Time travel movies are a thrilling part of the sci-fi genre, but some of these films completely rewrite the rules and tropes when it comes to telling a unique story. Sci-fi is a broad genre of film that lends itself to innovation and creativity. Because of the variety of stories that fit within this setting, with all of time and space being an option, and a vast variety of creative options around technology, characters, plots and much more, these movies can be almost anything.
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However, even within the sub-genre of time travel movies, there are several films that completely ignore previously established tropes, rules, and commonalities. While many time travel movies will deliver a clear set of rules about how their time travel works, or meddling in the past will alter the present and future, or there could be paradoxes created by interacting with past versions of oneself, these elements don’t always apply. In fact, some films completely push in the other direction, and play with time travel in unique and innovative ways.
10 Donnie Darko
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Donnie Darko is a cult favorite dark sci-fi thriller with an important time travel plot that isn’t fully revealed until the end of the film. Instead, much of the film follows a disturbed young man, Donnie, as he is haunted by a terrifying humanoid rabbit who appears to him and inspires him to behave in odd ways. The events of the film are unusual, and while the concept of time travel is hinted at earlier in the film, it isn’t poignant until the time runs out, and Donnie is zapped back in time.
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The unique element of Donnie Darko’s time travel story is the idea that time travel is kind of an accident of nature. One primary timeline exists, where events play out as intended, but occasionally, time goes off course. This creates a tangent universe, but the tangent universe can’t survive for long. Instead, after it runs its course, the tangent universe collapses in on itself, and time resolves, with everything reverting to normal before the incident. This is highly uncommon to explore in any movie, but even more so when it comes to movies about time travel.
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9 Slaughterhouse-Five
The 1972 adaptation of the original 1969 novel of the same name, Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut is one of the most unique time travel movies of all time, largely because, technically, it doesn’t include any traveling through time. Instead, the events play out for the main character, Billy Pilgrim, in a non-linear order. As it turns out, Billy is uniquely affected by a condition of being unstuck from time.
Rather than starting life as a baby, growing up to become a boy and advancing in the traditional way, Billy experiences life all at once, with different moments coming to the front of his mind at any moment. Having fought in World War II, this is especially traumatic, as he moves from his peaceful life at home, or in retirement, to the war, to childhood, and all over his timeline. The story is incredible, and despite the jumping through time, the narrative becomes more clear as the film progresses to its inevitable conclusion.
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8 Last Night In Soho
Last Night in Soho is a visually stunning and dark story of a young woman, Ellie, who moves to London to follow her dreams of becoming a successful fashion designer. However, once she arrives in her new apartment, Ellie begins to have vivid dreams of a girl named Sandie from the 1960s. Initially, the dreams are exciting, and Ellie yearns to learn more about Sandie’s charmed life, but quickly, things turn dark.
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Sandie was treated poorly by corrupt men who used her, and as Ellie lives through her nightmares, she becomes obsessed with understanding what happened to this poor woman, and the men who led her to her death. The murder mystery, combined with dreams and ghosts, makes this a unique exploration of time travel, but the twists in the film take it to the next level. There is also no clear explanation as to why Ellie is able to travel through time in her dreams, which makes it appear more mystical than science fiction.
7 Midnight In Paris
Midnight in Paris is a comedy film, which already puts it into an odd category when it comes to films that feature time travel, but the plot lends itself to this tool extremely well. While visiting Paris with his girlfriend’s wealthy parents, Gil Pender, played by Owen Wilson, decides to explore the city one evening when his girlfriend decides to go dancing with friends. Gil’s night suddenly becomes interesting when, just after midnight, he stumbles into the past, and meets a colorful cast of famous figures from history.
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From F. Scott Fitzgerald, to Earnest Hemingway, from Salvador Dalí, to Edgar Degas, Gil meets some of the greatest and most talented figures in history. This helps him find fulfillment that he lacks in the present, but it also teaches him valuable lessons about living in the present and appreciating the moment. While comedy is the underlying theme of the film, the time travel element adds wonderful complexity and important educational moments for the protagonist.
6 About Time
Another film where time travel is largely used for comedy, About Time, also features Rachel McAdams as the girlfriend of a time traveler, as she appears in both the above and this film. However, About Time establishes a much more stable set of rules for this power. It appears to be a gift that all male members of a certain family get when they mature. The ability is activated by going into a dark, small space, such as a wardrobe or closet, and squeezing hard in order to move backwards in time.
