uncertainty. The Time Traveler's Wife  is a tender and memorable examination of the enduring power of love, even when time itself seems to conspire against it.

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Predestination

Predestination , a mind-bending science fiction thriller directed by the Spierig Brothers, expertly navigates the intricate paradoxes of time travel to deliver a captivating and cerebral cinematic experience. Starring Ethan Hawke and Sarah Snook, the film follows a time-traveling agent on his mission to stop a mysterious criminal known as the "Fizzle Bomber." As past, present, and future collide, a dizzying web of secrets, betrayal, and destiny is revealed, leaving viewers enthralled by the film's labyrinthine narrative and stellar performances. Predestination  is an ambitious and thought-provoking study of fate, identity, and the complex nature of time itself.

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Somewhere in Time

Somewhere in Time is a romantic fantasy that captures the hearts of viewers with its touching portrayal of love transcending the boundaries of time. Starring Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour, the film tells the story of Richard Collier (Reeve), a playwright who becomes infatuated with a woman from the past and wills himself back in time to be with her. Through tender performances and a sweeping score, Somewhere in Time  showcases the power of timeless love and leaves a lasting impression on those who have experienced this enchanting narrative.

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Hot Tub Time Machine

In the irreverent comedy Hot Tub Time Machine , a group of disillusioned friends, played by John Cusack, Rob Corddry, Craig Robinson, and Clark Duke, accidentally travel back in time to the 1980s via - you guessed it – a hot tub. As they navigate the raucous decade, complete with outrageous fashions, wild parties, and questionable hair choices, they each face the consequences of their past decisions and the potential to rewrite their futures. Directed by Steve Pink, Hot Tub Time Machine  is a hilarious and nostalgic romp through time that serves as both a love letter and a playful critique of the era.

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• Entertainment
• Time Travel
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As they say in well-written scripts, "You mean... like time travel?" + also a few bizarre stories about real people who have claimed, despite every law of physics, they have traveled through time.

25 of the Best Time Travel Movies Ever Made

These films will have you flying through the years, decades and dimensions—and ready to do it over and over again.

Every item on this page was chosen by a Town & Country editor. We may earn commission on some of the items you choose to buy.

From star-crossed lovers to harrowing action sequences, the plots to these films didn't stay in one dimension.

Back to the Future

What is a list of time travel classics a without a nod to Marty McFly and his friend Doc Brown from the 1980's classic, Back to the Future ? Although the second and third movie are equally as entertaining– it's hard to beat the original.

Somewhere in Time

Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour play the ultimate time-crossed lovers in this romantic drama that will have you rooting for time to be by their side.

The Lake House

Settle in for a mystifying romance and watch the relationship between the characters of Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves unfold — all while they are communicating with each other separated by two years of time.

The Time Traveler's Wife

Every marriage requires work, but when your husband has a condition that causes him to involuntarily time travel– your issues are outside the normal scope of relationship stressors. The romantic drama starring Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana follows a newlywed couple through the trials and tribulations of their unusual relationship.

Palm Springs

When carefree Nyles (Andy Samberg) and reluctant maid of honor Sarah (Cristin Milioti) have a chance encounter at a Palm Springs wedding, the two get stuck in a time loop that they can't escape.

Kate & Leopold

A 19th-century bachelor (Hugh Jackman) falls through time and meets a 21st-century woman (Meg Ryan). What more could you want in a time travel movie, honestly?!

Time After Time

No, not the Cyndi Lauper song: this is a time travel movie where H.G. Wells (Malcom McDowell) chases Jack the Ripper (David Warner) through time, and they end up in... 1979 San Francisco! When there, Wells falls for a bank clerk named Amy (Mary Steenburgen). There's a bit of everything: Romance, action, adventure, and obviously, time travel.

Source Code

When Jake Gyllenhaal finds himself inside the body of a man he doesn't know, he quickly figures out there's an important reason for why he's been sent back in time. The film's plot twists as well as the climax of his pressure-filled mission makes for incredible action and drama.

Donnie Darko

A cult classic ever since it's release in 2001, Donnie Darko takes a dark twist on teenage time travel.

Interstellar

Interstellar left audiences perplexed, bewildered, and all around baffled as it's characters journey through a wormhole in space.

Groundhog Day

Ever used the term groundhog day to describe a never-ending day? Well you can thank the 1993 film for that! Comedian Bill Murray stars as a weatherman who finds himself trapped reliving the same day over and over again.

In Loop , actors Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, and Emily Blunt star in the marvelous film that combines the the best traits of a mob drama with the intrigue of the space-time continuum.

13 Going on 30

As a thirteen-year old in the 1980's, all Jenna Rink wants is to skip over her teenage years and live as a sophisticated and self-assured 30 year old (who didn't want that?). But when she gets exactly what she's dreamed of, she realizes it's not everything she though it'd be. In a film which imbues the message "enjoy the journey not the destination" cliche, Jennifer Garner does an amazing job of keeping the role refreshing and sweet.

Predestination

The intertemporal plots of the film Predestination along with actor Ethan Hawke's marvelous performance will leave you wanting to view it over and over again.

The Family Man

Although the film Family Man is more about an alternate universe than actual time travel, watching Nicolas Cage portray an investment banking bachelor who gets thrust into the life of a suburban dad to teach him what really matters in life is just too good not to recommend it.

Doctor Strange

Marvel dips its toe into the world of time travel with the release of Doctor Strange, the story of a neurosurgeon who introduces the audiences to an entire world of alternate dimensions.

Edge of Tomorrow

Edge of Tomorrow takes the winning concept behind Groundhog Day and combines it with an action-fueled adventure starring Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt.

The film was met with mixed reviews from critics, however the plot's time travel complexities are extremely well done and will satisfy any sci-fi lover.

What would you do if you could go back in time and re-do any moment? We're sure you'd change a few corny pick-up lines, awkward conversations, and coulda-woulda-shoulda moments and that's exactly what you'll find in this romantic comedy meets fantasy drama.

The Adjustment Bureau

Matt Damon and Emily Blunt will captivate you as they protect their love from a mysterious group that is aiming to tear them apart.

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'Great Scott!': Here are the 31 greatest time travel movies ever made, ranked

Let's gun the ol' speedometer up to 88 miles per hour with a look back at the best temporal adventures in movie history. 

Christopher Lloyd as Doc Brown and Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly in Back to the Future.  Credit: FilmPublicityArchive/United Archives via Getty Image

No matter how much we try to hold onto time — which is less of a tangible thing and more of an ethereal human construct — it always seems to slip away through our fingers like sands glimpsed through an hourglass. To borrow a lyric from Pink Floyd's "Time": "And then one day you find ten years have got behind you."

Doesn't that just hit you right in the feels?

Perhaps that is why we, as a species, are so enamored with the idea of time travel and the tantalizing, yet elusive, promises the genre has always held in the realm of science fiction. If the ability to travel to the past or the future existed, we'd be able to rectify egregious mistakes, visit with notable historical figures, or fight off unstoppable robot assassins from the future. Okay, maybe not the third thing, but you get the point. Our collective fascination with temporal displacement isn't going anywhere and to that end, we present our ranking of the 31 best time travel movies ever made.

31. Idiocracy (2006)

As the years go by, Mike Judge's sci-fi comedy about a guy with average intelligence who wakes in a world full of morons (effectively making him the smartest man alive) feels less like satire and more like reality. Sad, yet true. Why water crops with an energy drink? Because it's got electrolytes! Why electrolytes? Because electrolytes are what plants crave! Duh, everyone knows that.

30. Hot Tub Time Machine (2010)

Hot Tub Time Machine could have easily taken the lazy route with tired jokes and poorly-written characters. Instead, the film offers up a surprisingly tender message about yearning for the past and getting a second chance to fix the missteps of one's youth. It also helps that the comedy is just as strong as the emotion. What's more: you've got Chevy Chase playing a mysterious repair man who recalls Don Knotts' character in Pleasantville . What else could you really ask for?

29. Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)

Shagadelic baby, yeah! On par with parody greats like Airplane and The Naked Gun , the first Austin Powers film lampoons to the James Bond franchise to perfection. Not only that, but the concept of a womanizing British super-spy from the 1960s trying to navigate the modern world felt ahead of its time, putting forth ideas of contemporization nearly a decade before Daniel Craig stepped into the shoes of 007.

28. Timecop (1994)

Timecop is exactly what it's title suggests: in the future, there exists a police force tasked with monitoring the timeline. Simple as pie. Nineties action icon Jean-Claude Van Damme stars as Max Walker, a titular temporal cop who must prevent a dangerous political from altering the past for his own gain.

27. The Time Machine (1960)

No, we're not talking about the Guy Pearce version from 2002 — we're talking about the OG adaptation of the iconic H.G. Wells tale directed by George Pal and starring Rod Taylor. The actor takes on the role of time traveler (duh) who gets way more than he bargained for when he travels to a future where humans battle a subterranean species of monstrous creatures known as morlocks.

26. Flight of the Navigator (1986)

A stone-cold ‘80s classic whose influence can certainly be felt in films like The Adam Project , Flight of the Navigator centers around a young boy who unwittingly travels to the future in an alien spaceship. A remake's been in the works for years, but it doesn't seem like much progress has been made on it.

