The 32 greatest time travel movies
Jul. 18, 2024You don’t need a DeLorean to revisit these time travel gems
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If you had the means to travel in time, where would you go? The past, or the future? For so long, filmmakers have wondered this same question, with more time travel movies than you can count. At least some of them happen to be - ahem,timelessclassics.
While time travel has existed in the human imagination for centuries, with examples found in Hindu and Islamic mythologies, our modern understanding of time travel begins with early science fiction tales. Stories like The Year 2440 by French author Louis-Sébastien Mercier, Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy, and The Time Machine by H.G. Wells are some of the earliest and most popular uses of time travel in sci-fi.
It should be no surprise that as soon as humans invented moving pictures, time travel became a recurring genre. (This is not to be confused with timeloopmovies, in which stories involve a set and finite time frame that “loop” back and start all over again.) Whether it’s to prevent catastrophes or just fall in love, filmmakers have obsessed over time travel as a story device to explore what it really means to be human. With so many time travel movies to choose from, here are 32 of the greatest time travel movies ever made.
32. The Time Machine (1960)
It should be no surprise that the first feature film adaptation of H.G. Wells' seminal science fiction novella The Time Machine also qualifies as one of the best time travel movies ever made. Rod Taylor stars as a scientist inventor, also named “H. George Wells,” whose invention of a time machine flings him to Earth’s distant future where he sees mankind split between peaceful, gentle Eloi and the predatory Morlocks who feed on them. Though its primitive effects may be hard on modern eyes, George Pal’s movie splits the difference between pulp slop and old-school magnificence.
It’s not saying much that Timecop, an adaptation of comic strips published by Dark Horse, is one of the best movies starring Jean-Claude Van Damme. But JCVD is in top form in Peter Hyams' corny ’90s gem. Van Damme stars as a police officer in the Time Enforcement Commission who must stop a corrupt politician (played by Ron Silver) from influencing the past for personal gain. Although Timecop’s comic book-y premise and wham-bam filmmaking renders it indistinguishable from other Van Damme flicks, it also happens to feature one of Van Damme’s finest performances.
Based on Audrey Niffenegger’s hit debut novel, The Time Traveler’s Wife stars Rachel McAdams as the wife of a Chicago librarian (Eric Bana) who suffers from a genetic disorder that causes him to spontaneously travel through time, making a stable life in the present difficult to maintain. Written by Niffenegger as an elaborate metaphor on her failed relationships, the sentimental and sappy movie version - from director Robert Schwentke - efficiently captures that painful desire to stay still in a life that pulls us apart.
In their third collaboration together, actor Denzel Washington and director Tony Scott teamed up for the time travel thriller Déjà Vu. Washington plays a special agent who goes back in time to prevent a terrorist attack in New Orleans. While doing so, he falls in love with a beautiful victim (Paula Patton) and becomes determined to save her. While Déjà Vu isn’t the best movie by Scott nor even the best from Scott and Washington’s creative tag-teaming, it’s still a gritty action thriller with a novel science fiction bent.
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While it may feel too “Tumblr twee” for some, Colin Trevorrow’s Safety Not Guaranteed is an emotional comedy-drama about having trust in the impossible. A group of magazine journalists (played by Aubrey Plaza, Jake Johnston, and Karan Soni) investigate a curious classified ad that promises a time travel adventure; Mark Duplass plays the socially awkward grocery clerk who placed the ad, claiming to have a time machine. Safety Not Guaranteed notably launched Trevorrow into the realm of big budget blockbusters, with the director landing the gig of helming Jurassic World shortly after and, for a time, attached to the coveted ninth Star Wars movie. Safety Not Guaranteed is small fries in comparison, but the movie’s flightful sensibilities showed what Trevorrow was capable of.
It’s a bit of a spoiler to detail exactly how time travel factors into Richard Kelly’s morbid teen drama Donnie Darko. But in its tale about a troubled suburban teenager (Jake Gyllenhaal) who receives cryptic psychic messages from an ominous figure in a scary bunny costume, Donnie Darko explores adolescence as a vehicle to meditate on the nature of reality. Years later, Donnie Darko remains a cult classic, not only for its dark and cerebral tone and surprisingly star-studded cast, but for its enthralling portrait of teenage angst and depression through the lens of science fiction and comic book tropes.
