Eight time-travel movies you can - and should - watch right now

If you think about the logistics of cause and effect in time travel or the grandfather paradox, all it’s going to do is give you a headache.

But the idea of jumping around the space-time continuum has been a fantastic starting point for some fantastic movies. Here are eight of the best you could watch tonight.

ABOUT TIME

Domhnall Gleeson’s low-key charm is working full-time in this romantic drama about Tim, a man who discovers the men in his family have the ability to time travel.

He uses his gift to go back to fix (and then undo) a bunch of little things to ensure he meets the love of his life, Mary (Rachel McAdams at her most charismatic). But every move he makes has consequences and he has to learn what he’s willing to trade.

Ultimately, About Time is as much a love story about family as it is about romance, and it has a wonderfully empathetic performance from Bill Nighy as Tim’s dad. Be warned, it’s a weepy — but it earns your tears.

Watch: Netflix, Binge, Paramount+

BACK TO THE FUTURE I AND II

The movie every other movie refers to when they need to actually talk about the rules of time travel, like in Avengers: Endgame. The first two films in Robert Zemeckis’s trilogy were inventive and had emotional resonance by building it around a story of family.

The first movie in which Marty McFly had to ensure his own existence by bringing his parents back together after inadvertently forcing them apart had hijinks and high stakes, while the second film’s imaginings of what the then-future year of 2015 would hold (Hoverboards! VR goggles! Umpteenth sequels!) was scarily predictive. There was also the very real-life lesson — don’t get greedy.

Watch: Binge, Paramount+

LOOPER

Filmmaker Rian Johnson loves to play in different genre sandboxes (murder mystery with Knives Out, film noir with Brick) so when he stepped into the time travelling pit, he really committed to it. This smart thriller starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis embraces the conventions and tropes and elevates them.

Gordon-Levitt and Willis play younger and older versions of an assassin in a world where if you survive to a certain year, your younger self is supposed to do you in. It’s a great performance from Willis and the story goes to a different place than you were expecting.

Watch: Digital rental

PREDESTINATION

Ten years ago, Sarah Snook wasn’t yet a global household name thanks to her star-making turn as the icy and frustrated daughter of a media baron in Succession, but those in-the-know back home already recognised her talent. One of those roles was in this 2014 thriller Predestination, directed by brothers Michael and Peter Spiereg.

Snook is co-star to Ethan Hawke in this slick and twisty thriller about a time-travelling agent trying to stop crimes from happening and meets a person integral to his existence.

Watch: Stan, Beamafilm

PALM SPRINGS

While technically more of a time loop movie (a la Groundhog Day) than a time travel movie, Palm Springs was a delightful surprise when it was released at the height of 2020 lockdowns. It’s not an insignificant point to make because we all felt trapped in a time loop that year, repeating the same day over and over again (oh, that’s right, you still can’t go anywhere).

Clever as hell and sweetly romantic, Palm Springs is the story of Nyles (Andy Samberg) who has been reliving the same day for decades, trapped in a loop on the day of a wedding — but everything changes when Sarah (Cristin Milioti) is dragged into it with him. Don’t try to work out what the ending really means — even Samberg, Milioti, the writer and the director don’t agree.

Watch: Prime Video

ARRIVAL

Arrival isn’t a time travel story per se, but it is about time and our perception of it. Also, any excuse to put Arrival on any list is a welcome opportunity. Starring Amy Adams, Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi drama is based on a novella called Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang and it is a stunning, affirming and provocative piece of work.

Adams plays a linguist who is called on to interpret the non-verbal language of aliens who have arrived in 12 places on Earth. Partly a Tower of Babel parable, Arrival asks us to consider how language shapes our reality — and how we experience time and what we choose to do with that experience.

Watch: Stan

EDGE OF TOMORROW

Tom Cruise was never not the biggest movie star in the world but sometimes it’s easy to forget there was about a decade where his image was compromised after the couch-jumping incident. Edge of Tomorrow was one of the movies that persuaded some of those “there’s an ick about him” audiences that he was still worthy of his top billing.

Directed by Doug Liman and co-starring Emily Blunt, the film had a pacy story and plenty of thrilling action sequences. More a time loop movie than a time travel one, Cruise plays an inexperienced officer in a battle who, after being exposed to alien blood, becomes trapped reliving the same day, gaining skills and experience during each reset. It sounds like a video game but it’s also a movie in which there is real character development.

Watch: Prime Video, Netflix, Stan

BILL & TED’S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE

The goofy Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure has few stakes but plenty of bodacious charm. Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter star as two not-very-bright high school students who are somehow responsible for the future peace of mankind through the music they will create — but this will only happen if they pass their history exam.

OK, so maybe there are some stakes, but not very convincing ones. You’re really just here to watch Reeves and Winter’s wide-eye encounters with historical figures and moments — Napoleon, the Wild West, Socrates, Joan of Arc and more — while George Carlin plays their guide Rufus. Never fails to entertain.

Watch: Prime Video, Stan