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In 'Synchronic,' Time Travel Is Anything but Nostalgic

Slide: 1 / of 1 . Caption: Caption: TKTK Courtesy of XYZ Films

Author: Geek's Guide to the Galaxy. Geek's Guide to the Galaxy Culture
Date of Publication: 10.23.20. 10.23.20
Time of Publication: 11:40 am. 11:40 am

In ‘Synchronic,’ Time Travel Is Anything but Nostalgic

Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead have created three of the best indie sci-fi films of the past few years— Resolution , Spring , and The Endless . In their latest movie, Synchronic , a paramedic played by Anthony Mackie discovers a designer drug that lets him visit the past.

“We were talking about, ‘What if there were a substance that made you experience time the way Einstein described it?'” Benson says in Episode 437 of the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast. “That is to say, that there’s no distinction between past, present, and future, and actually everything happens simultaneously, and time is more like a frozen river rather than a flowing river, and this substance—this drug—would allow you to experience that.”

The film is suffused with mood and color, much of which it draws from its New Orleans setting. Moorhead says it was important to set the film in a place that would be instantly recognizable at different stages of its history.

“With New Orleans, there’s just nothing like it,” he says. “It has this bizarre French and Spanish colonial history, as well as being very American—jazz and civil rights. Just an enormous history that is very, very, very specific to New Orleans. It occupies this wonderful bit of real estate in the American psyche.”

Benson says that time travel films tend to romanticize the past, focusing on manners and fashion rather than health care or social issues. “When you look at things like Back to the Future , it’s an amazing movie, but it does really gloss up the 1950s,” he says. “It’s something that’s been running through our media and our culture for a long time.”

Moorhead hopes that Synchronic will help combat that sort of reflexive nostalgia and give viewers a greater appreciation for the present. “It’s totally fine in any individual product to gloss up something or romanticize it,” he says. “It’s a choice. It’s not a moral failing of any individual product. But what we wanted to do was examine the other side of that.”

Listen to the complete interview with Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead in Episode 437 of Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy (above). And check out some highlights from the discussion below.

Justin Benson on indie films:

“Someday we’ll have a movie that everyone knows about the day it comes out because it has a $20 million marketing budget, because that’s how you do that. But that’s really scary too, because it better be really good. It better be awesome, because it’s the thing that kids are going to talk about in school on Monday. It’s actually kind of funny, because you get a little bit of a pass as an indie filmmaker, because if it doesn’t make an impact, people are like, ‘Oh, that’s what happens to indie films.’ You’re only really as good as your best film, in a way, and if something comes and goes, it doesn’t really hurt you. It just happens. But if there’s a lot of marketing put behind a bad movie, that’s a threatening prospect.”

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Aaron Moorhead on characters:

“Some of the most exciting times for us when we’re on set are when our characters just get to talk to each other about something that isn’t specifically in the logline of the movie, and you will be shocked at how rare that is. And by the way, the things they talk about inform the later plot, and inform their character, and push the movie along, it’s just that in that exact moment they’re not discussing what to do about a time travel pill. There’s a common wisdom in writing that if the dialogue isn’t pushing along [the plot], then you might as well cut it. But if you cut it, you get something soulless, and you don’t understand these people. Because you can only express yourself so much through action. Our primary means of expressing ourselves as humans is through the way we communicate with others.”

Aaron Moorhead on the pandemic:

“We’ll probably be able to attend a local screening [of Synchronic ] here in LA, where I believe there are two or three drive-ins, because we do want to see what it looks like. But the thing that’s funny about the drive-in experience is that there’s no way to be ‘in person.’ Most of them don’t even allow you to stand on top of your car and address the audience or anything like that. So being there just means that you are in your own car watching the movie you’ve seen a billion times. So that’s the thing. We’re going to go, because it’s our premiere, but there’s no function to actually being in-person at a drive-in, because there’s no in-person aspect to it. There’s no in-person Q&A.”

Aaron Moorhead on randonauts :

“[Random numbers] come from a computer, and it’s very complicated how they arrive at them, but still you can find how they derived that randomness. But there is a way to get actual randomness, which is to measure quantum fields, because quantum fields are actually random. And so [randonauts] are able to take these measurements and get actually random numbers that truly cannot be predicted in the future. They take those numbers and turn them into coordinates, and they go to those coordinates, no matter how hard it is to get there, and in doing so they have broken out of their deterministic tunnel, because there is no world in which they would have gone to that place if they had not followed those numbers.”

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Entertainment

More People Need to Watch This Dark Netflix Time Travel Thriller

Synchronic is a dark indie gem with flashes of brilliance.

Best New Journalist 2019 Australian IT Journalism Awards

Synchronic stars Anthony Mackie and Jamie Dornan.

Before hitting play on 2019's Synchronic , there's one thing you should know.

It's not that it's a low-budget sci-fi film with an intriguing premise. It's not that it stars Anthony Mackie and Jamie Dornan as best friends. It's not that its directors helmed a couple of episodes of Marvel's Moon Knight .

It's that Synchronic will really, really annoy you with its plot holes and inconsistencies and nonsensical time travel mechanics that loop around in your head until a miraculous counterargument emerges from the haze and convinces you that everything makes sense after all.

Surprisingly, this is a recommendation to watch Synchronic. A frustrating, divisive, dark indie gem with flashes of brilliance. It's yet another taste of the exciting talent of directors Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead (check out 2017's The Endless for a twisted horror flavor). Just lean into the anger Synchronic inspires, and eventually -- on the other side -- you'll have a rewarding experience.

Mackie and Dornan play Steve and Dennis, two remarkably laid-back paramedics working in New Orleans. They're called out to treat a series of people who're spouting incoherent stories after taking a drug called Synchronic.

synchronic-well-go-usa-justin-benson-1340x754-1

Jamie Dornan and Anthony Mackie star as Dennis and Steve.

Steve and Dennis investigate the drug's origins and impossible time travel capabilities, while also dealing with their crumbling personal lives. Steve is a jaded ladies man, and Dennis is stuck in a dysfunctional marriage.

The best parts of Synchronic involve the actual sci-fi element itself. The discovery . Steve and Dennis walking along a dark road in the middle of the night, chatting away about their normal lives, until they enter a house and discover a shocking scene out of a horror movie, where someone's been stabbed and a medieval sword is inexplicably sticking out of a wall.

Thanks to a couple of plot devices, eventually Steve takes the drug himself. This is where Synchronic becomes thrilling in an impressively visceral way.

synchronic-well-go-usa-justin-benson-1340x754-2

Paramedic pals.

Starting from its low-key grounding point, the flick sends Steve, and us, off into the frightening unknown. The threat of sudden and violent death hovers over everything, because in this time travel story, Steve is a Black man, and going back to certain places comes with a whole other layer of danger.

The mechanics of how the time travel drug works are compellingly teased out as Steve conducts experiments. An analogy involving a record player is worth one character's appearance alone. At one point, directors Benson and Moorhead shake things up by giving us Steve's first-person perspective, placing us right in the driver's seat to experience what rears up from the tense and unpredictable darkness of the next location.

Other aspects of the drug, including a minor stretch following who's behind its creation, fizzle out. Plus, while effective in some ways, the general sense of realism can expose just how ridiculous the drug's capabilities are.

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Screen Rant

Primer & 9 other impressive indie time travel movies.

Budget is no limitation when a sci-fi flick is narratively, thematically, and creatively sound. These time travel epics are proof of that.

Free from the conformities of big budgets, indie films are often hit or miss — they don't always befit everyone's taste. However, if executed well, these films prove to be creative powerhouses that not only win a cult following but also expand the existing boundaries of a genre.

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Take, for instance, the time travel sub-genre. Its common tropes and archetypes are well known to fans of science fiction. But every once in a while, some indie time travel movies come along, and with their nuance of style and narration, change all that viewers know about the genre. Because of their limited budgets and marketing, these films remain obscure but are impressive nonetheless.

Sound Of My Voice

Akin to other Brit Marling movies and TV shows, Sound Of My Voice cannot be confined to a fixed genre; not even sci-fi. While it does use time travel as one of its narrative devices, it is primarily driven by the psychological developments of its characters. It's this human element that makes its time travel underpinnings all the more compelling.

It centers on a couple who is determined to expose a seemingly fraudulent self-proclaimed time traveler named Maggie. But as the film progress, both of them — along with the viewers — start believing in Maggie's over-the-top convictions.

Starring Anthony Mackie and Jamie Dornan, Synchronic is among the few underappreciated gems created by indie dynamic-duo Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead. Since the film links its time travel to a designer drug, its premise may not sound too plausible on paper. But as seen in other Benson and Moorhead films, it's the execution that makes it a brainy and equally poignant meta-sci-fi flick.

With flashy match cuts, the film first introduces a drug that makes users go back in time without ever leaving their geographical space. Once the main concept is out of the way, it delves further into its rules of time travel that raise questions surrounding the perception of time in context with life and death.

Hello World

Although obscure compared to other sci-fi anime films like Your Name and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time , Hello World is no less intriguing and thematically rich. Its convoluted premise may overwhelm viewers at times, but all of it eventually pays off in its coda that leaves almost no stones unturned.

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Staring off like a typical coming-of-age anime, the film introduces an ordinary hermit protagonist named Naomi. But Naomi's ordinary life turns upside down when his future self shows up to help him prevent an impending tragedy. As Naomi races against time to change the inevitable, he learns that some things are beyond his control, no matter how hard he tries.

For the most part, Time Trap isn't bereft of the loose ends that can be seen in most sci-fi indie flicks, especially from an acting standpoint. However, beyond its choppier bits, the film does a good job at playing around with time travel, its implications, and many mysteries.

Its plot centers on a cave where, while searching for their archaeology professor, a group of students experience time like never before and struggle to find their way around its perilous secrets.

Timecrimes is riddled with dark comedy and thought-provoking themes, making good use of its limited budget and almost never allowing for a dull moment thanks to its ingenious and timely twists and turns. It begins on a rather mundane note where its protagonist, Hector, learns that a beautiful woman he spies on was assaulted.

