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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 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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Join us for some temporal shenanigans —

The ars guide to time travel in the movies, we picked 20 time-travel movies and rated them by scientific logic and entertainment value..

Jennifer Ouellette and Sean M. Carroll - Nov 24, 2023 12:30 pm UTC

Since antiquity, humans have envisioned various means of time travel into the future or the past. The concept has since become a staple of modern science fiction. In particular, the number of films that make use of time travel has increased significantly over the decades, while the real-world science has evolved right alongside them, moving from simple Newtonian mechanics and general relativity to quantum mechanics and the notion of a multiverse or more exotic alternatives like string theory.

But not all time-travel movies are created equal. Some make for fantastic entertainment but the time travel makes no scientific or logical sense, while others might err in the opposite direction, sacrificing good storytelling in the interests of technical accuracy. What we really need is a handy guide to help us navigate this increasingly crowded field to ensure we get the best of both worlds, so to speak. The Ars Guide to Time Travel in the Movies is here to help us all make better, more informed decisions when it comes to choosing our time travel movie fare.

This is not meant to be an exhaustive list; rather, we selected films that represented many diverse approaches to time travel across multiple subgenres and decades. We then evaluated each one—grading on a curve—with regard to its overall entertainment value and scientific logic, with the final combined score determining a film's spot on the overall ranking. For the “science” part of our scoring system, we specifically took three factors into account. First and foremost, does the time travel make logical sense? Second, is the physical mechanism of time travel somewhat realistic? And third, does the film use time travel in narratively interesting ways? So a movie like Looper , which makes absolutely no sense if you think about it too hard, gets points for weaving time paradoxes thoroughly into the fabric of the story.

(Many spoilers below in the interest of meaningful analysis.)

What modern science has to say about time travel can be summed up thusly: You can travel to the future, but you probably can’t travel to the past, although to be honest, we’re not really sure. Einstein’s theory of general relativity—which says that space and time are unified into “spacetime” and the curvature of spacetime gives rise to gravity—at least lets us contemplate the possibility of time travel in a scientifically plausible context. A “ closed timelike curve ” is a path through spacetime on which someone can move forward in time as far as their local perspective is concerned and nevertheless end up visiting their own past. Such a context, however, would involve astrophysically massive gravitational fields, possibly wormholes, and negative energies or something equally exotic. Essentially none of the films we will discuss even attempt to portray physically realistic time travel (with one exception, Interstellar , which is only a partial exception).

Even without scientific accuracy, we can still ask for logical consistency. Alas, that is also pretty thin on the ground, although in this case, there are true exceptions. The most straightforward way for travel to the past to make sense is if you can visit but you can’t actually change anything—“ Whatever happened happened ,” in the memorable formulation of fictional physicist Daniel Faraday in the TV show Lost . Physicists have dubbed this the “ Novikov self-consistency principle ,” but it can really just be summed up as “making sense." Somewhat more ambitiously, we can imagine one or more alternative parallel timelines that are created by a sojourn into history. For the most part, however, our cinematic heroes make a cheerful hash of logic and narrative sense as they traipse through their pasts.

Here are our 20 representative picks, discussed in chronological order of their release to highlight how the understanding and treatment of time travel in Hollywood has evolved over the decades. There are some truly delightful entries here (plus a few stinkers for balance), but our deep dive into the topic has convinced us that the perfect time travel movie has yet to be made. That's a worthy goal for future filmmakers to strive for.

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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 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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• 11 Time-Travel Movies to Watch After Netflix’s <i>The Adam Project</i>

11 Time-Travel Movies to Watch After Netflix’s The Adam Project

I n Netflix’s The Adam Project , Ryan Reynolds plays Adam Reed, a fighter pilot from 2050 who heads back in time to stop the development of time travel. His mission only gets harder after he crash-lands in his childhood backyard in the year 2022 and is forced to team up with his video game-loving 12-year-old self (portrayed by Walker Scobell).

This isn’t Back to the Future : There are no DeLoreans or high-flux capacitors in sight. (Though Mark Ruffalo , as Adam’s inventor dad, does make for a worthy Doc Brown surrogate.) Instead, Adam hops into a wormhole and traverses the space-time continuum to let his preteen self know that the ability to time-hop is a privilege, not a right. It’s a rather heady concept for a family film, but most time-travel movies are about more than just joyriding through history. Whether it’s Joseph Gordon-Levitt playing a time-jumping hitman in Looper or Jennifer Garner aging 17 years with help from magic fairy dust in 13 Going on 30 , movies featuring transtemporal travel often show why we should err on the side of caution when spanning time and space.

If you’re craving more time travel, here’s a list of 11 movies to watch after The Adam Project . A couple quick notes: Since Back to the Future is undeniably the greatest time-travel movie of all time , it’s omitted from this list to make room for lesser-known choices. The prototypical time-loop film Groundhog’s Day was also passed over in lieu of a more recent selection.

You won’t need a science degree to enjoy any of the movies included here. But you might walk away from your viewing experience feeling as if the future is coming sooner than you think.

13 Going on 30 (2004)

Jennifer Garner gives Tom Hanks a run for his money in this Big -esque coming-of-age dramedy about a girl who wakes up from her traumatic 13th birthday party to find she’s 30, flirty, and thriving. She quickly learns growing up is hard to do, especially when you do it overnight.

Rent it on Amazon Prime Video

Donnie Darko (2001)

After Jake Gyllenhaal ’s titular sad boy narrowly survives a freak accident, he’s left with disturbing visions of a 6-foot-tall rabbit named Frank, who tells him the world is going to end in 28 days. If you don’t totally understand this time-bending film, don’t worry: its stars don’t either . Donnie Darko ’s perplexing final moments are part of its charm.

Watch it on HBO Max

Looper (2012)

Rian Johnson ’s sci-fi action thriller takes place in a not-so-distant future where mobsters punish those they don’t like by sending them back in time to be killed by a futuristic assassin known as a “looper.” When one of those hired guns (a prosthetic nose-wearing Joseph Gordon-Levitt) comes face-to-face with his older self ( Bruce Willis ), he ends up on a wild goose chase to save his future without unraveling his past.

Watch it on Netflix

About Time (2013)

When Tim (Domhnall Gleeson) learns he has the power to travel back in time, he can’t resist making a few tiny tweaks to his past. He soon discovers that even the smallest changes have big consequences in this weepy Brit rom-com directed by Love Actually helmer Richard Curtis .

Happy Death Day (2017)

In this slasher film, often described as “ Groundhog’s Day meets Scream ,” a college student, played by Jessica Rothe, must solve her own murder if she wants to live to see the next day.

Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989)

Bill (Alex Winter) and Ted ( Keanu Reeves ) hurtle through time and space in a cosmic phone booth, meeting historical dudes who can help them ace their high school history paper. The best part is that when you’re done with this one, you can keep the adventure going with its sequels: 1991’s Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey and 2020’s Bill & Ted Face the Music . Pretty excellent, right?

Run Lola Run (1998)

Lola (Franka Potente) —who stands out with fire engine-red hair—only has 20 minutes to secure enough money to save her boyfriend from a Berlin crime boss. This German experimental thriller isn’t your typical time-loop film, but Lola’s ability to learn from her past mistakes to save her love will make you happy that she’s running a marathon, not a sprint.

See You Yesterday (2019)

In this Spike Lee -produced film, high schooler C.J. Walker (Eden Duncan-Smith) uses a backpack time machine to save her brother from being killed by a police officer. But altering the events of the past have consequences that not even a science prodigy can anticipate.

Safety Not Guaranteed (2012)

This sweet sci-fi rom-com starts with a classified ad from Kenneth (Mark Duplass), a grocery-store worker looking for a partner to travel back in time with. “Safety not guaranteed,” he warns. While some write him off as crazy or paranoid, disillusioned college grad-turned-alt weekly intern Darius ( Aubrey Plaza ) might be willing to risk it all for a chance to roam the universe with him.

Arrival (2016)

Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi drama , which stars Amy Adams as a celebrated linguist trying to communicate with an intelligent alien race, plays with time in ways we won’t dare spoil here. Suffice to say that the film’s twist ending will make you rethink the entire movie.

Watch it on Hulu

Palm Springs (2020)

Nyles (Andy Samberg) and Sarah (Cristin Milioti) found love in a hopeless place: a Palm Springs wedding that they’ve been forced to relive over and over again after getting stuck in a time loop. Both darkly hilarious and sweetly nihilistic, Palm Springs is a unique rom-com for those who don’t want to admit they like rom-coms.

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The 30 best space movies

Head to infinity and beyond with the greatest intergalactic odysseys of all time

From the time the movies were invented, filmmakers have been dreaming of outer space. Mankind hadn’t even figured out how to get off the ground yet when Georges Méliès imagined voyaging to the moon, and in the century-plus since, many other directors have taken audiences on trips far deeper into the cosmos. To infinity and beyond, you might say.

It’s no wonder, really. The concept of space is vast enough to allow for the exploration of all sorts of big ideas. What is mankind’s place in the universe? What lies outside our tiny little rock – and do we really want to know what’s out there? For that reason, the ‘space movie’ exists as its own genre beneath the wider umbrella of science fiction. And so, we’ve decided to rank them. Here are our picks for the 30 best movies about that big, overwhelming, sometimes frightening, sometimes beautiful void above our heads.

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The best space movies

1.  2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

• Science fiction

Director: Stanley Kubrick 

Cast: Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood

Many argue that this film is cinema’s GOAT – us, among them – and its enduring status is partly down to ideas around artificial intelligence and technology that have only become more prescient with every passing year. But few sci-fi films have embraced the look, feel and experience of space travel with this level of baked-in, world-building cool. Kubrick had three production designers on the case and got big brands like IBM, Dupont and Nikon to imagine what their products might look like in an interstellar future. Major props, too, to Douglas Trumbull’s eye candy stargate sequence, which helped ensure that late-‘60s stoners were the first audiences to take it all to their hearts.

2.  The Martian (2015)

• Action and adventure

Director: RIdley Scott

Cast: Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Chiwetel Ejiofor

After dividing audiences with Prometheus , Ridley Scott’s return to space was a heel-turn from his previous horrors. Thanks in huge part to a script by The Cabin in the Woods writer Drew Goddard and an endearing performance by Matt Damon as a marooned astronaut, The Martian is a bracing survivalist yarn with a reliable charm. In fact, Damon’s affability scored it an unlikely Best Comedy nod at the Golden Globes. And those laughs are vital in a film detailing a scientist slowly starving himself on a distant planet as his friends risk their lives to rocket through space to save him. 

3.  WALL-E (2008)

Director: Andrew Stanton

Cast: (voices) Jeff Garlin, Fred Willard, Ben Burtt

Only half of Pixar’s environmentalist parable-slash-intertechnological love story actually takes place in space, and most of those scenes are set aboard the galaxial Noah’s Ark keeping mankind alive after destroying the planet. But its moment among the stars is an absolute stunner. After breaking out of the spaceship’s airlock, the titular sentient trash compactor – aided by a fire extinguisher – and his Alexa-esque paramour twirl, spin and criss-cross each other in a zero-gravity Astaire-Rogers ballet that jerks tears and raises goosebumps in equal measure.    

4.  Star Wars (1977)

Director : George Lucas

Cast : Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford, Alec Guinness

Has any film more perfectly channelled our fascination with space? It’s easy to forget how truly mesmerising A New Hope is when it ditches its fantastical planets and takes to the sky. It’s not just the dogfights of the climax, either. Much of the film plays out as an intergalactic road trip at warp speed, but it also slows down for a quick game of chess as stars drift past the window. By the end, you find yourself looking skyward, imagining the possibilities – not unlike Luke Skywalker himself, as he stares out beyond Tatooine’s twin suns and dreams of his destiny.

5.  The Right Stuff (1983)

Director: Philip Kaufman Cast: Sam Shepherd, Ed Harris, Dennis Quaid, Scott Glenn

Philip Kaufman’s boy’s own adaptation of Tom Wolfe’s nonfiction classic is every bit as stirring as Top Gun , though the tale of the US Mercury’s astronauts seldom gets its due. It also begs the question: how is it that movie astronauts are so often depicted as introverted nerds when we’ve seen Sam Shepard’s wildchild Chuck Yaeger breaking the sound barrier and the other Mercury astronauts strutting like the rock stars of their day? Truly, our understanding of space – and the cocksure punks who sought to tame it – remains woefully out of touch.

6.  A Trip to the Moon (1902)

Director: Georges Méliès

Cast: ​ ​Georges Méliès

All sci-fi movies – hell, pretty much all of modern effects-led cinema in general – begins here. But we don’t include Georges Méliès’s groundbreaker out of historical obligation. Well over a century later, the film displays an imagination in both storytelling and effects that wows even today, especially when you consider that not even the aeroplane existed yet. Surely, when the first astronauts made it to that big rock in the sky, they half-expected to find harpoon-wielding insectoids there to greet them.  

7.  Outland (1981)

Director : Peter Hyams

Cast : Sean Connery, Peter Boyle, Clarke Peters 

Essentially High Noon in space – but with 100 percent more splattered heads, thanks to the wonders of explosive decompression – this Sean Connery-starring space western unfolds above and below one of Jupiter’s moons, where a mining operation becomes the nucleus of a drug-fuelled mystery full of violence and depravity. The film shares a lot of DNA with Alien  thanks to its advanced effects and claustrophobic sets; only here, it’s humans doing the eviscerating... and a lot of it. 

8.  Galaxy Quest (1999)

Director: Dean Parisot

Cast: Tim Allen, Alan Rickman, Sigourney Weaver

A comedy is often only as strong as its reverence toward what it’s lampooning. A love of Star Trek ’s Gene Roddenberry shines through in every moment of this corker about the cast of a  Trek knockoff enlisted to save the denizens of a faraway planet. The plot is essentially a sci-fi version of  Three Amigos! , but the game cast – particularly Alan Rickman and a young Sam Rockwell – sell every uproarious gag, while the effects work updates the ‘60s camp while keeping the cartoonish charm front and centre. 

9.  Moon (2009)

Director: Duncan Jones

Cast: Sam Rockwell

While much of Duncan Jones’s ( Source Code ) meditative sci-fi takes place on the lunar surface, Moon  spends plenty of time with Sam Rockwell’s spaceman gazing at the stars and to the distant Earth like a blue-collar Major Tom. Rockwell has never been better in this small-scale tale of space madness (or is it?) about a helium farmer on a three-year lunar stint, accompanied only by his own personal HAL. Jones’s quiet gem embraces the all-engulfing nature of space, crafting something of a desert-island movie in the cold black void. 

10.  Event Horizon (1997)

Director: Paul WS Anderson

Cast: Sam Neill, Laurence Fishburne, Kathleen Quinlan

Derided for its relentless sadism upon release, Paul ‘Not PT’ Anderson’s trippy space saga has had an overdue reassessment and is emerging from the wormhole as a certified cult film. Part ‘ The Shining in space’, part ‘ Interstellar in hell’, Event Horizon ’s tale of misbegotten astronauts transported straight into the seventh circle isn’t for the squeamish. But for those who can stomach the viscera, it’s a wild ride through the gore-spattered corridors of an extremely haunted space station. Never has the cold vacuum of space seemed more welcoming than the supposed sanctuary of an airlock. 

11.  Treasure Planet (2002)

• Family and kids

Director: Ron Clements & John Musker

Cast: (voices) Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Emma Thompson, Martin Short

Disney dared to do something different with its sci-fi take on Robert Louis Stevenson’s pirate classic ‘Treasure Island’. Audiences didn’t respond to its hybrid of hand-drawn and CG animation, or storytelling that ditched princesses in favour of something a little more space-age and weird, but Treasure Planet is full of gorgeous celestial flair. The juxtaposition between old-school tall ships and cutting-edge interstellar animation remains dreamlike in its beauty. Plus, it beats the hell out of Mars Needs Moms . 

12.  Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan (1982)

Director: Nicholas Meyer

Cast: William Shatner, Ricardo Montalbán, Leonard Nimoy

The eye-popping space battles and serene galactic imagery. The mind-controlling space eels. The introduction of the Kobayashi Maru test. The tear-soaked space funeral. The goddamn mind-controlling space eels . The Wrath of Khan stands tall above all the USS Enterprise’ s cinematic adventures for many reasons, but chief among them is its deference to space itself – the franchise’s spiritual home. The reboot might have more advanced ships and shinier effects, but this was the moment Trek matched Star Wars in terms of pure awe in the abyss. 

13.  Starship Troopers (1997)

Director: Paul Verhoeven

Cast: Casper Van Dien, Denise Richards, Jake Busey

For millennia, humankind has gazed to the heavens and wondered what life exists beyond the stars. Paul Verhoeven has an answer, and it’s a horde of vengeful, snot-spewing insectoids. The Total Recall director’s return to space is a feature-length satire of fascist propaganda films that also plays like a stunning action spectacle, goopy horror romp and white-knuckle actioner. Verhoeven spends considerable time above the battlefield as a fleet of space cruisers discovers rather quickly that their ships are no match for bug bogeys and the unforgiving vacuum of space in graphic detail. 

14.  Interstellar (2014)

Director : Christopher Nolan

Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Jessica Chastain, Anne Hathaway

There’s a lot going on both above and below the ground in Christopher Nolan’s heady but divisive space odyssey, but this is a film that’s done its homework. And once Matthew McConaughey’s astronaut-farmer takes to the skies, all the film’s whiteboard-scribbling science lessons pay off with the most dazzling – and scientifically backed – renderings of space travel since 2001: A Space Odyssey . Say what you will about the film’s father-daughter narrative (Muuuuuurph!!!!), but even the most ardent detractor will be floored by Interstellar ’s cosmic imagery.

15.  Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

Director: James Gunn

Cast: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista

The MCU’s first proper trip to the cosmos takes its cues from Star Wars and The Ice Pirates in equal measure. But it also carves a unique impression into cinematic space lore thanks to its fantastic worlds and gleeful depiction of space travel. The sequel arguably nails the sensation of gravity-defying antics better, capping things off with a space funeral that trounces The Wrath of Khan . But director James Gunn’s original is the kind of film that knows damn well that a scene of eye-popping space psychedelics all but demands to be scored to Bowie’s ‘Moonage Daydream’ (of course), then delivers in kind.

16.  Alien (1979)

Director: Ridley Scott

Cast: Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, Ian Holm

No other film captures the contradiction of space being at once infinitely vast and frighteningly claustrophobic than Ridley Scott’s sci-fi horror masterpiece. It’s an oddly small picture, given its influence and iconic special effects, but the movie’s true genius is in how it maximises its small budget, turning a spaceship into a haunted house and the infinite void of the universe into a deep, dark wood. And the big, bad wolf has never been this terrifying. 

17.  Apollo 11 (2019)

• Documentaries

Director : Todd Douglas Miller

Strap yourself to the side of the thundering Apollo 11 rocket as it careers into, and beyond, the Earth’s atmosphere in a spectacular doc that makes great use of hitherto unseen Nasa footage. The mission, of course, successfully plonked two Americans on to the Moon’s surface and then unplonked them again, thereby winning that bit of the space race with the Soviet Union, but there’s nothing triumphalist in director Todd Douglas Miller’s thrilling recreation – just a lot of quiet professionalism, teamwork and fearless men in helmets. When it gets into space and the 70mm footage does its thing, it makes you wish you’d actually followed up on that childhood ambition to become an astronaut.

18.  Gravity (2013)

Director: Alfonso Cuarón

Cast: Sandra Bullock, George Clooney

Some were disappointed when Alfonso Cuarón followed up 2006’s Children of Men – a masterpiece of dystopian world-building with big ideas about hope, faith and the future of humanity – with the simple story of an astronaut marooned in space. Of course, there’s nothing all that simple about poor Sandra Bullock’s situation. With her craft destroyed by orbiting debris and her partner (George Clooney) having floated off into the void, home appears both tantalisingly close and unimaginably far away. The movie is a technical marvel, but even on the small screen, it’s breathlessly tense – not since Alien has the infinite expanse of the universe felt so claustrophobic.