25. Back to the Future Part II (1989)

One of several sequels on this quantum list, Back to the Future Part II set the stage for Avengers: Endgame three decades in advance with the idea of revisiting fan favorite moments of a previous movie via the utilization of time travel. When future Biff goes back to 1955 to give his younger self the sports almanac, Marty must follow and evade the version of himself in Part I . Great stuff!

24. Time After Time (1979)

H.G. Wells returns in this time-twisting movie in which the sci-fi writer attempting to stop Jack the Ripper, only for the infamous killer to use Wells' time machine against him. Several years later, director Nicholas Meyer would go on to direct another sci-fi classic — Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

23. Time Bandits (1981)

Most likely a major influence on Tony Fleecs' Time Shopper comic (well worth the read!), Time Bandits was among Terry Gilliam's first efforts as director. It's just something you won't get anywhere else: a unique Monty Python spin of the time travel genre. A tale of time-leaping dwarves on the hunt for treasure. As of 2019 , Thor director Taika Watiti was attached to a small screen remake at Apple TV+.

22. Army of Darkness (1993)

Army of Darkness is where the Evil Dead series went completely off the rails in the best way possible. After two outings at a possessed cabin in the middle of the woods, writer-director Sam Raimi needed a change of scenery? He could have gone to another contemporary location, but deciding to thrust Ash Williams back in time to the Dark Ages was a stroke of unexpected genius.

21. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2006)

There was no way we could talk about the best time travel movies ever made and not give a shoutout to Mamoru Hosoda's 2006 masterpiece of an anime.

"The film plays the time-looping games of Groundhog Day, but it's also a sweet, credible study of a girl who wants to turn back the clock on her relationships with two boys who are starting to think more about romance than baseball," Kim Newman wrote in their review for Empire Magazine . "It has few fireworks, but still sticks in the mind, and is a definite upgrade from Digimon: The Movie for director Mamoru Hosoda."

20. Back to the Future Part III (1990)

Immediately following the events of Part II , Marty travels back to 1885 to save Doc Brown from living out the rest of his life in the Old West (Emmett's favorite time period). While there, our favorite skateboarding teenager runs afoul of Biff's ancestor, Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen. Oh, and Doc falls in love with a schoolteacher named Clara, giving us a softer side of the mad scientist we've come to know over the last two installments.

19. About Time (2013)

Richard Curtis — the man who gave us Four Weddings and a Funeral and Love Actually — tries his hand at the time travel genre with heartwarming results. Curtis, who both wrote and directed the film, is less interested in the sci-fi element and more preoccupied with the human drama of a young man who suddenly learns that the men in his family can jump through time.

18. Timecrimes (2007)

Writer-director Nacho Vigalondo's tight sci-fi thriller sort of flew under the radar when it was initially released back in 2007. If you haven't yet watched it, we can't recommend this one enough. Its handling of those pesky paradoxes that come with the time travel territory is *chef's kiss*.

17. Bill & Ted Face the Music (2020)

It only took about three decades to get another entry in the Bill & Ted saga, but Face the Music was well worth the wait. An offbeat exploration of what it means to get older and come to terms with not achieving all the goals you once hoped to achieve, the third outing for Bill Preston and Ted Logan hits all the right notes. Even after all these years, Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter have still go it. Rock on!

16. Star Trek (2009)

It had been close to a decade since the release of Star Trek: Nemesis when J.J. Abrams brought the classic franchise back to the big screen. But how do you reboot such a beloved property after so many decades of shows and movies? You take it back to its roots with just a few twists here and there. Enter the narrative device of time travel, which gave audiences fresh takes on Kirk, Spock, Uhura, Sulu, and the rest of the Enterprise crew while still remaining true to who these characters were in the OG run.

15. X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)

You can set anything in the 1970s and you're going to have a good time. Based on the seminal comic book arc by the dynamic X-Men duo of Chris Claremont and John Byrne, Days of Future Past finds Logan traveling back in time (courtesy of Kitty Pryde) to prevent the mutant-hunting Sentinels from every being created. The finished product is a perfect marriage of the Bryan Singer films with the prequel continuity established by Matthew Vaughn in First Class . The ‘70s-set adventure is seriously groovy (who could ever forget that Quicksilver sequence set to Jim Croce's "Time in a Bottle"?), while, in the dystopian present, the last gasp of mutant resistance engages in the real last stand against the Sentinels, which have been encoded with Mystique's adaptive cells. Nail-biter is an understatement.

14. Star Trek: First Contact (1996)

The second Star Trek feature to be spun out of The Next Generation TV show, First Contact features a race against time (both literally and figuratively) to stop the Borg from preventing humanity's first contact with an alien species (the Vulcans).

"I think the most important plot aspect of the movie and what gave it its title was that Vulcan encounter at the end," co-writer Brannon Braga told The Hollywood Reporter in 2016. "This is what Star Trek is and this is where it all began. And you want it to happen. It's what's at stake — Star Trek itself — and that to me gives the movie such a strong core.

13. Run Lola Run (1998)

If you're a fan of that Community episode that explores all the potential outcomes of a simple game night gathering, then you'll probably enjoy Run Lola Run . Similar to Pulp Fiction four years prior, Tom Twyker's third directorial effort plays around with the timeline of its storytelling (something that would serve Twyker well on Cloud Atlas ). When the titular woman's boyfriend loses a bag of money that belongs to a very dangerous crime lord, Lola only has 20 minutes to come up with the dough. A simple and engaging premise gets an added boost from the screenplay's exploration of fate and how our actions can lead to unforeseen consequences.

12. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)

Time travel isn't something we often associate with witches and wizards (Doctor Strange being an obvious exception), but Prisoner of Azkaban features one of the tightest examples of a paradox-free time loop you're likely to find anywhere in the genre. When Sirius Black and Buckbeak the hippogriff are wrongly sentenced to be executed, Harry and Hermione use a Time Turner to save both innocent souls. Director Alfonso Cuarón effortlessly sets up the temporal element long before we ever get to that point, so that when our heroes do go back to change the past, it feels both earned and satisfying. Moreover, the time travel sticks to a concrete set of rules about not changing that which is immutable. Good stuff. Magical even.

11. Source Code (2011)

Groundhog Day , but as a heart-thumping action mystery/thriller. That's Source Code , baby — the second feature-length effort from David Bowie's filmmaker son, Duncan Jones. His follow-up to 2009's Moon proved Jones was not a one-hit high concept pony. Jake Gyllenhaal leads the project as Colter Stevens, a man forced to relive a specific train journey in an effort to find out who bombed the locomotive. Verga Farmiga, Michelle Monaghan, Jeffrey Wright, and Michael Arden round out the cast with Scott Bakula making a voiceover appearance as Colter's dad (most likely a loving reference to Bakula's role as Dr. Samuel Beckett in Quantum Leap ).

10. Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989)

Whoa! On paper, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure sounds so off the wall as to be un-filmable: Two high school slackers with a love of rock n' roll travel through the centuries in a futuristic phone booth given to them by risqué comedian George Carlin in order to ace their history exam and not be sent to military school. If we were Hollywood executives in the late ‘80s, we'd probably ask what kind of reefer screenwriters Chris Matheson (son of famed sci-fi icon Richard Matheson) and Ed Solomon were smoking. But it works! And by golly, it works well.

9. Groundhog Day (1993)

Less of a time travel movie and more of a time loop movie, Groundhog Day is, perhaps, the finest directing effort from late actor/writer/filmmaker Harold Ramis. In this existential comedy, a bitter and self-centered newscaster is forced to relieve the same day over and over again until he learns a bit of humility. He can't leave the epicenter of the titular holiday (Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania) and any suicide attempt simply sends him back to the previous morning. It's a horrifying prospect, living out a hellish purgatory of repetition each and every day, but in Ramis's able hands, Groundhog Day keeps things light, earning its place as one of the finest dramedies ever made.

8. Looper (2012)

Looper is noteworthy for two big reasons: 1) Rian Johnson's snappy screenplay never gets too bogged down in the "rules" of the time travel genre and 2) Joseph Gordon-Levitt went the extra mile to wear facial prosthetics that made him look like a younger Bruce Willis. The decision to focus on a low-level enforcer for a group of future mafiosos who dispose of their victims in the distant past is pretty genius stuff. Johnson not only makes time travel feel fresh, he also manages to breathe new life into the crime thriller space. Not an easy feat by any means.

7. 12 Monkeys (1995)

Terry Gilliam just couldn't help himself; the dude just had to churn out another time travel masterpiece 15 years after Time Bandits . And we're very thankful he did. A top-of-his-game Bruce Willis steps into the shoes of a convict who is sent back in time to learn about a mysterious pathogen that wiped out a good chunk of humanity. The movie itself is a remake of the French film made in 1962. Madeleine Stowe, Brad Pitt, and Christopher Plummer co-star. Pitt, who played mental patient Jeffrey Goines, nabbed a Golden Globe victory and Oscar nod for his performance.

6. Arrival (2016)

Denis Villeneuve's first foray into the world of science fiction, Arrival is a thinking person's time travel story. In fact, that little detail isn't really made obvious until the very last act. If you're looking for explosions and cheesy one-liners, then you're looking in the wrong place. Might we suggest our list of best action flicks from the ‘90s? Arrival takes a methodical and procedural approach to the question of: how would the world react if alien spaceships showed up on our doorstep tomorrow? How would we communicate with beings that are so wildly different from ourselves? The film is subdued and thoughtful — a masterful slow burn of an audition for its director's genre chops.

5. Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

Source Code walked so that Edge of Tomorrow could run. Edge of Tomorrow , Live. Die. Repeat. — Call it whatever you want, just don't call us late for the battle against the Mimics. Under the direction of Doug Liman, Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt, and the rest of the cast (which features the late Bill Paxton) clearly have a ton of fun in this movie about a man thrust into a war against his will. He can't fight for crap, but when an alien bleeds time travel blood all over him, he gains the ability to relive the same day over and over again. Liman plays everything organically, taking the time to allow us to learn the rules alongside our hero before he truly figures out how to use his newfound ability to his advantage. Now, when is the sequel coming out?

4. The Terminator (1984)

"Come with me if you want to live!" This shouted by a complete stranger who, just a few moments ago, showed up in a back alley naked as the day he was born. We are, of course, referring to Kyle Reese, the soldier sent back in time to prevent the T-800 from murdering the mother of John Connor, who will one day lead humanity against the machines. Little does Mr. Reese know that he is destined to be the father of that child. Time travel is just a means to an end here: an excuse to pit two flesh bag protagonists against an unstoppable killing machine with one simple goal: assassinate Sarah Connor.

3. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)

The fourth Star Trek movie to feature the OG cast members from the '60s-era television series, The Voyage Home , Kirk, Spock, and the rest travel back to San Francisco (circa 1986) and communicate with whales. You shouldn't be laughing over there, because that's actually what happens. Leonard Nimoy, who sat in the director's chair for this one, wanted to go for a very different Trek story.

"No dying, no fighting, no shooting, no photon torpedoes, no phaser blasts, no stereotypical bad guy," he once remarked . "I wanted people to really have a great time watching this film [and] if somewhere in the mix we lobbed a couple of big ideas at them, well, then that would be even better."

2. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

Arnie's T-800 wasn't kidding when he said "I'll be back" seven years prior to the release of T2: Judgment Day . He definitely did come back and with quite a vengeance. Except this time, the killer android with the Austrian accent didn't come to the past to kill young John Connor, but to protect him from a new mechanical threat: the shape-shifting T-1000.

Sequels are tricky to pull off properly, but writer-director James Cameron has yet to fumble the follow-up ball. This film ramped up everything audiences loved about the first movie, deepening the mythology while never losing sight of its heart: the fractured relationship between John and his mother as well as the budding relationship between John and his buff, sunglasses-wearing protector.

1. Back to the Future (1985)

Credit: Universal

You knew this one would be at the very tip-top of our list, didn't you? There's just no getting around it, no matter what timeline you travel to, Back to the Future is the greatest time travel movie of all time. Despite an overt lack of coherent rules and paradox resolution, the movie speeds by (at 88 miles per hour, of course) on charm, memorable characters, and relatable stakes.

And that's not even mentioning the most iconic time machine in the history of the genre: a winged-door DeLorean that runs on a plutonium-powered Flux Capacitor. What's a Flux Capacitor? Again, don't mind the science — just sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride to 1955, where young Marty McFly has to ensure that his parents end up together, lest he and his siblings disappear forever.

Speaking with SYFY WIRE in 2019, Back to the Future co-screenwriter Bob Gale summed up the film's immortal legacy: "The idea that we were able to just tell this time travel story and make it not about changing history; making this human story and the big surprise was that everybody in the world has wondered the same thing: ‘What did my parents do on their first date?' It just connects with everybody."

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Best time travel movies of all time

Journey through cinema and science fiction history as we run down the best time travel movies of all time, from simple trips to other eras to time loops.

Mankind has been fascinated by the possibility of travelling to a different age for over a century. This hypothetical activity, now widely recognized in philosophy and fiction, was popularized by H.G. Wells’ 1895 novel The Time Machine. But it was cinema that made it a recurring science fiction premise in mainstream works. Such movies have kept evolving and taking time travel in wildly different directions, so we have ventured across time and space to bring you our ranked list of the best time travel movies of all time.

A good time travel movie doesn’t need to try too hard to take the subject seriously, as the core concept itself and the mechanics surrounding it remain a mystery and purely hypothetical. Of course, there are stories that leave massive plot holes throughout, but even time travel movies which go for more “realistic” approaches have to make up their own sets of rules. As a result, our list covers both movies that are steeped in the science of the genre and those which simply use time travel as a vehicle for shenanigans. One-way trips through black holes ? Parallel timelines ? Mind-bending paradoxes? It’s got a bit of everything.

For other great sci-fi genres, check out our guides to the best alien invasion movies , the best zombie movies , the best disaster movies , and the best giant monster movies of all time. If you’re in the mood for hands-on time travel fun, our list of the best time travel video games you can play right now is a must-read too. 

15. The Time Traveler’s Wife 

• Release date: August 14, 2009
• Cast: Eric Bana, Rachel McAdams, Ron Livingston

The original marketing of The Time Traveler’s Wife, based on the novel of the same name, was billed as a sappy romance movie akin to anything from Nicholas Sparks. While it does have its romantic moments, the movie’s commitment to a deep, compelling story of a man who cannot control his own movements through time is a well thought out original take on the concept. Think of it more as a romantic sci-fi drama.

As Henry DeTamble (Bana) travels through time, he cannot control when or where he appears. Luckily, at least, he often is among the same people, specifically, his future/present wife, Clare Abshire (McAdams). Their relationship develops and is bruised by his time shifts, which creates strain as well as successes for both of them throughout the movie. 

The Time Traveler’s Wife takes its premise seriously. It allows for the concepts of paradoxes by only ensuring that he directly affects what would, in theory, already occur. Henry is more enacting a prescribed timeline, rather than trying to fight it. It works, and it’s great.

• Release date: October 8, 2004
• Cast: Shane Carruth, David Sullivan, Casey Gooden

Primer is the quintessential movie for any fan of time travel. With a low budget of only $7,000, it grossed over $800,000 at the box office, making it one of the most successful independent movies of all time. It deserves its success as well, as it brings hard science to audiences in a way that, at first, seems impenetrable, but worms its way into our minds and keeps us analyzing the movie long after it’s over. 

When two engineers accidentally create a time travel apparatus during their own experiments, they begin using it for personal gain. As their ideologies on the preservation of time begin to diverge, however, their relationship is pushed to its limits alongside the fraying timeline they alter. 

Primer demands multiple viewings, each one illuminating hidden moments throughout the movie that hint at its own finale. Audiences looking for a dense, no-frills look at what time travel would mean if given to an average (albeit genius) Joe, will find it in Primer.

• Rent or buy Primer on Amazon.

13. Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure

• Release date: February 17, 1989
• Cast: Keanu Reeves, Alex Winter, George Carlin

The Bill and Ted franchise are considered family hits for a reason. With the charm of two goofy leads that bumble their way through major historical moments, the movies rely on the time travel conceit to build out and support their silly sense of humor. While the historical moments are considered overly cliché by some, and it’s true that they often misrepresent the moments they are based on, the point of the movie is not to relish in accuracy, but to parody those that try to stick to history all too closely. 

In order to ensure a future utopian society created by the titular characters, Rufus travels back in time to the 1980s to help Bill and Ted pass a history class. In order to understand the perspective of the historic figures they are supposed to be researching, the trio travel through time to meet each of them. 

Without going into spoilers, decisions made by the pair of heroes as well as Rufus would, if not for the movie completely ignoring them, destroy history as it is known. While this is frustrating for anyone looking for a movie that takes paradoxes seriously, that doesn’t keep Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure from being a fun, engaging flick that should be watched with brains mostly turned off.

12. Deadpool 2

• Release date: May 18, 2018
• Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Josh Brolin, Morena Baccarin

While many movies are poorly received due to their failure to properly respect their own laws of time, Deadpool 2 was given generally positive reviews from critics for intentionally doing the same. In true fashion of the character, Deadpool 2 pokes fun at time travel clichés and tropes, finding ways to both incorporate as well as deride them. 

After Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool joins the X-Men they take a young mutant, Russell, under their care. However, his actions in the future lead the mutant cyborg Cable to travel back in time in order to kill Russell and prevent his own tragedy from occurring. 

Multiple fourth-wall breaking jokes are made about the villains striking similarities to a certain futuristic machine that is mentioned later in this list. And also similarly, the movie strikes a balance in approaching the anti-hero trope that is often associated with these androids from the future. We’re looking at you Dragon Ball Z.

11. Source Code

• Release date: April 1, 2011
• Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan, Vera Farmiga

Source Code is an exciting sci-fi thriller which shows a lot of restraint despite the sheer audacity of its premise: Army Captain Colter Stevens finds himself in someone else’s body and quickly discovers he’s part of an experimental US government program that wants him to find the person behind the bombing of the train where he wakes up. The catch is that he can only be there for the last 8 minutes before the bomb goes off, being stuck in that loop until he can catch the bomber.

Director Duncan Jones had already wowed sci-fi aficionados with the remarkable Moon (2009), so expectations surrounding Source Code were quite high. While the final result might not be a masterpiece, it ranks easily among the most interesting time travel flicks in recent times. It’s also relatively easy to follow despite its kooky premise thanks to its limited scale.