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With what follows, a man with a bandaged face attacks him and he soon ends up in a scientific facility where his time travel misadventure begins. As random as its opening scenes may seem, the film slowly finds its feet in its second arc and keeps viewers on their toes throughout its runtime.

Predestination

Based on a short story by Robert A. Heinlein, Predestination stars Ethan Hawke as a temporal agent. To prevent a bomb attack in New York, he travels back to 1975 and races against time to complete his final mission. However, to his dismay, his journey through time proves to be a lot more twisted than he had anticipated

Like most top-rated time travel thrillers, the film first baffles viewers and its paradoxes test their patience. But that in itself adds to its mind-bending sci-fi intrigue, which ultimately pays off well towards its crescendo. Not to mention, Ethan Hawke's stellar performance makes it even more enthralling.

Looper delivers a balance of intelligent sci-fi thrills and old-school action. Unlike most other time travel dramas, it is structured in a way that it isn't too confusing for a casual viewer, while at the same time, it has enough narrative depth for genre fans to rewatch, decode, and theorize its plot points.

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Set in a dystopian future, the film features Joeseph Gordon-Levitt as a contractual assassin called Looper who kills targets sent by mobs from the future. But when he fails to close his own loop by not killing his future self (played by Bruce Willis) sent by the mob, he finds himself in the middle of a vengeance-fueled plot where nothing is as it seems.

Donnie Darko

Donnie Darko , put simply, is an elaborate puzzle that allows viewers to get lost and then, bit by bit, put it all together to comprehend what's truly happening. In it, a much younger Jake Gyllenhaal plays the titular character whose life gets plagued by strange occurrences after a terrifying figure in a bunny costume pays him a visit.

While the movie's grim atmosphere and high-concept ideas are enough to impress most sci-fi fans, it also leaves a lot to the viewer's imagination, thereby staying with them long after its credits start rolling. Undoubtedly, this cult classic deserves to be on every indie sci-fi fan's watchlist.

The Endless

A cult stuck in a time loop, a game of tug of war with an unknown entity, and three moons in the night sky—these are only some of the many wacky images seen in The Endless . But more than zany imagery, it's the film's attention to detail that blows viewers away. From its scene transitions to its choice of background scores, everything in the film has a loopy undertone that alludes to its overarching themes. Such is the brilliance of Benson and Moorhead's The Endless.

The film focuses on brothers, Aaron and Justin (played by the directors themselves), who return to a UFO Death Cult after escaping it years ago. Soon, they learn that there's a lot more to the cult than meets the eye.

Made with a shoestring budget of $7000, Primer often tells more than it shows. Even so, despite its offbeat storytelling approach, the film is technically sound, intelligent, and gripping. Barring its first few minutes, almost everything in the movie is consequential, and only after a few sittings through its deliberately confusing premise, a viewer truly gets the hang of its paradoxes, alternate timelines, and philosophies.

Like most other time travel films, it has a human element as well where its two main characters invent a time machine and cautiously use it to get rich. But it's the same discovery that puts their relationships to a test. The cult-following of this one is well-deserved and it isn't surprising that it won the award for best drama at Sundance 2004.

NEXT: 5 Sci-Fi Movies That Do Time Travel Perfectly (& 5 That Messed It Up)

‘Synchronic’ Review: A Fiendishly Clever Time Travel Story about Loss and Chaos

Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead’s sci-fi drama is a unique and memorable addition to time traveling stories.

One of the key components about most time travel stories is about the element of control leading to a loss of control. We take one of the few, immutable elements of life—time’s unceasing flow—and then bend it to go somewhere else, and then that usually leads to unintended consequences. Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead ’s new movie Synchronic cleverly turns this premise on its head by telling a time travel story where the lack of control is built into the premise and the larger themes of the story. Whether it’s coping with illness or how to raise a child, we really have no control beyond how we treat the people we love. With total command of their brilliant premise, Benson and Moorhead have created one of the best time travel stories in recent memory while still packing an emotional wallop.

Steve ( Anthony Mackie ) and Dennis ( Jamie Dornan ) are EMTs working the graveyard shift as they frequently come across violence and drug overdoses. Their lives are made even harder by a new designer drug called “synchronic”, which affects the pineal gland and makes the user literally travel through time during their dose. What’s more, since teenagers have underdeveloped pineal glands, there may be no return trip when they dose to another era. When Dennis’ daughter Brianna ( Ally Ioannides ) disappears on a synchronic trip, Steve, who’s been diagnosed with an inoperable and fatal brain tumor, resolves to rescue the teenager, but to do so he has to figure out how to exert some kind of control over synchronic’s effects.

While there are flashes of Benson and Moorhead playing with chronology and editing, they wisely choose to avoid confusing their audience. They play with time just enough to show its fungibility in this world and the fracturing of the characters’ psyches, but never so much that you lose the thread of the narrative. Instead, the filmmakers ensure that we learn alongside Steve exactly show synchronic works and how random the drug can be. While other time travel stories tend to give the user an element of direction, synchronic sends its user back to a random place in time based solely on where they’re standing when they take the drug. As Steve discovers, sending yourself to a random place and time, even if it’s only for seven minutes, is a dangerous proposition.

What elevates Synchronic is that Benson and Moorhead haven’t merely done a neat trick. The way synchronic works is meant to mirror what Steve and Dennis are experiencing in their personal lives. Steve, a young man in seemingly good health, has been struck with terminal cancer. Dennis and his wife Tara ( Katie Aselton ) are good, attentive parents, but their daughter still did a drug that could cause her death. We exist in a random universe, so why shouldn’t time travel in that universe be random as well? The only thing we can control is how we respond to the randomness, and that’s an oddly inspiring tale, especially right now when everything feels so chaotic.

Synchronic is just trippy enough to be intriguing while never being so psychedelic and strange that it alienates the audience. Instead, the film holds a sinister, ominous tone of an uncaring universe filled with decay and deterioration. The world of Synchronic is not a pleasant place, especially for guys like Steve and Dennis who are trying to save those seeking a drug-fueled escape only to come back stabbed by a conquistador or something. Synchronic isn’t about salvaging the past or even preserving the future, but finding peace with a random present, and that’s the kind of story we could all use right about now.

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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.

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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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As they say in well-written scripts, "You mean... like time travel?" + also a few bizarre stories about real people who have claimed, despite every law of physics, they have traveled through time.

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‘Synchronic’ Review: Time Travel — The Ultimate Bad Trip

By David Fear

Something strange is happening in New Orleans — even by Big Easy standards, it’s some bizarro shit. Young folks have been discovered all over the city in highly unusual situations, from being bitten by rare, non-regional snakes to dismembered at the bottom of elevator shafts. Odd bits of detritus (an ancient sword, a centuries-old doorknob, a half-melted Spanish coin) are found at the scenes. “I heard French and the wind,” says one semi-coherent witness to a deadly, er, sabre-stabbing. “Time is a lie” is found scrawled on the wall of a crime scene. The police are baffled. The only connecting factor seems to be a street drug known as “synchronic,” which is new and legal and all the rage.

The more that two EMTs — the single, stay-out-all-night type Steve ( Anthony Mackie ) and the stolid family man Dennis ( Jamie Dornan ) — come across these mystery calls, the less sense any of this makes. When one of these incidents results in a missing-person case that hits close to home for this pair, however, Steve decides to dig a little deeper into what, exactly, is going on with these “fake ayahuasca” pills. He decides to pop a few. The. next thing you know, he’s running from a conquistador in some primitive swamp. Boom, he’s back in his living room. And then things get really weird.

There are some ground rules that Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead’s Synchronic applies to the nifty, dangerous designer narcotic at the center of its dizzying storyline, and laying them out shouldn’t necessarily count as spoilers. (Should you feel that such gestures do count as spoilers, go ahead and see the movie first before venturing forth. It’s currently playing in theaters and drive-ins; with any luck, it’ll make its way to the safe alternative of streaming/VOD ASAP.) It affects the pineal gland, which apparently tends to be more malleable in teens and twentysomethings. It collapses the quaint notion of looking at things like “years,” and “centuries” and “epochs” as something chronological or linear; per the chemist (Ramiz Monsef) that created it, time is like the grooves on a record and “synchronic is the needle” you can drop anywhere on the slab of vinyl. If you’re holding on to something from the “past,” you can bring it back to the “present” with you. The geography is the same, though where you are when you take it determines what period you end up in — move four feet over, and you could find yourself in the Paleolithic era instead of a pre-Louisiana Purchase NOLA. And if you’re an African-American man like Steve, remember that once you pop those pills, you may run the risk of staring down woolly mammoths or old-timey Klan members.

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That last aspect is, thankfully, never exploited; this isn’t aiming to be Antebellum redux. Nor is it ever really explored as much as you’d like it to be, which is characteristic of Synchronic as a whole, and it’s hard to shake the feeling that a lot of good material got left on the table. The movie is more into the notion of Steve and Dennis as two different versions of modern masculinity — living in a party-all-the-time state of perpetual adolescence and being unhappy; living a domesticated husband-dad existence and being slightly less unhappy — and even that feels like it’s an idea only barely surface-scratched. Benson and Moorhead aren’t prioritizing being psychoanalytic so much as psychotronic here, and if you’ve seen any of their past work (the help-I’ve-fallen-in-love-with-a-Lovecraftian-creature romance Spring, the you-can-never-go-home-again death-cult drama The Endless ), you know that’s where their strength lies. They excel in generating what the kids call “a mood.” This is a premise that seems primed for using various genre elements in the service of something a little deeper, as opposed to wider. What the end result gives you instead is some singularly intriguing left turns, a chance for Mackie to remind you that he’s as much a natural leading man as he is a clutch supporting actor, and some genuinely mind-bending moments.

And what moments they are: a primitive man melting out of a foliage-filled motel wall, the sudden revelation of long-extinct beast ambling through the frame, a long “single-shot” walk through a crime scene that keeps upping the WTF ante, an image of a tiny body falling downward through a vast amount of space. These unsettling, destabilizing, arresting sequences keep things moving even when the narrative gores slack; there’s a sense that you’ve stepped into these time-traveling bad trips and can feel the ground shifting beneath your feet. It’s Synchronic ‘s saving grace. “The past sucks!” Mackie’s character exclaims after coming back from one harrowing hallucinogenic excursion. Indeed — and it’s still apt to bleed into the here and now, not by any means done with us yet.