19.  First Man (2018)

Director: Damien Chazelle

Cast : Ryan Gosling, Claire Foy, Kyle Chandler A true-life astronaut drama that soars for the heavens but finds its deepest emotions at the kitchen table, this reimagining of what Neil Armstrong was contending with at the time of the Apollo 11 mission will have you ugly crying before anyone can so much as bob across that lunar surface. Ryan Gosling reunites with his La La Land director, Damien Chazelle, to humanise the now almost mythical Armstrong in his grief for his young daughter, with a just-holding-it-together Claire Foy as the moonwalker’s wife. For the majority of its runtime, First Man is earthbound. But when it finally touches down on the moon, it’s cinematic magic: a moment of wonderment, solitude and an overwhelming sense that you’re right there too.

20.  Ad Astra (2019)

Director : James Gray

Cast : Brad Pitt, Ruth Negga, Tommy Lee Jones Directed with a lust for adventure by The Lost City of Z ’s, James Gray,  Ad Astra (‘to the stars’) follows Brad Pitt’s spaceman across the galaxy to track down his ornery dad (Tommy Lee Jones), who may or may not be trying to wipe out humanity from a space station near Neptune (spoiler: he is). The journey sits somewhere between the old Star Trek movies in its stargazy philosophising and the rebooted ones in some of zero-g action sequences that suck the air from your lungs. There’s also an awesome space-buggy chase across the moon and a bit with psychotic space baboons. We are here for them both.   

21.  Forbidden Planet (1956)

Director : Fred M Wilcox

Cast : Leslie Nielsen, Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis It’s Shakespeare in space – this iconic sci-fi is an intergalactic take on The Tempest – as a group of galactic travellers led by a straight-shooting Leslie Nielsen fall into the lap of megalomaniac boffin (Walter Pidgeon) on the remote planet of Altair 4. Cutting-edge effects presented in widescreen CinemaScope – the flying saucer remains cool AF – make this a true landmark not just in space flicks, but sci-fi genre as a whole. Don’t take our word for it: Gene Roddenberry cites it as a major influence on Star Trek .

22.  Silent Running (1972)

Director: Douglas Trumbull

Cast : Bruce Dern, Cliff Potts A direct inspiration for WALL-E and about as eco-conscious as science-fiction can get, this enduring classic shows that 2001: A Space Odyssey SFX maestro Trumbull could tell his own stories too. And this one follows a single astronaut (Bruce Dern) and his three adorbs robot pals, Louie, Huey and Dewey, as they drift through space, doing a spot of gardening and trying to stay sane in the face of mankind’s extinction. Heavy themes, sure, but treated with loads of heart and a philosophical spirit that echoes especially loudly in an era of climate crisis. 

23.  Solaris (1972)

Director : Andrei Tarkovsky

Cast : Donatas Banionis, Natalya Bondarchuk

Since remade by Steven Soderbergh, the original Tarkovsky Solaris is definitely the place to start when it comes to enigmatic, brainy affairs set in the far reaches of the universe. A cosmonaut (Lithuanian actor Donatas Banionis) is haunted by his dead wife as his spaceship orbits a mysterious planet. But is the planet creating embodiments of the ghosts haunting the poor man’s subsconscious, a bit like when Ray Stantz accidentally summons the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man in Ghostbusters ? With its eerie visuals, it makes for a dreamlike journey to the far reaches of the human psyche.

24.  First Men in the Moon (1964)

Director : Nathan Juran

Cast : Edward Judd, Martha Hyer, Lionel Jeffries This monster-filled space adventure came out five years before man actually set foot on the moon and you can only hope Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong weren’t watching, because the moon landing itself is a trainwreck. The ‘in’ part of the title is key: this is a Journey to the Centre of the Earth -style caper that has a crew of heroically under-prepared Brits discovering all sorts of things that don’t want to be discovered beneath the lunar crust. You will learn nothing at all about space but the giant stop-motion critters, animated by the great Ray Harryhausen, are a lot of fun.

25.  For All Mankind (1989)

Director : Al Reinert Six moon landings are ticked off in Al Reinert’s iconic doc, all accompanied by Brian Eno’s cosmic score (if space had sound, it’d definitely sound like Brian Eno). It makes the perfect non-fiction double bill with the more recent Apollo 11 – a window into the experience of being on the moon and looking back at earth. ‘A spiritual presence was there,’ says one NASA astronaut of those lunar vibes. ‘We were not alone.’ Haunting and hard to shake, this is proof that sometimes real life can be as spectacular as science fiction.

26.  Sunshine (2007)

Director: Danny Boyle

Cast: Cillian Murphy, Rose Byrne, Michelle Yeoh Director Danny Boyle positions his mindtrip space flick as a midway point between 2001: A Space Oydssey and Alien – a fusion of thrills and thinky bits that culminates in a third act that gets close to melting down as it draws close to the sun. You could probably throw Armageddon into that mix – a self-sacrificing crew of astronauts heads into space to save humanity from annihilation – although it’s a lot more believable (Boyle put his cast through astronaut training) and a lot less tub-thumping. The vast planetary vistas glimpsed from the decks of the Icarus II make a suitably awe-inspiring backdrop from its stellar cast (Cillian Murphy, Rose Byrne, Chris Evans et al) to come apart at the seams.

27.  Apollo 13 (1995)

Director: Ron Howard

Cast: Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton, Gary Sinese

So much more than its famous ‘Houston, we have a problem’ catchphrase, Apollo 13 harkens back to the glory days of white-knuckle, PG-rated entertainment. An ensemble tribute to the power of group problem-solving, it has Howard fully embracing a ‘70s aesthetic and the storytelling of the era to craft a timeless middlebrow crowd-pleaser with an almost surgical focus on the imperiled mission at hand. 

28.  Contact (1997)

Director: Robert Zemeckis 

Cast: Jodie Foster, Matthew McConaughey, John Hurt

We’d have loved to include Denis Villeneuve’s magical, melancholy Arrival  on this list but it takes place entirely within Earth’s atmosphere. Instead, try this big, ambitious drama from Back to the Future ’s Robert Zemeckis based on a book by sci-fi seer Carl Sagan. Contact ’s heart is in a similar place, and like Arrival ’s protagonist played by Amy Adams, it is female-led, steers clear of macho ideas of hostile aliens and cocks an ear to new voices from far beyond our solar system. Zemeckis, who loves to push visual boundaries, images space travel as a dizzying acid trip full of wormholes, whirlpools and mind-bending geometries. It’s one of those rare movies that should come with motion sickness tablets.

29.  Dark Star (1974)

Director : John Carpenter

Cast : Dan O'Bannon, Dre Pahich, Brain Narelle

There’s no film version of The Muppet’ s ‘Pigs in Space’ sketch, but John Carpenter’s debut, set during the 22nd century, delivers the next best thing: A hippie movie hopped up on its own counter-cultural sense of the absurd (there’s a talking bomb) and a pisstake-y irreverence. It’s the perfect antidote to bombastic science-fictions that get lost in their own self-importance – a lo-fi whoopie cushion that invites you aboard its titular spacecraft to hang out with four fargone astronauts and indulge in a little space surfing.

30.  High Life (2018)

Director : Claire Denis

Cast : Robert Pattinson, Juliette Binoche, André Benjamin Myriad mysteries abound in this deliriously bonkers space oddity from French auteur Claire Denis ( White Material ) that co-stars Robert Pattinson and Juliette Binoche as an interstellar inmate and his scientist jailer. The human body and its function gets a rare exploration in this context – space flicks rarely spend this much time over their characters’ sexual needs in zero gravity ( 2001: A Space Odyssey does not have a Fuckbox) – and its themes of reproduction, incarceration and experimentation play out in a space with its own realities. Go with it, in other words, and be rewarded with a space journey unlike any other.

The 100 best sci-fi movies

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The 15 Best Time Travel Movies Ever Made, Ranked

Trigger Warning: There are two 'Back to the Future' movies on this list.

Making a great time-travel movie, as it turns out, is not very easy. Quite a few films have tried and failed for a variety of reasons. There’s the logic, obviously, which can become an issue, but oftentimes a story might rest too heavily on the plot device, resulting in a lack of rich or memorable characters. But there are some truly phenomenal movies involving time travel that seize upon the premise and craft unforgettable and inventive stories, many of which have long stood the test of time.

With that in mind, I’ve looked back at the lexicon of films involving time travel and curated a list of the best of the best. Some are silly, some are sweet, and some are just a hell of a lot of fun. As with all lists, this one’s subjective, and there will undoubtedly be one or two of your favorites that don’t make this cut, but I’ve done my best to make the case for why these 15 films, in particular, are the best time-travel movies ever made.

RELATED: The Best Sci-Fi Movies of the 21st Century So Far

Most time-travel movies try to keep the actual mechanics of the time-travel simple, but that’s definitely not true of writer/director/star Shane Carruth ’s head-spinning 2004 film Primer . The indie drama revolves around two engineers who accidentally discover a mechanism of time travel while tinkering with entrepreneurial tech projects. Carruth doesn’t “dumb down” any of the science of the movie, and indeed charts have been made to explain the exact mechanics of what’s going on in this film, but it nevertheless remains one of the most scientifically intense time-travel movies ever made.

14. The Terminator

I mean, this has to be on the list right? Director James Cameron ’s groundbreaking 1984 sci-fi action flick is far more grounded and low-key than its sequel, but The Terminator still packs a punch all these years later. With a truly inventive premise, charismatic performance from Linda Hamilton , and proof that Arnold Schwarzenegger could act, The Terminator ’s influence reaches far and wide.

13. About Time

About Time is certainly the most emotional entry on this list. Writer/director Richard Curtis had previously melted hearts with Love Actually and Pirate Radio , but About Time brought the filmmaker back to his Four Weddings and a Funeral roots (which he didn’t direct, but he did write). The time-travel genre offers the opportunity to wax philosophical about death and regret, and About Time seizes it in a unique way by focusing on a very earnest relationship between a father and a son. The romantic comedy portion between Domhnall Gleeson and Rachel McAdams is the hook, but the relationship between time-traveling father and son Gleeson and Bill Nighy is this film’s tearjerking heart.

12. Back to the Future Part II

There are people who say Back to the Future Part II is a bad movie, and those people are wrong. Director Robert Zemeckis ’ original is untouchable, but for the first sequel the notoriously ambitious filmmaker doubles down on the time travel premise while also echoing the first movie in a brilliant way. First, we get a kitschy, Easter Egg-filled vision of the future, then we get to see the events of the first film recontextualized as Marty McFly has to go back in time once again to save the future—all while avoiding his other time-traveling self. It’s a tight rope walk of an extremely difficult sort, and one that only a director with this much vision and guts could pull off.

11. Idiocracy

You know, that movie that was ridiculous fiction until it kind of became reality. Filmmaker Mike Judge couldn’t have predicted just how spot-on Idiocracy would be over a decade after its release, but indeed Judge and co-writer Etan Cohen certainly had their finger on the pulse of what was happening in America at the time—enough to hit upon ugly truths that remain relevant today. While the central premise of a man being “frozen” for hundreds of years has been done before, the comedic precision with which Judge executes his dumbed-down vision of America’s future is what makes Idiocracy endure. And also the batin’ jokes.

Whether it’s in an indie noir-like Brick or a massive blockbuster like Star Wars: The Last Jedi , writer/director Rian Johnson has always showcased an impeccable mix of ambition and meticulousness, never allowing his reach to exceed his grasp. Looper marked Johnson’s first foray into the sci-fi genre, and he did so with vigor, offering up a twisty time-travel story rooted in character first and foremost. The film takes the premise of, “What would you do if you went back in time and met your younger self?” and spins it on its head, adding in terrifically tense action sequences and heady moral quandaries for good measure.

9. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

As the best movie in the franchise (fight me), Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban also stands as one of the best time-travel movies ever made. Director Alfonso Cuarón shook up the aesthetic and narrative approach to the adaptation of J.K. Rowling ’s beloved book series, and while the foundation of the storytelling is all Rowling, Cuaron’s execution really makes this thing soar. From tremendous cinematography to aural motifs that clue the audience in to the shifting time scenarios, Azkaban is full of wonder, curiosity, and danger, and it’s an absolute joy to behold.

8. Star Trek (2009)

Director J.J. Abrams ’ 2009 reboot of the Star Trek franchise sidestepped the problem of “erasing” the legacy of the films/TV shows that came before by using one specific device: time-travel. This genius idea allows Abrams’ wildly entertaining film to both exist in the same universe as the previous Star Trek movies with Kirk and Spock and the whole gang, while also opening up new possibilities for the future—even though Abrams’ Trek focuses on Young Kirk, he exists in a new and changed timeline, so the future is not 100% set. That the film is able to explain this concisely while also serving as an incredibly entertaining adventure all its own is the minor miracle that is Star Trek (2009) , and while the sequel Star Trek Into Darkness hampered some of that goodwill, Abrams’ initial film still stands as one of the most effortlessly rewatchable blockbusters of the 21st century.

RELATED: 7 Must-Watch Time-Travel TV Shows

7. 12 Monkeys

While filmmaker Terry Gilliam is no stranger to time travel ( Time Bandits just missed the cut on this list), his 1995 film 12 Monkeys remains one of the most memorable entries in the genre. The sci-fi drama combines Gilliam’s more odd sensibilities with gritty and grounded time-travel, resulting in a dirty and unforgettable experience. Brad Pitt delivers a pretty phenomenal performance as a maybe-crazy mental institution patient while Bruce Willis plays a future prisoner sent back in time to discover the origins of a deadly virus that ravaged the Earth. Never one for the traditional, Gilliam keeps things delightfully strange throughout.

6. Edge of Tomorrow

Edge of Tomorrow is the perfect cocktail—a dash of Tom Cruise action, a sprinkle of Emily Blunt strength, a swirl of writer Christopher McQuarrie ’s unique sensibilities, and a heavy helping of director Doug Liman ’s wild ambition. Many have tried and failed to imitate the “stuck in a loop” premise of Groundhog Day , but Edge of Tomorrow takes that nugget and runs with it, keeping every single scene fresh even if we’re watching the same day play out over and over again. The secret sauce is having Tom Cruise play an out-and-out coward, which stands in contrast to the public perception of his onscreen persona and results in a wonderfully refreshing viewing experience. Edge of Tomorrow is the White Whale of Hollywood: a genuinely unique and wildly entertaining blockbuster.

5. Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure

1989’s Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure combined the sci-fi genre with the teen comedy to result in a wonderfully inventive—and hilarious—adventure. Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter are perfect as a pair of burnouts who use a time machine to complete a history report. The whole thing is an incredibly silly affair, but it’s made with such affection for its characters that it’s impossible not to love. There are terrific jokes aplenty, especially involving historical figures, and George Carlin ’s Rufus remains an icon to this day. It’s a movie that probably shouldn’t work, but totally does. Be excellent to each other, indeed.

4. Planet of the Apes

So Planet of the Apes is technically a time-travel movie, even though audiences who first laid eyes on the 1968 film didn’t know it until that final, jaw-dropping scene. Charlton Heston ’s astronaut Taylor hasn’t simply stumbled upon a planet made of apes, he’s traveled into a future Earth where apes have actually taken over the planet. The film is rife with socio-political commentary, which continued throughout its underrated sequels, and features one of the best Jerry Goldsmith scores ever created. But that ending, which paints the rest of the film in a whole new light, is what solidifies it as a classic.

3. Terminator 2: Judgment Day

We should have known, given Aliens and The Abyss , that director James Cameron ’s Terminator 2 wouldn’t just be any old sequel. Indeed, the ambitious filmmaker made a very different movie than the original Terminator , weaving in shades of a buddy comedy, PTSD drama, and family story into this sci-fi actioner. Terminator 2 is a minor miracle of a film, turning its own premise on its head to present a time-travel story that’s similar to the first Terminator , but different in key ways. It also feels positively epic. This one ticks all the boxes.

2. Groundhog Day

Star Bill Murray and director Harold Ramis famously butted heads while making Groundhog Day . Murray reportedly wanted the film to be more philosophical, while Ramis was always pushing the comedy. But it’s the push-and-pull between these two ideas that makes Groundhog Day a stone-cold classic. It’s hilarious, featuring some of Murray’s best comedic moments, but it’s also profoundly sad. The film doesn’t disregard the inherent loneliness of the premise—being stuck in the same day over and over again. It goes to some surprisingly dark places, but Murray’s humanity always shines through, and Andie MacDowell does some terrifically understated work as his foil. It’s a classic, full-stop.

1. Back to the Future

But there’s really nothing like Back to the Future , is there? Filmmaker Robert Zemeckis ’ 1985 original takes a universal idea—the fact that we’re never able to truly know what our parents were like when they were our age—and adds his usual dash of insane ambition by playing that out as a time-travel story. And given the hardships during production, it’s crazy the movie turned out as great as it did. Michael J. Fox is a revelation, Christopher Lloyd is perfect, and Lea Thompson is so good you forget she’s actually playing Marty’s mom. It’s hilarious and new and different and inventive, but it’s also rooted in universal truths that make it so relevant throughout the decades. And yes, it’s also a movie about trying not to bone your mom.

The 20 Best Time Travel Movies to Stream Right Now (That Aren’t ‘Back to the Future’)

Ask anyone about the best time travel movies of all time and, nine times out of ten, they’ll instantly mention the 1985 classic, Back the Future . And with good reason. Considered one of the best films ever made, this sci-fi flick paved the way for countless other time travel films that followed. But as much as we do enjoy following Marty McFly’s adventures with Doc, there are other great time travel flicks that deserve our attention, from Somewhere in Time to The Butterfly Effect .

Whether you’re looking for new titles that explore different time travel theories or you’re just in the mood for a good fantasy, here are 20 other stellar time travel films you can stream right now.

This Fantasy Adventure Series Quickly Jumped to the #1 Spot on Netflix

1. ‘tenet’ (2020)

John David Washington stars as a skilled CIA agent who can manipulate time in this fast-paced sci-fi thriller. Throughout the film, we follow the agent as he attempts to protect the world from future threats that want to destroy it. The film was directed by Christopher Nolan, best known for Memento and Inception , so prepare to be wowed.

2. ‘déjà Vu’ (2006)

As if we needed any more proof that talent runs in the Washington family, Denzel Washington gives a noteworthy performance in this action film, which follows an ATF agent who travels back in time to stop a domestic terrorist attack and save the woman he loves. Sit back and prepare to be amazed, thanks in no small part to other stellar performances from Paula Patton, Val Kilmer, Erika Alexander and Elle Fanning.

3. ‘will You Be There?’ (2016)

This South Korean fantasy revolves around a surgeon who doesn't have much time left to live because of his deteriorating health. His dying wish? To be able to see his true love, who passed away 30 years ago. Fortunately for him, he receives 10 pills that allows him to travel back in time.

4. ‘24’ (2016)

When Sethuraman (Suriya), a brilliant scientist, invents a watch that allows people to time travel, his evil twin brother wastes no time in trying to get his hands on it. When it falls into the hands of Sethuraman’s son, Mani (Suriya), he has no choice but to go up against his devious uncle. Expect a whole lot of action sequences (and a few musical numbers too!).

5. ‘interstellar’ (2014)

To be fair, this one feels more like a sci-fi space movie, but it does have some time travel elements and viewers will be blown away by the thrilling scenes and thought-provoking plot. Set in the year 2067, where humanity is struggling to survive, Interstellar tells the story of a group of volunteers who travel through a wormhole near Saturn, hoping to find a safer world in a distant galaxy. The star-studded cast includes Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain and Matt Damon.

6. ‘12 Monkeys’ (1995)

Nearly four decades after a deadly virus gets released, destroying nearly all of humankind, James Cole (Bruce Willis), a criminal from the future, is chosen to travel back in time and help scientists create a cure. Inspired by Chris Marker's 1962 short film, La Jetée , the movie also stars Madeleine Stowe, Brad Pitt and Christopher Plummer.