10. 12 Monkeys

• Release date: January 5, 1996
• Cast: Bruce Willis, Madeleine Stowe, Brad Pitt

Let’s be honest, if someone were to run up to you on the street and say they were from the future and had come back to stop a society-destroying virus, would you believe them? Well, at this point, we probably would too. But, that certainly wasn’t the case when 12 Monkeys came out in the 90s. 

When James Cole (Willis) is sent back in time from 2030 to stop a devastating virus from ever being spread, he is immediately captured and committed to an insane asylum, because that’s what would realistically probably happen. There he meets Brad Pitt’s Jeffery Goines, who is a staunch anti-corporate activist and an environmentalist. You can see where this is probably going.

With plenty of back and forth time travel for Cole, and a sincerely harrowing story about the dangers of trying to intervene in the development of a horrific future, 12 Monkeys creates a narrative that looks at the actual implications of time travel. It’s a must see for any action-thriller science-fiction fan.

9. Groundhog Day

• Release date: February 12, 1993
• Cast: Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell, Chris Elliott

There’s always been discussion surrounding Groundhog Day and whether it’s really a time travel movie, but you know what? It doesn’t really matter. A simple time loop can be more interesting than a straight-up time-travelling odyssey. In fact, this movie is more of a fantasy comedy that poses the question of what would a regular person do if trapped inside a time loop they cannot explain nor fix.

It's an endearing movie that, despite many creative differences behind the scenes, ended up resonating with audiences thanks to its smaller scale and impeccable comedic timing, all built around a script which is undoubtedly clever, but lacks pretension. Many movies in this list are downbeat or serve as cautionary tales, so we thought it’d be great to inject a healthy dose of optimism.

8. Predestination

• Release date: August 28, 2014
• Cast: Ethan Hawke, Sarah Snook, Noah Taylor

Predestination might be one of the most overlooked sci-fi movies in recent years, mainly because it didn’t get a very wide international release following its global premiere at the SXSW Film Festival in Austin, Texas. Fanatics of time travel movies and loopy sci-fi thrillers made sure as many people as possible heard about it though.

The movie is based on the 1959 short story “All You Zombies” by Robert A. Heinlen, and follows a temporal agent as he pursues one criminal that has eluded him throughout time. The chase quickly turns into a mind-bending exploration of love, fate, and identity that questions the very foundations of time travel as explained in-universe. This one’s a big head-scratcher that requires your full attention, but it’s also far from a slog due to its (mostly successful) action thriller ambitions.

7. Tenet 

• Release date: August 26, 2020
• Cast: John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki

We’re still trying to wrap our heads around some of the wilder mechanics featured in Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi thriller, so that alone gives Tenet some weight among the genre’s best. It’s true that some of the character arcs aren’t as fleshed out as they could’ve been, plus its spy-movie villain – played by Kenneth Branagh – can often be unintentionally funny, but it’s hard to find a bolder big-budget action thriller in recent times.

The story follows a former CIA agent who must learn to master “time inversion” and prevent a renegade Russian oligarch from starting World War III. The problem is the attack will come from the future. As the plot unfolds, weirder concepts come into play, and everything isn’t what it seems at first glance. This is a time travel movie unlike anything we had seen before, mainly because it takes a while to adjust to the mind-bending mechanics of its universe and how they play out in parallel to regular action.

6. Edge of Tomorrow 

• Release date: June 6, 2014
• Cast: Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt, Bill Paxton

Edge of Tomorrow was one of the biggest surprises of 2014 thanks to a tight, action-packed script which masterfully mixed the alien invasion subgenre with time-travel shenanigans, so you’re killing two birds with one stone if you choose to watch this banger for the first time.

Based on Hiroshi Sakurazaka’s novel All You Need Is Kill, Edge of Tomorrow presents a near future in which most of Europe has been taken over by a hostile and unstoppable alien species. Major William Cage, a PR officer, is forced to join an operation against the aliens, only to end up experiencing a time loop that could be the key to defeating the invaders if he can convince the right people. Edge of Tomorrow is both funny and dark, but above all, a true rollercoaster ride.

5. Interstellar

• Release date: November 7, 2014
• Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain

Written and directed by Christopher Nolan, the man behind other “I lost my wife” movies such as Inception, The Prestige, and the more recent Tenet, Interstellar is a time travel movie that uses theoretical laws of physics to alter the perception of time for its protagonists. While Tenet may be a more direct time travel movie, Interstellar surpasses it in its writing, emotional character beats, and the spectacle of its space travel. 

After food sources on Earth have been depleted, Cooper (McConaughey) and a team of astronauts go out in search of a habitable planet beyond the solar system. During their journey, time shifts with them depending on the planets they are on, or how close they are to the black hole at the center of their travels. 

While none of the characters go back in time, they do experience time travel by how fast or slow their own perception of time is compared to the characters back home. And a particularly interesting point using the black hole does allow information and communication to be sent backwards, which we think totally counts.

• Release date: September 28, 2012
• Cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt

Bruce Willis’ most recent foray into time travel, Looper is a mind-bending movie that attempts to tackle the grandfather paradox. Although it falls a bit short of this lofty goal, it still maintains a good narrative that builds to an intense climax that uses the universe’s rules against the main villain in unique ways. 

Time travel is ubiquitous in the world of Looper. Unfortunately, a crime syndicate has figured out a way to use this to “lose bodies” by sending their victims back in time to be killed by employees working in the past (or present, if you’re the employee). When Joe, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, is hired to kill his older self, played by Bruce Willis, he fails to do so, setting off an intense chase for JGL to correct his mistake.

Ultimately, the movie sets out its own rules for time travel. When young Joe gets a cut, a scar appears on old Joe. This concept progresses through the movie to an ending that may not be temporally possible, but that works to bring closure to the loop.

• Rent or buy Looper on Amazon.

3. Avengers: Endgame

• Release date: April 26, 2019
• Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo

As the culmination of a storyline spanning over 20 movies, Avengers: Endgame had a serious amount of great moments to look back on in its finale of the Avengers’ stories. After having gone through far-flung cosmic adventures, as well as into subatomic realms, there was only one novel place the Avengers could go: Back in time. 

After Thanos wipes out half of all life in the universe with the Snap (or the Blip) in Infinity War, he destroys the Infinity Stones before being killed by a vengeful Thor. With the stones destroyed, the remaining Avengers travel back in time to collect them from various points in the timeline, so that they may restore the universe to what it once was. 

During their travels, the Avengers are met with spectacular fight scenes, heart-wrenching deaths, and great callback moments that reward long-time fans of the series. While it can be viewed just alongside Infinity War as a sequel, it needs to be seen after having watched all of the MCU in order to appreciate just how far the Avengers have come.

2. Terminator 2: Judgment Day

• Release date: July 3, 1991
• Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Edward Furlong

When it comes to famous time travel action movies,  Terminator 2: Judgment Day is the best of them all. With cutting-edge effects for the time that still hold up today, James Cameron’s sequel took what made the original great and expanded on it in ways that only few other sequels have ever managed to do. 

When a new Terminator, the T-1000, is sent back in time to kill John Connor, the one person responsible for protecting humanity’s future, the futuristic resistance also sends back Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator to protect him. Now there’s a great premise.

Schwarzenegger was able to bring humanity and empathy to the cruel, menacing robot that he had characterized in the first movie. Plus, Robert Patrick’s T-1000 became a villain that, to this day, is synonymous with the idea of unrelenting pursuit. The movie is pure blockbuster thrills bookended by a time travel story that could change the future of all humankind.

• Watch Terminator 2: Judgment Day free on Pluto TV.

1. Back to the Future

• Release date: July 3, 1985
• Cast: Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson

We gotta go back! Back to when time travel as a concept was still fresh in popular cinema. Back when it hadn’t yet become a TV and movie trope that is often used as a plot device when all other options have been exhausted. Back to when the concept was held with reverence as well as with glee. 

Robert Zemeckis’ 1985 classic follows Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) as he travels back in time to the 1950s in order to rescue his mentor, Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd). After Marty is accidentally rescued by his own mother in her teenage years, he has to work to ensure that not only can he make it back to the present, but that his parents get together so he’ll even exist. 

Back to the Future is full of time travel twists that wind their way into a viewer’s brain and beg to be dissected. This is a movie that’ll appeal to everyone – it has a nostalgic pull for older adults and it’s a great, fun way for a younger generation to connect to the sci-fi genre.

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15 Classic 1980s Time Travel Movies

The decade took the classic sci-fi premise that had been around for a while before and breathed fresh, outrageous new life into them.

The 1980s was an era of wild, free-wheeling, neon-lit adventures and cinema was no different. While action and romance movies were at a peak, perhaps no other genre benefited more from this experimental spirit than time travel films. The decade took the classic sci-fi premise that had been around for a while before and breathed fresh, outrageous new life into them.

Writers and directors saw time travel as a fascinating concept for both dreamers and nerds, not as a serious mechanical problem that needed to be eliminated but as an excuse for pure, pulse-pounding fun. If you've grown up loving these movies, sneaking into the theater to catch the latest twist on the possibility of changing one's past or future, then the 1980s was your golden age. The aughts may have given us time loops and complex multiverse theories, but the '80s went all in on leveraging simple analog technologies to spin time travel adventures.