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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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The Most Underrated Time Travel Movies You Need To Watch

Time travel stories have a long history, with H.G. Wells' classic "The Time Machine" being published in 1895, and stories of travelers from the future having existed in folklore for centuries . Some of the most fascinating real-life mysteries and urban legends have involved stories of time travel , too. So it should come as no surprise that time travel movies have long been a favorite of the sci-fi genre.

Over the years, some of sci-fi's best movies have involved time travel, be they family adventures like "Back to the Future," thrillers like "12 Monkeys," action movies like "The Terminator," or even comedies like "Groundhog Day." While audiences are well-acquainted with time travel through these big blockbuster films, there are a lot of other, lesser-known movies that employ the same sci-fi concepts. Many of these films have gone under-appreciated, whether because they got lost on streaming, were given initially bad critical scores, or simply weren't marketed well.

Well have no fear, temporal explorers, because even if you can't go back to see them when they were first released, you can see them now, with our helpful list of underrated time-travel movies .

A Netflix original, the unusually titled "ARQ" came and went with little fanfare in 2016. This isn't your ordinary time travel adventure though, like the straightforward thrillers that send heroes back and forth through time. Instead, the film is centered on a young couple who become inadvertently trapped in a repeating loop of time. But unlike "Groundhog Day," they're not stuck in a pleasant little midwestern village — they're stuck in the throws of a robbery gone wrong.

The film stars Robbie Amell ("Upload") and Rachael Taylor ("Jessica Jones") as Renton and Hanna, a husband and wife living in a dark future where oil has become scarce and energy supplies are dwindling. Renton once worked for one of the world's major corporations and made off with his greatest invention, the ARQ — a powerful device capable of generating infinite energy. But when agents of his company's rival come to steal it from him, he switches it on and they become trapped in a deadly time loop.

A gripping thriller and borderline horror movie, "ARQ" is a time loop story done right, where despite events repeating, you're still left guessing what will happen next. Though it did spur some amount of discussion upon its initial release, the film has sadly faded into obscurity since.

A low-budget indie movie that's become a cult favorite among sci-fi cinephiles, the highly experimental 2004 film "Primer" has remained largely unnoticed by those who don't go digging for hidden gems. Written, directed by, and starring Shane Carruth , the film follows a pair of friends who unwittingly invent a time machine that allows them to return six hours into the past.

At first, their trips backward in time are for little more than experimentation, but they quickly escalate to interference as the friends use the box to invest in short-term stocks that they already know the outcome of. The more they use their machine, though, the more they see the rapid deterioration of their physical and mental states. Repeated experiments soon lead to terrifying consequences when they discover that someone else has been using — and is going to use — the box to irrevocably alter the timeline. But an attempt to activate a fail-safe and end the experiment before it ever started leads to a fateful confrontation with their future selves.

A haunting time-travel tale unlike any other, "Primer" won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival and made Carruth one of the most talked-about emerging filmmakers in the industry.

Time After Time

In the mid-1970s, author Karl Alexander approached filmmaker Nicholas Meyer with an early draft of his next book, "Time After Time," and the director was so impressed he snatched up the feature film rights before it was even published. In 1979, the film hit theaters starring Malcolm McDowall ("Clockwork Orange"), David Warner ("The Omen") and Mary Steenburgen ("Back to the Future Part III").

Set in the latter half of the 19th century, the film tells a fictional story centered on real-life sci-fi author H.G. Wells, the man behind the all-time classic "The Time Machine." Here we learn that the time travel contraption from Wells' book was no mere fiction, and is in fact very real. But when serial killer Jack the Ripper steals his machine and escapes to the 'present day' of 1979, it's up to Wells to follow him and prevent him from continuing his murder spree in the 20th century. While there, Wells is equally amazed and horrified by the world he witnesses, where he finds technologies beyond his wildest dreams but a society that's far from the utopian future he'd always imagined.

A satisfying crime drama with a moral message and plenty of time-travel hijinks, "Time After Time" has been mostly forgotten, though it was the subject of a short-lived TV spin-off in 2017.

Starring the MCU's own Anthony Mackie and Jamie Dornan ("Fifty Shades of Grey"), "Synchronic" is more than just a time-travel thriller. It's a story of love, friendship, and redemption — a powerful tale that uses time travel to prop up a deeply personal character story. With a pair of big-name stars, there's no reason it should have gone overlooked, but while reviews were strong , the film didn't elicit the wider recognition it deserves.

The movie follows Steve and Dennis, a pair of EMS partners and best friends troubled by a recent rash of fatal overdoses of a new designer drug gripping their city. When Dennis' daughter Brianna becomes involved and disappears, it leads him down a road of despair, while Steve decides to look for answers. When he finally tracks down the illegal drug called Synchronic, he learns that it has the power to send users into the past. Determined to find Brianna, he embarks on a harrowing journey through time that he may never return from.

A brilliant sci-fi thriller with time travel that uses its own unique set of rules, "Synchronic" succeeds at being both an engrossing, mind-bending roller coaster and a moving character drama.

Starring Emilio Estevez ("The Mighty Ducks"), Anthony Hopkins ("The Silence of the Lambs"), Rene Russo ("Lethal Weapon 3"), and Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger, the 1992 sci-fi action flick "Freejack" is a long-forgotten relic, overshadowed by bigger sci-fi movies of the era. But with a twisted time-travel premise and a strong cast, it's also an underrated adventure that needs to be revisited.

In the dystopian future of 2009, society has found a new way of achieving immortality, with those wealthy enough hiring time-traveling agents to steal victims from the past to become host bodies for their brains. One such future mogul in need of a new, more vital body is Ian McCandless (Hopkins), who hires a time tracker named Victor Vacendak (Jagger) to find him one. Arriving in 1992, Vacendak spirits away Formula One driver Alex Furlong (Estevez) seconds before he was to die in a devastating race crash. But when he escapes Vacendak he becomes a Freejack — a time-displaced fugitive with nowhere to go. With the help of his former fiancee Julie (Russo), he must fight powerful forces to stay alive.

Though the film has a fair amount of schlock and low-budget goofiness, it's also a heck of a lot of fun. It's a movie that almost nobody seems to remember despite its big-name cast and high-concept premise, and it's definitely still worth revisiting today.

Just two years after winning an Academy Award for his performance in the World War II biopic "The Pianist," Adrien Brody appeared in a small indie sci-fi film called "The Jacket." Co-starring Kiera Knightley, the film also features Daniel Craig, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Kris Kristofferson (whose 1989 time travel adventure "Millennium" narrowly missed this list). Inspired by a 1915 short story called "The Star Rover" by "White Fang" author Jack London, the film takes the premise of a convicted murderer who learns how to send his consciousness through time and space and turns it into a compelling thriller.

Brody plays Jack Starks, a Gulf War veteran who's implicated in the death of a police officer after returning home. Deemed mentally incompetent to stand trial due to amnesia, Starks is placed in a psychiatric hospital where he's abused by the staff. After being given an experimental serum, Starks is strapped into a straitjacket and sealed in a morgue drawer. He then discovers that the horrific treatment has sent him 15 years into the future, where he meets Jackie — a young woman from his past. After earning her trust, Starks and Jackie work together in an attempt to manipulate time and get him released from his bizarre captivity.

Gut-wrenching and truly strange, "The Jacket" got mixed reviews upon release, but there's no time like the present to check it out.

Star Trek: First Contact

The "Star Trek" franchise needs no introduction, and even the most casual fans may be aware that time travel is a common trope for "Trek" stories. In addition to "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home," which sees Kirk and the Enterprise visiting the "present day" of 1986 to rescue a pair of whales, another time travel "Trek" film released a decade later has been a bit forgotten by time.

"Star Trek: First Contact" sees Captain Picard and the crew of the Enterprise-D out to stop the Borg from destroying Earth. On the verge of defeat, the cyborg conquerors travel back in time more than 300 years in an effort to change history. Picard follows them and discovers that the Borg have taken them to 2063 in the aftermath of World War III, where they try to stop Dr. Zefram Cochrane (James Cromwell) from making the first warp drive flight that leads directly to Earth's first contact with Vulcans.

While critics and fans have lauded "First Contact" for its high-stakes adventure, it rarely gets its due for also being one of the best time travel stories in the franchise. When you're done, be sure to check out the "Star Trek: Enterprise" Season 2 episode "Regeneration" too, as it serves as a direct sequel that adds even more layers to the time-travel fun.

Fetching Cody

A romantic drama of love and obsession, "Fetching Cody" might remind you of the better-known time-travel thriller "The Butterfly Effect." But as a super-low-budget indie movie that blends sci-fi with teen romance, it went mostly unseen in 2005 and only gained some attention later after its star, Jay Baruchel, became a bigger name. If you're only familiar with Baruchel from his more comedic roles like in "Knocked Up," though, seeing him here might take a bit of time to get used to.

"Fetching Cody" follows a small-time drug dealer named Art (Baruchel), who lives on the streets with his girlfriend Cody (Sarah Lind). But when she overdoses and winds up in a coma, Art decides to do whatever it takes to make things right — which just so happens to include travelling back in time with a makeshift time machine that takes the form of a living room recliner. Determined to alter her past so that the tragedy never occurs, Art attempts to undo her overdose but only makes things worse, until he's finally forced to do the unthinkable.

"Fetching Cody" wasn't well-received , with critics unhappy with its mish-mash of tones. But the premise is a good one and the cast is terrific, so if you can overlook its rough edges, you'll find a strong story about true love and how all of our fates intertwine.

When it premiered in 1994, "Timecop" was seen more as a sci-fi action movie vehicle for Jean-Claude Van Damme — perhaps even a direct answer to Arnold Schwarzenegger's "Total Recall" – than the clever time travel adventure it really is. In some ways, though, the intriguing mystery at the heart of the film is more similar to 2002's "Minority Report," even if it lacks that film's style and flare.