7. ‘your Name’ (2016)

Yes, anime time travel films are definitely worth your while if you're really into this concept. Your Name (also called Kimi no na wa ) is about two teenagers in Japan who discover that they're connected to one another in the most bizarre way. We won’t spoil it by giving too many details away, but if you need more reason to watch: It currently holds a perfect five-star rating from more that 15,000 viewers on Amazon Prime.

8. 'donnie Darko’ (2001)

Fair warning, you'll probably never look at rabbits the same way after you see this. The cult classic follows a troubled, sleepwalking teenager who barely escapes a jet engine crashing into his room. But after the accident, he has several visions of a creepy, giant rabbit who claims to be from the future and reveals that the world will end soon.

9. ‘the Call’ (2020)

Psychological thriller meets time travel in this haunting South Korean film, which centers on two women from completely different time periods who connect through a single phone call.

10. ‘41’ (2012)

In this remixed version of The Butterfly Effect , a man stumbles upon a hole in the ground that takes him back to the previous day. Not many are familiar with this low-budget indie film, but it’s a fun watch for anyone who genuinely enjoys exploring time travel theories.

11. ‘mirage’ (2018)

In this two-hour feature, Vera Roy (Adriana Ugarte) manages to save the life of a boy 25 years in the past, but she winds up losing her daughter in the process. Can she get her child back?

12. ‘somewhere In Time’ (1980)

It's smart, it's charming and it's required viewing for literally anyone who enjoys a passionate romance. Christopher Reeve plays Richard Collier, a writer who’s so smitten by a vintage photo that he travels back in time (through self-hypnosis!) to meet the woman in it. Unfortunately for him, striking up a romance isn’t as easy with her manager around.

13. ‘don't Let Go’ (2019)

OK, so this is technically more of a murder mystery, but it weaves in the time travel concept so well. Selma star David Oyelowo plays Detective Jack Radcliff, who's stunned to receive a call from his murdered niece, Ashley (Storm Reid). Will this mysterious new connection help him figure out who murdered her?

14. ‘timecrimes’ (2007)

A testament to how messy and complicated time travel can be, Timecrimes follows a middle-aged man named Héctor (Karra Elejalde), who accidentally travels back an hour in time while trying to escape an attacker.

15. ‘about Time’ (2013)

When Tim discovers that the men in his family share a special gift—the ability to time travel— he decides to use the ability to his advantage by going back in time and getting the girl of his dreams. This comedy will have you cackling all the way through.

16. ‘the Infinite Man’ (2014)

Josh McConville is Dean, a clever scientist who tries to relive a romantic weekend with his girlfriend, Lana (Hannah Marshall). When Lana's ex-boyfriend shows up and ruins the mood, Dean attempts to fix this by going back in time, but things don’t go according to plan...

17. ‘the Butterfly Effect’ (2004)

The Butterfly Effect brilliantly explores the concept where the smallest change can trigger a series of events and lead to much bigger consequences. Evan Treborn (Ashton Kutcher), who experienced a number of blackouts throughout his childhood, realizes that he can travel back in time by revisiting those same moments. Naturally, he tries to fix everything that went wrong, but this plan backfires.

18. ‘the Girl Who Leapt Through Time’ (2006)

Inspired by Yasutaka Tsutsui's novel of the same name, the film follows a high school girl who uses her newfound ability to time travel for her own gain. But when she sees the negative impact that this has on those around her, she's determined to make things right. Not only is it filled with lovable characters, but it also tackles themes like bullying, friendship and self-awareness.

19. ‘primer’ (2004)

Although this film was made on a small budget (just $7,000), Primer is one of the smartest and most thought-provoking time travel films you’ll ever see. Two engineers, Aaron (Shane Carruth) and Abe (David Sullivan), accidentally invent a time machine, causing them to experiment with a technology that allows humans to time travel. However, it’s only a matter of time before they realize the consequences of their actions.

20. ‘the Time Machine’ (1960)

Based on H. G. Wells's novella of the same title, this Oscar-winning film follows George Wells (Rod Taylor), an inventor who builds a time machine and journeys hundreds of years into the future. Definitely a must-watch for any time-travel fanatic.

The 50 Best Movies on HBO Max

Associate Editor, News and Entertainment

50 Best Space Movies Of All Time Ranked

Space is the final frontier, and, of course, the place where no one can hear you scream. As a setting for movies, space has provided endless opportunities for incredible films, ones that showcase humanity's fascination with places unknown, epic journeys, weird and wonderful creatures, and alien technology. Sitting within the realm of science fiction, it's a subgenre that continues to surprise and delight audiences.

As few of us will be able to experience the wonders of space for ourselves, movies are the thing that can transport us there. Some convey the awe and wonder of other worlds and planets, whereas others take a distinctly darker approach, portraying space as something to be feared, full of things that humans should perhaps not meddle with.

From a 1902 silent film about the moon to modern planet-hopping blockbuster behemoths, the genre has something to offer everyone, with possibilities almost as vast as the universe itself. While many of these films focus on people traveling to other planets –- both real and fictional –- or visitors from other worlds coming to Earth, others are much more grounded in reality, taking inspiration from real-life events and space missions. With a whole galaxy of films to choose from, these are the very best space movies. (Warning: There are spoilers below.)

Updated on July 6, 2022 : Space stretches on forever, which means there's plenty of room for more space movies. As otherworldly films take their place in the cosmos, we'll be sure to add any instant classics to our list.

50. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Based on the book of the same name by Douglas Adams, this 2005 film adaptation of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" certainly retains the offbeat (and very British) humor of the source material and boasts a starry cast that includes Martin Freeman, Zooey Deschanel, Bill Nighy, Sam Rockwell, and Stephen Fry, to name but a few. 

The film's hero is Arthur Dent (Freeman), who finds himself whisked away from Earth when an alien construction crew invades. At times, the film feels a little like a fever dream, and those unfamiliar with the tone of Adam's book may find themselves alienated by how madcap it feels. However, if you're a fan of stuff like "Monty Python," this film is a real treat and a palette cleanser to some of the more serious space movie offerings. As Peter Travers in his review for Rolling Stone puts it, "Adams would be pleased."

49. Elysium

Following the incredible "District 9" was no easy feat for director Neill Blomkamp, and while "Elysium" doesn't reach the heights of that film, it's still one that's worth a watch. "Elysium" continues some of the themes set out in Blomkamp's previous movie, particularly examining the idea of class inequality. Set in the year 2154, there are vast wealth divisions in humanity, with the mega-rich living on a luxury space station called Elysium and the rest living hand-to-mouth in what remains of the Earth. The future hangs in the balance as Max Da Costa (Matt Damon) seeks to bring equality between the groups, but Secretary Delacourt (Jodie Foster) stands in his way as she endeavors to protect the prosperous population of Elysium.

While the film performed well at the box office , Blomkamp himself had some regrets about its script, saying, "I just didn't make a good enough film is ultimately what it is" ( via Uproxx ). However, we think the guy is being a little hard on himself. After all, it was well-received by critics, including Amon Warmann for CineVue , who called it "one of those rare blockbusters that manages to be entertaining while also having something relevant to say."

48. Armageddon

It may have been critically panned, but "Armageddon" taps into exactly what makes space movies so entertaining, focusing on a catastrophic apocalyptic event, with Earth's only hope being a team of underdogs. When an asteroid the size of Texas is on course to destroy the world, NASA recruits a team of oil drillers to drill a hole in the asteroid and plant a bomb inside to break it apart. Heading up this team of unlikely heroes is blue-collar driller Harry Stamper (Bruce Willis), a guy who, rather than train the astronauts in how to drill, insists upon taking his own ragtag team into space to complete the mission.

Despite some scathing critic reviews — including Stephen Hunter for the Washington Post who said, "It leaves no stone unturned in its search for the perfect cliche" — the film pulled in huge numbers at the box office. Making over $553 million worldwide, "Armageddon" was the highest-grossing film of 1998 , ahead of big hitters such as "Saving Private Ryan" and Roland Emmerich's "Godzilla." And hey, it was good enough to find a place in the Criterion Collection , so it's good enough for us.

47. Europa Report

Our fascination about whether life exists on other planets is frequently the subject of movies, like this underrated 2013 film. Partially filmed in a found-footage style, "Europa Report" follows a group of astronauts as they embark on a mission to Europa –- one of the moons of Jupiter –- to search for signs of life. Using this filming technique helps to ground the film in a strikingly realistic way, as well as adding to the claustrophobic and tense atmosphere.

Space movies aren't often praised for their sense of realism, but "Europa Report" was an exception to this, with Space.com saying it "just might be the most realistic — and harrowing — depiction of space travel on the big screen in years." Without a major distributor behind it, the film had a limited release and even more limited box office takings, but it boasts an impressive 'fresh' rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with critics such as Michael D. Lemonick for Time calling it "brisk, thrilling and ultimately terrifying."

46. Serenity

Despite only running for one season, Joss Whedon's sci-fi series "Firefly" proved to be a huge cult hit, with a passionate fanbase who are still calling for its return. While Whedon might not have been able to get another season off the ground, he did manage to get the backing for a feature film as a continuation of the story, and in 2005, "Serenity" was released. The film –- which also marked Whedon's feature directorial debut –- saw the cast returning for a new adventure, as the crew of the Serenity spacecraft takes on two fugitives while the ominously named "The Operative" (Chiwetel Ejiofor) pursues them.

Of course, fans of "Firefly" absolutely adored "Serenity," and it proved to be the making of Joss Whedon's directorial career (for better and for worse), as his next feature film was 2012's "The Avengers." As for the film itself, in follows in the "Firefly" mold of making space like the landscape of the Wild West — grungy, dangerous, and untamed. "Serenity" was also favorably received by critics, with Nick Funnell of Time Out saying, "The settings and tone are hyper-real, yet the human behavior is grounded and credible, the moral conflicts complex and involving."

45. Deep Impact

While "Armageddon" –- the other  space-themed disaster movie that came out in 1998 -– eventually dwarfed "Deep Impact" in terms of overall box office, "Deep Impact" is arguably the stronger film, and it had a better opening weekend to its counterpart , beating it by just over $5 million . In the movie, an 11km wide comet is on course to collide with Earth with catastrophic consequences. While a heroic team of astronauts is sent out to try and decimate the comet in orbit, the film focuses more heavily on the human impact, as those on Earth face their possible extinction.

Unlike "Armageddon," "Deep Impact" has been lauded for being a much more realistic depiction of what would happen when a comet is on a collision course with Earth. For example, n an interview with BuzzFeed , astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson praised the film, saying that it "had really good science going there."

44. Zathura: A Space Adventure

A decade after the original "Jumanji," another board game-based adventure arrived in the form of "Zathura: A Space Adventure." With a considerable advancement in special effects from its jungle-themed counterpart, "Zathura" tells the story of two brothers who are transported into space by a game that they discover in their basement. As you might expect, the film follows a lot of similar beats to "Jumanji," but it's a thrilling and fun film in its own right, with a surprisingly touching story about two bickering siblings who eventually learn how to play nice.

With competition from Disney's latest animated film "Chicken Little," and "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," "Zathura" had a disappointing turnout at the box office . Despite this, the film was well-received by critics, including Desson Thomson for the Washington Post who said it "salutes the low-tech magic that lurks inside a board game -– that hidden ability to bring people together."

43. Event Horizon

Space frequently provides a terrifying backdrop for films that finely toe the line between sci-fi and horror, and one of the most nightmare-inducing examples is 1997's "Event Horizon." When a spaceship that previously disappeared into a black hole comes back into orbit, a rescue crew is deployed to investigate, unaware that something dark and sinister has found its way on board. "Event Horizon" plays out like a haunted house movie in space, with a certain debt owed to films such as "The Shining" and "Alien" in terms of creating that feeling of paranoia and claustrophobia.

"Event Horizon" was plagued by a troubled production, and upon its release, not only was it a box office flop but it was torn apart by critics like Jonathan Rosenbaum for Chicago Reader , who called it "the pits." However, in a similar trajectory to 1982's "The Thing," it became a cult hit following its release on home video and has subsequently been re-assessed as an underrated example of the genre.

42. Mars Attacks!

With a star-studded cast and Tim Burton at the peak of his powers, "Mars Attacks!" –- the director's loving homage to sci-fi B-movies –- proved to be divisive upon its release. It is, however, a film that's improved over time, and its cutting satirical anti-establishment themes mean it's remained surprisingly relevant. 

Based on the trading card series of the same name, "Mars Attacks!" sees hordes of little green men arrive on planet Earth, while the world's assembled powers wait to see if their intentions are peaceful. Whether it is the aliens' hilarious way of speaking or the femme fatale "Martian Girl" (Lisa Marie) with her iconic bouffant blonde wig, "Mars Attacks!" is packed with moments that make it unlike any other alien invasion film you'll see.

While the unique and zany nature of the film didn't necessarily connect with American audiences , it performed much better in Europe, cementing its status as a future cult classic. The mixed reactions of cinemagoers are also reflected in the critical reception , with Empire's Mark Salisbury praising the film , calling it "giddily madcap, surreal, sardonic satire," while Peter Stack for the San Francisco Chronicle said it "blows most of its inspired moments with its mean-spirited mentality." As for us, we definitely agree with Salisbury — "Mars Attacks!' just might be Tim Burton's most underrated movie.

The story may be a familiar one –- a crew on board a spaceship finds a rapidly evolving life-form that threatens their existence –- but 2017's "Life" proves that this oft-repeated concept is still one that can draw in an audience . Largely bolstered by a starry cast that includes Jake Gyllenhaal, Rebecca Ferguson, and Ryan Reynolds, "Life" focuses on a small crew on the International Space Station who uncover evidence of life on Mars. What's particularly terrifying about this film is we see the evolution of the life form –- which our heroes name "Calvin" –- as it adapts and changes into something that doesn't just pose a threat to the crew members but to all life on Earth.

While it treads familiar ground and instantly leads to comparisons with the much superior "Alien," "Life" has some well-timed and effective moments of body horror, with a particularly bleak twist ending that will haunt you as the credits roll. As with many of the films of this ilk, the characters aren't particularly well-developed, but the concept itself is scary enough to keep your interest.

40. Independence Day

"Master of Disaster" Roland Emmerich shamelessly borrows from pretty much every other alien invasion film in existence, but there's still something unabashedly entertaining about "Independence Day." With a cast that includes '90s movie stalwarts such as Will Smith, Jeff Goldblum, and Bill Pullman, the film wears its patriotic heart on its sleeve –- the clue is in the title after all –- and for many, it has become the mainstay movie of the holiday, along with classics like "Jaws."

It may have been Steven Spielberg that invented the blockbuster with the aforementioned "Jaws," but Emmerich ushered in a new era, with movies featuring wanton destruction of major landmarks proving to be big business. Spielberg even reportedly said to Emmerich, "This movie will do more to change blockbuster summer movies than any movie before" ( via Deadline ). The numbers certainly reflect how huge "Independence Day" was, bringing in a whopping $817 million worldwide and becoming the highest-grossing film of 1996 .

39. Treasure Planet

Directors Ron Clements and Jon Musker had been floating the idea of "Treasure Island in Space" for almost two decades. While the directing duo enjoyed success in the meantime with films such as "The Little Mermaid" and "Aladdin," their passion project finally came to fruition in 2002, rebranded as "Treasure Planet." While the film was a huge flop for Disney, it's hugely imaginative and marked a big leap forward in terms of blending CGI animation techniques with the more traditional hand-drawn style.

The film focuses on Jim Hawkins (voiced by Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a rebellious teen who's bequeathed a treasure map, and along with a cyborg John Silver (Brian Murray) as his mentor, he embarks on the journey to find the hidden loot. Despite the poor box office takings, "Treasure Planet" received many positive reviews, including from critic Ed Gonzalez for Slant Magazine who said, "The film is alive with a rollicking sense of adventure." It may not match some of Disney's other films in terms of longevity, but based on sheer spectacle, it's one of the very best.

38. Contact

Movies about aliens tend to go one of three ways: over-the-top and explosive spectacle, horror and paranoia, or quiet and contemplative reflections about life on this planet. "Contact" fits into the latter, alongside films such as "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and "Arrival." The film focuses on scientist Dr. Ellie Arroway (Jodie Foster), who dedicates her life to listening for signs of life from other worlds. When a coded message is received from outer space, Ellie deciphers it and discovers it reveals the schematics for a single-occupant transporter, one that will later take her face to face with the aliens that sent the message.

The thing that stands out about "Contact" is that it isn't the sort of film you might expect it to be. Like 2016's "Arrival," "Contact" examines a character's personal and emotional journey as they seek to communicate with those beyond. Set against the backdrop of space, it probes into life's big unanswered questions and the role that religion and science perhaps play in our understanding of the wider universe. It's an undoubtedly powerful film and a truly underrated example of the genre.

37. Starship Troopers

Set in the 23rd century, "Starship Troopers" sees humanity locked in a brutal battle against giant alien bugs. And as this entertaining cult classic comes from director Paul Verhoeven ("RoboCop," "Total Recall"), you know it's going to be a truly wild ride. As well as some brilliantly brutal battle scenes, "Starship Troopers" satirizes extreme militarism through the bombastic, overly nationalistic propaganda news reports.

As is often the case with satire, "Starship Troopers" wasn't particularly well-received by critics when it was released. However, more recent reappraisals have seen a new appreciation for some of the film's evergreen themes and its biting wit. Writing for The Atlantic , Calum Marsh said, "If you're open and attuned to it ... you'll get the joke 'Starship Troopers' is telling. And you'll laugh." Slant Magazine also chimed in with the praise, labeling Verhoeven's misunderstood gem as "one of the greatest of all anti-imperialist films."

36. The Fifth Element

While they may not be the most practical fashion choices, '90s sci-fi films were almost unbeatable when it came to iconic looks, and just two years before Neo's long black coat made waves in "The Matrix," there was Milla Jovovich as Leeloo in her unforgettable "thermal bandages" in Luc Besson's ambitious 1997 film, "The Fifth Element." Beginning in Egypt in 1914 and rocketing ahead 300 years to a futuristic New York, the film sees Leeloo join forces with an unsuspecting cab driver, Korben Dallas (Bruce Willis), to protect the world from the Great Evil –- a giant sentient burning space sphere –- and the ruthless Zorg (Gary Oldman).

The film proved to be polarizing among critics when it opened the Cannes Film Festival, with Roger Ebert for the Chicago Sun-Times calling it "one of the great goofy movies," while Todd McCarthy for Variety said it was "ultimately a mess of diverse ingredients that sorely could have used a rigorous screening process to eliminate all the chaff." There's a strong argument on both sides for why this film could fall under the "so bad it's good category," but it is certainly one that needs to be experienced.

35. Silent Running

The theme of environmentalism crops up in space movies perhaps more often than you might think, and the idea that the fragility of life and Earth's ecosystem can so easily be disrupted by a catastrophic global event provides the perfect framing for a story. It's something that seems distant yet also completely possible — and certainly more believable than alien invaders. This idea is explored in 1972's "Silent Running," where ecologist and botanist Freeman Lowell (Bruce Dern) tends to what remains of Earth's plant life, now preserved in enormous domes in space.

With a scaled-back cast, the focus of the film is on the character of Lowell and his particularly charming relationship with two robots, Dewey and Louie. It wears its eco themes on its sleeve, yet it never feels condescending or preachy, and the influence of "Silent Running" is particularly clear in Pixar's "WALL-E," which came more than 35 years later. It isn't as flashy as a lot of other space films, and it lacks the technical prowess of films such as "2001: A Space Odyssey," but there's an undeniable charm to "Silent Running" and a potency to its themes that seems to become more and more relevant over time.

34. Prometheus

The sequels to 1979 classic "Alien" have varied in terms of quality, but one that was favorably received was 2012's "Prometheus." Serving as an origin story of sorts, the film sees a crew embark on a journey to the dark reaches of the universe, hoping to uncover the origins of humanity itself but instead discovering something terrifying. Seeking to answer some of the questions from "Alien" while still retaining enough suspense to keep things interesting, "Prometheus" works as both a highly effective prequel and an entertaining sci-fi horror film that's capable of standing on its own merit.

