Top 5 Time travel films
Something about time travel has always fascinated me. I’ve read books, both fact and fiction, articles, played roleplaying games and even written a small game about it in Swedish called Tempora.
I enjoy the mental excercise of spotting paradoxes, even if paradoxes increase my enjoyment rather than detract from it. I suppose there’s some wishful thinking about changing the past, and a certain sense of exploration. Our three dimensions are mapped out, at least around Earth. Exploration of parallel dimensions can be fun, but are usually too removed from our reality too really have an impact on normal life. You always experience time, so it’s fun to think about what would happen if you could alter it.
There are a lot of films about people manipulating time. I’m going to list my five favorites. I’ll have to exclude a lot of great films. Anyway, the list:
- Donnie Darko (Richard Kelly, 2001). Donnie is a disturbed young man who meets a giant bunny that announces the end of the world. The film doesn’t say if Donnie has schizophrenic hallucinations, if the whole film is a near-death experience of if he’s actually in a timestream broken off from the normal. Watch the director’s cut, as it explains a lot more. One thing is that you get to see pages from Grandma Death’s book The Philosophy of Time Travel.
- Groundhog Day (Harold Ramis, 1993). This Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell comedy is an excellent take on time loops. A news anchor gets stuck reliving the same day over and over. At first he’s excited, later annoyed and finally tries to break the loop. For romantic comedies, this is about as good as they get.
- Primer (Shane Carruth, 2004). A down-to-earth take on time travel, if that’s possible, where two friends build a time machine almost by mistake. When they carefully try it out things spiral out of control. The viewer follows one time stream, which is visited by multiple versions of the time travellers, so you could spend some time trying to map exactly what happens when, and why. People have, of course.
- The Terminator (James Cameron, 1984). A killer robot is sent back to stop the birth of a future resistance leader by killing his mother. A neat cause-and-effect loop is created when the man sent back to protect the resistance leader’s mother becomes his father.
- Returner (original title: Ritana) (Takashi Yamazaki, 2002). A woman comes to the present from the future to stop the start of a devastating war between humans and aliens. She brings a neat time-manipulating toy that can slow down time, creating stunning matrixesque action scenes. The most sci-fi of the films on my list.
Do you have a favorite time travel film I didn’t include?
Twelve Monkeys, The Butterfly Effect, Siworae, La Jetée… yes, there are many. And I know you like Les visiteurs.
So what is your favorite?
If I haven't forgotten any important ones I'd say my top 5 is:
1 - Donnie Darko
2 - Twelve Monkeys
3 - The Butterfly Effect
4 - Siworae
5 - The Terminator
(I haven't seen Returner)
Hot damn. Had never heard of Primer before your mention. Thanks for the tip. That was one heck of a movie. Wow. Now I'm just sitting here in stunned silence… …time to buy the DVD.
(Admittedly, I am a sucker for engineer-protagonist genre of hard SF, which is rare these days and pretty much unheard of in movies. But still.)
Hello thark! So now you can decipher the timeline graph I linked above?
There's this neat moment in the film when you realize that one of the two characters knows more than the other, and more than the audience. He's one step ahead of everyone.
Another other cool thing about the film, check out director Shane Carruth on IMDb. Or should I say director, writer, actor, cinematographer, producer, editor, composer, sound designer, production designer and casting director Shane Carruth?
I don't know if it's around anymore, but there was this web forum for the film where he was very active himself. It's a really independent production, but that just makes the events in the film seem more real.
“Follow” would be giving myself to much credit. Maybe after a second viewing. :-)
Can't really come up with a time travel movie favorite that hasn't been mentioned yet, but I'm not really a big movie buff these days. I do recommend the TV (mini?) series Day Break, which offers a very good serious (if not scientific; the exact mechanic/reason is never explained) on the Groundhog Day theme.
Neat, I haven't heard of it before. I'll let you know what I think if I check it out.
- Jonas
Really nice list, have not seen Primer and Returner and at least the first of them sounds interesting. Like Groundhog day, but I am not very fond of Terminator and Donnie Darko. Would've added Butterfly Effect to the list.
A really bad time travelling movie is Timecop with Jean-Claude van Damme… :)
Apparently I've seen Timecop and rated it 5/10 on IMDb, but I have no recollection of the movie at all. I think I rated it long after I saw it, so it's not a very reliable vote.
I just saw that the film is based on a Dark Horse comic. It would be fun to track it down, but I can't find much information about it. I wonder for how many issues it ran.
I bet the comic is better than the movie. I do believe van Damme is to blame for the disaster. ;)
Aww, I forgot one time travelling movie I really liked. Terry Gilliam is my favourite director but I have not yet seen Twelve Monkeys. Time Bandits, though, is another Gilliam movie about midgets stealing Gods time map and using it to travel around to famous historical (and not so historical) events and people. Cute and rather childish. :)
I saw and reviewed La Jetée this evening. Was suprised and delighted by the greatness of this movie. It is said to be the movie which inspired Gilliam to Twelve Monkeys. It is apocalyptic Paris and a few survivors is trying to travel back in time to prevent the disaster. 28 minutes of photographs narrated to make a plot. A true masterpiece.
Ah, time travel movies. The best ones are of course:
1. Twelve Monkeys
2. Time Bandits
3. Groundhog Day
4. Back to the Future (at least part II)
5. Donnie Darko
Groundhog day is the awsomest. It's amazing since it's in a genre I really abhor and really, if you at the script it could very well be an extremely cheesy movie. One of those American movies everyone has seen, but you don't dare to talk about without a fitting frown.
But it walks the thin line. Probably the movie I have seen most times (that is still only five or six times, I don't usually repeat mocvies, but anyway.)
Tobias, remind me to ask you what you think of Donnie Darko next time we speak. I don't remember discussing it with you.
Sven, isn't it weird? The final message of Groundhog Day is really bland and has been used more times than I dare count. I guess it's the wish fulfillment part that makes the film attractive. You know, to be able to try different actions and see peoples' reactions, without them remembering anything the next day. Also, to be able to perfect a day, to optimize it into something you'd really want to happen.
Kind of neat to have a time-loop film as the one you've seen the most times. Very dedicated to the art! Like poisoning yourself and your lover by grinding and swallowing a Romeo & Juliet DVD, or staying on a sinking ship while watching Titanic.
Another vote for Groundhog Day! It really is one of those movies that outshine their premise on actual viewing. The ending *is* sappy, but by the end you accept it whole-heartedly, an impressive achievement by the filmmakers :)
By the way Jonas, we'll have to talk about Donnie Darko someday, you'll have to explain to me why it's so good, I found it ok+, but not really excellent. Felt like the ending was a bit of a cop-out.
cheers
Twelve Monkeys has to be added to the list, it’s awesome.
Oh, and you can’t say, or even imply, that Groundhog Day is the best romantic comedy of all time, because that spot goes to Shaun of the Dead without a doubt!
TTFN,
Yoki