Related: These are the Best Movies that Got Time Travel Right

These movies had all the ingredients, from flashing neon lights and Atari references to headset-wearing scientists in lab coats, that made them flavorful and enjoyable. There were also chatty memorable sidekicks and thrilling chase scenes through the past, present, and future. In the classic time travel movies of the '80s, stuff was simple (if ridiculous), the future was bright (if doomed), and anything was possible. So fasten your seatbelts because we’re about to go, well, back in time.

15 The Final Countdown (1980)

Fans of science fiction and war drama gather around because The Final Countdown is a movie that balances both genres with incredible ease. Starring Kirk Douglas and Martin Sheen, this movie follows the U.S.S. Nimitz aircraft carrier that is dispatched on a routine training exercise but it mysteriously enters a time warp and winds up transported back to December 6th, 1941 – the day before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Now the captain and the crew find themselves in a race against time to stop the inevitable tragedy while also trying to make it back to the future intact. As far-fetched as the idea may seem, director Don Taylor makes sure it is executed with an earnest spirit.

This crowd-pleaser features plenty of ‘80s cheese but also gives us some genuinely memorable and exciting sequences aboard a real-life Pacific aircraft carrier.

14 Somewhere in Time (1980)

Set in 1972, Somewhere in Time follows the wistful love story of Richard Collier, a playwright played by Christopher Reeve, who is immediately entranced after seeing a picture of Elise McKenna, played by Jane Seymour. Physically, he’s staying at the Grand Hotel in Mackinac Island in Michigan, but his heart wanders to about to know more about this stage actress. He comes across an old pocket watch given by someone who claims it possesses the power to transport him to the 19th century. He carries out self-hypnosis and travels back in time to meet the woman he believes is the love of his life.

The movie is overall wholesome and sweet, with the Arthurian-style romantic fantasy never feeling rushed . The lead actors give superb performances to elevate this retro story of timeless love.

13 Time Bandits (1981)

As far as time travel goes, Time Bandits is among the most innovative and original movies ever made. The plot centers around a young boy and history nerd, Kevin, playing inside his wardrobe when he suddenly finds himself in the company of a band of time-traveling dwarves who have just stolen a map that allows them to hop around time and through history at will. Simply for adventure, Kevin tags along, with chaos following them as they bounce from the Napoleonic wars to the middle ages and end up in the lair of the supreme being himself. Now they must protect the map from him and his employees.

This satirical, madcap Terry Gilliam film reigns with anarchy and absolute ridicule, with every step on the time-traveling tour being more deliciously creative than the last.

12 Trancers (1984)

Time travel movies are always about changing the history of going back to find something you’d lost. Jack Deth is a trooper from Angel City, and his job is to hunt criminals. He follows the trail of a serial killer through time, from 2247 to the year 1985 in Los Angeles. Only after arriving in the past does he realize that his nemesis, Martin Whistler, has the power to transform ordinary citizens into murderous 'Trancers' – zombie-like creatures that are always under his control. Now Deth must fight time in a new era to stop the Trancer outbreak before his arrival dooms history itself.

Trancers features a brilliant synth-pop soundtrack, and with its dimly lit ‘80s alleyways and liberal use of perm wigs, this absurd time travel slasher-comedy delivers plenty of unintentional laughs along with some truly strange scenes and mend-bending plot twists.

11 The Philadelphia Experiment (1984)

Directed by Stewart Raffill, The Philadelphia Experiment charts the actual events of a secret 1943 experiment that intended to make U.S. Naval warships invisible to radar sensors. But as the mission goes awry, two test subjects are sent 40 years into the future. Once rescued by the Navy in 1984, the time-tossed sailors find themselves in a suddenly frightening new era and now they must find and stop the experiment’s creator from repeating the same catastrophic incident.

The plot itself is enough to peak interest, and with the fear and intrigue having unknowable consequences lurking overhead, the movie sure makes for an entertaining watch. Uneven and choppy but equally ambitious in nature, this conspiracy science fiction thriller features some really cool naval ship special effects, signature B-movie action, and a twist ending.

Related: Incredible Movies Based on True Stories

10 The Terminator (1984)

A movie that we’ve all watched and enjoyed as kids that further morphed into an astounding franchise, The Terminator is set in a post-apocalyptic future in a world ruled by tyrannical supercomputers. Amidst it all, a cybernetic organism called the Terminator is sent back in time to 1984 Los Angeles to systematically eliminate Sarah Connor, the woman whose unborn son will lead humanity’s resistance. To fight back, the authorities also send a soldier back to protect the would-be mother.

Naturally, The Terminator thrives as a thriller, introducing us to a tech-noir vision of a dark future where machines have turned on their makers. Accompanied by groundbreaking visual effects, a pulse-pounding background score, and iconic performances by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton, this sci-fi action flick is an instant classic.

9 My Science Project (1985)

Mingling some elements of heartwarming comedy with its science fiction beauty, My Science Project is a teen time travel movie that follows a pair of high school misfits, Michael and Ellie, who raid a military junkyard and stumble upon a mysterious package that contains a strange glowing orb-like structure that absorbs electricity. Their newfound device is as dangerous as it is intriguing because it blends the past, present, and future and threatens mankind.

The movie uses elements of the plot familiar to the time, with characters jumping back and forth in time and creating massive loopholes. From cheap extraterrestrial costumes to wacky ‘80s hijinks, this goofy comedy manages to serve some sweet moments as well as an enjoyable, spirited celebration of youth and the little mischiefs of curious minds.

8 Back to the Future (1985)

No list of time travel movies can be complete without the mention of Back to the Future . The movie, directed by Robert Zemeckis, is an absolute joy from start to finish. It is a brilliant comedy adventure that follows a teenager who is accidentally sent 30 years back in time, where he meets his teenage parents and unwittingly threatens his own experience by getting involved in their private lives.

The characters of Marty McFly and Doc Brown are hilariously adorable and have continued to stay with us for decades. Moreover, the movie’s seamless special effects, lighting pace, and lots of the ‘80s and ‘50s charm to spare serve as a wildly imaginative tale that presents a vision of the small American town that is both celebratory and authentic. Back to the Future set the gold standard for ‘80s sci-fi and nostalgia, setting up the stage for a new generation.

7 Peggy Sue Got Married (1986)

Starring Nicolas Cage opposite Kathleen Turner, Peggy Sue Got Married weaves a wonderful and memorable tale of sweet nostalgia, love, yearning, and redefining one’s self because it is never too late. The story revolves around Peggy Sue Bodell, a 43-year-old housewife who has decided to divorce her cheating husband, Charlie. But as she attends her 25th high school reunion and passes out there, she awakens in her own 18-year-old body in 1960, right before she meets Charlie. Having reconsidered and regretted all her life choices, she now has a second chance at senior year. And Peggy Sue must decide what to change and what to leave the same, all while dealing with the chaotic emotions of her teenage self.

Both the lead characters deliver a career-defining performance under Francis Ford Coppola’s direction and create this funny and poignant comedy drama.

6 Flight Of The Navigator (1986)

An underrated time travel classic that comes out on its own because of its immersive story and head-scratching plot twists, Flight Of The Navigator is a Disney adventure that follows 12-year-old David, who is stunned unconscious in the forest near his home. When he wakes up, he realizes that he has been transported to the future, from 1978 to 1986. But the strange thing is, he hasn’t aged a bit. Meanwhile, a NASA scientist stumbles upon a UFO near town, giving David the opportunity to figure out what exactly got him here and how to get out.

The premise lets you believe that there are aliens out there with abilities unknown to man, which makes for an interesting watch. Moreover, the visuals, the overly silly humor, the ‘80s intro and David’s confusion are perfect for a movie that deals with so many genres at a time.

Related: Underrated Sci-Fi Movies of the '80s, Ranked

5 Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)

It is the 23rd century, and it turns out that a dangerous alien power is threatening planet Earth by soaking up the oceans. Captain Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise must travel back to 1986 San Francisco and find the humpback whales causing this disaster. From hysterical '80s culture clashes to the crew's ridiculous Cuban-heel-clad dash across the city, the movie packs an endless amount of laughs while also delivering a satisfying amount of space adventure.

Everything about this live-action cartoon feel-good adventure is simply flawless – from the exhilarating naval battle to action sequences to mind-blowing techno babble. One of the franchise’s most delightful and remarkable installments, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home , is all about having fun while saving the world.

4 Millennium (1989)

Showcasing a refreshing and comical clash between people from the future and the present, Millennium follows Bill Smith as he tries to get to the bottom of an accident between two jetliners. Upon close inspection, he discovers a band of time travelers from a future Earth who have captured people from the present to repopulate it, leaving a series of disturbances and an unidentifiable object.

Based on the novel by John Varley, the movie features an intriguing game between Smith and Louise, a stunning operative from the future. Cheryl Ladd and Kris Kristofferson are pretty decent in their roles, and while Millennium does not have a ton of special effects compared to the rest of the movies, it so happens to offer a nostalgic glimpse of the late '80s.

3 Warlock (1989)

Witch hunter Giles Redferne goes about his witch-hunting business in 17-th century England. He captures the warlock, but with help from otherworldly forces, the conjurer banishes himself to present-day Los Angeles, where he uses his dark powers to prey on victims and churn up trouble. Until Redferne follows him to the 1980s and tries to stop him. Julian Sands shines as the suave but sinister title character in this horror-action mashup.