While it slots neatly into the timeline of the other films in the franchise, "Prometheus" has its own mythology, and it draws its thematic exploration of humanity's relationship with its creators from the Greek Titan that gives the film its name. Utilizing the body horror and well-executed scares that made the original film so iconic, "Prometheus" is a more than worthy inclusion in the franchise.

33. War of the Worlds

It may be a story that's been told over and over again, but Steven Spielberg's adaptation of the H.G. Wells classic retains the sense of paranoia and uncertainty from the source material while also delivering a fresh take in terms of action movie thrills and sheer drama. The destructive capabilities of the imposing alien structures are seen through the eyes of everyman Ray Ferrier (Tom Cruise), who desperately tries to save his family from the threat.

Spielberg's previous dalliances with aliens in his films saw them depicted as passive and communicative in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" and even downright lovable in "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial." It's particularly thrilling therefore to see him focus on a more powerful and violent alien race, while never losing the emotional resonance that made the aforementioned films so memorable. Speaking about his approach to the film, Spielberg said, "I wanted this to be a very personal story about a family fleeing for its life. And a father trying to protect his two kids" ( via USA Today ). With heart and undeniable spectacle, "War of the Worlds" proves once again that no one does it better than the man who invented the blockbuster.

32. Sunshine

The rug-pull of Danny Boyle's "Sunshine" from a relatively straightforward sci-fi epic to a slasher film in space is the thing that elevates it above other similar offerings, and it remains one of the best examples of genre-bending in cinema. The film is set in the year 2057, where the Earth is freezing due to the sun dying, and a group of astronauts is tasked with re-igniting the star and saving the world. While the "mission to save humanity" aspect of "Sunshine" is familiar, the turn that the film takes is what sets it apart.

This duality to the film was also something that turned some critics off, as they found the tonal shift jarring. San Francisco Chronicle critic Mick Lasalle  was particularly scathing, opening his review by saying, "After watching it for 20 minutes, you really don't care if the sun is cooling and all human life is doomed to destruction. Actually, it sounds like a great idea –- anything to end the movie." While the film may have been a difficult sell at the time –- something reflected in the box office takings –- the audacity of Boyle to make a film that sits closer to "2001: A Space Odyssey" than it does "Armageddon" has to be commended.

31. Super 8

This 2011 thriller from director J.J. Abrams lovingly pays tribute to nostalgic classics such as "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" and "Stand by Me," while also being a celebration of the art of moviemaking in itself. In the film, a group of friends are shooting their own zombie movie when they witness a horrific train crash and an alien creature emerging from the chaos. While the action in "Super 8" may take place on Earth, the focus is on the alien invaders and particularly how this is seen through young eyes.

With excellent performances from Elle Fanning and Joel Courtney in particular, "Super 8" evokes the feeling of some of Steven Spielberg's early work, (the director has a producer credit for this film) giving equal importance to blockbuster spectacle and genuine heart and warmth. The film proved to be a surprise commercial success, making over $260 million at the box office, and was praised by critics, including Total Film critic Jamie Graham who remarked, "Only a young Spielberg at the top of his game could beat it."

30. Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood

Few directors capture a moment in time as well as Richard Linklater, and in this charming animated film, he turns his attention to 1969's moon landing. Like most people of the time, Stanley (Milo Coy and Jack Black) is caught up in Apollo fever, and fantasizes about being trained by NASA for a secret lunar visit. Memories of his Houston childhood intertwine with his fanciful dreams of becoming a pint-sized astronaut, tied together by Jack Black's warm narration.

Stan's space adventures might be pure fantasy, but "Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood" taps into the very real wonder of space and this moment in time, which brought so many cultural and scientific possibilities to light. What results is a deeply personal, totally relatable, and wholly different space movie which speaks to universal fascination with worlds beyond our own and all that humanity might achieve.

29. Total Recall

From Paul Verhoeven, the director of "RoboCop" and "Starship Troopers," "Total Recall" is another brain-busting, brutal sci-fi epic. Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a construction worker Douglas Quaid, who decides to have a virtual vacation to Mars by visiting the company "Rekall" -– a corporation that plants false memories into people. However, all does not go to plan, and Quaid discovers life as he knows it is false, and the people who put his memories there want him dead.

Based on the short story "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" by Philip K. Dick, the film explores the themes of memory and identity and –- as all of the best sci-fi films tend to do –- leaves the audience with more questions than answers. The movie's ambiguous ending leaves us wondering if what we've seen is real or not, and this is just one of the many things that give the film its staying power. In the '80s and '90s, Schwarzenegger was one of the most bankable box office stars, and this was reflected in the numbers for "Total Recall," making an impressive $261 million worldwide.

28. Planet of the Apes (1968)

Not to be confused with the much-maligned remake , the 1968 version of "Planet of the Apes" stars Charlton Heston and sees a team of astronauts crash-landing on what appears to be a desolate planet. However, they soon discover a society of highly intelligent apes ... who've assumed dominance over the humans that also live there. With people at the mercy of their new ape overlords, the film offers a chilling vision of a future as the humans' fight to survive and escape. And without saying too much for those who've avoided spoilers, the film's now-iconic ending is one of the best movie moments of all time.

Critically acclaimed when it was released, "Planet of the Apes" was also nominated for two Oscars for Costume Design and Best Original Score, and it won an honorary award for John Chambers for Outstanding Make-up Achievement. The legacy and impact of the film were also recognized in 2001 when it was one of the 25 films inducted into the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress .

27. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

Widely considered by many as the best "Star Trek" movie , 1982's "The Wrath of Khan" is also one of the rare movie sequels that manages to surpass the original. Retaining the spirit –- and the cast –- of the '60s TV show, "The Wrath of Khan" sees the return of an old nemesis who's escaped from exile to get revenge on Kirk (William Shatner). Previously appearing in "Space Seed" -– the 22nd episode of the first season of the original series –- Ricardo Montalbán reprises his role as the legendary villain Khan Noonien Singh. 

"The Wrath of Khan" saw a huge departure from 1979's slow-moving "Star Trek: The Motion Picture," which had not been well-received , and marked the beginning of a quasi-trilogy that concluded with 1986's "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home." The decision to make "The Wrath of Khan" more in tune with what made the original series so popular undoubtedly worked, and the film opened to a positive critical response and an impressive box office, earning $95 million worldwide. In a retrospective review for Empire, critic Angie Errigo credited "The Wrath of Khan" with being the film "that put the franchise on the right track."

26. First Man

Following up the multi-award-winning "La La Land" was no easy feat for Damien Chazelle, who became the youngest person to pick up the Best Director Oscar in the process. Before "First Man" in 2018, all of his films had also had a connection to music, but his biopic of astronaut Neil Armstrong saw him blasting off in a completely different direction. Chazelle's camera expertly captures the awe and quiet majesty of space, as well as the frightening, shaky, deafening realism of being an astronaut, putting us right in the throes of Armstrong and his colleagues. At the same time, it also zeroes in on Armstrong's very personal story, outside of the achievements everyone recognizes him for.

Neil Armstrong -– beautifully portrayed by Ryan Gosling –- is grief-stricken following the loss of his daughter, and this is something he carries with him to those memorable first steps. The film may not have enjoyed the same success that "La La Land" did, but critics raved about it, including Owen Gleiberman for Variety , who called it "revelatory in its realism, so gritty in its physicality, that it becomes a drama of hellbent danger and obsession."

25. Dune (2021)

Before adapting Frank Herbert's seminal sci-fi novel, director Denis Villeneuve had proven his credentials in the genre with "Arrival" and "Blade Runner 2049," making him more than qualified to tackle the gargantuan story –- previously adapted for the big screen by David Lynch in 1984. While 2021's "Dune" only tells half of the story -– the sequel is poised for release in 2023 –- it does a remarkable job of establishing the unique desert world of Arrakis and the importance of the central hero, Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet).

Paul is the heir to the noble House of Atreides, who's thrown into an interplanetary war centered around Arrakis –- the only place where the precious resource known as "spice" can be found. The scope of "Dune" is undoubtedly huge, and while the world-building is a little dizzying at times, the visual spectacle more than makes up for the dense plot. "Dune" proved to be a big box office success, making just shy of $400 million off a budget of $165 million, all while during the COVID-19 pandemic and as the film was simultaneously released on HBO Max. In other words, it's incredibly impressive that it only narrowly missing out on being in the top 10 highest-grossing films of 2021.

24. Ad Astra

Directed by James Gray, 2019's "Ad Astra" sees astronaut Roy McBride (Brad Pitt) embarking on a personal mission across the universe to investigate the source of mysterious power surges that are seemingly linked to the "Lima Project" –- started by his father almost 30 years previously to find intelligent life. While the title, which translates as "to the stars" in Latin, might suggest that the film is about an epic journey through space, it's instead about a much more internal and human journey, focusing on a man reconciling with his absent dad.

The tone of the film perhaps might've surprised some people, and while it hit the right notes critically, the moviegoing public wasn't so taken with it, resulting in a big discrepancy between the critic and audience scores on Rotten Tomatoes . However,  Peter Travers for Rolling Stone spoke particularly favorably about "Ad Astra," saying it has "a grand scope and intimate sense of empathy that is nothing less than enthralling."

Son of the "Starman" David Bowie himself, Duncan Jones made an instant impression on the film world with his impressive debut movie, "Moon," in 2009. Sam Rockwell stars as Sam Bell, a solitary astronaut working on the moon, with Kevin Spacey as the voice of his robot companion GERTY. Along with the astonishing practical effects and a haunting score from Clint Mansell, "Moon" is notable for effectively conveying the loneliness of space. Its focus on the "one man and his robot story" evokes the feeling of films such as "Silent Running," and the calming tones of GERTY call to mind the infamous HAL 9000 from "2001: A Space Odyssey."

While inspired by these space movie greats, "Moon" succeeds in its own way, anchored by a superb performance by Sam Rockwell, whom Jones wrote the part for . With a modest budget of just $5 million , it also proved that a highly effective and emotionally driven space film could be created without the need for a large ensemble cast or expensive special effects, and critic Roger Ebert called it "a superior example of that threatened genre, hard science-fiction."

22. A Trip to the Moon

The oldest film on the list by quite some way, 1902 French silent film, "Le Voyage dans la Lune" ("A Trip to the Moon") is considered by many to be the earliest science fiction film, and it remains one of the most singularly influential pieces of filmmaking to date. 

In part inspired by the writings of Jules Verne, Georges Méliès' 13-minute film sees a group of astronomers who launch themselves at the moon. The anthropomorphization of the moon and the iconic shot of the astronomer's capsule hitting him directly in the eye is perhaps the image most people associate with this film. It also appears to have provided direct inspiration for the character of "the Moon" in surreal British comedy series  "The Mighty Boosh," as well as appearing in Martin Scorsese's "Hugo."

The narrative may be simple, but the film's groundbreaking special effect techniques and its commitment to pure out-of-this-world fantasy are what we have to thank for the array of science fiction films we have today. In the book "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die," Chiara Ferrari says that the film "deserves a legitimate place among the milestones in world cinema history."

21. Galaxy Quest

While many space films bear a resemblance to their counterparts, "Galaxy Quest" wears its identity of a loving and hilarious pastiche of "Star Trek" proudly. In this meta sci-fi comedy, the cast of the canceled fictional TV show "Galaxy Quest" find themselves in a real intergalactic adventure when some visiting aliens believe their show is a documentary. "Galaxy Quest" is so closely aligned with "Star Trek" that in 2013, Trekkies voted it as one of the best "Star Trek movies, with IGN commenting , "While not technically a 'Star Trek' movie, one can certainly see how it could make the cut. It's more 'Star Trek' than a couple of the actual 'Star Trek' movies even."

With references to other movies such as "The Day The Earth Stood Still" and "Event Horizon," the film became a cult classic amongst sci-fi fans, making around $90 million at the box office . "Galaxy Quest" also received favorable reviews from critics including Joe Leydon for Variety , who said the film "remains light and bright as it races along, and never turns nasty or mean-spirited as it satirizes the cliches and cults of 'Star Trek.'"

20. The Martian

Stranded on the red planet, alone and with dwindling resources, botanist Mark Watney (Matt Damon) is forced to use all of his skills to survive while those back on Earth try to figure out a way they can bring him home. Grounded by a superb performance by Matt Damon , "The Martian" showcases the unshakable strength of the human spirit as we see Watney –- through a series of video diaries –- work out how to grow food, travel, and communicate with the limited things available to him on Mars.

What's perhaps surprising about "The Martian" is how funny it is. Experiencing the film largely through these diary entries allows the audience into the headspace of Watney, a character whose dry sense of humor makes him distinctly likable and engaging, with much of the film's focus on his solo survival mission. As well as being a hit with critics and audiences, "The Martian" also achieved recognition at the 88th Academy Awards, picking up seven nominations .

19. Guardians of the Galaxy

Compared to the big-hitters of the Hulk and Captain America, this obscure gang of space misfits wasn't as well-known in the Marvel Universe, and yet their debut big-screen adventure proved to be a huge hit. The motley crew that makes up the "Guardians of the Galaxy" consists of a half-human smuggler, a raccoon-like bounty hunter, and a living humanoid tree amongst others, but there was something about the strange dynamics and the retro space-opera adventure style of the film that just seemed to click.

One of the highlights of "Guardians of the Galaxy" was the killer soundtrack –- almost a character in its own right within the film and the perfect accompaniment to its offbeat tone. With its unique blend of zany humor and fun action set pieces, the Guardians easily slotted into the MCU, providing a refreshing palate cleanser for some of the more serious superheroes. As is to be expected with most Marvel films, "Guardians of the Galaxy" was a huge box office success , making more than $773 million worldwide and spawning a number of sequels and appearances for the characters in the wider MCU.

18. Solaris (1972)

Far superior to the 2002 Hollywood remake directed by Steven Soderbergh , the 1972 version of "Solaris" directed by Andrei Tarkovsky remains a benchmark of the sci-fi genre and one of the best space movies of all time. The film focuses on Kris Kelvin (Donatas Banionis), a psychologist who's tasked with exploring a space station above the planet Solaris and assessing the remaining crew members who've started to display erratic behavior.

While "Solaris" is frequently compared with "2001: A Space Odyssey –- with the two films being just four years apart –- there are vast differences between them, with "Solaris" favoring a more emotional and human approach. The film expertly tackles themes such as grief, loss, memory, and the nature of what it means to exist. This thematic existentialism, set against the backdrop of space, is somehow even more potent, and Tarkovsky masterfully directs his film with the time set aside to contemplate its weighty themes. The pace is slow, and while this may prove frustrating for some, if you have the patience for "Solaris," it's an incredibly rewarding experience.

17. Thor: Ragnarok

While you could make the case for any of Thor's big-screen adventures being included in this list, the spaciest of them all is undoubtedly "Thor: Ragnarok." With director Taika Waititi at the helm, "Thor: Ragnarok" seems to take its cues from "Guardians of the Galaxy" and successfully conveys the goofiness of the character. In a severe turn from the almost Shakespearean seriousness of the previous two "Thor" films, Waititi instead leans into the weirdness, and the result is a highly entertaining superhero flick.

Most of the film takes place on the planet Sakaar, where Thor (Chris Hemsworth) crash-lands after the arrival of his malevolent sister, Hela (Cate Blanchett), who quickly assumes power over Asgard. Described as a "garbage planet," Sakaar is ruled by the eccentric Grandmaster (the incomparable Jeff Goldblum), who forces Thor to compete in his Contest of Champions to earn his freedom. The change of direction from Waititi proved to be a hit with critics, including Sheri Linden for The Hollywood Reporter , who called it "engaging enough to hold the attention of even those uninitiated in the lore of the Nine Realms."

16. Hidden Figures

While almost none of this film takes place in space, it does however focus on the lesser-seen –- but equally important -– people working behind the scenes at NASA, who are just as deserving of the spotlight as the astronauts. The unlikely heroes at the center of "Hidden Figures" are three Black women working for NASA as mathematicians, and it's based on the book of the same name by Margot Lee Shetterly. Starring Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer, and Janelle Monáe, the film is set in the 1960s, during the Space Race, and focuses on the women's struggles and challenges in dealing with racial and gender segregation, with every day a fight to prove themselves worthy.

"Hidden Figures" is a truly inspirational story, and while the film takes some artistic liberties with the true story , it remains a powerful tribute to these trailblazing women. The film proved to be a massive commercial success, making just under $236 million at the box office , and it was recognized at the 89th Academy Awards , with nominations for Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress (for Octavia Spencer), and Best Adapted Screenplay.

15. Arrival

With a second entry for director Denis Villeneuve, 2016's "Arrival" is a film that focuses on Earth, yet it deals with the concept of an alien invasion in a way that feels so fresh and innovative that it is absolutely worthy of a place on this list. Based on "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang, the film sees 12 imposing extraterrestrial structures arrive at key locations across the globe. While the towering spacecraft look threatening, there's no immediate sign of attack from whatever is on board, so linguistics expert Louise Banks (Amy Adams) is one of the people enlisted to make contact with the creatures and establish their intent.

The film is also peppered with scenes of Louise and her daughter, who tragically dies from a terminal disease. However, as the narrative progresses, it becomes evident that the events we're witnessing aren't perhaps as linear as we had been lead to believe, with the cryptic opening line "I used to think this was the beginning of your story" suggesting that time is a fluid concept within the film. "Arrival" is a very different kind of alien invasion story, with a reflective, meditative, and existential tone in place of explosions and heavy action scenes. While Amy Adams' quietly devastating performance was unfortunately overlooked by the Academy, "Arrival" did pick up eight Oscar nominations and one win for Best Achievement in Sound Editing.

14. Star Trek (2009)

Under the watchful eye of director J.J. Abrams, 2009 saw the reboot of the "Star Trek" series with this new film version. Later going on to direct two of the movies in the "Star Wars" sequel trilogy, Abrams is one of the few to have dipped a toe in both of these major sci-fi universes, although he admits he was not a "Trekkie" growing up. Speaking to The Guardian , Abrams said, "['Star Trek'] always felt like a silly, campy thing. I remember appreciating it, but feeling like I didn't get it."

What Abrams does manage with his version of "Star Trek" is to offer an entry point for complete newcomers, resetting the timeline so that the existing, complex continuity doesn't need to come into play, all while staying true to the original series and movies –- even going as far to feature legendary cast member Leonard Nimoy as Spock Prime. As Abrams himself put it in the aforementioned interview, "I was trying to make a movie, not trying to make a 'Trek' movie." In doing so, he created arguably the best "Star Trek" movie, something that was formally acknowledged at the 82nd Academy Awards where it won the Oscar for Best Achievement in Makeup –- and in doing so, becoming the first "Star Trek" movie to win a golden statue.

13. The Right Stuff

While it may take dramatic deviations from the true story that inspired it, "The Right Stuff" tells the stirring tale of the Mercury Seven, the military pilots who trained as astronauts for the first human spaceflight. These seven men had a rough and ready approach, and their daring attitudes and significance in the early stages of the Space Race led to them being treated almost like rock stars. The film also doesn't shy away from the emotional and mental toll they experienced from being willing to risk their lives and the pressures that came from being thrust into the spotlight during an event in history that was as much about politics as it was technical innovation.

It seems surprising given the subject matter, but the film was a box office flop when it came out, making just over $21 million off a budget of around $27 million. It proved to be a hit with the critics, however, with Roger Ebert giving it a perfect four-star rating and naming it as one of the very best films of the 1980s . The movie also received eight nominations at the 56th Academy Awards , winning for Best Film Editing, Best Original Score, Best Sound, and Best Sound Effects Editing.

12. Interstellar

If there's one director who can be relied upon to create a mind-blowing space epic, it's Christopher Nolan. "Interstellar" is set in a dystopian future where the crops are failing and drastic changes in the weather pose a real threat to the planet's survival. When Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) discovers some strange patterns –- which he deduces are coordinates -– in the dust in his daughter's bedroom, his life-altering journey begins. Following the coordinates, he finds Professor John Brand (Michael Caine), who heads up a secret facility trying to investigate wormholes in space that may provide the hope humanity needs to survive.