Set 10 years into the "future" in 2004, the film follows Van Damme as Max Walker, an agent of the Time Enforcement Commission tasked with stopping time-traveling criminals. His latest case sends him back to 1994, the same year his wife was killed in a deadly bombing. While there, he uncovers a dark conspiracy that leads directly to a politician from his own time who may be using time travel to orchestrate his rise to power. When he returns to 2004 and discovers history has changed, he realizes he's the only one who can restore the timeline. But his plans are complicated when he encounters his wife in the past, and he has the opportunity to prevent her death.

To be sure, "Timecop" is every bit the action movie it was originally billed as, but it's always been undersold for its suspenseful thriller elements and clever temporal twists. It may never be a true time travel classic, but it's definitely worth a watch.

Receiving just a limited European release in theaters in 2009, "Mr. Nobody" has gotten a bit more attention via streaming in the years since. Nevertheless, it's remained mostly a cult favorite and under-the-radar movie that's been sorely underrated. What most people do know of it stems from its cast, led by controversial thespian Jared Leto and featuring Sarah Polley, Diane Kruger, Rhys Ifans, and Linh Dan Pham.

The film centers on the titular Nemo Nobody (Leto), the last mortal man living at the end of the 21st century when humanity has achieved immortality. At the ripe old age of 118 he faces his final days, and with the help of a psychiatrist, he's able to recall the many forgotten events of his life. As he looks back and reflects, Mr. Nobody explores different possible routes his life could have taken. In each timeline, Nemo makes different choices that affect the outcome of his long life in different multiversal realities.

An esoteric film about choice and family, "Mr. Nobody" isn't a time travel movie in the traditional sense, but it operates under the same basic rules. By showing the many timelines in Mr. Nobody's troubled life be affected by each decision he makes, the film builds out an interesting world and a unique nonlinear story .

The Last Mimzy

Before "A Wrinkle in Time" adapted a beloved time-traveling children's book for the big screen, another kids' adventure made its way to theaters but was largely overlooked. Starring Rhiannon Leigh Wryn, Chris O'Neil, Kathryn Hahn, Timothy Hutton, Rainn Wilson, Joely Richardson, and Michael Clarke Duncan, "The Last Mimzy" hit theaters in 2007 but was swallowed up by bigger family-friendly blockbusters like "TMNT" and "Meet the Robinsons" that released around the same time.

Based on a sci-fi short story from the 1940s, the film makes changes to the original version but retains its core concept, with a scientist in the far future testing a time machine by sending what appear to be children's toys into the past. The film ups the stakes a bit, with the world of the future in dire peril and the time travel having a much bigger mission: To recruit children in the past to help save the future. The "toys" — actually complex futuristic tools — are discovered by siblings Noah and Emma Wilder, who gain incredible psychic powers thanks to their special properties. Once discovered, however, they become the targets of government agents.

A story with a powerful message, "The Last Mimzy" might not be the best sci-fi family film out there, but it's a fun and underrated one that's worth checking out.

Idaho Transfer

Another indie movie filmed on a shoestring budget, the 1973 science fiction film "Idaho Transfer" is only known thanks to being directed by Hollywood great Peter Fonda ("Easy Rider"). Filmed with a cast of mostly unknowns and non-actors, it was only released for a few weeks in theaters before the movie's distributor went bankrupt and has since fallen into obscurity.

The film stars Kelly Bohanan as Karen Braden, a disturbed young woman who's taken to a research facility in Idaho by her father. There, a team of government scientists working on an unrelated project have inadvertently discovered time travel. Peering into the future, they learn that mankind will be mostly wiped out by an ecological disaster, prompting them to send Karen and other young men and women forward in time to help repopulate the planet.

Driven more by an interesting story than by any stunning visual effects or standout performances, "Idaho Transfer" is an under-seen, under-appreciated time-travel tale that deserves better than to be lost to the dustbin of history. Reviews at the time were mixed, but Time Magazine praised its "slow, severe beauty that makes its quiet edge of panic all the more chilling." With a "Twilight Zone" style twist ending , it's also a startling story that explores mankind's worst impulses.

In the Shadow of the Moon

Just a few years before helming the hit Netflix fantasy series "Sweet Tooth," filmmaker Jim Mickle directed the time-travel movie "In the Shadow of the Moon," starring Boyd Holbrook, Cleopatra Coleman, Bokeem Woodbine, and Michael C. Hall. A seriously underrated sci-fi adventure, the film has unfortunately been glossed over in most discussions of the genre.

The film opens in 1988 with Detective Thomas Lockhart (Holbrook) investigating a series of connected but unexplainable deaths that appear to have been caused by a mysterious woman. Nearly a decade later in 1997, an apparent copycat killer surfaces, and in 2006, Lockhart puts the pieces of the puzzle together and realizes he may be tracking a time-traveling serial killer with a personal vendetta. But Lockhart may be tempting fate by looking for answers, as his investigation brings him face-to-face with a ghost from his own past, and future.

A grizzly crime drama with a time-hopping premise that spans more than six decades, "In the Shadow of the Moon" is distinct and affecting. Receiving mediocre reviews , it escaped notice when it was released to Netflix in 2019, but if you're looking for a diamond in the rough, look no further.

Many renowned films have toyed with non-linear storytelling, with director Christopher Nolan's movies being particularly famous for the use of such devices in recent times. Time-travel stories are especially perfect for playing with nonlinearity, and the 2020 sci-fi horror movie "Intersect" does just that.

At the fictional Miskatonic University, a group of researchers cracks the code for time travel using a system called Q42 (a computer voiced by renowned evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins). Their experiments with sending material into the past yield startling results, with one of the scientists realizing that the project may be connected to unusual occurrences in his own childhood. But none of them anticipate the truth about the dark forces who've orchestrated their work, or the terrifying ends of their experiments.

The film does have its issues. It's a tad too long, a bit more of a melodrama than it's billed as, and its low budget shows. But "Intersect" is still a fresh take on time travel, mixing in downright Lovecraftian elements that make it something else entirely and a final act that's not to be missed. It won't win any awards, but it works as a nice diversion after you've cycled through the best that the sub-genre of time-travel movies has to offer.

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Freya Tingley and Charles Grounds in Time Addicts.

Time Addicts review – drug-fuelled, time-travelling fairytale in Melbourne

A mission to steal a bag full of crystal meth sparks an enjoyable labyrinthine sci-fi adventure for two bickering addicts

D enise (Freya Tingley) and Johnny (Charles Grounds) are drug buddies living in present-day Melbourne. When they’re not getting high, they spend their time mooching about, bickering, and arguing about whether some of the fancier words Johnny uses are real. (Funnily enough, most of the time they are.) They are what the cops might uncharitably describe as no-hopers.

In what turns out to be a labyrinthine time-travelling plot, one day, the dirty duo’s regular drug dealer, Kane (Joshua Morton), sends them on a mission to a dilapidated house to steal a bag full of crystal meth, a chore that will clear their debt to him. Kane warns them not to try the supply, but of course garrulous Johnny does and within seconds he evaporates with a snap and whoosh of wind right before Denise’s face. In an edit, he finds himself in the same house but 25 years or so in the past, when the home was in better nick and occupied by jumpy former undercover cop Tracey (Elise Jansen). In the present, meanwhile, Denise meets her future self who is also using the time-travel meth and has come back to give her a warning. The rest of the movie skips back and forth, using the same location and four actors, until it gradually reveals the fundamental relationships between the characters and periods.

Nerdy viewers can watch and nitpick over whether the sci-fi logic makes any sense, but it’s clear that writer-director Sam Odlum is less interested in quantum mechanics than in crafting a surreptitiously affecting “fairytale for cunts” – to quote a phrase Denise mutters early on. And like a good fairytale, there is a lot of business with lost relatives, secret identities and people stuck in magically enchanted locations that help to keep the budget low. Grounds and Tingley in particular keep their performances just on the biting point between broadly comic and genuinely vulnerable, making for a viewing experience that is altogether more enjoyable than a bare-bones plot description suggests.

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10 Great Sci-Fi Movies Not Based On Books

Great sci-fi movies not based on books showcase the original storytelling abilities of filmmakers, like George Lucas with Star Wars.
These movies, such as Avatar and Donnie Darko, draw inspiration from various sources but are not direct adaptations of any singular book.
Directors like Christopher Nolan with Inception and the Wachowskis with The Matrix, create unique and innovative sci-fi films that stand on their own, revolutionizing visual effects and storytelling.

Great sci-fi movies not based on books showcase the abilities of filmmakers and screenwriters alike. Audiences may be surprised at which of their favorite sci-fi films weren't lifted from the pages of any existing books. Though the clever concepts and believable world-building of certain films make them seem like book adaptations, film writers and directors have historically crafted original stories at par with the greatest sci-fi books of all time.

While sci-fi films based on books deal with the pressures of properly honoring the source material, movies with completely original screenplays face a different challenge. Science fiction movies have been around for over a century, and nearly every viable sci-fi concept has been explored and remixed to no end, making any original screenplay a rare storytelling gem. This isn't to say that great sci-fi movies not based on books don't borrow from literature in some way - this is inevitable for any modern artwork. Even though they're inspired by the long history of literary and cinematic sci-fi storytelling , these movies have achieved greatness without directly lifting from any book's pages.

Star Wars (1977)

Based on classic sci-fi, star wars: episode iv - a new hope.

Release Date 1977-05-25

Director George Lucas

Cast Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Peter Mayhew, Peter Cushing, Kenny Baker, James Earl Jones, Frank Oz, David Prowse, Carrie Fisher, Anthony Daniels, Alec Guinness

Runtime 121 Minutes

George Lucas drew inspiration from various sources - including mythology, classic literature, and old serials - to flesh out the Star Wars movies. However, Star Wars is not directly based on any literary work. The saga's foundation emerged from Lucas's original screenplay, evolving as he developed the narrative. While there are Star Wars books , they came after the films. Lucas prioritized visual storytelling, crafting a space opera that transcended traditional literary adaptations . The iconic characters, like Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, sprang from his imagination - not pre-existing written works. Star Wars is a cinematic journey born from Lucas' vision, and is not a direct translation of any singular book.

Avatar (2009)

Inspired by environmentalism and indigenous people's struggles.