Richard E. Grant portrays the confounded hunter trying to make sense of his surroundings with an effortless charm, while Lori Singer plays Kassandra, the beautiful woman who assists him on the quest. While formulaic, Warlock delivers a heavy dose of ‘80s excess alongside an engaging witch-vs-warlock dynamic and some innovative visuals that still hold up today.

2 Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989)

Another classic science-fiction comedy, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure , centers around two lovable metal-head dimwits, Bill and Ted, who are tasked with passing their history final or risk failing out of high school, with one having to get enlisted. They seek help from Rufus, a traveler from the future in possession of a time machine. Bill and Ted rack their brains and decide to go on an excellent adventure through history with the hopes of recruiting the perfect historical figures for their class presentation.

Effortlessly good-natured and sublimely stupid, this bizarre comedy helped redefine time travel movies, the theme of excess, and the kind of fun that became synonymous to the late ‘80s. What’s more, is that it features breakout performances from Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter as the ultimate high school slackers.

1 Back to the Future Part II (1989)

Back to the Future Part II returns as a wacky sequel, and Marty and Doc Brown bless the big screens with more exciting adventures. In the movie, Doc Brown travels to the future to bring Marty up to speed on some heavy events coming his family’s way. Soon, they are both off to 2015 to set things right, only for their meddling to make way for more risks. From Marty’s future son almost being imprisoned to his father being murdered, the duo tackles problems right and left.

With its mind-bending multiverse anomalies, hoverboards, Jaws 19 references, and self-tying Nike sneakers, the movie delivers a more breathtaking time travel escapade that may not match the magic of the original, but it is still full of non-stop surprises .

Future Tense: The 20 Best Time-Travel Movies

By Gavin Edwards

Gavin Edwards

“Time travel hasn’t been invented yet. But it will be,” Joseph Gordon-Levitt says at the beginning of  Looper. That’s the thing about time travel: Once you invent a time machine, you just have to use it to travel back to the U.S. Patent Office on the first day it opened, so you can register your invention and serve as inspiration for an endless stream of movies. For decades, Hollywood has been treating the space-time continuum like it’s just the daily rushes for editors to cut together.

Over the past few summers, for example, X-Men: Days of Future Past sends Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine back in time 50 years, while Edge of Tomorrow puts Tom Cruise in a temporal loop, letting him relive the same battle over and over. So crank up your flux capacitor and check out 20 of the best time-travel movies.

[Editor’s Note: A version of this list was originally published in 2014]

‘Donnie Darko’ (2001)

“Do you believe in time travel?” Jake Gyllenhaal, in his breakout role, plays a disturbed teenager who starts getting warnings about the end of the world from a guy in a rabbit costume. This cult film by Richard Kelly is a puzzle about alternate universes and suburban vortexes; no matter which cut you watch, you still get a moody, trippy slice of high-school alienation and the best use ever of Tears for Fears’ “Mad World.”

‘The Lake House’ (2006)

This romance scores by having one of the weirdest time-travel gimmicks ever: Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock send letters to each other via a mailbox at a rental house — even though she is writing and reading them exactly two years after he is. (Many time-travel movies don’t make sense if you think about them too hard; this one doesn’t make sense if you have an autonomic nervous system.) Reeves and Bullock are appealing together, although it seems like a missed opportunity not to put them on a bus that, should it go over or under 50 mph, travels back to the Renaissance Era or something.

‘Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban’ (2004)

The best Harry Potter movie happens to be the one with the most time travel. Coincidence? Hermione has been granted special permission to use a Time Turner because she wants more hours in the day to take a heavier courseload. But the climax of the story is Hermione and Harry’s mission back in time a few hours to save Sirius Black and a hippogriff — revising what we’ve seen before like a crack film editor splicing in new material with Final Cut Pro.

‘Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me’ (1999)

In the second installment of Mike Myers’ James Bond spoof, groovy secret agent Austin Powers has to go back to his native environment, the swinging Sixties, in pursuit of Dr. Evil. Since Powers goes cross-eyed (literally) when he tries to consider time-travel paradoxes, nobody in the movie takes the premise too seriously. Austin’s description of the 1990s to Felicity Shagwell (Heather Graham): “Everyone has their own flying car, entire meals come in pill form, and the Earth is run by damn dirty apes.”

‘The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey’ (1988)

Trying to escape the Black Plague in 1348, English villagers dig a tunnel and end up in 20th-century New Zealand, switching from black-and-white to color like Dorothy traveling to Oz. (If you object to the notion of 14th-century villagers finding a way to travel forward in time 600 years…well, in the present day, we haven’t invented time machines either.) Suffused with surrealism and religious faith, the movie succeeds in making clear how strange our modern world actually is.

‘Peggy Sue Got Married’ (1986)

This Francis Ford Coppola movie, dismissed by some as a rehash of Back to the Future ( both feature a protagonist traveling back to the doo-wop era) is actually a small gem, rueful and thoughtful. Kathleen Turner finds herself transported back to 1960, her senior year of high school, trying to figure out how her choices as a teenager helped form her identity as an adult — and hoping she can turn “She Loves You” into a hit before Lennon and McCartney get around to writing it.

‘Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure’ (1989)

There are many other goofy time-machine journeys through the past, from A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court to Mr. Peabody & Sherman;  none of those, however, have brilliantly slack-jawed performances by Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves. The premise: Two SoCal teens need to locate famous figures of Western civilization so they won’t fail history and their band, the Wyld Stallyns, can stay together and become the musical foundation of a future utopia. The most inspirational moment comes when Ted (Reeves) philosophizes with Socrates by quoting Kansas: “All we are is dust in the wind, dude.”

‘Safety Not Guaranteed’ (2012)

Mark Duplass plays the grocery clerk who’s invented a time machine and places a classified ad looking for somebody to travel back in time with him; Aubrey Plaza plays the magazine intern who shows up on an assignment to investigate that ad. Guess who forges an unlikely connection? This indie movie explores the enduring fantasy of time travel: you get to live your life again, only better. What gives the film life — aside from great performances by Duplass and Plaza — is that it’s not clear until the end whether they’re indulging that fantasy, or whether his time machine actually works.

‘Galaxy Quest’ (1999)

You may remember Galaxy Quest as a genius Star Trek parody featuring the cast of a cheesy outer-space TV show (Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman) thrust into a real interstellar adventure — and not as a time-travel movie. But one of the central pieces of technology in the film is the Omega 13 device, which turns out to be a time machine, albeit not a particularly flexible one: It sends its user 13 seconds into the past. That may be the smallest increment of time travel in any movie, but it turns out to be just enough time to save the day.

‘Planet of the Apes’ (1968)

If you need a spoiler alert for a 45-year-old movie with one of the most famous plot twists in history, you may want to build your own time machine and head back to an era before this movie was released. (Remember to bring your copy of Grays Sports Almanac. ) Everyone else knows that the brilliance of the Statue of Liberty scene is the revelation that yes, this Charlton Heston sci-fi classic is actually a time-travel movie: Charlton Heston’s astronaut has not journeyed to a galaxy far, far away, but only two millennia into Earth’s future. (The time-travel elements of the franchise became even more pronounced in the sequels: in 1971’s Escape from the Planet of the Apes, three future apes travel back to 1973 and end up testifying at a presidential commission.)

‘Time Bandits’ (1981)

Terry Gilliam’s relentlessly inventive time-travel caper stars a young boy and six dwarfs who have swiped a map of the universe and are using it to steal everything they can. Best cameos: Sean Connery as Agamemnon and John Cleese as a daffily aristocratic Robin Hood. God was played by the distinguished British actor Ralph Richardson, who got so into the role that he rejected some of his dialogue, telling Gilliam, “God wouldn’t say that.”

‘Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home’ (1986)

The Star Trek franchise, both on TV and on the big screen, has featured so many time-travel stories, working every possible angle, that eventually the Deep Space Nine show had to introduce a Department of Temporal Investigations just to keep everything straight. This romp was one of Starfleet’s best journeys through time: Kirk and the Enterprise crew head to 1980s San Francisco to bring a humpback whale to the future, and are befuddled by 20th-century concepts such as punk rock, computer keyboards, and exact change.

‘Run Lola Run’ (1998)

The crimson-haired Lola (Franka Potente) gets a phone call from her boyfriend: He’s lost a bag with 100,000 deutschemarks, and if he doesn’t find it or replace it in the next 20 minutes, his criminal boss will kill him. So Lola runs through Berlin, dodging bicyclists, causing car accidents, provoking flash-forward sequences of the destiny of various pedestrians, trying to find a way out. Each time she fails, the 20-minute time loop starts again — it seems to be powered by love and the absence of cash.

‘Hot Tub Time Machine’ (2010)

Probably the funniest time-travel movie ever made: John Cusack, Rob Corddry, Craig Robinson, and Clark Duke head back to the 1980s while at a ski resort, revisiting a time when hair was big, outerwear was neon, and Poison was a big headlining band. (It’s also a time when Cusack was a much bigger movie star; the movie sidesteps that.) Best scene: Robinson having sex in a bathtub so he won’t disrupt the timeline, weeping because he feels guilty about cheating on his wife, even though she’s only nine years old in 1986.