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Once a traveler goes back, they can return to their own time, but they can’t travel forward. However, time travel is less the point of the film, and time becomes the sharp focus instead. While the ability to move through time is exciting, the film attempts to instruct the audience on the value of time, and what it means to be in the moment. For that reason, it doesn’t get weighed down by time travel tropes, and only applies the rules in as far as it makes the story more interesting and insightful.
5 Predestination
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Predestination plays into one of the major tropes that is occasionally discussed in time travel films, but takes this idea to such extremes beyond that point. Some time travel movies highlight the risk of traveling in time, becoming attracted to a parent or ancestor, and thus becoming your own grandparent. Usually, this idea is a warning about avoiding changing or altering the past in significant ways, but when Robert A. Heinlein wrote about the idea in his short story, All You Zombies, the concept becomes a convoluted mess.
This short story is then used as the foundation for Predestination, a film starring Ethan Hawke as an unnamed agent of the Temporal Bureau. However, the story sees this agent meet a younger man, who recounts his life story, and through the passage of the film, the truth is slowly revealed. The story explores the complications of time travel, and reveals how the agent, the young man, the girl in the story, and the child, along with the bomber that the agent is chasing, are all the same person.
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4 Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure
Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure is another cult classic that leans into the comedy aspect over sci-fi accuracy. Two young men, who will one day become some of the most famous and renowned individuals in all history, are visited by a time traveler from the future who hopes to ensure they achieve their destiny. Fortunately, the traveler arrives just in time, because Bill and Ted have an important presentation at school the next day about what historical figures would think of their city if they arrived in the present.
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Throwing all caution into the wind, and avoiding any complications about altered timelines, Bill and Ted actively pull famous figures from their times, and bring them to their school to help with the presentation. The film is funny, and uses time travel in a way that is exciting, but it doesn’t bend to any of the traditional tropes or concerns. Instead, it just sets out to make an excellent adventure, and it achieves that.
3 Groundhog Day
Groundhog Day is based on a novel which explores the idea of a time loop, named Replay, but the foundation of the story was from an early spec script. While the film adapts this story in large parts, it also takes the core concepts and the finished script was much more focused on comedy, with some of the philosophical, darker elements being removed. The resulting film is a unique time travel story starring Bill Murray.
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Groundhog Day sees Phil, a grumpy and downtrodden news reporter getting stuck in a one-day loop, trapped by a snow storm in a tiny village. The film doesn’t specify how long Phil lives out this same day, but the Groundhog Day source material suggests it’s close to 34 years. This forces Phil to go through every variety of emotions, explore methods of self-improvement, and make drastic choices, all of which do nothing to stop him from waking up the next morning, and starting all over again.
2 Safety Not Guaranteed
Safety Not Guaranteed is one of the earliest films by director Colin Treverrow, who went on to direct films like Jurassic World and The Book of Henry. The film stars Aubrey Plaza, Jake Johnson, and Mark Duplass is a bizarre and quirky story about a newspaper ad looking for a companion to travel in time with. In order to investigate the ad, a group of journalists visits the man who posted the ad, and learn about his story and his desire to travel back in time.
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However, for much of the runtime, it appears that the man is delusional, and his dreams of time travel are actually fantasies. The movie plays with expectations around time travel, and whether time travel is even possible, but in the film’s final moments, the reality is made crystal clear. In this way, the film explores time travel, but mostly from one point in time, the present.
1 Everything Everywhere All At Once
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So, technically speaking, the time travel in Everything Everywhere All At Once is more focused on universe jumping, but nonetheless, it does result in the individuals moving through time in unusual directions. After learning that there are links between the multiverse, and all the other realities form bridges and connections to each other, Evelyn is able to learn to use these links, and adapt skills and abilities from alternate versions of herself. The film plays with this concept in exceptional ways, with some of the most compelling storytelling of any sci-fi film.
Yes, the time travel element is muddled and buried beneath this universe hopping, but it is connected, and due to the unique way that these universes are bound together, it creates an unusual form of time travel. Instead of learning and building skills over time, characters with the ability to connect to other universes can instantly adopt skills, and become an expert at anything. In this way, the film makes efficient use of time travel, and interdimensional travel, to create something that stands out as completely different.