Release Date 2009-12-18

Director James Cameron

Cast Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Michelle Rodriguez

Runtime 162 minutes

While Avatar 's story bears resemblance to films like Fern Gully and Pocahontas , James Cameron conceived the plot and wrote the screenplay himself. The film's narrative and the world of Pandora were products of Cameron's imagination, blending elements of environmentalism, indigenous cultures, and science fiction. Unlike adaptations from pre-existing literature, Cameron crafted Avatar's universe to fit the visual medium of film. While there are tie-in novels and comics, they serve to expand the lore rather than being the source material. The creation of the Na'vi, the conflict with the humans, and the exploration of Pandora all originated from Cameron's blockbuster-driven approach to storytelling.

Related: Avatar 3 News & Updates: Everything We Know

Donnie Darko (2001)

Groundbreaking take on traditional film and sci-fi tropes, donnie darko.

Release Date 2001-10-26

Director Richard Kelly

Cast Jake Gyllenhaal, Patrick swayze, Noah Wyle, Drew Barrymore, Jena Malone, Maggie Gyllenhaal

Runtime 113 minutes

Writer and director Richard Kelly conceived the mind-bending screenplay for Donnie Darko independently of any existing literature. The film's complex narrative, blending science fiction, psychological thriller, and teen drama, originated from Kelly's imagination. The story of Donnie's encounters with a mysterious figure named Frank, time travel, and existential themes were crafted specifically for the screen. While there's a novelization of the movie, it was released after the film's debut and serves as an extension rather than source material. Donnie Darko 's enigmatic plot and characters are a testament to Kelly's original storytelling, not an adaptation of pre-existing literary work.

Beyond the Black Rainbow (2010)

Original sci-fi horror based on american drug cults.

Release Date: 2010 -10-06
Director: Panos Cosmatos
Cast: Michael Rogers, Eva Bourne, Scott Hylands
Runtime: 110 minutes

Rather than borrowing from any book, director Panos Cosmatos wrote the screenplay for the psychedelic horror sci-fi film Beyond the Black Rainbow , one of the best sci-fi movies not set in the future . Based on real psychedelic drug cults from the 20th century, the movie explores themes of control, consciousness, and dystopia. Set in a mysterious research facility , Beyond the Black Rainbow delves into the psyche of its characters through a surreal lens. The film's atmospheric and abstract elements were carefully crafted for the cinematic experience, without being tied to a pre-existing book or written work. It stands as a testament to Cosmatos's creative storytelling in the realm of film.

Inception (2010)

Unique and original sci-fi take on psychological thriller.

Release Date 2010-07-16

Director Christopher Nolan

Cast Ken Watanabe, Cillian Murphy, Elliot Page, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy

Runtime 148 minutes

Director Christopher Nolan also wrote the screenplay for Inception, which is not an adaptation of any existing literary work. The intricate narrative, centered around the concept of dream infiltration and manipulation , emerged from Nolan's distinct storytelling style. Alongside the plot's "snowballing effect," the film's exploration of dreams within dreams and the complexity of the human mind is a product of the writer-director's creative vision. While there are books and theories on dreams and the subconscious, Nolan crafted the mind-bending cinematic experience independently. With its iconic, action-driven take on exploring the different layers of dreaming, Inception is an original and innovative addition to contemporary science fiction cinema.

The Matrix (1999)

Inspired by cyberpunk and classic sci-fi.

Release Date: 1999-03-31
Director: Lana Wachowski and Lilly Wachowski
Cast: Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss
Runtime: 136 minutes

Was The Matrix inspired by Grant Morrison's Invisibles ? Morrison has famously argued this to be the case, as there are many similarities between The Matrix and The Invisibles. However, the Wachowskis have maintained that their film's groundbreaking concept of a simulated reality built by artificial intelligence is their original work. Moreover, the rumors about copies of The Invisibles being used as a reference during The Matrix 's filming have been unfounded. At the same time, the Wachowskis drew inspiration from various sources, blending cyberpunk aesthetics, martial arts, and philosophical sci-fi - not unlike The Invisibles . Technically, The Matrix isn't an adaptation, but an original film that revolutionized visual effects and storytelling.

Related: The Matrix Owes Its Existence to An Obscure Marvel Comic

The Fifth Element (1997)

Inspired by french comics and classic sci-fi serials, the fifth element.

Release Date 1997-05-09

Director Luc Besson

Cast Chris Tucker, Bruce Willis, Gary Oldman, Milla Jovovich, Ian Holm

Runtime 126 minutes

Even though The Fifth Element may seem like it was pulled directly from a classic sci-fi book or comic, director and writer Luc Besson crafted the movie's screenplay on his own. The vibrant world, unique characters like Leeloo and Korben Dallas, and the overarching quest to save the universe are original elements of Besson's imagination. While Besson drew inspiration from various sources, including French sci-fi/fantasy comics , The Fifth Element stands as a cinematic original, not a direct adaptation. Although The Fifth Element 's look and feel borrow heavily from sci-fi serials, its visual spectacle and narrative richness showcase Besson's ability to weave an original and visually stunning story for the screen.

Dark City (1998)

Shares thematic elements with great sci-fi books.

Release Date: 1998-02-27
Director: Alex Proyas
Cast: Rufus Sewell, Kiefer Sutherland, Jennifer Connelly
Runtime: 100 minutes

One of the most underrated sci-fi movies from the '90s , Dark City is an original film that's not based on any book. Alex Proyas, the director, conceived the story and co-wrote the screenplay with Lem Dobbs and David S. Goyer. The film's neo-noir, sci-fi atmosphere and exploration of memory manipulation are unique to the trio's vision. Characters like John Murdoch - along with the shadowy conspiracy surrounding a mysterious city - were crafted specifically for the screen. While the film shares thematic elements with classic literature, Dark City is not a direct adaptation. Its surreal setting, distinctive visual style, and mind-bending plot demonstrate Proyas's creativity in delivering an original film.

Alien (1979)

Original and formative sci-fi horror.

Release Date 1979-06-22

Director Ridley Scott

Cast John Hurt, Sigourney Weaver, Yaphet Kotto, Veronica Cartwright, Tom Skerritt, Ian Holm, Harry Dean Stanton

Runtime 117 minutes

Alien is an original and iconic sci-fi horror movie not based on any novel or book. Director Ridley Scott developed the concept, which was fleshed out by screenwriters Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett for the big screen. The film's tense atmosphere, claustrophobic setting, and the terrifying creature known as the Xenomorph are all products of Scott's vision. Notably, however, the Xenomorph was inspired by the work of legendary visual artist H.R. Giger, which in turn inspired Scott. Alien introduced the world to the iconic character Ellen Ripley and set high standards for sci-fi horror, showcasing Scott's ability to create a chilling and suspenseful cinematic experience that remains influential today.

Related: Every Alien Movie in the Franchise, Ranked From Worst To Best

District 9 (2009)

Original contemporary film that honors science fiction's social realist roots.

Release Date 2009-08-14

Director Neill Blomkamp

Cast Mandla Gaduka, David James, Vanessa Haywood, Sharlto Copley, Jason Cope

Runtime 112 minutes

District 9 has an original screenplay that isn't directly based on any existing literary work. Neill Blomkamp, the director, co-wrote the script with Terri Tatchell, crafting a unique story of apartheid , alien refugees, and social commentary in a sci-fi setting. The character of Wikus van de Merwe and the challenges he faces in a segregated society are original elements introduced for the film - based on South African history. While District 9 delves into thought-provoking themes, it is not an adaptation of any pre-existing book or literary source. Instead, Blomkamp and Tatchell's storytelling prowess shines through in this distinctive and impactful sci-fi movie.

10 Great Sci-Fi Movies Not Based On Books

The 32 Best TV Shows About Time Travel

Time traveling is a popular topic when it comes to all types of entertainment from books to films. But in recent years time travel has also become a popular theme in TV.

So let’s take a look at this list of the best time traveling TV shows and find out how each of them handles time travel and all the history that comes with it.

Doctor Who, BBC One (1963 – 1989, 2005 – present)

When it comes to time traveling and TV, probably the most notable name in this niche is Doctor Who because this time travel series has been around for 39 seasons and is still going strong.

Hailing from British television channel BBC One, Doctor Who tells the tale of the Time Lord aka The Doctor, and his companions as they travel to different times and try to prevent evil forces from changing history and hurting innocent lives.

Once the Time Lord gets hurt beyond healing, he can transform into a new body and continue saving the world. Hence why at this point 13 (soon to be 14) different actors have played The Doctor.

Doctor Who is not only a huge part of the fabric of British popular culture but by now this time travel show has found its way into the hearts of many people all over the world.

It has inspired many spin-offs in the form of TV shows, comic books, movies, novels, you name it. But more than that, by now it has become an industry standard both when it comes to science-fiction television series and shows about time travel.

No wonder that Doctor Who continues to be successful after countless actor changes and plot twists.

Where to watch Doctor Who:

Timeless, nbc (2016 – 2018).

Another time travel TV series that has already become a cult classic and is adored by fans all over the world is NBC’s Timeless . And despite the turmoil that this show has gone through, it still is time traveling at its best.

Starring Malcolm Barrett, Matt Lanter, and Abigail Spencer as Rufus, Wyatt, and Lucy, Timeless details the trio traveling to different times in an effort to stop their adversaries from rewriting history.

But as it later turns out, the conspiracy goes deeper than them just changing history. Since the people who our trio is chasing are traveling through time to take down a dangerous and all-powerful organization. The same one that helped build the time machine that Rufus, Wyatt, and Lucy are using.

And although Timeless went on for just two seasons (and a two-hour wrap-up movie), you should still check out the show because it’s not only entertaining but will make you think and want to know more about the events that each episode is exploring.

Where to watch Timeless:

Dc’s legends of tomorrow, the cw (2016 – present).

If you are a fan of superhero TV shows, then you will probably have heard about DC’s Legends of Tomorrow . It is a show that is a huge part of The CW’s Arrowverse. And has crossed over with shows like Arrow , The Flash , and Supergirl multiple times now.

And even if you don’t like the rest of the superhero series but do enjoy a good old time travel TV show, then I suggest you still give Legends of Tomorrow a watch.