With a small crew, Cooper pilots the spacecraft Endurance to discover if a habitable planet exists beyond their own. Of course, this being a Christopher Nolan movie, there's a lot more going on besides this seemingly straightforward journey, and the film takes us to unknown dimensions and has us questioning the very nature of reality and time. Beyond the spectacle, "Interstellar" is also a highly emotional journey, with the oft-memed clip of Cooper breaking down in tears being one of the most devastating scenes in a sci-fi film. Accompanied by the unforgettable score by Hans Zimmer, "Interstellar" is a film like no other  and one that's incredibly rich in thematic content.

11. The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)

Alien invasion movies frequently depict the arriving creatures as menacing and a threat to humanity's existence. While there is a place for this sort of film –- and they are undeniably fun to watch –- there's also something to be said for films that take a much more peaceful approach, such as 1951's "The Day the Earth Stood Still." When humanoid extraterrestrial Klaatu (Michael Rennie) and robot Gort (Lock Martin) arrive on Earth, it's not with their weapons directed at the humans, but instead, they come with a cautionary message about the dangers of war and the threat humanity poses to itself if people don't heed their warning.

Set against the backdrop of the Cold War, "The Day the Earth Stood Still" speaks to the suspicion and distrust that existed between people at the time, while also providing a message that's surprisingly relevant to society today. The film's emphasis on receptiveness and the importance of speaking and listening to those who are perhaps different to us is also seen in films such as "Arrival" and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," and despite its dated special effects, "The Day the Earth Stood Still" remains one of the greatest alien films of all time.

10. Gravity

Anchored by a powerful and committed performance from Sandra Bullock, "Gravity" is effectively a survival drama, expertly conveying the feelings of isolation and loneliness that are even more potent given the space setting. Bullock plays Dr. Ryan Stone, who -– in an astonishingly dramatic sequence -– is left adrift in space when some debris hits her shuttle during a routine spacewalk. At times, we see things directly from Dr. Stone's point of view, something that is highly effective, as well as occasionally nauseating and claustrophobic. Director Alfonso Cuarón crafts a singularly personal story, himself describing it as "a drama of a woman in space" ( via BBC ) more than a sci-fi film in the truest sense.

"Gravity" proved to be a huge box office success, earning more than $723 million worldwide , and it became one of the highest-grossing sci-fi films outside of a major franchise. At the 86th Academy Awards , "Gravity" had a staggering 10 nominations and won seven, including the coveted Best Director for Cuarón. "Gravity" remains one of the most visually stunning space movies, with its focus on a sole surviving character giving the film the emotional resonance it needs to stay with you for a long time afterward.

9. Forbidden Planet

There's something incredibly tactile about early science fiction, with the limited special effects, besuited actors in the place of robots and aliens, and elaborate and imaginative set designs. 1956's "Forbidden Planet" is one such film, a ground-breaking sci-fi masterpiece that's frequently cited as one of the most influential of the genre. The film has several "firsts" credited to it, including being the first film to be set entirely on a different planet and the first Hollywood film to have an all-electronic score ( via FilmSite ).

Loosely based on Shakespeare's "The Tempest," "Forbidden Planet" is set in the 23rd century, and the film depicts a team of astronauts sent to explore the planet Altair IV, where a colony was established 20 years prior. They discover only two humans remaining — a scientist and his beautiful daughter – plus Robby the Robot, a figure so significant in the film he's even credited as his character name. Robby marked a huge leap forward both in terms of the extortionate cost to build the prop and the distinct personality he was given. Reportedly costing around $125,000 to build , Robby ended up being a necessary cost as he became "the film's most memorable character and responsible for the cult status the movie enjoys" (via Robot Hall of Fame ). "Forbidden Planet" may look dated now compared to the slick space movies we are accustomed to, but it's campy fun and a must-watch for any fan of the genre.

8. Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Fresh off the back of their grueling shoot together on "Jaws," Steven Spielberg and Richard Dreyfuss teamed up once again for "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." Spielberg's fascination with worlds beyond our own was something that started from a young age and shaped many of his films, including "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial," "War of the Worlds," and of course, this 1977 sci-fi masterpiece. In a 2005 interview, Spielberg said, "I first became aware of the sky when my father pointed out the Perseid meteor shower to me when I was about 6 years old. ... My father really held the key to the universe, which unlocked my imagination" (via The Spokesman-Review ).

Richard Dreyfuss plays Roy Neary, an everyman whose encounter with a UFO leads to an obsession that sees him willing to risk it all to pursue what he saw and make contact. Even at this early point, the music of composer John Williams was already becoming synonymous with Spielberg's films, with "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" marking the third collaboration between them. Not only is Williams' score as wonderful as you'd expect, but it plays an important part in the narrative itself during the memorable sequence when the aliens communicate with the humans through light and sound. Perhaps influenced by Spielberg's childhood fascination with the cosmos, "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" refreshingly depicts the aliens as peaceful and benevolent, resulting in a film that's as optimistic as it is awe-inspiring. Spielberg has rarely been better than this.

7. Apollo 13

As this list proves, there's a huge amount of choice when it comes to films about humanity's desire for space exploration, with a number of them being based on true stories. Arguably the most well-known movie that falls into this category is "Apollo 13," based on the troubled mission of the same name in 1970. Directed by Ron Howard, the film stars Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton, and Kevin Bacon as the team of astronauts whose lives are at risk when their spacecraft is damaged, forcing them to shift their focus to making it safely home rather than their original lunar destination.

While the film made some minor changes to the story, director Ron Howard was also determined to make the film as technically accurate as possible , including making an exact replica of the Mission Control room where the ground staff communicated with the astronauts. While this is a nitpick few people would ever realize, they did slightly alter the famous "Houston, we have a problem" line, with NASA records stating that what was actually said was, "Houston, we've had a problem." Semantics aside, "Apollo 13" proved to be a huge hit with critics and audiences , with the Rotten Tomatoes consensus saying, "Apollo 13 pulls no punches: It's a masterfully told drama from director Ron Howard, bolstered by an ensemble of solid performances."

6. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

There is considerable merit to the 1978 remake, but it's the original 1956 "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" that stands as one of the greatest space movies of all time, and it achieves this by never leaving the planet and hardly showing the invading alien forces at all (well, at least in their "true" form anyway). In the fictional town of Santa Mira, Dr. Miles Bennell (Kevin McCarthy) is alerted to reports from people convinced that their relatives are imposters. As the number of reports grows, Dr. Bennell and his old flame, Becky (Dana Wynter), discover some mysterious seed pods, with each one holding the terrifying ability to produce an identical copy of the human they "invade."

While other films on this list involve traveling to different planets in search of alien life, "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" not only brings the discovery to Earth but adds a terrifying dimension with the concept that the "aliens" look exactly like humans. The film offers some timely commentary on the post-war paranoia that existed in America at the time, particularly the fear surrounding covert espionage from people planted with deliberate intentions of blending in while acting as enemy spies. The 1978 remake leans much further into body horror, but the 1956 version still blurs this line, expertly conveying a sense of dread and quiet horror. In the closing moments, Dr. Bennell runs hysterically along the highway before looking straight into the camera with an ominous warning, in one of the most chilling and effective movie moments of all time.

A sequel rarely manages to match its predecessor, but many consider 1986's "Aliens" to be the best example of this. And indeed, there's only 1% that separates their Tomatometer ratings on Rotten Tomatoes . Where "Alien" could be classed as science fiction horror, "Aliens" sits much closer to a science fiction action flick, with returning hero Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) joining forces with colonial marines on a mission to destroy the aliens who took the lives of the Nostromo crew. Along the way, Ripley encounters an abandoned young girl nicknamed Newt, (Carrie Henn), who she becomes fiercely protective of –- even stepping in to defend her against the ferocious alien queen, which is a scene that gives the film one of its most memorable quotes.

As well as the shift of genres from horror to action, "Aliens" saw a change in director as well, with James Cameron brought on board following his success with "The Terminator" in 1984. Like Cameron's other wildly successful films at the time, "Aliens" took the box office by storm, earning just over $131 million –- around $25 million more than "Alien" made. The success of "Aliens" even extended to the Oscars, where it was nominated for seven awards , including a Best Actress nomination for Sigourney Weaver when films of this genre were rarely recognized by the Academy. While she didn't win, it did pick up prizes for Sound Effects Editing and Visual Effects.

Released in 2008, Pixar's animated adventure about possibly the universe's most adorable robot has proved to be one of the studio's most enduring features. Set in the year 2085, the Earth has been abandoned, and all humans now reside on giant luxury starliners where their every need is catered for and they never need to lift a finger. In contrast, back on Earth, a small trash-compacting robot called WALL-E is tasked with the mammoth job of cleaning up the mess humans left behind after decades of consumerism depleted all natural resources. When another robot named EVE arrives, WALL-E becomes quite enamored with her and shows her a tiny green sapling he found -– something that provides the tiniest shred of hope that life may still be able to exist on Earth.

With the first part of the film largely silent, "WALL-E" relies on our wonderfully expressive robot duo to establish this world. According to the film's director Andrew Stanton, the team achieved this by watching "a [Charlie] Chaplin film and a [Buster] Keaton film and sometimes a Harold Lloyd film every day at lunch" ( via The A.V. Club ) as inspiration for how to tell their story visually. "WALL-E" succeeds in taking an idea that's familiar in the space movie genre and making it palatable enough for children while also engaging enough for adults, with the environmental message at its core being handled with such care that it is impossible not to be charmed by it.

Released in 1979, "Alien" has easily one of the greatest movie taglines, with this ominous warning: "In space, no one can hear you scream." To this day, "Alien" remains one of the best examples of movie genre hybrids, with its pitch-perfect blend of horror and science fiction being incredibly effective. Set on board the space tug Nostromo, a small crew faces unimaginable horror when an alien lifeform begins to attack. In one of the most memorable scenes in the film –- and one that has a certain degree of infamy based on audience reactions –- an alien bursts out of the chest of Kane (John Hurt), much to the surprise of even the cast members as they were deliberately kept in the dark about the effects until it came to shooting.

As well as this landmark, stomach-churning moment, "Alien" gave us one of the greatest screen heroines in the iconic Ripley, (Sigourney Weaver), who remained the lynchpin of the subsequent sequels, even as they began to decline in quality. Surprisingly, when "Alien" was first released, the critical reception was a little mixed, with legendary critic Roger Ebert calling it one of the few "real disappointments" of the genre on a 1980 episode of "Sneak Previews."  However, Ebert was one of the many who reassessed the film decades later, calling it one of "the most influential of modern action pictures" and saying it "still vibrates with a dark and frightening intensity."

2. Star Wars

"Star Wars" fans may continue to argue amongst themselves about the greatest film in the "Skywalker Saga," and while arguably "The Empire Strikes Back" is the best –- at least based on its critical consensus –- it's the first installment in the series that earns a place on this list. Without the original, later re-named as "Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope," there would be no other "Star Wars" films after all. As our first experience of "a galaxy far, far away," "Star Wars" is pretty much unbeatable, introducing us to plucky hero Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) and his quest to save the galaxy from the formidable Darth Vader (voiced by James Earl Jones).

It's easy to forget given how huge the "Star Wars" universe now is, but this film operates effectively as a standalone space romp, wrapping things up neatly enough that it could've easily been the beginning and the end of the story. Of course, that wasn't to be the case, and "Star Wars" completely obliterated box office records, grossing more than $307 million on initial release, and it still stands as the second highest-grossing film of all time when adjusted for inflation. Luke's story is told across the nine-film "Skywalker Saga," but the "Star Wars" universe stretches far beyond this, encompassing books, television series, comics, merchandise, spinoff movies, and so much more. "Star Wars" as an entity is a genuine pop culture phenomenon — one that shows absolutely no signs of stopping anytime soon, and it all started here.

1. 2001: A Space Odyssey

When it comes to space movies, it's hard to find one better than Stanley Kubrick's 1968 magnum opus. Taking us from the dawn of time to "beyond the infinite," the film focuses on man's exploration further into the depths of space, accruing new knowledge about the universe and achieving huge advancements in technology. In what's now one of the most famous match cuts in cinema history, we are hurtled from our ancestors discovering how to use rudimentary tools into space, where people are now able to travel with relative ease across the cosmos. The most well-known segment of the film sees us on board the spacecraft Discovery One on their Jupiter mission. It's here that we meet HAL 9000, who's little more than a red light and a calming voice and yet is one of the scariest film villains –- hugely influential in other films such as "WALL-E" and "Moon."

It isn't surprising that the film was divisive when it was released. Some were quick to call it one of the best films ever made, while others simply didn't understand it. The film's star Keir Dullea said that 250 people walked out of the New York premiere ( via The Hollywood Reporter ). The ending may leave you scratching your heads, but there's no doubt that "2001: A Space Odyssey" is the greatest space movie ever made. Often imitated, frequently parodied, and still influential to this day, it's the film that many aspire to but few can surpass.

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17 Underrated Sci-Fi Movies About Time Travel

Everyone and their mother knows about time travel movies like  Back to the Future  and  Avengers: Endgame , but what about the underrated time travel movies ? It's a sci-fi subgenre with plenty of room to maneuver; there have been virtually countless time travel movies since the dawn of filmmaking. Some films fare better than others - the less said about 2002's  The Time Machine , the better - but we're here to focus on some of the hidden gems and/or underrated films of the genre.

From low-budget gems like  Primer  and  Timecrimes  to big-budget blockbusters like  Men in Black 3  and  Deja Vu . From comedies to anime to the foreign arthouse, time travel keeps reliably cropping up. There's a lot of room to maneuver in this particular subgenre, so get ready to dive deep. Remember to vote up your favorite underrated films about time travel.

Does it count as time travel if the only thing traveling back and forth in time are voices? The answer is an unquestionable yes, and though  Frequency  uses its time travel to tell a by-the-numbers murder mystery, that doesn't make it any less worthy. Buoyed by grounded performances from Dennis Quaid and Jim Caviezel,  Frequency  ends up being more than the sum of its parts. 

There's nothing wrong with a classic thriller, especially when there are time travel hijinks involved. And if you thought Quaid and Caviezel weren't enough, let's bring Andre Braugher and Noah Emmerich to the party. The fact that it was directed by Gregory Hoblit, a man responsible for two of the most underrated thrillers of the past 25 years ( Fracture  and  Primal Fear)  is just a bonus. If you're a fan of any of these Hollywood players or time travel in general, you should give  Frequency a look.

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Upon release in 2006,  Déjà Vu  was a minor hit for Tony Scott, Jerry Bruckheimer, and Denzel Washington. Critics were mixed on the film, and it has ended up as a footnote in the career of one of America's most celebrated actors. But  Déjà Vu  deserves better. Every film that comes out of Hollywood doesn't have to reinvent the wheel, and sometimes you're just in the mood for a competent, well-made drama. This one happens to be about a man who travels back in time to stop a domestic terrorist strike from decimating New Orleans.

If you keep your expectations at a reasonable level, there's a lot to admire about  Déjà Vu . With a cast that features Washington and a host of gifted performers like Val Kilmer, Paula Patton, and Bruce Greenwood as well as competent direction from Scott,  Déjà Vu  is the kind of big-budget filmmaking that has gone away in the wake of Hollywood's neverending hunt for the next blockbuster franchise. Besides, who doesn't like watching Denzel do his thing?

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Predestination

Based on Robert A. Heinlein's 1959 short story, "'—All You Zombies—'", 2014's  Predestination  struggled to make back its minuscule budget of $5 million at the box office upon release and that is a crying shame. Starring Ethan Hawke and Sarah Snook,  Predestination  is a heady sci-fi thriller that's a bit hard to pin down. It's hard to sum up all of its twists and turns in the limited space here, but suffice it to say,  Predestination  is a hell of a trip.

This is a film that demands rewatching in order to decode what it's trying to say with its themes on gender and fate, and even then it can be difficult to decipher at times. But that's okay! The journey is fun enough to make it all work. As Richard Roeper said in his review , "As soon as the credits rolled on Predestination , I wanted to watch it again. It was even more of a mind-dance the second time around."

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Flight of the Navigator

It may be hard to imagine now, but there was a time not so long ago when the Walt Disney Company was floundering. Before Michael Eisner and Frank Wells came in to turn the company around in the mid-'80s, the House of Mouse was in serious financial straits and the creative side of the company wasn't faring much better. One of the first projects released during the duo's successful tenure was 1986's  Flight of the Navigator . This was a few years ahead of  The Little Mermaid  and  Honey, I Shrunk the Kids  setting the box office on fire to bring Disney back to the top, but that doesn't make  Navigator  any less worthy.

Flight of the Navigator  is more a story of accidental time travel due to time dilation more than anything else, as the 12-year-old protagonist travels to a planet 560 light years away, and back, causing him to age just over two hours in a span of eight years. He sets off on an adventure to return back to his own time, and family-friendly fun is had by all. To be frank, it's heady stuff for a kid's movie and the special effects were top-notch for the time. A remake has been rumored for years, but for now let's stick with the undeniable charm of the original, thank you very much.

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The Final Countdown

A few years before the iconic '80s song was released,  The Final Countdown  hit theaters. The film is about a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier that travels through time to the day before Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. It also stars two titans of cinema, Kirk Douglas and Martin Sheen, as they ham it up in a B-movie blockbuster.  The Final Countdown  doesn't take itself too seriously and it doesn't expect its audience to, either. 

The real star of the show is the massive amounts of actual Navy aircraft aboard the real aircraft carrier the filmmakers got to use for the production. The USS Nimitz , which is astonishingly still in use to this very day, served as a shooting location for  The Final Countdown  and it is glorious to behold. There are more than a dozen genuine aircraft vehicles that appear in the film and it lends an authenticity that is hard to fabricate. Come for Douglas and Sheen, stay for some awesome Navy realism.

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It's certainly very shocking that a film called  Timecrimes  has something to do with time travel. But let's just focus on that title for a second, here.  Timecrimes ? That is an awesome title for a movie! And  Timecrimes  itself is a saucy little low-budget thriller. The Spanish film tells the story of a man who becomes part of a time loop thanks to an experimental time travel machine. That's not all, as he also must stop his other selves (who exist in the same plane of existence thanks to the time travel) from continuing to exist.

It's a bit much to wrap your head around, but it all makes sense when you're watching it. Made for under $3 million,  Timecrimes  is an effective little thriller that you can't help but admire. And if that English-language remake ever actually gets off the ground, perhaps the original will find a bigger audience than it did upon release back in 2007.

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Time Bandits

If you're in the mood for a kooky sci-fi fantasy featuring an all-star cast,  Time Bandits  has you covered. Co-written and directed by Monty Python's Terry Gilliam,  Time Bandits  features Sean Connery, John Cleese, Shelley Duvall, Katherine Helmond, and Ian Holm in an adventure that could only be dreamed up by the man who brought you films like  Brazil  and  The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus . Seriously, Time Bandits  is nothing if not a whole mess of fun.

Made for kids (and everyone who used to be kids) with vivid imaginations,  Time Bandits follows 11-year-old Kevin as he becomes embroiled in a loopy time travel escapade. You know what kind of film this is going to be when an armored knight on horseback comes billowing out of Kevin's closet. It is so much fun. And hopefully you like dark comedy, because the ending of  Time Bandits  has a grueling fate in store for Kevin's parents.

• # 212 of 399 on The Best Movies Of The 1980s, Ranked
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Time After Time

At a fundamental level, using time travel as a storytelling device lets the audience suspend disbelief a little bit more than they usually would. Case in point: 1979's  Time After Time . Based on the novel of the same name, this film follows famous British writer H.G. Wells - author of timeless novels like  The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds  - as he uses a time machine to pursue Jack the Ripper into the future of 1979 San Francisco. It sounds more like fantastical fan fiction than a Hollywood studio film, yet here we are.