In this modern reboot of the classic 1960s sci-fi television saga, the past and present collide in unexpected ways when villainous Romulans (led by Eric Bana) are flung to Starfleet past, changing the course of Star Trek history forever. As the starting point for what has been called the “Kelvin Timeline” - an alternate timeline diverting from original Star Trek canon - J.J. Abrams' Star Trek satisfies fans both new and old with a zippy, crowd-pleasing blockbuster that is secretly about the burdens of history and legacy and the virtues of pursuing one’s own path.
Leave it to Woody Allen to create a time travel movie that isn’t about aliens or A.I., but hanging out with famous literary icons. Owen Wilson stars as a dissatisfied screenwriter who, while on a trip to Paris with his fiance (Rachel McAdams), finds himself able to travel to 1920s Paris, meeting the likes of F. Scott Fitzgerald and befriending Ernest Hemingway. After a long period of movies that failed to live up to his established reputation, Allen enjoyed a brief career resurgence with his critically acclaimed Midnight in Paris, a jovial gem (with an excellent Corey Stoll as Hemingway) that romanticizes Paris regardless of whatever era you’re seeing it.
Raunchiness meets bitterness in the R-rated time travel comedy Hot Tub Time Machine. John Cusack, Rob Corddry, and Craig Robinson (plus Clark Duke, as Cusack’s nephew) play unsatisfied adult men who - after a freak accident involving a hot tub and an energy drink spillage - find a way to time travel back to one fateful night in 1986. Determined to change their mediocre lives for the better, the men embark on reliving the greatest night of their young lives. With surprising depths of darkness, wistful nostalgia, and an underlying message to never take even one second for granted, Hot Tub Time Machine is more than its simplistic title leads on.
If your life ethos is to “Be excellent to each other!” and “Party on, dudes!” then you have Bill and Ted to thank. In this cult classic from 1989, Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter co-star as dim-witted high school students and aspiring rock stars who are desperate to pass their history class and avoid being enrolled in military school. With the help of an enigmatic figure - played by the legendary George Carlin - Bill S. Preston Esq. and Ted “Theodore” Logan travel in time to collect the world’s greatest figures in history to help them pass. While Bill and Ted inadvertently threaten to change history, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure is, indeed, an excellent movie about the virtues of friendship and being true to oneself.
Ever wondered what the “Beyond” was in Bed, Bath, and & Beyond? Adam Sandler found out in the 2006 comedy Click, where Sandler plays a workaholic family man who finds a universal remote that lets him travel in time. Though Sandler has fun “fast-forwarding” mundane moments, he soon finds out how critically important it is to relish every single minute you get in life. While Click initially polarized audiences and critics, it has slowly accrued goodwill, with some observers calling it one of Sandler’s best and most mature movies behind Uncut Gems.
Several years after The Time Traveler’s Wife, Rachel McAdams again fell in love with a time traveler in Richard Curtis' sappy but sweet romantic dramedy About Time. Domnhall Gleeson plays an ordinary man who inherits a remarkable family power: the power to travel in time. (The only catch: They can only travel intheirlived timeline, and never forwards.) Determined to use his power to find love, he becomes smitten with beautiful Mary (McAdams), though using time travel to maintain a perfect life involves a lot more risk than it seems. About Time plays fast and loose with its time travel rules, but the movie’s irresistible premise and picturesque romance is enough to thaw even the most cynical of hearts.
After revolutionizing Hollywood filmmaking with his acclaimed gangster epics The Godfather and The Godfather Part II, Francis Ford Coppola lightened up with his lively comedy about middle-age regret and baby boomer nostalgia. In Peggy Sue Got Married, dissatisfied Peggy Sue (Kathleen Turner) is on the brink of divorcing her unfaithful husband Charlie (Nicolas Cage) when she faints at her 25th high school reunion. When she wakes up, she’s back in her senior year of high school, learning she’s been given a second chance at changing her life for the better.
Time travel whimsy meets timely social commentary in See You Yesterday from director Stefon Bristol and producer Spike Lee. Teenage science prodigies and best friends C.J. (Eden Duncan-Smith) and Sebastian (Danté Crichlow) invent backpacks that enable time travel; they use their inventions to save C.J.’s brother, who was killed by a racist police officer. But in trying to save her family, C.J. finds unforeseen problems in trying to alter the past. A beautiful mix of Amblin-esque adventure and the full weight of systemic racism, See You Yesterday - a sweeping picture about love and the ethics of genius - elevates the time travel genre into something more.