The plot of this show is based around a team of superheroes that are traveling through time in their time machine christened the Waverider to prevent different catastrophes from happening. Both ones made by others and those created by the team’s previous adventures.

At the forefront, there are well-known DC heroes like Rip Hunter, Firestorm, The Atom, Kid Flash, Steel, and Vixen. Joined by some original characters like Caity Lotz’s White Canary among others.

One of the defining characteristics of Legends of Tomorrow is how fun it is. Because adjectives like unapologetic, witty, and entertaining are frequently used to describe this time travel series.

However, more than that, it adds an interesting layer to the whole Arrowverse universe. And above all, it is just a hoot to watch.

Where to watch Legends of Tomorrow:

12 monkeys, syfy (2015 – 2018).

Then there also is SyFy’s 12 Monkeys , which is a little darker take on time traveling. One that comes with mystery, drama, and apocalyptic stakes. But that doesn’t lessen how good this time travel TV series is.

Split between two timelines, 12 Monkeys centers on Aaron Stanford’s James Cole, who is tasked to travel back in time and stop the distribution of a virus that has the ability to end the human race as we know it.

In Cole’s real timeline, the year is 2043 and people are struggling to survive because of the terrible mutations caused by the virus. So Cole travels back to 2015 to find virologist Cassie Railly, played by Amanda Schull, that can help him stop the release of the virus and the organization that is behind it called The Army of the 12 Monkeys.

If you think about it, the post-apocalyptic setting and time travel really do go hand in hand. Because if you can go back in time to stop history from being changed, why not go back to change it if it prevents something terrible from happening?

And that is what this show explores. Beautifully combining elements of mystery, drama, and science fiction, to form a great TV show.

Where to watch 12 Monkeys:

Outlander, starz (2014 – present).

Want another show that mixes time travel with historical events and does it flawlessly? Then you should put Outlander on your must-watch TV show list!

The show starts in the 1940s when a combat nurse Claire Randall visits Inverness, Scotland as part of her second honeymoon with her husband Frank. Claire accidentally happens upon the standing stones at Craigh na Dun which transport her back in time to 1743.

To return to her own time she first has to survive 18th-century Scotland. And she does so by joining a group of rebel Highlanders from Clan MacKenzie and marrying one of the Highlanders, Jamie Fraser. But eventually, she falls in love with her new husband and aids the clan in evading British redcoats that are pursuing them.

Over the five seasons of Outlander that are currently out (with the sixth coming soon), we see Claire jump back and forth between the 20th and 18th centuries and her two families as she faces two pregnancies, wars, and much more. But eventually, Claire finds her way back to Jamie.

Where to watch Outlander:

Travelers, showcase (2016 – 2018).

Then we have Travelers , a joint venture between Netflix and Canada’s Showcase that will tick all of your time travel TV show boxes.

Set in a post-apocalyptic world , this show depicts the adventures of travelers – operatives who go back in time to prevent the collapse of society.

These travelers are transferred into the bodies of our current-day humans, who otherwise would die, to blend in with twenty-first-century people. And with the help of their artificial intelligence boss from the future, travelers carry out missions in order to stop many catastrophic events from happening.

Travelers is a great mix of sci-fi and drama, featuring a great cast and spine-tingling storylines. So if you love all that and love a good time-travel series, then look no further than Travelers .

Where to watch Travelers:

Dark, netflix (2017 – 2020).

Netflix’s first German original series was the science fiction series Dark , which mixes in some mystery drama with sci-fi: time travel, the apocalypse, wormholes, and parallel worlds.

Dark takes place in Winden, a fictional German town, and begins in 2019 after children begin to disappear from the town. As the show progresses, however, timelines jump drastically between as early as 1921 to as late as 2053.

As four families in Winden investigate the disappearances to reunite with their lost loved ones, they discover a wormhole beneath the local powerplant that allows them to travel between timelines, thus uncovering a generations-long conspiracy involving the town and their families.

Where to watch Dark:

The umbrella academy, netflix (2019 – present).

Netflix brings another to the list with The Umbrella Academy .

On October 1, 1989, 43 infants were suddenly born from unsuspecting women despite them not even being pregnant the day before.

7 of them were raised together as the Hargreeve siblings and trained in their respective abilities until their relationship became strained as teenagers and they drifted apart.

Now, as adults, they’re brought back together by the death of their adoptive father – and the threat of the end of the world, of course.

They’re forced to travel back in time but end up in different times and places, and must find each other again to stop the nuclear apocalypse.

Where to watch The Umbrella Academy:

Seven days, upn (1998 – 2001).

We know that the National Security Agency has its share of secrets, but what if one of those secrets was a time-traveling machine?

In UPN’s Seven Days , the plot centers on one such device made from alien technology found at Roswell.

The Chronosphere, as it’s called, can only be used in times when national security is at risk – the limited capacity of the device allows for just one human to go back in time by seven days in order to avert disasters.

Thus, when the White House is attacked, the NSA employs former Navy SEAL and CIA operative Frank Parker to go back and prevent it from happening.

Where to watch Seven Days:

Loki, disney+ (2021 – present).

Yes, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is one of the greatest gifts to the cinema of our time. Now, the MCU has expanded even further into the television medium and we’ve got a few series to accompany it!

One of those is Loki , which of course, centers on the God of Thunder’s mischievous adopted brother.

After the events in Avengers: Endgame , particularly his stealing of the Tesseract, Loki inadvertently creates another timeline that began in 2012, making him a “time variant” version of himself.

When confronted by the authorities, Loki is given two choices: face punishment and cease to exist, or travel through time to fix his own mess and the threat that has emerged.

Where to watch Loki:

Making history, fox (2017).

The thing about traveling back in time is, you have to be very careful that your actions in the past won’t affect the future (which is essentially your actual present).

Most of the time, that’s something you wouldn’t know until you go back to your time. In Making History , however, Dan Chambers travels back in time to right before the American Revolution and sets off a series of events that seriously mess up the future.

Being able to constantly travel between time periods, Dan recruits the help of history professor Chis Parrish to travel with him and ensure that the American Revolution still takes place.

Where to watch Making History:

Quantum leap, nbc (1989 – 1993).

The title of NBC’s sci-fi comedy-drama Quantum Leap is also the name of the time travel machine that accidentally sends its creator, physicist Dr. Sam Beckett, back into the past.

Now, he’s stuck – and not as himself, either!

Sam discovers that he jumped into the body of a stranger and because he’s still himself, doesn’t know all the details of his current identity.

With the help of his friend Al, who appears as a hologram only he can see, he must fix something that went wrong so he can jump in time again and eventually get back to his own body.

Where to watch Quantum Leap:

Quantum leap, nbc (2022 – present).

Speaking of Quantum Leap , in 2022 NBC revived the 1989 series into a more modern take on the cult classic.

In this new Quantum Leap , thirty years have passed since Dr. Sam Beckett vanished into the Quantum Leap accelerator, and the Quantum Leap project was put to rest.

Now the project is restarted with a new team, who tries to puzzle together the mysteries behind Beckett and his time-traveling machine.

So, we follow Ben Song, the lead physicist of the Quantum Leap time travel project, who gets lost in the past after leaping back in time.

As he tries to return to the present he is helped by his fiancée Addison Augustine, who appears to him as a hologram during each leap, and the team back in the present time.

Where to watch Quantum Leap reboot:

The way home, hallmark channel (2023 – present).

Among the newest time travel shows on this list is Hallmark’s The Way Home which has already been renewed for a second season.

The Way Home follows three generations of Landry women who learn that they can time travel after discovering a magic pond on their family’s farm in Port Haven.

When Kat and her daughter Alice return to Port Haven and are forced to move in with Alice’s estranged mother Del, the three women use time travel to uncover their family history, including what really happened to Kat’s little brother Jacob and whether they can prevent his disappearance.

Where to watch The Way Home:

Russian doll, netflix (2019 – 2022).

Netflix’s Russian Doll deviates from the traditional time travel theme of a willing traveler in one specific timeline because Russian Doll’s protagonist Nadia Vulvokov not only has absolutely no choice or control over her so-called time traveling, but hers is also a time loop.

She wakes up every day having to relive the day of her 36th birthday party in New York City; every time, she dies and comes back to the exact same moment.

Every time, Nadia scrambles to figure out what happens to her and tries to prevent her death, leading her to find Alan, a man who is experiencing the same time loop.

Where to watch Russian Doll:

Undone, prime video (2019 – present).

Undone may be an animated series, but it certainly isn’t geared toward younger audiences; though there is a touch of comedy, the series leans more towards the psychological drama genre and “explores the elastic nature of reality”.

The series follows Alma Winograd-Diaz right after she gets into a near-fatal car accident.

Right before the crash, she has a strange vision of her dead father, and right after it, she finds that she now has the ability to manipulate and move through time.

Using this newfound power, she travels between time periods to get to the bottom of the mystery surrounding her father’s death.

Where to watch Undone:

Voyagers, nbc (1982 – 1983).

Premiering back in the early 1980s, NBC’s Voyagers! Is set in a world where time travel already exists.

In fact, there’s already a secret society in place that trains its members, called Voyagers, to go back in time and make sure that historical events happen exactly the way they’re supposed to – otherwise it could affect the present in unexpected ways.

One such Voyager is Phineas Bogg, although he isn’t exactly the best at the job.

During an accidental trip to 1982, he meets the young Jeffrey Jones and ends up bringing him along on one of his missions.

Having lost his Guidebook, Phineas now needs to rely on the extremely smart Jeffrey to get history right.

Where to watch Voyagers!:

Fringe, fox (2008 – 2013).

Fox’s Fringe is a series that was well into the science fiction genre, with parallel universes, supernatural abilities, biotechnology, doomsday predictions, and of course, time travel.

The title is taken from fringe science, which is a branch that deals with scientific theories riddled with skepticism or even having been disproven already.

In Fringe , Special Agent Olivia Dunham is assigned to oversee the FBI ’s Fringe Division, which is run by Peter Bishop and his father Walter.

Together, the team uses both fringe science and Olivia’s knowledge in investigative techniques to explore the unexplained.

In the process, they discover a larger mystery involving parallel universes and alternate timelines .