Though this movie has largely been forgotten to time, it actually works! Obviously, the film isn't to be taken all that seriously, and that ends up working in its favor.  With charismatic leads as affable as Malcolm McDowell and Mary Steenburgen, it's easy to see why it succeeds. It's just delightful. And it's clear to see some people have fond memories of  Time After Time  as Kevin Williamson, of  Scream  and  Dawson's Creek  fame, brought a television version to screens in March 2017.

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Primer , Shane Carruth's 2004 sci-fi debut made on an estimated budget of around $7,000 , was one of the first cult hits of the internet age. A cerebral tale of two men who accidentally discover time travel in a garage and subsequently try to exploit it to earn heaps of money, this micro-budget movie was less of a word-of-mouth success and more of a find-via-blog success. Still,  Primer  feels like an underseen classic in the age of endless streaming services.

Perhaps that has something to do with the density of both the plot and the dialogue.  Primer  doesn't try to hold your hand, and it makes no apologies for it. To do so would be a disservice to both the film and the audience. More about humankind's ethical dilemmas and less about the time travel itself,  Primer  is a movie that is both hard to explain and impossible to forget.

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Some time travel films are light and breezy, meant to delight fans both young and old with capricious tales of science fiction.  Synchronic  is not one of these films. Unless stories about cancer and missing children are "light and breezy" to you. Alas,  Synchronic  remains a criminally underseen film from Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead (who are absolutely perfect choices to direct episodes of Disney+ MCU show  Moon Knight ). 

New Orleans paramedics Steve and Dennis, played by Anthony Mackie and Jamie Dornan, become embroiled in a weird mystery surrounding Dennis's missing daughter and a new drug that somehow causes its users to travel in time. Benson and Moorhead manage to keep everything dark and moody despite the odd premise of the film, and it ends up being a ride worth taking.

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Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey

Bill & Ted's Excellent Excellent Adventure  is the well-regarded original, while  Bill & Ted Face the Music  is the unexpected franchise revival. This means  Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey  is the unfortunate middle child too often dismissed as inferior. In many eyes, however,  Bogus Journey  is unfairly maligned by the movie-going masses. The screenplay may not be as tight as  Excellent Adventure  and it may lack the nostalgic punch of  Face the Music , but don't go sleeping on  Bogus Journey .

It's a juvenile comedy that also spoofs  The Seventh Seal -  what more could you possibly ask for? It has something for everyone, provided you go into a viewing with the right mindset. Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter are as game as they were in  Excellent Adventure,  but it's ultimately William Sadler who steals the show as Death incarnate. Roger Ebert put it best in his positive review , saying it is for "lovers of fantasy, whimsy, and fanciful special effects. This movie is light as a feather and thin as ice in spring, but what it does, it does very nicely."

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Men in Black 3

Men in Black  will forever remain a '90s classic and, well, the less said about  Men in Black II , the better, but  Men in Black 3  has quickly become an underrated movie - even though it grossed a monstrous $624 million at the worldwide box office. The sci-fi threequel follows Will Smith's Agent J as he goes back in time to team up with Agent K's younger self to save the world from evil aliens. 

Josh Brolin is delightful as he does his best young Tommy Lee Jones impression as Agent K, and Jemaine Clement is just tons of fun as the villain, Boris the Animal. Is it a bit derivative of the first two? Yes, but sometimes you're just in the mood for some popcorn comfort food and  Men in Black 3  is certainly that. Besides, it's much better than 2019's soft reboot,  Men in Black: International .

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In the Shadow of the Moon

The problem with releasing a genre picture on Netflix is that they usually get lost in the shuffle. If it isn't something Netflix thinks it can market to a wide audience, it just sort of gets released with little-to-no fanfare. This certainly was the case with 2019's  In the Shadow of the Moon . From director Jim Mickle, known for little-seen critical darlings like  Cold in July  and  We Are What We Are , this sci-fi thriller is about a cop who tries to stop a serial killer who reappears every nine years to strike again.

We don't want to give the twist away as to how this involves time travel, because doing so kind of ruins the whole point of the film. If you've got a Netflix account, it's worth a watch and is just waiting there for you.  The Detroit News ' Adam Graham puts it best : "[W]hen you least expect it, In the Shadow of the Moon  delivers a powerful message about the roots of hate and the dangers it poses to society. Don't let this one stay in the shadows for long."

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What is there to say about  La Jetée ? From the fact that it is a 28-minute-long French film from 1962 almost entirely made up of still images, it's safe to assume all but the most fervent cinephiles haven't seen it. Of course, if you're game for its aesthetic, all there is a lot to love about  La Jetée.  And if you're a fan of  12 Monkeys , a film it directly inspired , then you're sure to have a good time.

The film follows a prisoner in post-apocalyptic Paris right after World War III as he is used as a test subject in a time travel experiment. Throughout the events of the film, the protagonist is sent both back in time before WWIII and way out into the future, where he meets a race of technologically advanced beings. Had it been shot traditionally, it isn't hard to see an alternate timeline in which  La Jetée  became one of the most popular foreign films of all time.

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The Girl Who Leapt Through Time

Time travel and anime seem like they were made for each other - though couching the time travel in a coming-of-age story for young adults is a bit of a twist on the formula that's easy to get behind. And with a title like  The Girl Who Leapt Through Time , you kind of know what you're getting yourself into. This film is your average young adult fare with a sci-fi twist, which totally works.

There's not much else to say about  The Girl Who Leapt Through Time  without giving the whole plot away. It's a film that was pretty much universally adored by critics and audiences alike as its infectious energy can't be denied. If you recall the plights of your teenage years with any sort of whimsy, jump into  The Girl Who Leapt Through Time . You'll be glad you did.

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The History of Time Travel

The History of Time Travel  is a 2014 movie written and directed by then-film student Ricky Kennedy. It's a mockumentary that tells the story of the men who created the world’s first time machine and the unintended ramifications it has on world events. If this were all the film was, there wouldn't be much more to talk about. But  The History of Time Travel has more up its sleeve than being a fake documentary about false events.

The brilliance of the film resides in its clever use of time travel ramifications. As the film goes on, subtle changes begin to appear on screen as more information about the time travelers' exploits is revealed. Of course, the people being interviewed don't realize these changes are happening to them because, why would they? We wouldn't be aware of changes to our past because they would just become our history (at least, in the universe of this film).  The History of Time Travel  is quite low-budget and it shows, but it is still a rollicking good time for anyone in the mood for a new take on time travel.

Je t'aime, je t'aime

2001: A Space Odyssey  is often heralded as a film before its time - and rightly so - but there was another 1968 sci-fi film that dared to break the mold and challenge viewers to think outside the box. A supposed influence on Michel Gondry's landmark  Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind , Alain Resnais and Jacques Sternberg's  Je t'aime, je t'aime  is about a suicidal man who volunteers for an experiment that causes him to experience his past through a series of disjointed memories.

Je t'aime, je t'aime  is not a happy film. By the end, we discover that our protagonist has killed his terminally ill partner to ease her pain and he ends the film about to perish from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. We do not get to see whether he actually makes it or not, but that is beside the point.  Je t'aime, je t'aime  is a heady film about love, loss, and mental illness. It is both a relic of its time as well as highly forward-thinking in both its subject matter and its technique.

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Georgetown Hoyas News

The 26 funniest space movies of all time

With all the out-of-this-world movies being released in theaters and on streaming nowadays, and us being big fans of comedies, we started thinking about all the funny space-related films throughout history. In response, we compiled a list of movies that feature astronauts, alien invaders, and interplanetary travel and picked the ones that made us laugh the most - whether the humor was intentional or not. Here are the 26 funniest space movies of all time.

Abbott and Costello Go to Mars (1953)

The classic comedic duo Abbott and Costello went to Hollywood in 1945, met Frankenstein in 1948 and Boris Karloff in 1949, but in 1953, they blasted off to Mars. However, despite the film’s title, Bud and Lou never actually made it to the red planet in this film, and instead accidentally ended up in New Orleans and later landed on Venus (uh, don't think about the science). As usual, plenty of laughs followed them on their journey.

Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959)

  Was Ed Wood’s 1959 sci-fi film "Plan 9 from Outer Space" any good? No. Was it a comedy? Nope. Yet the combination of these two facts make "Plan 9" unintentionally hilarious, as it was so terrible that it was actually enjoyable. A lot of this can be blamed on the film’s poor transition into full-screen formatting, which ludicrously exposed boom microphones, stage equipment, and even scripts from which the actors were reading off-screen. At times, the dialogue is also terrible, the acting is questionable, and the editing is haphazard. Be sure to locate the full-screen version of the film, and then get ready to laugh until you hurt.

Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964)

Although the 1964 sci-fi film "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" is often listed as a comedy, we assure you that this wasn’t the original intention. The result, however, was a laughably bad film in the same vein as the aforementioned "Plan 9 from Outer Space." The difference with "Santa Claus" is that you can’t blame all the bad press on mistakes and slip-ups. The premise, the script, the acting, and the special effects never stood a chance, and the result was simply terrible. Or terribly hilarious, at best.

Dark Star (1974)

Years before "Assault on Precinct 13," "Halloween," and "The Thing," John Carpenter made his feature-film directorial debut with "Dark Star," an oft-forgotten 1974 science-fiction film. Although originally mismarketed as a drama, “Dark Star” is more of a satire or black comedy, and its initial mediocre critical reception was eventually replaced with a cult following.

Airplane II: The Sequel (1982)

"Airplane II: The Sequel" wasn’t quite as funny as the original, but then again, few films are. The movie managed to reunite Robert Hays, Julie Hagerty, Lloyd Bridges, and Peter Graves for another round of laughs, except this time, the gang flew into trouble on a spaceship headed for the Moon. And this one also featured William Shatner!

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984)

What’s that? You’ve never heard of "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension"? You’re not alone. Not many people knew what to make of the sci-fi romantic adventure comedy when it was first released, but it has since become a cult film that owns a 71% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The cast includes Peter Weller, Ellen Barkin, John Lithgow, Jeff Goldblum, and Christopher Lloyd - and Lithgow still considers it one of his favorite films. Not surprising, considering the fact that "Buckaroo Banzai" is absurdly silly, absurdly smart, and absurdly entertaining.

Howard the Duck (1986)

1986’s "Howard the Duck" didn’t make this list because of its intentional humor, even though it’s a sci-fi comedy. The film is here because it’s so bad - from the plot and dialogue to the acting and special effects - that it’s actually hilarious. It was nominated for seven Razzies, almost tanked the career of star Lea Thompson , and only made $15 million versus a budget of $30 million - making it one of the biggest box-office bombs of all time. It has since garnered a cult following.

Spaceballs (1987)

To simply call Mel Brooks’ 1987 comedy "Spaceballs" a spoof of "Star Wars" doesn’t do justice to the brilliance of the film. Brooks (who also starred in the film) teamed up with Rick Moranis, Bill Pullman, John Candy, Daphne Zuniga, Joan Rivers, and Dıck Van Patten to perfectly parody everything from "Star Wars" and "Star Trek" to "Planet of the Apes" and "Alien." Although the film received a mixed reception from critics, most audiences found it absolutely hilarious, and it was even praised by George Lucas himself.

Earth Girls Are Easy (1988)

"Earth Girls Are Easy" is silly, goofy, and predictable... just like a lot of other ‘80s films. However, the musical romantic-comedy never attempted to be anything more - nor did it need to be - and that was enough for most audiences and critics, including Roger Ebert and Leonard Maltin. The sci-fi film was also aided by its star-studded cast, which included Geena Davis, Jeff Goldblum, Jim Carrey, Damon Wayans, and Julie Brown, who also co-wrote the screenplay.

Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988)

The 1988 horror-comedy "Killer Klowns from Outer Space" wasn’t critically praised initially, but it has since reached cult film status, and a planned sequel has been discussed for decades. The original film stars Grant Cramer and Suzanne Snyder, who attempt to protect their town from homicidal alien invaders dressed as clowns. It was written, directed, and produced by the Chiodo Brothers, the same puppeteers behind 2004’s "Team America: World Police."

Coneheads (1993)

The 1993 "Saturday Night Live" spin-off comedy "Coneheads" didn’t get a whole lot of positive reviews from critics, but it sure got a lot of star power... and we’re not just referring to the scenes with interplanetary travel. The star-studded cast includes Dan Aykroyd, Jane Curtin, Michael McKean, Chris Farley, David Spade, Sinbad, Michael Richards, Jason Alexander, Phil Hartman, Ellen DeGeneres, Jon Lovitz , and many others - including a large number of additional "SNL" alumni.

Mars Attacks! (1996)

Although we’ll admit that some of us were frightened by the creepy, large-headed aliens from Tim Burton’s 1996 comedy "Mars Attacks," it was definitely a funny film in retrospect - even with the abundance of freaky space violence. Plus, the ensemble cast included superstars such as Jack Nicholson , Glenn Close, Annette Bening, Pierce Brosnan , Michael J. Fox, Martin Short, and Danny DeVito, so it was hard to go wrong. In fact, the film apparently just missed an Oscar nomination for Best Visual Effects.

Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie (1996)

  Technically, all the "Mystery Science Theater 3000" episodes take place in space, as Mike, Crow, and Tom Servo are in a constant state of imprisonment in the Satellite of Love high above Earth’s atmosphere. The hilarious 1996 film version of the show, however, is a double-whammy, as the trio is forced to watch a film that also takes place in space. (1955's "This Island Earth," for the record.)

Space Jam (1996)

"Space Jam" grossed a whopping $230 million worldwide, making it the most successful basketball film of all time, and its soundtrack was certified 6x Platinum as well. Although the critical reception was mixed, the cast of assorted Looney Tunes characters, Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Charles Barkley , Patrick Ewing, and numerous other NBA stars carried the comedy throughout. Oh, and Bill Murray . We must never forget about Bill Murray. (A sequel was released in 2021, but it was essentially a flop.)

Men in Black (1997)

If aliens really did try to settle on Earth undetected, we’re not sure if Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones would be the best men to handle the job... but at least it would be entertaining to watch. Barry Sonnenfeld’s 1997 film holds a 92% freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes, raked in more than $250 million at the U.S. box office alone, spawned three sequels and an animated series, and boosted Ray-Ban sunglasses sales by $5 million. You know the difference between this and other space films? They made it look good.

RocketMan (1997)

The 1997 sci-fi comedy "RocketMan" was crude, childish, and a catastrophe in terms of scientific accuracy... but what do you expect from a Disney film starring Harland Williams? We expected to laugh, and that’s exactly what happened (especially when we were kids). What we didn’t expect, however, was the film receiving three out of four stars from Roger Ebert.

Galaxy Quest (1999)

When a faraway alien race needs saving, Tim Allen, Alan Rickman, Sigourney Weaver , Tony Shalhoub, Sam Rockwell, and Daryl Mitchell are called in to save the day... even though they’re not astronauts, they’re actors who played astronauts on TV. Although it sounds like the plot could easily get too cheesy, 1999’s "Galaxy Quest" actually received quite a few laughs, quite a bit of critical praise, and a 90% freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Muppets from Space (1999)

If you thought we’d ever leave the Muppets off a list, then you are sadly mistaken. The intergalactic antics of Kermit, Miss Piggy, Fozzy Bear, and Gonzo were on point in this 1999 comedy, which was the sixth feature film starring the Muppets and the first with an original Muppet-focused plot since the passing of Jim Henson. "Muppets from Space" was the last installment to involve legendary puppeteer Frank Oz.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (2005)

Originally a radio comedy created by Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy" was also converted into a stage show, novels, comic books, a TV show, a video game, and, in 2005, a feature film. The movie starred Martin Freeman, Sam Rockwell, Mos Def, Zooey Deschanel, Bill Nighy , Alan Rickman, and Stephen Fry and made $104 million worldwide - much of which was thanks to the franchise’s devoted cult following. Sadly, Adams died in 2001, just before production of the film began.

Monsters vs. Aliens (2009)

  It’s hard to top a cast that includes Reese Witherspoon, Paul Rudd , Stephen Colbert, Kiefer Sutherland, Seth Rogen , Rainn Wilson, Amy Poehler, Hugh Laurie , and Will Arnett, even if "Monsters vs. Aliens" only used their voices. The 2009 DreamWorks film received positive reviews overall, grossed more than $381 million worldwide, and boasted plenty of laughs throughout. Rogen’s blob-like B.O.B. character easily provided the most consistent chuckles.

Despicable Me (2010)

You might not immediately think of 2010’s "Despicable Me" as a space movie, but remember: Gru’s mission throughout the entire film was to steal the moon, and he eventually blasted off into space to achieve this goal. Plus, this animated film is a riot; it stars comedians Steve Carell, Jason Segel, Russell Brand , Kristen Wiig, and Will Arnett (and actress Miranda Cosgrove), and its $543 million haul at the worldwide box office makes “Despicable Me” one of the most successful animated films of all time.

Paul (2011)

"Paul" was the third buddy comedy to feature Simon Pegg and Nick Frost in the lead roles. Seth Rogen also starred as the voice of Paul, an alien who is attempting to return to his mothership while avoiding Secret Service agents, played by Jason Bateman, Bill Hader, Joe Lo Truglio, and Sigourney Weaver. Although it doesn’t quite meet the standard set by "Shaun of the Dead" and "Hot Fuzz," the 2011 film generally received positive reviews for its original writing and satirization of everything from "E.T." to "Star Wars."

Men in Black 3 (2012)

Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones returned to battle evil aliens in 2012’s "Men in Black 3," which also added Josh Brolin , Jemaine Clement, and Emma Thompson to the cast. Although not nearly as funny as the first film, “MIB 3” was generally praised and earned a rightful place on this list, which is more than we can say for its predecessor, 2002’s “Men in Black II.”

The World’s End (2013)

After Simon Pegg and Nick Frost’s "Paul" failed to reach the bar set by "Shaun of the Dead" and "Hot Fuzz," the duo reunited with director/screenwriter Edgar Wright. The result was 2013’s "The World’s End," a film about (spoilers!) an alien race that invades Earth and slowly replaces humans with identical androids. The reunion was successful, as the bar-hopping sci-fi flick currently holds an 89% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

"Guardians of the Galaxy" kept a much lighter, cheekier tone than a lot of other recent superhero movies, leading to a surprising amount of laughs for many theatergoers. Of course, that’s somewhat to be expected with funnyman Chris Pratt in the lead role. The 2014 James Gunn film also earned critical praise, won numerous awards, grossed more than $773 million worldwide, and spawned a sequel in 2017.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)

Speaking of the "Guardians of the Galaxy" sequel, here it is! The full cast returned for this installment, which also added Kurt Russell and Sylvester Stallone. It wasn't received quite as well as the original but avoided the sophomore slump to the tune of an 85% freshness rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

More must-reads:

• 20 celebrity deaths that were written into their TV shows

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15 Best Time Travel Movies & Shows to Stream Now

May 6, 2022

Time travel, much like magic wands or fairy godmothers, seems like something out of stories and not real life. While that may ( or may not ) be true, that doesn’t make it any less fascinating. 

Even though the events in time travel movies and shows are improbable (though not proven to be entirely impossible ), getting the chance to go back and fix wrong decisions or save someone important is something we all have fantasized about. 

Whether you’re into infinite time loops or races to prevent apocalyptic events, Hulu is the place to find some of the best time travel movies and shows.

Time Travel Movies on Hulu

In 2074, the mob has gotten… creative in how they handle hits. When they’re ready to “get rid of” someone, they simply send them to the past where specialized assassins, called “Loopers,” are waiting in the middle of the desert to finish the job. Eventually, every looper has to “close the loop” or, in other words, murder their future self to protect the secrets of their trade—but what happens when a looper’s future self outsmarts them?

Watch: Looper

Fast forward 45 years into the future. The earth has been destroyed by climate change, forcing humanity to live on artificial oxygen that is causing an incurable illness in humans. The only hope for the future of humankind comes in the form of one message: “Send Ethan Whyte.” In this pulse-pounding sci-fi thriller , Ethan Whyte (Kodi Smit-McPhee), an underground tunnel worker, is called to the future to finish the job his scientist father started.   