‘Looper’ (2012)

“I’m a sucker for the time-travel genre,” director Rian Johnson told Rolling Stone. “If you’re a nerd like I am, it’s really fun to work out the map of how everything is going to work.” But he made sure this movie, about contract killers snuffing people sent back in time 30 years, didn’t feel like “algebra homework”;  instead, Looper has an aging hitman (Bruce Willis) confronting his younger self (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). For all its sci-fi inventiveness and thrills, the best scene is the two leads meeting at a diner: a young man looking his older self in the eye, determined not to turn into him.

‘Primer’ (2004)

A rigorous, graduate-level time-travel movie, full of confusing plot twists, technical jargon, and duplicate versions of characters trying to outfox each other. But it’s also a thrilling mind-bender, and as soon as you’re done watching it, you want to see the whole thing again to see if it actually makes sense. (It does). Made for an astonishingly low $7,000, director Shane Carruth’s debut is also one of the best movies ever about a tech start-up: When some engineer friends make a working time machine, they skip right over the ethical consequences in favor of the financial rewards.

‘Back to the Future’ (1985)

Funny, thrilling, unbelievably Oedipal: When Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) travels to 1955 and accidentally prevents his parents from getting together, his mother transfers her affections to him instead. Fortunately, Fox doesn’t have to pluck out his eyes — instead, he labors to make his parents fall in love, so that he will actually be born. Best subtle joke: McFly knocks down a tree in 1955; back in 1985, a shopping center has changed its name from the Twin Pines Mall to the Lone Pine Mall.

‘Terminator 2: Judgement Day’ (1991)

The original Terminator (1984) had a great premise: Arnold Schwarzenegger is a killer cyborg (just the way you like him) coming from the future to kill waitress Linda Hamilton so she can’t give birth to the eventual leader of the human resistance. But seven years later, director James Cameron upped the stakes with this sequel — not just blowing out retinas with bigger explosions and more CGI, but wrestling with the philosophical paradox of whether knowing the future removes humanity’s free will.

‘La Jetée’ (1962)

A gorgeous 28-minute film, told in a montage of black-and-white still photographs and narrated in French, about a man sent back in time to avert an apocalyptic war. He’s obsessed with his childhood memories of a beautiful woman and seeing a man die — inevitably, he gets tangled in the silken cords of time travel. This novella of a movie is pretty much perfect, which didn’t stop Hollywood from making a big-budget feature-length version: 12 Monkeys  (1995), directed by Terry Gilliam, and starring Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt.

‘Groundhog Day’ (1993)

Time travel doesn’t have to span hundreds of years to be a significant plot element in a movie, of course: it can be hours, or a handful of seconds. Characters can be caught in a loop, or spawn alternate universes, or even kill their grandfathers, depending on the rules the filmmakers set up: at press time, actual time travel was still fictional. The time travel in this Bill Murray comedy, while limited to a single day, still plays into one of the most fundamental reasons for its persistence: the notion that if we had a chance to do our lives over, we could do it better the second time. The movie’s great subversion of that fantasy is the lesson that you could begin your do-over right now, in the present tense, on February 3rd and beyond.

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The 15 Most Creative, Mind-Bending Time Travel Movies Ever Made

With Safety Not Guaranteed and About Time , these are the best movies about time travel you haven't seen yet.

We've been independently researching and testing products for over 120 years. If you buy through our links, we may earn a commission. Learn more about our review process.

Ever wish you could go back in time and handle a situation differently — or live through a historic event before your time? You're not the only one. Time travel has captured the imagination of countless creatives over the years, giving us some fascinating, morally challenging and even hilarious movies. We may not be able to talk a walk into the past — but as some of these films prove, that may be a good thing.

About Time (2013)

Instead of altering history and life as we know it, the protagonist in this charming British film uses his time-traveling abilities for something a little more relatable: finding love. The result is a surprisingly sweet and criminally underrated romantic comedy.

RELATED: The 60 Best Romantic Comedies of All Time to Stream Right Now

Predestination (2015)

Based on Robert Heinlein’s short story All You Zombies , this Ethan Hawke movie will leave you guessing (and second-guessing) the whole time. Without spoiling the ending, it's definitely worth watching again.

The Time Traveler's Wife (2009)

Of the three movies where Rachel McAdams dates a time traveling man (girlfriend's got a type), the drama is definitely the most serious. Based on Audrey Niffenegger's 2003 novel of the same name, Clare tries to build a life with the man she loves — while dealing with the fact he has no control over where and when he will travel through time.

Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989)

Excellent! You're going to want to revisit this goofy, fun time travel flick before Keanu Reeves returns for the upcoming sequel.

Groundhog Day (1993)

Does living the same day over-and-over again count as time travel? This Bill Murray film about a weather man trapped in the worst day of his life is a classic, so we're going to count it.

Doctor Strange (2016)

Marvel fans are probably already familiar with Benedict Cumberbatch's role as a neurosurgeon with the powers to access alternate dimensions, but even if you're not familiar with the Marvel Universe, you can still enjoy this superhero romp.

RELATED: How to Watch All 24 Marvel Movies in the Correct Order

Back to the Future (1985)

If you're looking for some good, old-fashioned nostalgia, this 80s classic holds up! Michael J. Fox stars as Marty McFly, a teen who accidentally who accidentally gets stuck in the 1950s thanks to his mad scientist friend — and must make sure his parents fall in love with each other so he can still exist!

Interstellar (2014)

Trippy, mind-bending, and everything you want out of a time-travel movie, Christopher Nolan's time-traveling space epic will stay with you long after you finish watching,

Donnie Darko (2001)

Though it initially flopped at the box office, this film gathered a cult-following when it was released on DVD, thanks to Jake Gyllenhaal's intense performance and the surrealist images and themes just waiting to be dissected and discussed. See if you can untangle this famously dense plot for yourself.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)

One of the best Harry Potter films happens to also be a time-traveling tale. Hermione uses a "Time Turner" to take more classes at Hogwarts, but that's not all Harry and his friends use the device for.

Time Bandits (1981)

Terry Gilliam's endlessly imaginative film follows an 11-year-old boy who teams up with 6 dwarves for an adventure through time.

Safety Not Guaranteed (2012)

A classified ad from a mysterious man looking for a time-traveling companion intrigues three cynical Seattle journalists. An unexpected connection forms between the would-be scientist and one of the reporters in this low-key indie.

Primer (2004)

Two engineers create an invention that can alter time — and butt heads over how to handle the magnitude of their creation.

Time After Time (1971)

H.G. Wells pursues Jack the Ripper in 1970's San Fransisco — as outlandish as the premise is, it's a fascinating movie once you get on board with it.

The Terminator (1984)

Two time travelers from the future, an evil cyborg and a resistance fighter, fight over the life of modern woman Sarah Connor, after it's revealed her fate can save humanity.

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7 Time-Travel Movies on Netflix that You're Going to Want to Watch ASAP

I f you’re a fan of mind-bending plots and the thrill of time-travel adventures, Netflix has an array of movies that will keep you hooked from start to finish. From action-packed thrillers to heartwarming romances, these films explore the complexities of time travel in captivating and imaginative ways. So, get ready to embark on a journey through the space-time continuum with these seven must-watch time-travel movies:

Looper (2012)

In 2044, a hired gun gets rich killing people who are sent back from another time. But what will he do when his new target is his future self? Starring Bruce Willis, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Emily Blunt, this sci-fi thriller will keep you on the edge of your seat as it explores the consequences of altering the past.

See You Yesterday (2019)

As two teen prodigies try to master the art of time travel, a tragic police shooting sends them on a series of dangerous trips to the past. Starring Eden Duncan-Smith, Dante Crichlow, and Astro, this thrilling movie tackles important social issues while delivering an action-packed time-travel adventure.

The Adam Project (2022)

After accidentally crash-landing in 2022, time-traveling fighter pilot Adam Reed teams up with his 12-year-old self on a mission to save the future. With Ryan Reynolds, Mark Ruffalo, and Jennifer Garner leading the cast, this sci-fi film combines humor, heart, and high-stakes action in an exhilarating adventure through time.

In the Shadow of the Moon (2019)

A Philadelphia detective slowly unravels as he nurses a lifelong obsession with an enigmatic female serial killer whose crimes defy explanation. Starring Boyd Holbrook, Michael C. Hall, and Cleopatra Coleman, this gripping drama explores the psychological toll of chasing a killer across decades.

When We First Met (2018)

Using a magical photo booth that sends him back in time, Noah relives the night he met Avery over and over, trying to persuade her to fall for him. Starring Adam Devine, Alexandra Daddario, and Shelley Hennig, this charming romantic comedy is filled with laughs, heart, and plenty of time-travel hijinks.

Mirage (2018)

A space-time continuum glitch allows Vera to save a boy’s life 25 years earlier, but results in the loss of her daughter, whom she fights to get back. With Adriana Ugarte, Chino Darín, and Javier Gutiérrez in the lead roles, this thrilling thriller explores the lengths a mother will go to rewrite the past and save her child.

The Knight Before Christmas (2019)

Medieval magic sends a 14th-century knight to modern-day Ohio, where he falls for a high school science teacher who’s disillusioned by love. Starring Vanessa Hudgens, Josh Whitehouse, and Emmanuelle Chriqui, this heartwarming romance combines time-travel fantasy with holiday cheer for a delightful and enchanting movie experience.