Where to watch Fringe:

Time after time, abc (2017).

ABC’s Time After Time is based on the novel of the same name written by Kevin Williamson in 1979.

In addition to that, each episode takes its title from a line in Cyndi Lauper’s song, which was inspired by the film (and subsequently, the same book!).

In Time After Time , we are taken to H.G. Wells’ home in 1893.

During a dinner party, he reveals his time machine – right before his guest John Stevenson is arrested for actually being Jack the Ripper .

John escapes through the time machine and Wells follows him straight into the present: 2017. Thus begins a cat-and-mouse game as John attempts to gain control of the machine.

Where to watch Time After Time:

11.22.63, hulu (2016).

When you have anything with Stephen King involved, you know it’s going to be great.

Hulu’s eight-episode miniseries 11.22.63 is based on King’s novel 11/22/63 and is a science fiction thriller like no other.

Starring James Franco in the lead role, 11.22.63 follows Jake Epping, an English teacher from Maine .

His best friend Al reveals a time travel machine and asks him to take over the mission he’s been working on: to travel to the 60s and prevent the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Will Jake be successful in changing a past that simply refuses to be changed?

Where to watch 11.22.63:

The 4400, usa network/sky one (2004 – 2007).

The 4400 is yet another slightly different take on the idea of time travel, in that there has been just one (fairly significant) shift forward in time, to the present.

Beginning in 1946, individuals who were easily overlooked or marginalized by society slowly began disappearing through beams of green light.

Now, all 4400 of them (hence the title) have been returned to the present day – without having aged a day and in some cases, even manifesting supernatural abilities like telekinesis, healing, and telepathy.

Tom Baldwin and Diana Skouris are assigned to investigate the phenomenon and find out why the 4400 have returned.

NOTE: For a fresher take on the show, you can also check out the reboot of the original series which is currently airing on The CW.

Where to watch The 4400:

Somewhere between, abc (2017).

When tragedy strikes our lives, we always wish there was something we could’ve done to prevent it.

In ABC’s Somewhere Between we meet Laura Price, a successful news producer with a great career, a loving husband who’s a district attorney, and a beautiful daughter named Serena.

However, her life changes when the serial killer she is helping the cops to catch kills Serena.

Distraught with grief , Laura attempts to complete suicide but is unsuccessful, instead waking up having time-traveled to a week before Serena’s death.

She teams up with Nico, a former SFPD detective who experienced the same reset and wants to find the real killer to change his brother’s fate as well.

Where to watch Somewhere Between:

Terra nova, fox (2011).

Terra Nova takes its viewers to both extremes of the time-traveling timeline.

The present-day is 2149, where overpopulation has threatened to deplete the Earth’s resources.

In an attempt to save Earth and mankind, scientists have found a way to travel back in time, sending groups of humans back to the Cretaceous Period to set up colonies.

Terra Nova focuses primarily on Elisabeth and Jim Shannon, and their three children, who have joined the 10th pilgrimage to Terra Nova.

They offer their expertise as a trauma surgeon and former narcotics detective and help those in charge with stopping those whose intentions go against the greater good.

Where to watch Terra Nova:

Frequency, the cw (2016 – 2017).

One concept in time travel is known as “the butterfly effect”, wherein one small change in time may have great effects elsewhere.

Frequency demonstrates this concept perfectly.

Raimy Sullivan is an NYPD detective who, after a strange weather phenomenon, discovers that she can communicate with her dead father through his old ham radio.

Believing he was a corrupt cop, she learns the truth and warns him of his murder, thus saving his life.

However, this has profound effects on the future – Raimy’s present.

Now, they must work together across time to save her father and preserve the present.

Where to watch Frequency:

Life on mars, bbc one (2006).

In many of the shows on the list so far, the protagonists experience a time loop that’s triggered at the point of their death.

It’s no different for Sam Tyler, the main character in the British series Life on Mars .

Sam is a Detective Chief Inspector with the Greater Manchester Police, but one day he accidentally gets hit by a car.

When he awakens, he’s in 1973 and working at one rank lower than he was: Detective Inspector.

The selling point of Life on Mars , however, is that we’re left unsure if Sam’s predicament is due to his actual death, a comatose, or time travel.

Where to watch Life on Mars:

Always a witch, netflix (2019 – 2020).

Always A Witch (or Siempre Bruja in its original Spanish title) is a Colombian series that is set in both present-day Colombia and the 17th century .

The series follows Carmen Eguiliuz, a young 19-year-old witch who, after committing the crime of falling in love with a white man in 1646 colonial Colombia, is scheduled to be burned at the stake.

She gets a chance to escape to a new life when the mysterious wizard Aldemar makes a deal with her: he will save the man she loves if she travels into the future to find the woman who can break his curse.

Where to watch Always a Witch:

Beforeigners, hbo (2019 – present).

HBO’s Beforeigners is a Norwegian sci-fi crime drama series and the first Norwegian original from HBO Europe.

The title is a clever play on words centered on the general plot: a group of “foreigners” has suddenly shown up at a neighborhood in Oslo, and they are all from “before” times, or several different time periods in history.

Whether from the Viking period , the Stone Age, or the more recent 19th century , each of these ‘Beforeigners’ tries to integrate in modern-day Norwegian society.

One of them even partners with a detective to investigate first a murdered Stone Age woman, then a series of murderers tied to Jack the Ripper.

Where to watch Beforeigners:

Alice, sbs tv (2020).

Alice was a South Korean sci-fi series that aired in late 2020.

In the lead-up to the main plot, the show’s background is explained to its viewers.

Set in 2050, time travel is monitored by an agency called Alice, which sends its clients to the past to help find closure with deceased loved ones.

Alice one day sends two agents to 1992 in order to find the Book of Prophecy, but one of them disappears with the book and her unborn child.

In 2020, the child becomes a detective and in his investigation into his mother’s death in 2010, discovers the existence of Alice and time travel.

Where to watch Alice:

Live up to your name, tvn (2017).

Yet another South Korean time travel series , Live Up to Your Name initially takes its viewers some 400 years into the past, right in the middle of the Joseon dynasty.

There we meet Heo Im, a doctor of traditional Korean medicine who also specializes in acupuncture.

On one of his treatments of the king’s migraines, he made a mistake and was charged with treason.

Chased by the king’s soldiers, he’s shot with an arrow and presumed dead when he falls into the river – except he ends up waking up in present-day Seoul instead, where he meets cardiothoracic surgeon Choi Yeon-kyung.

Where to watch Live Up to Your Name:

My only love song, netflix (2017).

Our third South Korean series is Netflix’s My Only Love Song , which aired in 2017.

We start off in modern-day Korea where we meet Soo-jung, a talented and top-level actress.

However, it seems that the fame may have gotten to her head as she’s arrogant, and believes fame and money make the world go round.

When things don’t go her way on her new show, she winds up in a time-traveling van that takes her to the 6th century.

There, she meets a man much like herself in terms of arrogance, but his hidden soft spot and generosity towards the poor changes her perspective on her own life and self.

Where to watch My Only Love Song:

Signal, tvn (2016).

Signal is based on the 2000 American film Frequency , but another thing that sets this South Korean series apart from others is that the cases investigated in the series are also based on real-life crimes in the country.

Signal follows a cold case profiler from 2015 and a detective from 1989 simultaneously; they discover they’re able to communicate with each other through an old walkie-talkie.

Using this unique ability to provide much-needed foresight in investigations, they team up to both solve and in some cases, even prevent these horrific crimes.

Where to watch Signal:

Rooftop prince, sbs (2012).

Last but not least, South Korea brings its last time-traveling series to the table with Rooftop Prince , a comedy-drama filled with intrigue, mixed identities, and possible reincarnations.

Crown Prince Lee Gak from the Joseon dynasty accidentally time travels to 2012 with three others from his entourage, and their lives are thrown into a whirlwind.

He crosses paths with Se-na, who looks exactly like his recently deceased wife.

In the hopes of getting answers about his wife’s mysterious drowning, he assumes the identity of another man who he also looks exactly like and attempts to marry Se-na in this timeline as well.

Where to watch Rooftop Prince:

11 comments.

Tomorrow people cw

You forgot The Time Tunnel, an Irwin Allen sci-fi show (Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Lost In Space, Land of The Giants), all classic 60s sci-fi

Journeyman should also be on this list. It was only half a season on NBC but it wraps up to a satisfying conclusion.

Fantastic acting and interesting characters.

Glad someone else watched Journeyman. I thought I’d was a great spiritual successor to Quantum Leap.

Journeyman is one of the good shows u can watch but qunatum leap i watched and didnt like

Where is The Time Tunnel?????

Another show for your list is “Being Erica” (CBC, 2009-2011). Excellent writing, and very unique.

i was looking for this comment. such an underrated show

I concur. This was definitely a great one. It certainly provides a lot of food for thought.

Some of the information in the Doctor Who one is wrong. It started in 1963, it was only revived in 2005 (you put 2006), and it’s been going for 39 seasons, as of June 2022

Thanks for letting me know! I updated the article accordingly.

Rebel Wilson claims a royal family member once invited her to a drug-fueled orgy

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Rebel Wilson claims in her new memoir, “ Rebel Rising ,” that a member of the British royal family once invited her to a drug-fueled orgy in Southern California.

Although the Australian actress, 44, does not name the royal, she claims the individual is male and possibly “fifteenth or twentieth in line to the British throne,” per the Daily Mail.

Wilson alleges she got a “last-minute invite” in 2014, recalling that the royal told her “more girls” were needed at a flashy, medieval-themed shindig hosted at the home of a U.S. tech billionaire just outside Los Angeles.

“What a perfect opportunity to find a boyfriend, I thought,” she writes in her book.

Wilson recalls wearing a “buxom damsel outfit complete with cone hat” to the event, which she labels “insane” with swinging acrobats, men jousting on horses and a swimming pool full of women dressed as mermaids.

At the party, the author remembers seeing the British royal mingling about while drugs were being handed out on trays.

“I watch the British royal flounder around whilst I continuously hike up my boobs. They are my best physical asset,” she says, adding that MDMA — which she, at first, thought were sweet treats — was allegedly passed around after an elaborate firework display.