Watch: 2067

Demolition Man

In 1996, Simon Phoenix (Wesley Snipes), one of the world’s most prolific criminals and his arresting officer, John Spartan (Sylvester Stalone), aka “The Demolition Man,” were sentenced to life in a cryogenic prison meant to reprogram their violent nature. Decades later, in a utopian, post-apocalyptic society, Phoenix is unfrozen for a parole hearing and escapes. With a police force that has forsaken violence in any form, no one is able to catch him—no one except The Demolition Man.

Watch: Demolition Man

Peggy Sue Got Married

Back in high school, Peggy Sue (Kathleen Turner) was completely infatuated with her boyfriend (now husband), Charlie (Nicholas Cage). However, just before their high school reunion, Charlie runs off with another woman, sparking a divorce and forcing Peggy Sue to rethink her entire life. When Peggy Sue passes out at the reunion, she wakes up in her high school gymnasium—as a senior in high school. With the chance to live her life over again, will Peggy Sue make the same choices, romantic and otherwise?   

Watch: Peggy Sue Got Married

Time Loop Movies

Groundhog day.

We can’t talk about time loops without mentioning the most iconic time loop movie ever— Groundhog Day . 

Disgruntled weatherman Phil Conners (Bill Murray) is sent to Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania to cover Groundhog Day and report on whether or not the groundhog sees his shadow. Upset by the assignment, Phil is glad when the day is over. But, when he wakes up in the morning and it’s Groundhog Day…again, Phil decides to use it to his advantage—until he realizes he could be stuck in this time loop forever.

Watch: Groundhog Day *

*Groundhog Day requires STARZ® on Hulu add-on subscription.

Palm Springs

When Nyles (Andy Samberg) and Sarah (Cristin Milioti) have an interrupted encounter while at a wedding in Palm Springs, they find themselves waking up to the same day over and over again. When faced with this situation, there’s only one thing to do—whatever you want. 

In this outlandish and hilarious romantic comedy , Nyles and Sarah have free reign over the wedding day—and they make the most of it. However, eventually even a rule-free life has to come to an end. The only problem is that no one knows how to end it.

Watch: Palm Springs

In one of the best movies on Hulu , former special forces agent, Roy Pulver (Frank Grillo) gets trapped in a time loop that forces him to relive his assassination day over and over again. As he fights through each somewhat new day, Roy discovers a secret government project that may explain his repeated death. The more times he dies, the closer he gets to discovering the truth, saving his ex-wife and son, and staying alive.

Watch: Boss Level

Time Travel TV Shows

While you may not be able to watch time travel favorite, Manifest on Hulu anymore, that doesn’t mean all time travel shows are in the past. From Hulu Original Future Man , to Rick and Morty , check out our favorite time travel shows streaming now on Hulu.

From Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg comes the Hulu Original Series , Future Man , which follows Josh Futturman, aka “Future Man” (see what we did there?), in his attempt to save the human race. 

Josh (Josh Hutcherson), a janitor in a medical research facility, is an avid gamer—but when he beats “Bionic Wars,” he learns his favorite futuristic video game isn’t just futuristic, it is the future. When tasked with saving the world before it’s wiped out, Josh must use his gaming skills to defeat his former boss and protect humankind from a terrible fate.

Watch: Future Man

Cole (Aaron Stanford), a time traveler from a post-apocalyptic future, has traveled back in time in hopes of preventing a deadly plague that wiped out 7 billion people. The virus was released by an elusive organization called the “Army of the 12 Monkeys,” whose leader, “The Witness,” is a mystery and the key to saving humanity. Cole, with the help of renowned virologist Cassie Railly (Amanda Schull), must find The Witness and prevent him from unleashing the virus before it’s too late.  

Watch: 12 Monkeys

On November 22, 1963, the world was rocked by the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Based on the novel by Stephen King, 11.22.63 follows Jake Epping (James Franco) as he’s asked to do the impossible—travel back in time to solve the mystery of JFK’s death and perhaps, even prevent it from happening. However, changing the course of history can have devastating effects on the present. Can Jake solve the mystery without disrupting the future? 

Watch: 11.22.63

Time travel is real. The past can be altered. The future is in danger. 

When scientist Lucy Preston (Abigail Spencer) discovers that time travel is real and, at the same time, that a man has stolen a time machine and is going back in time to change history, her world is turned upside down overnight. Alongside a soldier and a history professor, Lucy travels to the past in order to apprehend the man and save the future from a catastrophe before everything is erased.

Watch: Timeless

Rick & Morty

Rick, a scientific genius and alcoholic, and Morty, Rick’s average teenage grandson, embark on dangerous and mind-bending adventures into alien worlds , alternate dimensions, and infinite universes. The adult animated show follows the pair as they cause mayhem and get into trouble across the multiverse and at home. 

Watch: Rick and Morty

Time Travel Anime

Japanese anime , InuYasha , follows Kagome Higurashi, a 15-year-old girl living at a historic Japanese shrine, who just so happens to be the reincarnation of ancient priestess Kikyo, guardian of the Shikon no Tama, or Jewel of Four Souls. When Kagome accidentally falls into a well, she’s thrust back to feudal Japan in order to help young half-demon InuYasha find the scattered shards of the Shikon Jewel and protect it from the demons who seek it.   

Watch: InuYasha

Steins;Gate

Okabe Rintarou, or self-proclaimed Crazy Mad Scientist Hououin Kyouma, and his team of university science students are working on a device to send messages to the past. Much to their surprise, it works! Once the device is operational, Okabe and his team must stop an evil organization from carrying out their diabolical plans.

Watch: Steins;Gate

29-year-old Satoru Fujinuma is a struggling manga artist with a secret and strange ability—he can travel back in time to the moment before something life-threatening happens and is forced to continue doing so until the event is prevented. 

In this limited series , Satoru and his mother are in a deadly accident. In hopes of saving his mother, Satoru travels back in time, but finds himself traveling all the way back to his childhood, where he uncovers a series of events that led to his mother’s death.

Watch: Erased

Feel like traveling back in time yourself? We’ve got you covered—check out the nostalgic blasts from the past in our watchlists featuring shows from the 80s , 90s , 2000s , and old-school MTV.

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Time travel: Is it possible?

Science says time travel is possible, but probably not in the way you're thinking.

Albert Einstein's theory

• General relativity and GPS
• Wormhole travel
• Alternate theories

Science fiction

Is time travel possible? Short answer: Yes, and you're doing it right now — hurtling into the future at the impressive rate of one second per second. 

You're pretty much always moving through time at the same speed, whether you're watching paint dry or wishing you had more hours to visit with a friend from out of town. 

But this isn't the kind of time travel that's captivated countless science fiction writers, or spurred a genre so extensive that Wikipedia lists over 400 titles in the category "Movies about Time Travel." In franchises like " Doctor Who ," " Star Trek ," and "Back to the Future" characters climb into some wild vehicle to blast into the past or spin into the future. Once the characters have traveled through time, they grapple with what happens if you change the past or present based on information from the future (which is where time travel stories intersect with the idea of parallel universes or alternate timelines). 

Related: The best sci-fi time machines ever

Although many people are fascinated by the idea of changing the past or seeing the future before it's due, no person has ever demonstrated the kind of back-and-forth time travel seen in science fiction or proposed a method of sending a person through significant periods of time that wouldn't destroy them on the way. And, as physicist Stephen Hawking pointed out in his book " Black Holes and Baby Universes" (Bantam, 1994), "The best evidence we have that time travel is not possible, and never will be, is that we have not been invaded by hordes of tourists from the future."

Science does support some amount of time-bending, though. For example, physicist Albert Einstein 's theory of special relativity proposes that time is an illusion that moves relative to an observer. An observer traveling near the speed of light will experience time, with all its aftereffects (boredom, aging, etc.) much more slowly than an observer at rest. That's why astronaut Scott Kelly aged ever so slightly less over the course of a year in orbit than his twin brother who stayed here on Earth. 

Related: Controversially, physicist argues that time is real

There are other scientific theories about time travel, including some weird physics that arise around wormholes , black holes and string theory . For the most part, though, time travel remains the domain of an ever-growing array of science fiction books, movies, television shows, comics, video games and more. 

Einstein developed his theory of special relativity in 1905. Along with his later expansion, the theory of general relativity , it has become one of the foundational tenets of modern physics. Special relativity describes the relationship between space and time for objects moving at constant speeds in a straight line. 

The short version of the theory is deceptively simple. First, all things are measured in relation to something else — that is to say, there is no "absolute" frame of reference. Second, the speed of light is constant. It stays the same no matter what, and no matter where it's measured from. And third, nothing can go faster than the speed of light.

From those simple tenets unfolds actual, real-life time travel. An observer traveling at high velocity will experience time at a slower rate than an observer who isn't speeding through space. 

While we don't accelerate humans to near-light-speed, we do send them swinging around the planet at 17,500 mph (28,160 km/h) aboard the International Space Station . Astronaut Scott Kelly was born after his twin brother, and fellow astronaut, Mark Kelly . Scott Kelly spent 520 days in orbit, while Mark logged 54 days in space. The difference in the speed at which they experienced time over the course of their lifetimes has actually widened the age gap between the two men.

"So, where[as] I used to be just 6 minutes older, now I am 6 minutes and 5 milliseconds older," Mark Kelly said in a panel discussion on July 12, 2020, Space.com previously reported . "Now I've got that over his head."

General relativity and GPS time travel

The difference that low earth orbit makes in an astronaut's life span may be negligible — better suited for jokes among siblings than actual life extension or visiting the distant future — but the dilation in time between people on Earth and GPS satellites flying through space does make a difference. 

Read more: Can we stop time?

The Global Positioning System , or GPS, helps us know exactly where we are by communicating with a network of a few dozen satellites positioned in a high Earth orbit. The satellites circle the planet from 12,500 miles (20,100 kilometers) away, moving at 8,700 mph (14,000 km/h). 

According to special relativity, the faster an object moves relative to another object, the slower that first object experiences time. For GPS satellites with atomic clocks, this effect cuts 7 microseconds, or 7 millionths of a second, off each day, according to the American Physical Society publication Physics Central .  

Read more: Could Star Trek's faster-than-light warp drive actually work?

Then, according to general relativity, clocks closer to the center of a large gravitational mass like Earth tick more slowly than those farther away. So, because the GPS satellites are much farther from the center of Earth compared to clocks on the surface, Physics Central added, that adds another 45 microseconds onto the GPS satellite clocks each day. Combined with the negative 7 microseconds from the special relativity calculation, the net result is an added 38 microseconds. 

This means that in order to maintain the accuracy needed to pinpoint your car or phone — or, since the system is run by the U.S. Department of Defense, a military drone — engineers must account for an extra 38 microseconds in each satellite's day. The atomic clocks onboard don’t tick over to the next day until they have run 38 microseconds longer than comparable clocks on Earth.

Given those numbers, it would take more than seven years for the atomic clock in a GPS satellite to un-sync itself from an Earth clock by more than a blink of an eye. (We did the math: If you estimate a blink to last at least 100,000 microseconds, as the Harvard Database of Useful Biological Numbers does, it would take thousands of days for those 38 microsecond shifts to add up.) 

This kind of time travel may seem as negligible as the Kelly brothers' age gap, but given the hyper-accuracy of modern GPS technology, it actually does matter. If it can communicate with the satellites whizzing overhead, your phone can nail down your location in space and time with incredible accuracy. 

Can wormholes take us back in time?

General relativity might also provide scenarios that could allow travelers to go back in time, according to NASA . But the physical reality of those time-travel methods is no piece of cake. 

Wormholes are theoretical "tunnels" through the fabric of space-time that could connect different moments or locations in reality to others. Also known as Einstein-Rosen bridges or white holes, as opposed to black holes, speculation about wormholes abounds. But despite taking up a lot of space (or space-time) in science fiction, no wormholes of any kind have been identified in real life. 

Related: Best time travel movies

"The whole thing is very hypothetical at this point," Stephen Hsu, a professor of theoretical physics at the University of Oregon, told Space.com sister site Live Science . "No one thinks we're going to find a wormhole anytime soon."

Primordial wormholes are predicted to be just 10^-34 inches (10^-33 centimeters) at the tunnel's "mouth". Previously, they were expected to be too unstable for anything to be able to travel through them. However, a study claims that this is not the case, Live Science reported . 

The theory, which suggests that wormholes could work as viable space-time shortcuts, was described by physicist Pascal Koiran. As part of the study, Koiran used the Eddington-Finkelstein metric, as opposed to the Schwarzschild metric which has been used in the majority of previous analyses.

In the past, the path of a particle could not be traced through a hypothetical wormhole. However, using the Eddington-Finkelstein metric, the physicist was able to achieve just that.

Koiran's paper was described in October 2021, in the preprint database arXiv , before being published in the Journal of Modern Physics D.

Alternate time travel theories

While Einstein's theories appear to make time travel difficult, some researchers have proposed other solutions that could allow jumps back and forth in time. These alternate theories share one major flaw: As far as scientists can tell, there's no way a person could survive the kind of gravitational pulling and pushing that each solution requires.

Infinite cylinder theory

Astronomer Frank Tipler proposed a mechanism (sometimes known as a Tipler Cylinder ) where one could take matter that is 10 times the sun's mass, then roll it into a very long, but very dense cylinder. The Anderson Institute , a time travel research organization, described the cylinder as "a black hole that has passed through a spaghetti factory."

After spinning this black hole spaghetti a few billion revolutions per minute, a spaceship nearby — following a very precise spiral around the cylinder — could travel backward in time on a "closed, time-like curve," according to the Anderson Institute. 

The major problem is that in order for the Tipler Cylinder to become reality, the cylinder would need to be infinitely long or be made of some unknown kind of matter. At least for the foreseeable future, endless interstellar pasta is beyond our reach.

Time donuts

Theoretical physicist Amos Ori at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel, proposed a model for a time machine made out of curved space-time — a donut-shaped vacuum surrounded by a sphere of normal matter.

"The machine is space-time itself," Ori told Live Science . "If we were to create an area with a warp like this in space that would enable time lines to close on themselves, it might enable future generations to return to visit our time."

Amos Ori is a theoretical physicist at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel. His research interests and publications span the fields of general relativity, black holes, gravitational waves and closed time lines.

There are a few caveats to Ori's time machine. First, visitors to the past wouldn't be able to travel to times earlier than the invention and construction of the time donut. Second, and more importantly, the invention and construction of this machine would depend on our ability to manipulate gravitational fields at will — a feat that may be theoretically possible but is certainly beyond our immediate reach.

Time travel has long occupied a significant place in fiction. Since as early as the "Mahabharata," an ancient Sanskrit epic poem compiled around 400 B.C., humans have dreamed of warping time, Lisa Yaszek, a professor of science fiction studies at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, told Live Science .  

Every work of time-travel fiction creates its own version of space-time, glossing over one or more scientific hurdles and paradoxes to achieve its plot requirements. 

Some make a nod to research and physics, like " Interstellar ," a 2014 film directed by Christopher Nolan. In the movie, a character played by Matthew McConaughey spends a few hours on a planet orbiting a supermassive black hole, but because of time dilation, observers on Earth experience those hours as a matter of decades. 

Others take a more whimsical approach, like the "Doctor Who" television series. The series features the Doctor, an extraterrestrial "Time Lord" who travels in a spaceship resembling a blue British police box. "People assume," the Doctor explained in the show, "that time is a strict progression from cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff." 

Long-standing franchises like the "Star Trek" movies and television series, as well as comic universes like DC and Marvel Comics, revisit the idea of time travel over and over. 

Related: Marvel movies in order: chronological & release order

Here is an incomplete (and deeply subjective) list of some influential or notable works of time travel fiction:

Books about time travel:

• Rip Van Winkle (Cornelius S. Van Winkle, 1819) by Washington Irving
• A Christmas Carol (Chapman & Hall, 1843) by Charles Dickens
• The Time Machine (William Heinemann, 1895) by H. G. Wells
• A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (Charles L. Webster and Co., 1889) by Mark Twain
• The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (Pan Books, 1980) by Douglas Adams
• A Tale of Time City (Methuen, 1987) by Diana Wynn Jones
• The Outlander series (Delacorte Press, 1991-present) by Diana Gabaldon
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Bloomsbury/Scholastic, 1999) by J. K. Rowling
• Thief of Time (Doubleday, 2001) by Terry Pratchett
• The Time Traveler's Wife (MacAdam/Cage, 2003) by Audrey Niffenegger
• All You Need is Kill (Shueisha, 2004) by Hiroshi Sakurazaka

Movies about time travel:

• Planet of the Apes (1968)
• Superman (1978)
• Time Bandits (1981)
• The Terminator (1984)
• Back to the Future series (1985, 1989, 1990)
• Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)
• Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989)
• Groundhog Day (1993)
• Galaxy Quest (1999)
• The Butterfly Effect (2004)
• 13 Going on 30 (2004)
• The Lake House (2006)
• Meet the Robinsons (2007)
• Hot Tub Time Machine (2010)
• Midnight in Paris (2011)
• Looper (2012)
• X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)
• Edge of Tomorrow (2014)
• Interstellar (2014)
• Doctor Strange (2016)
• A Wrinkle in Time (2018)
• The Last Sharknado: It's About Time (2018)
• Avengers: Endgame (2019)
• Tenet (2020)
• Palm Springs (2020)
• Zach Snyder's Justice League (2021)
• The Tomorrow War (2021)

Television about time travel:

• Doctor Who (1963-present)
• The Twilight Zone (1959-1964) (multiple episodes)
• Star Trek (multiple series, multiple episodes)
• Samurai Jack (2001-2004)
• Lost (2004-2010)
• Phil of the Future (2004-2006)
• Steins;Gate (2011)
• Outlander (2014-2023)
• Loki (2021-present)

Games about time travel:

• Chrono Trigger (1995)
• TimeSplitters (2000-2005)
• Kingdom Hearts (2002-2019)
• Prince of Persia: Sands of Time (2003)
• God of War II (2007)
• Ratchet and Clank Future: A Crack In Time (2009)
• Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time (2013)
• Dishonored 2 (2016)
• Titanfall 2 (2016)
• Outer Wilds (2019)

Additional resources

Explore physicist Peter Millington's thoughts about Stephen Hawking's time travel theories at The Conversation . Check out a kid-friendly explanation of real-world time travel from NASA's Space Place . For an overview of time travel in fiction and the collective consciousness, read " Time Travel: A History " (Pantheon, 2016) by James Gleik. 

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: [email protected].

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Ailsa is a staff writer for How It Works magazine, where she writes science, technology, space, history and environment features. Based in the U.K., she graduated from the University of Stirling with a BA (Hons) journalism degree. Previously, Ailsa has written for Cardiff Times magazine, Psychology Now and numerous science bookazines. 

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Plunge into an immersive IMAX movie featuring the James Webb Space Telescope

In 'Deep Sky,' JWST comes to the really big screen with an abundance of data and no shortage of tears.

By Laura Baisas | Published Apr 18, 2024 9:22 AM EDT

In the new IMAX film Deep Sky, a protostar shines from the center of a dark cloud , the phantom galaxy swirls, and the dusty space clouds of the Cosmic Cliffs of Carina tower like mountain peaks . Also, scientists cry. The film centers on the James Webb Space Telescope ’s visual legacy and the people behind it. At one point, NASA astrophysicist Amber Straughn gets to the heart of why seeing the Cosmic Cliffs of Carina is such an emotional journey. “This has always been there. It’s always been out there, but we’re just now able to see it. We now have this new telescope that’s opened up our eyes to let us see something we haven’t seen before.”

While not quite as challenging as building a space telescope, making Deep Sky posed a novel challenge to the filmmakers, Nathaniel Kahn noted: “…Every time we’d start to get close to finishing, NASA would release a new amazing image, and we’d have to find a way to work that in!” As the film’s writer, director, and producer, Kahn and team were finishing the project in September of 2023, combining digital cinematography by NASA, ESA, and commercial satellite launch company Arianespace with animations and graphics created specifically for IMAX. If you want to see the stereotypes of the stoic scientists challenged and bask in the glory of space, you can catch the IMAX experience starting Friday, April 19. 