The post 7 Time-Travel Movies on Netflix that You're Going to Want to Watch ASAP appeared first on New York Tech Media .

The Best, Most Realistic Movie About Time Travel Cost $7,000

"I will show you the most important thing that any living organism has ever witnessed."

The Big Picture

• Primer , created on a budget of $7,000, became a cult classic and won multiple awards.
• The film's complex plot, lack of exposition, and fast-paced editing can make it difficult to follow and understand.
• Primer 's low budget contributes to its realistic feel, making it relatable and believable for viewers.

If ever a film were brought into existence through the sheer force of one man's will, 2004's Primer is it. Over the course of three years, creator Shane Carruth (who was in his late 20s at the inception) wrote, directed, produced, edited, starred in, and wrote the score for the incredibly innovative, super-grounded sci-fi, all on a budget of $7,000. Primer would go on to win the Sundance Grand Jury Prize and Alfred P. Sloan Prize and become a beloved sci-fi cult classic.

Primer is the story of Aaron (Carruth) and Abe ( David Sullivan ), two engineers who accidentally stumble onto time travel while working on other projects in Aaron's garage. The time machine itself is a simple, cramped box made mostly of PVC — no shiny DeLorean , no dimension-hopping T.A.R.D.I.S. — but what makes this version of time travel unique is that in order to travel back in time, the traveler must spend an equivalent amount of time inside the box. In other words, to travel six hours into the past, you must spend six hours in the box.

Immediately after their discovery, Aaron and Abe are ultra careful not to influence the past during their brief trips through time, fearing consequences they can't even guess at. But eventually, the temptation to change history becomes too great, and Aaron in particular becomes obsessed with his ability to dictate the outcomes of events. This creates multiple complex, interwoven timelines and ultimately leads to a rift between the two characters.

Four friends/fledgling entrepreneurs, knowing that there's something bigger and more innovative than the different error-checking devices they've built, wrestle over their new invention.

'Primer' Can Be Tough To Follow

Primer is famously cerebral , refusing to hold the audience's hand at any point. The two leads speak in arcane physics jargon throughout because Carruth was adamant that the dialogue should sound authentic. The tight (and, at times, perhaps over-tuned) editing keeps Primer fast-paced; no one will catch every detail of the complicated plot the first time through . Primer is also very light on exposition — the characters often have long conversations about topics that the audience, at least at first, has no context for. Only in the last third of the movie does the voiceover dip in more heavily and start explaining things, though often cryptically.

Between the complexity of the story, the jargon, and the pacing, Primer can be a challenge to follow ; some critics have even called it "antagonistic" toward the audience. But that wasn't Carruth's goal. Instead, as Carruth told IndieWire , "the information is in there" to create a coherent story; it just might take multiple viewings for you to get it all. But unlike some modern filmmakers who don't trust their audience to make inferences and instead prefer to spell everything out, Carruth trusts not only his audience's intelligence, but their fortitude — perhaps a bit too much at times.

The 21st Century’s Best Time Travel Movie So Far Is a Low-Budget Rom-Com

If Primer was an unlikely hit, then its creator was an equally unlikely filmmaker. Carruth has a degree in math and started his career as an engineer before quitting to pursue writing. (This training would turn out to be useful in the course of writing the script, though Carruth had to learn physics jargon by reading graduate students' papers online .) With no formal background in filmmaking, he taught himself scriptwriting, cinematography, and storyboarding in the process of making Primer . Carruth said during his interview with IndieWire that he never planned on starring in the film; he cast himself as one of Primer 's leads only because he had difficulty finding an actor who played the part the way he wanted it , with subtlety rather than drama, and with his ultra-low budget , he worried that someone else might cut and run in the middle of shooting, leaving them stranded.

Perhaps surprisingly, the acting is one of Primer 's biggest strengths . Either Carruth or Sullivan (who's gone on to have a broad and successful TV career) is in every scene, so the film rests entirely on their shoulders. Both performances are subdued and understated, yet a great deal of subtext lies just beneath the surface.

How Was 'Primer' Made?

After months of rehearsals, shooting took place over five weeks around Dallas, where Carruth lived at the time. Primer was shot on super 16 film; Carruth said during his IndieWire interview that he had considered going digital, but in the early 2000s, the technology wasn't yet there to create the look he wanted. However, this meant there was no budget for multiple takes . Once shooting was complete, Carruth did the editing himself, again learning the process as he went along and often having to edit around lack of footage and continuity errors. He also composed the score, a task he said he'd enjoy handing off to someone else the next time around.

In some ways, the story of Primer mirrors the story of its creation. Before their break-through discovery, Aaron and Abe, like Shane Carruth, are cash-strapped; they even vandalize their own cars and refrigerators for parts in their quest to create something people will want to buy. Carruth, too, had to cut corners due to lack of funds , using friends' and family's houses and apartments for many of the locations, relying on ambient lighting and sunlight, filming only a single take for many scenes because he couldn't afford to waste film.

And like his character, Carruth claims to be a "control freak." Primer starts out following four engineers working on patents in Aaron's garage, but as soon as Aaron and Abe realize what they've stumbled onto, Aaron insists on cutting out their two unwitting colleagues rather than revealing the truth to them. He also doesn't let his wife in on the secret, to Abe's surprise. And Aaron is the first one tempted to use the time machine to change the past, leading to his falling out with Abe. Carruth performed every job in the course of making Primer partly because he couldn't afford to hire anyone else, but also because he couldn't stand to give up control , a quality that he doesn't apologize for, because, as he says during his IndieWire interview, "it’s important to feel strongly about the material you’re working on."

The Low Budget Gives 'Primer' a Documentary Feel

The result? Primer 's ultra-low budget contributes to its grounded realism — there are no Avengers: Endgame or even Back to the Future -style special effects, and the main characters never travel more than a few days into the past, so fancy set pieces are unnecessary. Instead, Primer feels incredibly real, even documentary-like (the fact that the actors clearly haven't had professional hairstyling or makeup and appear to be wearing their own clothes contributes to this). Watching Primer , you can actually believe that if two smart but ultimately ordinary guys happened upon time travel by accident, this is exactly how it would play out.

After Primer 's success at Sundance, it had a very limited theatrical release, playing in no more than 31 theaters at a time over the course of a few months yet still bringing in over $400,000 at the domestic box office . Primer 's DVD release the following year quickly vaulted it to cult classic status, particularly among science fiction aficionados. Its complexity contributes to its rewatchability : after your third, fourth, or tenth viewing, you'll still be catching details you haven't noticed before.

Primer isn't for the faint-of-heart film viewer; it asks more of its audience than most films, and gives less. But serious sci-fi lovers and fans of movies that make you think should consider it a must-watch — and don't feel bad if you have to Google "Primer ending explained" after the fact.

Primer is available to rent on Prime Video and Apple TV+ in the U.S.

Rent on Prime Video

All "Time Travel" Movies

1. The A.R.K. Report

2. Quantum of Vengeance

4. Men in Black³

5. Safety Not Guaranteed

6. Midnight in Paris

7. Source Code

8. Ticking Clock

9. Yu-Gi-Oh! Bonds Beyond Time

10. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

11. Hot Tub Time Machine

12. The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya

13. Action Replayy

14. Land of the Lost

15. A Christmas Carol

16. Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel

17. The Time Traveler's Wife

18. Mr. Nobody

19. Star Trek

20. Stargate: Continuum

21. Minutemen

22. Timecrimes

23. Premonition

24. Meet the Robinsons

25. Futurama: Bender's Big Score

26. Idiocracy

27. Deja Vu

28. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time

30. The Lake House

31. Summer Time Machine Blues

32. A Sound of Thunder

33. The Jacket

34. Fetching Cody

35. 13 Going on 30

36. The Butterfly Effect

38. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

39. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines

40. Timeline

41. Bottom Live 2003: Weapons Grade Y-Fronts Tour

42. Austin Powers in Goldmember

43. Timequest

44. Time Changer

45. The Time Machine

46. Returner

47. Kate & Leopold

48. Just Visiting

49. Donnie Darko

50. Black Knight

51. The Kid

52. Frequency

53. S Club 7: Back to the 50's

54. Thrill Seekers

55. Galaxy Quest

56. Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me

57. Lost in Space

58. Time Under Fire

59. Star Trek: First Contact

60. Doctor Who: The Movie

61. 12 Monkeys

62. Timecop

63. Star Trek: Generations

64. Groundhog Day

66. The Visitors

67. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III

68. Freejack

69. Army of Darkness

70. Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey

71. Terminator 2: Judgment Day

72. Back to the Future Part III

73. Frankenstein Unbound

74. Warlock

75. Millennium

76. Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure

77. Back to the Future Part II

78. Field of Dreams

79. The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey

80. Timestalkers

81. Masters of the Universe

82. Kin-dza-dza!

83. Flight of the Navigator

84. Hors-la-loi

85. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

86. Biggles: Adventures in Time

87. Peggy Sue Got Married

88. The Blue Yonder

89. My Science Project

90. Trancers

91. Back to the Future

92. The Philadelphia Experiment

93. The Terminator

94. Twilight Zone: The Movie

95. Timerider: The Adventure of Lyle Swann

96. Time Bandits

97. Somewhere in Time

98. The Final Countdown

99. Time After Time

100. Ivan Vasilyevich Changes His Profession

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