To mark the end of Marvel’s acclaimed Infinity Saga, directors Joe and Anthony Russo and writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely invited Marvel fans to take another lap around the Marvel Cinematic Universe with the time travel-oriented finale Avengers: Endgame. Following up on the events of Avengers: Infinity War, Endgame sees the Avengers reunite and hatch a scheme to reobtain the powerful Infinity Stones - all scattered throughout the MCU’s vast canon - and restore a vanished populace, not to mention stop Thanos for good. Avengers: Endgame needs no introduction; it was and still is one of the biggest movies of all time.
Terry Gilliam brings his strange sensibilities to a more mainstream family audience with his 1981 classic time Bandits. Craig Warnock stars as Kevin, a young boy with a fascination for history who is visited by time-traveling dwarves who plunder treasures from different historical periods. As Kevin joins the dwarves, they escape capture by Evil (David Warner), a malevolent entity who wants to steal the dwarves' map that lets them travel through portals. Time Bandits stands the test of, ahem, time, to look and feel like a riveting children’s storybook come to life.
In Shane Carruth’s debut feature film, two engineers (played by Carruth and David Sullivan) accidentally discover the means of time travel. While experimenting with their discovery, they find out that time travel is a lot more complex than they thought it would be. Still an underground indie favorite to this day, Primer is remembered for its experimental plot structure that mixes philosophical theory with hard mathematics. Primer was concocted by Carruth, who actually majored in mathematics in college and previously worked as an engineer prior to becoming a filmmaker. Primer was a huge hit at the Sundance Film Festival and is still beloved for its cerebral exploration of the ethics of scientific discovery.
Nicholas Meyer pays tribute to the granddaddy of time travel storytelling, H.G. Wells, with his delectable time travel fantasy Time After Time. Malcolm McDowell plays H.G. Wells, who uses his time machine to finally apprehend Jack the Ripper (David Warner) after the famed serial killer escapes to modern-day San Francisco. While Time After Time tries to be a dark thriller, it can’t help but have fun with H.G. Wells and Jack the Ripper exploring a most alien environment loaded with fast food chains and disco nightclubs.
Have you ever been in love so bad you were willing to get lost in time? Shortly after Christopher Reeve took off with Superman: The Movie, the actor strove to play against typecasting with Somewhere in Time. Directed by Jeannot Szwarc, Reeve stars as a playwright who becomes smitten by a beautiful stage actress (Jane Seymour) seen in a portrait dated 1912. Under hypnosis, Reeve’s character ends up in 1912 and tries to find and woo the woman. He succeeds, but we won’t spoil the devastating ending. While the movie endured bad reviews during its original release, it has since become a beloved romantic classic. The Grand Hotel in Michigan, where the majority of principal photography, hosts annual anniversary screenings of the picture every October.
In the aftermath of major events like 9/11, some Hollywood filmmakers dared to ask if time travel could stop acts of terrorism. Enter: Source Code, from director Duncan Jones. Jake Gyllenhaal stars as a U.S. soldier tasked with using a cutting-edge government program called “Source Code” to relive the final minutes of a commuter train prior to its bombing and identify the terrorist behind it. The catch is that Gyllenhaal’s character enters the program inhabiting the body of another unknown man, which creates problems for both himself and the unknown man’s beautiful companion (Michelle Monaghan). Jones' movie is a muscular action-thriller that successfully combines time travel with time loop stories, perfectly balancing the two to become something totally unique.
Arguably the definitive time travel action blockbusters, James Cameron’s Terminator movies are simply unstoppable. Arnold Scwharzenegger is in top form as the T-800, who is initially dispatched to kill the mother of mankind’s hero John Connor, a woman named Sarah (Linda Hamilton). In the bigger, somehow better sequel Terminator 2, Schwarzenegger returns as a repurposed T-800 to save both Sarah and her 12-year-old son John Connor (Edward Furlong). Despite numerous sequels, nothing can top the tech-noir transcendence of the first two Terminator entries.
Eric Francisco is a freelance entertainment journalist and graduate of Rutgers University. If a movie or TV show has superheroes, spaceships, kung fu, or John Cena, he’s your guy to make sense of it. A former senior writer at Inverse, his byline has also appeared at Vulture, The Daily Beast, Observer, and The Mary Sue. You can find him screaming at Devils hockey games or dodging enemy fire in Call of Duty: Warzone.
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