The drive to uncover the secrets of the cosmos propels this new telling of JWST’s unfolding story. Here’s what it took to get there.

‘It was waving goodbye’

In the almost two years since those first images were beamed back to planet Earth , it’s easy for casual observers to forget how improbable it was. JWST was initially supposed to launch in 2011 and congress even tried to cancel it that same year over budget concerns. It ultimately took 10,000 people from 14 countries, $10 billion, and 20 years to complete.

[Related: JWST images show off the swirling arms of 19 spiral galaxies .]

“I’ve worked on JWST for 15 years and I’m sort of one of the younger ones working on this telescope,” Straughn tells PopSci . “We faced a lot of challenges along the way and it was an audacious mission. We had to build this enormous telescope that had to be cold and that had to unfold in space. When you describe it, it sounds impossible.”

Multiple technologies needed to be invented to get this game-changer off the ground, including a critical sunshield . Since JWST primarily observes infrared light from faint and very far away objects. It must be kept extremely cold, at about -370 degrees Fahrenheit, to detect these faint signals of heat. The team constructed a five-layer sunshield about the size of a tennis court that protects it from other heat sources like the Earth, sun, and various moons. In the documentary, Amy Lo, the Deputy Director for Vehicle Engineering on JWST for Northrop Grumman, described it as being “SPF one million,” in order to keep it so cold and protected. She noted that there was no “second shot of doing this.”

During its launch on Christmas Day 2021 , JWST completed over 40 crucial deployments of its various instruments and overcame 344 “single point failures.” If any one of those single points had failed, the entire mission would have ended.

The mission overcame all 344 single point failures and even got an added surprise. About 45 seconds into the launch, they caught the telescope’s power source called the solar array open up. This proved JWST officially had power and the deployment was not something the team planned to be able to see with their own eyes during the launch. Through tears, NASA JWST Program Scientist Eric Smith said, “It was waving goodbye,” in the documentary. 

Back to the big bang

By several accounts, JWST is performing better than expected . It’s standing up against the micrometeoroids –tiny pieces of space dust that can build up on the telescope’s mirrors. The team had a good idea of how frequently the dust would hit the mirrors, but the size of the impacts was more surprising.

[Related: Why a 3,000-mile-long jet stream on Jupiter surprised NASA scientists .]

“What we’ve been able to do to help mitigate this is essentially change the way we’re operating so that as the telescope is facing away from the direction that the micrometeoroids are coming from when we think we could have higher impacts,” Straughn tells PopSci . 

It has also proven to be more stable and more efficient overall. According to Straughn, JWST has delivered more data in even less time than the team anticipated, revealing some of the most distant galaxies in the universe. These are galaxies that were born just after the big bang about 13.8 billion years ago . JWST has revealed that many are brighter, bigger, and more numerous than astrophysicists previously thought and their black holes are also growing incredibly fast. 

“There’s an overarching new mystery that’s arisen of why galaxies are growing so big,” says Straughn. “When we find something that we don’t expect, that’s a new problem to solve that will help increase our knowledge about how the universe works.”

Towards the future

JWST built on the success of the Hubble Space Telescope and other observational projects are on our horizon. Scheduled to launch in 2027, the Nancy Grace Roman Telescope will explore exoplanets and dark matter. The Habitable Exoplanet Observatory (HabEx) is also in the early stages of development and will be specifically designed to discover life on other planets. 

[Related: In NASA’s new video game, you are a telescope hunting for dark matter .]

“I think that this telescope launch and these images came along at a perfect time to present a contrast to the bad things that are going on in the world,” says Straughn. “It really is an example of something that’s good, of what we humans can do when we put our hearts and our minds into something that’s for a bigger purpose.”

Deep Sky releases in IMAX theaters nationwide on Friday, April 19.

Laura is a science news writer, covering a wide variety of subjects, but she is particularly fascinated by all things aquatic, paleontology, nanotechnology, and exploring how science influences daily life. Laura is a proud former resident of the New Jersey shore, a competitive swimmer, and a fierce defender of the Oxford comma.

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Exploring Time and Space: Top 10 Amazing Movies of Doraemon

Posted: March 20, 2024 | Last updated: March 20, 2024

Doraemon: Nobita's Chronicle of the Moon Exploration (2019)

Doraemon: Nobita's Secret Gadget Museum (2013)

Doraemon: Nobita and the Green Giant Legend (2008)

Doraemon: Nobita's Wannyan Space-Time Odyssey (2004)

Doraemon: Nobita and the Tin Labyrinth (1993)

Doraemon: Nobita and the Kingdom of Clouds (1992)

Doraemon: Nobita's Dorabian Nights (1991)

Doraemon: Nobita's Great Adventure into the Underworld (1984)

Doraemon: Nobita and the Castle of the Undersea Devil (1983)

Doraemon: Nobita's Dinosaur (1980)

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SPACE and TIME TRAVEL Romantic Movies

• Movies or TV
• IMDb Rating
• In Theaters
• Release Year

1. About Time (I) (2013)

R | 123 min | Comedy, Drama, Fantasy

At the age of 21, Tim discovers he can travel in time and change what happens and has happened in his own life. His decision to make his world a better place by getting a girlfriend turns out not to be as easy as you might think.

Director: Richard Curtis | Stars: Domhnall Gleeson , Rachel McAdams , Bill Nighy , Lydia Wilson

Votes: 385,672 | Gross: $15.32M

2. Midnight in Paris (2011)

PG-13 | 94 min | Comedy, Fantasy, Romance

While on a trip to Paris with his fiancée's family, a nostalgic screenwriter finds himself mysteriously going back to the 1920s every day at midnight.

Director: Woody Allen | Stars: Owen Wilson , Rachel McAdams , Kathy Bates , Kurt Fuller

Votes: 449,778 | Gross: $56.82M

3. If Only (2004)

PG-13 | 92 min | Comedy, Drama, Fantasy

It takes a tragedy to teach the young businessman Ian to put love ahead of work and open up to his musician girlfriend Samantha.

Director: Gil Junger | Stars: Jennifer Love Hewitt , Paul Nicholls , Tom Wilkinson , Diana Hardcastle

Votes: 33,787

4. The Lake House (2006)

PG | 99 min | Drama, Fantasy, Romance

A lonely doctor who once occupied an unusual lakeside house begins to exchange love letters with its former resident, a frustrated architect. They must try to unravel the mystery behind their extraordinary romance before it's too late.

Director: Alejandro Agresti | Stars: Keanu Reeves , Sandra Bullock , Christopher Plummer , Ebon Moss-Bachrach

Votes: 157,627 | Gross: $52.33M

5. Click (2006)

PG-13 | 107 min | Comedy, Drama, Fantasy

A workaholic architect finds a universal remote that allows him to fast-forward and rewind to different parts of his life. Complications arise when the remote starts to overrule his choices.

Director: Frank Coraci | Stars: Adam Sandler , Kate Beckinsale , Christopher Walken , David Hasselhoff

Votes: 356,596 | Gross: $137.36M

6. The Time Traveler's Wife (2009)

Henry DeTamble, a librarian, possesses a unique gene that lets him involuntarily travel through time. His wife, Claire Abshire, finds it difficult to cope with it.

Director: Robert Schwentke | Stars: Eric Bana , Rachel McAdams , Ron Livingston , Michelle Nolden

Votes: 157,875 | Gross: $63.41M

7. Kate & Leopold (2001)

PG-13 | 118 min | Comedy, Fantasy, Romance

An English Duke from 1876 is inadvertently dragged to modern day New York where he falls for a plucky advertising executive.

Director: James Mangold | Stars: Meg Ryan , Hugh Jackman , Liev Schreiber , Breckin Meyer

Votes: 89,063 | Gross: $47.12M

8. The Family Man (2000)

PG-13 | 125 min | Comedy, Drama, Fantasy

A fast-lane investment broker, offered the opportunity to see how the other half lives, wakes up to find that his sports car and girlfriend have become a mini-van and wife.

Director: Brett Ratner | Stars: Nicolas Cage , Téa Leoni , Don Cheadle , Jeremy Piven

Votes: 119,355 | Gross: $75.79M

9. The Science of Sleep (2006)

R | 105 min | Comedy, Drama, Fantasy

A man entranced by his dreams and imagination is love-struck with a French woman and feels he can show her his world.

Director: Michel Gondry | Stars: Gael García Bernal , Charlotte Gainsbourg , Miou-Miou , Alain Chabat

Votes: 70,885 | Gross: $4.66M

10. Somewhere in Time (1980)

PG | 103 min | Drama, Fantasy, Romance

A Chicago playwright uses self-hypnosis to travel back in time and meet the actress whose vintage portrait hangs in a grand hotel.

Director: Jeannot Szwarc | Stars: Christopher Reeve , Jane Seymour , Christopher Plummer , Teresa Wright

Votes: 32,518 | Gross: $9.71M

11. Happy Accidents (2000)

R | 110 min | Comedy, Romance

New Yorker Ruby Weaver believes she has found the man of her dreams in Sam Deed, who is her best catch in some time--except that he assures her that he came from the future.

Director: Brad Anderson | Stars: Marisa Tomei , Vincent D'Onofrio , Holland Taylor , Mick Weber

Votes: 10,226 | Gross: $0.69M

12. Orlando (1992)

PG-13 | 94 min | Biography, Drama, Fantasy

After Queen Elizabeth I commands him not to grow old, a young nobleman struggles with love and his place in the world.

Director: Sally Potter | Stars: Tilda Swinton , Billy Zane , Quentin Crisp , Jimmy Somerville

Votes: 18,713 | Gross: $5.29M

13. Twice Upon a Yesterday (1998)

R | 91 min | Comedy, Drama, Fantasy

A shambling, out-of-work actor, desperate to win back the affections of his ex-girlfriend, unexpectedly stumbles upon a way to turn back the clock.

Director: Maria Ripoll | Stars: Lena Headey , Douglas Henshall , Penélope Cruz , Gustavo Salmerón

Votes: 2,783 | Gross: $0.26M

14. Il Mare (2000)

105 min | Drama, Fantasy, Romance

In 1999, a voice actor moves from Il Mare, a seaside house, and leaves a Christmas card in its (magical) mailbox. An architecture student receives it in 1997, and a friendship separated by 2 years begins.

Director: Hyun-seung Lee | Stars: Lee Jung-jae , Jun Ji-hyun , Mu-saeng Kim , Jo Seung-yeon

Votes: 9,457

15. I Love You, I Love You (1968)

91 min | Drama, Sci-Fi

After attempting suicide, Claude is recruited for a time travel experiment, but, when the machine goes haywire, he may be trapped hurtling through his memories.

Director: Alain Resnais | Stars: Claude Rich , Olga Georges-Picot , Anouk Ferjac , Alain MacMoy

Votes: 3,271 | Gross: $0.06M

16. 13 Going on 30 (2004)

PG-13 | 98 min | Comedy, Fantasy, Romance

Unpopular schoolgirl Jenna Rink makes an unusual wish on her birthday. Miraculously, her wish comes true and the 13-year-old Jenna wakes up the next day as a 30-year-old woman.

Director: Gary Winick | Stars: Jennifer Garner , Mark Ruffalo , Judy Greer , Andy Serkis

Votes: 216,726 | Gross: $57.23M

18. Forever Young (1992)

PG | 102 min | Drama, Romance, Sci-Fi

During a cryogenics test, a pilot frozen in 1939 awakes in 1992 but time is running out, as his body starts to age rapidly.

Director: Steve Miner | Stars: Mel Gibson , Jamie Lee Curtis , Elijah Wood , Isabel Glasser

Votes: 50,069 | Gross: $55.96M

19. The Two Worlds of Jennie Logan (1979 TV Movie)

96 min | Drama, Fantasy, Romance

Jennie Logan discovers an antique dress in her attic that allows her to travel back in time. Soon she's torn between life with her philandering husband and a romance with a handsome artist who was murdered at the turn of the century.

Director: Frank De Felitta | Stars: Lindsay Wagner , Marc Singer , Alan Feinstein , Linda Gray

20. The Love Letter (1998 TV Movie)

Unrated | 99 min | Fantasy, Romance

20th century computer games designer Scott exchanges love letters with 19th century poet Elizabeth Whitcomb through an antique desk that can make letters travel through time.

Director: Dan Curtis | Stars: Campbell Scott , Jennifer Jason Leigh , David Dukes , Estelle Parsons

Votes: 2,383

21. Possession (2002)

PG-13 | 102 min | Drama, Mystery, Romance

A pair of literary sleuths unearth the amorous secret of two Victorian poets only to find themselves falling under a passionate spell.

Director: Neil LaBute | Stars: Gwyneth Paltrow , Aaron Eckhart , Jeremy Northam , Jennifer Ehle

Votes: 13,717 | Gross: $10.10M

22. Sliding Doors (1998)

PG-13 | 99 min | Comedy, Drama, Fantasy

After personal and professional setbacks, a woman experiences an alternate reality.

Director: Peter Howitt | Stars: Gwyneth Paltrow , John Hannah , John Lynch , Jeanne Tripplehorn

Votes: 71,481 | Gross: $11.88M

23. Déjà Vu (1997)

PG-13 | 117 min | Drama, Romance

L.A. shop owner Dana and Englishman Sean meet and fall in love at first sight, but Sean is married and Dana is to marry her business partner Alex.

Director: Henry Jaglom | Stars: Victoria Foyt , Stephen Dillane , Vanessa Redgrave , Glynis Barber

Votes: 959 | Gross: $0.82M

24. Vanilla Sky (2001)

R | 136 min | Fantasy, Mystery, Romance

A self-indulgent and vain publishing magnate finds his privileged life upended after a vehicular accident with a resentful lover.

Director: Cameron Crowe | Stars: Tom Cruise , Penélope Cruz , Cameron Diaz , Kurt Russell

Votes: 285,619 | Gross: $100.61M

25. Me Myself I (1999)

R | 104 min | Comedy, Romance

Pamela Drury is unhappy and alone. On her birthday she stumbles across a photo of Robert Dickson and wonders what would've happened had she said yes to his proposal. A freak accident causes... See full summary  »

Director: Pip Karmel | Stars: Rachel Griffiths , David Roberts , Sandy Winton , Yael Stone

Votes: 2,669 | Gross: $0.57M

26. Blast from the Past (1999)

PG-13 | 112 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance

A naive man comes out into the world after spending 35 years in a nuclear fallout shelter.

Director: Hugh Wilson | Stars: Brendan Fraser , Alicia Silverstone , Christopher Walken , Sissy Spacek

Votes: 71,693 | Gross: $26.49M

27. Reconstruction (2003)

PG-13 | 90 min | Drama, Romance

A young man who thought himself already in love with a nice girl is drawn into a literary drama when he is captured by a deep and stimulating love affair.

Director: Christoffer Boe | Stars: Nikolaj Lie Kaas , Maria Bonnevie , Krister Henriksson , Klaus Mulbjerg

Votes: 7,617 | Gross: $0.07M

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Superradiant atoms could push the boundaries of how precisely time can be measured

Superradiant atoms can help us measure time more precisely than ever. In a new study, researchers from the University of Copenhagen present a new method for measuring the time interval, the second, mitigating some of the limitations that today's most advanced atomic clocks encounter. The result could have broad implications in areas such as space travel, volcanic eruptions and GPS systems.

The second is the most precisely-defined unit of measurement, compared to other base units such as the kilogram, meter, and degree Kelvin. Time is currently measured by atomic clocks in different places around the world, which together, tell us what time it is. Using radio waves, atomic clocks continuously send signals that synchronize our computers, phones and wristwatches.

Oscillations are the key to keeping time. In a grandfather clock, these oscillations are from a pendulum's swinging from side to side every second, while in an atomic clock, it is a laser beam which corresponds to an energy transition in strontium and oscillates about a million billion times per second.

But according to PhD fellow Eliot Bohr from the Niels Bohr Institute -- great-grandson of Niels Bohr -- even atomic clocks could become more precise. This is because the detection laser, used by most modern atomic clocks to read the oscillation of atoms, heats up the atoms so much that they escape -- which degrades precision.

"Because the atoms constantly need to be replaced with fresh new atoms, while new atoms are being prepared, the clock loses time ever so slightly.Therefore, we are attempting to overcome some of the current challenges and limitations of the world's best atomic clocks by, among other things, reusing the atoms so that they don't need to be replaced as often," explains Eliot Bohr who was employed at the Niels Bohr Institute when he did the research, but who is now PhD fellow at the University of Colorado.

He is the lead author of a new study published in the scientific journal Nature Communications , which uses an innovative and perhaps more efficient way of measuring time.

Superradiance and cooling to absolute zero

The current methodology consists of a hot oven that spits roughly 300 million strontium atoms into an extraordinarily chilly ball of cold atoms known as a magneto-optical trap, or MOT. The temperature of these atoms is approximately -273 °C -- very near absolute zero -- and there are two mirrors with a light field in between them to enhance the atomic interactions. Together with his research colleagues, Bohr has developed a new method to read out the atoms.

"When the atoms land in the vacuum chamber, they lie completely still because it is so cold, which makes it possible to register their oscillations with the two mirrors at opposing ends of the chamber," explains Eliot Bohr.

The reason why the researchers don't need to heat the atoms with a laser and destroy them is thanks to a quantum physical phenomenon known as 'superradiance'. The phenomenon occurs when the group of strontium atoms is entangled and at the same time emits light in the field between the two mirrors.

"Themirrors cause the atoms to behave as a single unit. Collectively, they emit a powerful light signal that we can use to read out the atomic state, a crucial step for measuring time. This method heats up the atoms minimally, so It all happens without replacing the atoms, and this has the potential to make it a more precise measurement method," explains Bohr.

GPS, space missions and volcanic eruptions

According to Eliot Bohr, the new research result may be beneficial for developing a more accurate GPS system. Indeed, the roughly 30 satellites that constantly circle Earth and tell us where we are need atomic clocks to measure time.

"Whenever satellites determine the position of your phone or GPS, you are using an atomic clock in a satellite. The precision of the atomic clocks is so important that If that atomic clock is off by a microsecond, it means an inaccuracy of about 100 meters on the Earth's surface," explains Eliot Bohr.

Future space missions are another area where the researcher foresees more precise atomic clocks making a significant impact.

"When people and crafts are sent out into space, they venture even further away from our satellites. Consequently, the requirements for precise time measurements to navigate in space are much greater," he says.

The result could also be helpful in the development of a new generation of smaller, portable atomic clocks that could be used for more than "just" measuring time.

"Atomic clocks are sensitive to gravitational changes and can therefore be used to detect changes in Earth's mass and gravity, and this could help us predict when volcanic eruptions and earthquakes will occur," says Bohr.

Bohr emphasizes that while the new method using superradiant atoms is very promising, it is still a "proof of concept" which needs further refinement. .

The research was conducted by the team of Jörg Helge Müller and Jan Thomsen at the Niels Bohr Institute, in collaboration with PhD students Sofus Laguna Kristensen and Julian Robinson-Tait, and postdoc Stefan Alaric Schäffer. The project also included contributions from theorists Helmut Ritsch and Christoph Hotter from the University of Innsbruck, as well as Tanya Zelevinsky from Columbia University.

• Engineering
• Weapons Technology
• Nanotechnology
• Quantum Physics
• Global Positioning System
• Electron configuration
• Time in physics
• Oscillation
• Special relativity
• Constructal theory

Story Source:

Materials provided by University of Copenhagen - Faculty of Science . Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Journal Reference :

• Eliot A. Bohr, Sofus L. Kristensen, Christoph Hotter, Stefan A. Schäffer, Julian Robinson-Tait, Jan W. Thomsen, Tanya Zelevinsky, Helmut Ritsch, Jörg H. Müller. Collectively enhanced Ramsey readout by cavity sub- to superradiant transition . Nature Communications , 2024; 15 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-45420-x

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