There is something so surreal about sci-fi time-travel movies. They leave one on the edge, questioning the possibilities of science and the limitations of human perception.
Most of these movies are crafted with such scientific care that you are bound to feel that something like traveling is possible. However, till this date, time travel is not yet possible.
Nonetheless, here is a curated list of 20 time travel movies that will leave you feeling out of place (and time.)
20) Arrival
Arrival is a time travel movie set in a dystopian setting. The world is in jeopardy as 12 mysterious spacecraft appear all over the globe. The U.S. military is trying its best to uncover the mystery of these spacecraft and save the Earth from any external threat.
Louis Banks, a master of language is sent to learn the language of these aliens and communicate with them. But while living with the aliens in the spacecraft she starts perceiving time to be traveling differently. She witnesses her future and the future of the earth.
It's a movie that is bound to leave you thinking about the limitations and advantages of time travel if it were possible.
19) Primer
Primer follows the story of two engineers, Aaron and Abe, who accidentally discover a time machine. Like any true time travel movie, it unveils paradoxes and dilemmas, all interwoven in a complex thread of timelines.
18) Idiocracy
Idiocracy is a brilliant story of two people placed in cryogenic hibernation, who wake up after 500 years to a world dooming with overpopulation, regressed intelligence, and environmental threats. These two average people from their time, 500 years later are the smartest people on earth now. Tasked with saving the earth and reviving humanity, it's a humorous movie that gives a realistic insight into how the world will turn out to be if it continues developing the way it is.
17) Planet of the Apes
Planet of the Apes is a story of a group of astronauts who accidentally find themselves stranded on a strange planet. Soon they find that this planet is inhabited and controlled by humanly smart apes. With a shocking twist that is bound to leave you dazed, this movie has hierarchical characteristics of the society and is one of the best classic time travel movies.
16) Tenet
Tenet is the story of an organization working to prevent World War III. It is based on a scientific principle known as Entropy. Entropy is a phenomenon that reverses the passage of time and allows people to move backward. With a race against time, Tenet is an action-packed thriller directed by Christopher Nolan. .
15) Source Code
Source Code follows Captain Colter Stevens, a U.S. Military Officer, who is part of a program called Source Code. This program uses technology that allows him to experience the last 8 minutes of a person’s life who is about to die through a parallel reality. Using this technology to prevent a bombing that is about to happen, Source Code is a sci-fi thriller that blends time travel to give the viewer a story worth watching.
14) Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
In this third installment of the Harry Potter franchise, Harry learns about the death of his parents. With growing threats from dementors and soul-less cloaked creatures that guard Azkaban (wizarding prison), this movie is a race against time. One of the most loved movies, it takes you on a journey Harry and his friends rush against time to save those who don’t deserve to die.
13) Avengers: Endgame
Marvel’s Avengers follows the life of superheroes working in an organization known as the Avengers who aim to save the world from external and internal threats. The last and final installment of the series, Endgame takes place after the villain, Thanos, eradicates half of the human lives.
The Avengers come together one last time to bring back the other half of humanity and the people they love through time traveling via the Quantum Realm. A fast-paced, epic saga, Avenger’s Endgame is one of the highest-grossing movies and rightly so.
12) Looper
Looper is the story of a society where time traveling happens but is considered a crime. This world uses people known as loopers who are keepers of time and are required to keep time traveling to a minimum. Working on the paradoxes caused by the intervening of timelines, Looper is an interesting story about Joe, a timekeeper, who is ordered to kill his older self.
11) The Adam Project
All time travel stories have one common rule, you are not allowed to meet yourself in another timeline. What happens when that one rule is broken? The movie stars Ryan Reynolds, a time traveler from 2050 who crash lands in 2018 and meets his younger self. Together they discover a dark secret about the world and race against time to fix what has been changed.
10) 13 Going on 30
13 Going on 30 is a rom-com and a coming-of-age movie that uses the theme of time traveling. It is the story of Jenna, a 13-year-old girl, who wakes up and finds herself to be 30. This heartwarming story teaches you many lessons on life, self-identity, and holding on to one's relationships.
9) Midnight in Paris
An interesting story about a young man who while traveling through Paris discovers a mysterious phenomenon. Every midnight he is transported back to the 1920s where he meets famous historical figures like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway.
The film is an intricate portrayal of how the world is a sham and the glorious of the glorious people and periods are filled with problems. The film is a lesson on why is it necessary to live in the present and what happens if one is constantly living a life overshadowed by the past.
8) The Time Traveler's Wife
A clever story about a man with a genetic disorder that makes him uncontrollably time travel, The Time Traveler’s Wife is a classic movie. It focuses on Clare, his wife who has to wait for his return every time he time travels. This story is a testament to how time is the entity that controls us and how we hardly have any influence over it. An emotional and romantic tale of two people required to make the best of the extraordinary situation they are in, The Time Traveler’s Wife is bound to leave you questioning the time around you.
7) About Time
About Time is a love story set under the theme of time traveling. It is the story of a boy, Tim whose family has a unique gift of time traveling. He meets a girl, Mary and due to mishaps caused by his time travelling leads her to forget him. Throughout the story, Tim uses time travel to the best of his abilities to win Mary back, but what is set in time, can it be changed? It's a sweet and desperate movie about love and the transient characteristics of time.
6) Edge of Tomorrow
A Tom Cruise classic, Edge of Tomorrow is the story of Major William Cage who is stuck in a time loop. The earth has been infiltrated with and controlled by Aliens. Through the loop, Major Williams learns about these aliens known as the omega. As he plans to save the earth and end his loop, the story is filled with twists and turns under the themes of manipulation and the fragility of human perception.
5) Pleasentville
It is a comedic story about two teenagers who are transported from the colorful world of today to the black-and-white world of a 1950s TV sitcom named Pleasantville.
This movie uses clever cinematography with the usage of colors to portray transition. It's a fantasy story that deals with the topic of time travel through humor and drama.
4) The Terminator
Made it 1984, The Terminator tells the story of a cyborg, known as Terminator who is sent back in time from 2029 to 1984 to kill a woman known as Sarah Conner. Sarah Conner will give birth to a boy named John Conner who will be the leader of a resistance that will save earth from an Artificially Intelligent Army.
The Terminator is a very intriguing story that shows that if something is meant to happen, it will, and how every action consciously or unconsciously taken leads us closer to the fate preplanned.
3) The Time Machine
The Time Machine (2002) is a movie with perhaps the most scientifically factual portrayal of the phenomenon of time travelling. With a clear depiction of moral dilemmas, grandfather paradox and other ill effects of time travelling, this witty tale of a man who travels 800,000 years into the future is must watch movie if you are intrigued by the themes of time traveling.
2) Intersteller
Christopher Nolan’s best work, Interstellar, is one of the best sci-fi thriller set under the themes of space exploration, time travelling and the different dimensions.
Based on Murphy’s Law; ‘if anything can go wrong, it will’, Interstellar follows the life of a NASA pilot who travels through a wormhole where one hour equals seven years on earth. The movie uses time relativity very effectively and with Nolan’s direction, the complex theories are portrayed very effortlessly.
1) Back to the Future
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Topping the list of time travelling movies, Back to the Future is a classic combination of love, friendship, humour, drama and thrill. Revolving around the life of a teenager, Marty, who is accidentally sent back in time, the story follows how Marty disrupts the meeting of his parents and in the process could have erased his own existence. It is now essential and a race against time that Marty makes his parent’s fall in love.
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