Wilson claims she was told the drug was “for the orgy,” as such activity usually begins at a certain point in the evening at the tech billionaire’s parties.

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“Now the comment by the Windsor about needing more girls started to make a lot more sense,” she writes in her tome.

“They weren’t talking about a boy-girl ratio like it was a year-eight disco,” Wilson adds. “They were talking about an ORGY!”

Wilson, who was a virgin at the time, says she exited the premises before a wild sex scene allegedly played out.

“Needless to say, I hike up my damsel dress and run out of there as fast as I can,” she writes.

This anecdote comes weeks after Wilson made headlines for revealing that comedian Sacha Baron Cohen was the “massive a—hole” she wrote about in “Rebel Rising,” accusing him of displaying inappropriate behavior on the set of their 2016 film “Grimsby”

“I wrote about an a–hole in my book. Now, said a–hole is trying to threaten me,” the “Pitch Perfect” star claimed in a since-deleted Instagram Story in March.

Rebel Wilson with her memoir "Rebel Rising"

“He’s hired a crisis PR manager and lawyers,” she went on to allege. “He is trying to stop press coming out about my book. But the book WILL come out, and you will all know the truth.”

Wilson subsequently named Cohen, 52, in an effort to “not be bullied or silenced by high priced lawyers or PR crisis managers.”

She wrote, “The ‘a–hole’ that I am talking about in ONE CHAPTER of my book is: Sacha Baron Cohen.”

However, a spokesperson for Cohen told Page Six at the time, “While we appreciate the importance of speaking out, these demonstrably false claims are directly contradicted by extensive detailed evidence, including contemporaneous documents, film footage and eyewitness accounts from those present before, during and after the production of ‘Grimsby.’”

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The 30 Best Drug Movies

Life is beautiful, but when it comes to drugs, takes a dark and sick form. Some of these films are too upset to watch twice but definitely unique and realistic ,And to be honest, this kind of films can to prevent even from a big mistake from a temptation and very serious problems.

Movies or TV
IMDb Rating
In Theaters
Release Year

1. Requiem for a Dream (2000)

R | 102 min | Drama

The drug-induced utopias of four Coney Island people are shattered when their addictions run deep..

Director: Darren Aronofsky | Stars: Ellen Burstyn , Jared Leto , Jennifer Connelly , Marlon Wayans

Votes: 898,280 | Gross: $3.64M

The drug-induced utopias of four Coney Island people are shattered when their addictions run deep.

2. Trainspotting (1996)

R | 93 min | Drama

Renton, deeply immersed in the Edinburgh drug scene, tries to clean up and get out despite the allure of drugs and the influence of friends.

Director: Danny Boyle | Stars: Ewan McGregor , Ewen Bremner , Jonny Lee Miller , Kevin McKidd

Votes: 725,394 | Gross: $16.50M

Renton, deeply immersed in the Edinburgh drug scene, tries to clean up and get out, despite the allure of the drugs and influence of friends.

3. Blow (2001)

R | 124 min | Biography, Crime, Drama

The story of how George Jung , along with the Medellín Cartel headed by Pablo Escobar , established the American cocaine market in the 1970s in the United States.

Director: Ted Demme | Stars: Johnny Depp , Penélope Cruz , Franka Potente , Rachel Griffiths

Votes: 274,977 | Gross: $52.99M

The story of George Jung, the man who established the American cocaine market in the 1970s.

4. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)

R | 118 min | Adventure, Comedy, Drama

An oddball journalist and his psychopathic lawyer travel to Las Vegas for a series of psychedelic escapades.

Director: Terry Gilliam | Stars: Johnny Depp , Benicio Del Toro , Tobey Maguire , Michael Lee Gogin

Votes: 301,420 | Gross: $10.68M

5. Scarface (1983)

R | 170 min | Crime, Drama

In 1980 Miami, a determined Cuban immigrant takes over a drug cartel and succumbs to greed.

Director: Brian De Palma | Stars: Al Pacino , Michelle Pfeiffer , Steven Bauer , Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio

Votes: 915,999 | Gross: $45.60M

In Miami in 1980, a determined Cuban immigrant takes over a drug cartel and succumbs to greed.

6. Pulp Fiction (1994)

R | 154 min | Crime, Drama

The lives of two mob hitmen, a boxer, a gangster and his wife, and a pair of diner bandits intertwine in four tales of violence and redemption.

Director: Quentin Tarantino | Stars: John Travolta , Uma Thurman , Samuel L. Jackson , Bruce Willis

Votes: 2,218,836 | Gross: $107.93M

The lives of two mob hit men, a boxer, a gangster's wife, and a pair of diner bandits intertwine in four tales of violence and redemption.

7. Goodfellas (1990)

R | 145 min | Biography, Crime, Drama

The story of Henry Hill and his life in the mafia, covering his relationship with his wife Karen and his mob partners Jimmy Conway and Tommy DeVito.

Director: Martin Scorsese | Stars: Robert De Niro , Ray Liotta , Joe Pesci , Lorraine Bracco

Votes: 1,256,712 | Gross: $46.84M

Henry Hill and his friends work their way up through the mob hierarchy.

8. Spun (2002)

R | 101 min | Comedy, Crime, Drama

A drug dealer introduces one of his customers, a 'speed freak', to the man who runs the meth lab. A crazy three-day adventure ensues.

Director: Jonas Åkerlund | Stars: Jason Schwartzman , John Leguizamo , Patrick Fugit , Brittany Murphy

Votes: 40,735 | Gross: $0.41M

A drug dealer introduces one of his customers, a 'speed freak', to the man who runs the meth lab. A crazy three-day adventure ensues.

9. Traffic (2000)

R | 147 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller

A conservative judge is appointed by the President to spearhead America's escalating war against drugs, only to discover that his teenage daughter is a crack addict. Two DEA agents protect an informant. A jailed drug baron's wife attempts to carry on the family business.

Director: Steven Soderbergh | Stars: Michael Douglas , Benicio Del Toro , Catherine Zeta-Jones , Jacob Vargas

Votes: 219,693 | Gross: $124.12M

10. Boogie Nights (1997)

R | 155 min | Drama

Back when sex was safe, pleasure was a business and business was booming, an idealistic porn producer aspires to elevate his craft to an art when he discovers a hot young talent.

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson | Stars: Mark Wahlberg , Julianne Moore , Burt Reynolds , Luis Guzmán

Votes: 281,938 | Gross: $26.40M

The story of a young man's adventures in the Californian pornography industry of the late 1970s and early 1980s.

11. Pineapple Express (2008)

R | 111 min | Action, Comedy, Crime

A process server and his marijuana dealer wind up on the run from hitmen and a corrupt police officer after he witnesses his dealer's boss murder a competitor while trying to serve papers on him.

Director: David Gordon Green | Stars: Seth Rogen , James Franco , Gary Cole , Danny McBride

Votes: 357,357 | Gross: $87.34M

A process server and his marijuana dealer wind up on the run from hitmen and a corrupt police officer after he witnesses his dealer's boss murder a competitor while trying to serve papers on him.

12. The Panic in Needle Park (1971)

PG | 110 min | Drama

Follows the lives of heroin addicts who frequent "Needle Park" in New York City.

Director: Jerry Schatzberg | Stars: Al Pacino , Kitty Winn , Alan Vint , Richard Bright

Votes: 20,195

Follows the lives of heroin addicts who frequent "Needle Park" in New York City.

13. Up in Smoke (1978)

R | 86 min | Comedy, Music

Two stoners unknowingly smuggle a van - made entirely of marijuana - from Mexico to L.A., with incompetent Sgt. Stedenko on their trail.

Directors: Lou Adler , Tommy Chong | Stars: Cheech Marin , Tommy Chong , Strother Martin , Edie Adams

Votes: 40,883 | Gross: $44.36M

14. Candy (2006)

R | 108 min | Drama, Romance

A poet falls in love with an art student who gravitates to his bohemian lifestyle -- and his love of heroin. Hooked as much on one another as they are on the drug, their relationship alternates between states of oblivion, self-destruction, and despair.

Director: Neil Armfield | Stars: Heath Ledger , Abbie Cornish , Geoffrey Rush , Tom Budge

Votes: 47,734 | Gross: $0.04M

15. Enter the Void (2009)

Not Rated | 161 min | Drama, Fantasy

An American drug dealer living in Tokyo is betrayed by his best friend and killed in a drug deal. His soul, observing the repercussions of his death, seeks resurrection.

Director: Gaspar Noé | Stars: Nathaniel Brown , Paz de la Huerta , Cyril Roy , Olly Alexander

Votes: 88,022 | Gross: $0.34M

A U.S. drug dealer living in Tokyo is betrayed by his best friend and killed in a drug deal. His soul, observing the repercussions of his death, seeks resurrection.

16. Training Day (2001)

R | 122 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller

A rookie cop spends his first day as a Los Angeles narcotics officer with a rogue detective who isn't what he appears to be.

Director: Antoine Fuqua | Stars: Denzel Washington , Ethan Hawke , Scott Glenn , Tom Berenger

Votes: 472,619 | Gross: $76.63M

On his first day on the job as a Los Angeles narcotics officer, a rookie cop goes on a 24-hour training course with a rogue detective who isn't what he appears.

17. The Big Lebowski (1998)

R | 117 min | Comedy, Crime

Jeff "The Dude" Lebowski, mistaken for a millionaire of the same name, seeks restitution for his ruined rug and enlists his bowling buddies to help get it.

Directors: Joel Coen , Ethan Coen | Stars: Jeff Bridges , John Goodman , Julianne Moore , Steve Buscemi

Votes: 860,007 | Gross: $17.50M

"The Dude" Lebowski, mistaken for a millionaire Lebowski, seeks restitution for his ruined rug and enlists his bowling buddies to help get it.

18. Half Nelson (2006)

R | 106 min | Drama

An inner-city junior high school teacher with a drug habit forms an unlikely friendship with one of his students after she discovers his secret.

Director: Ryan Fleck | Stars: Ryan Gosling , Anthony Mackie , Shareeka Epps , Jeff Lima

Votes: 91,897 | Gross: $2.69M

19. Casino (1995)

R | 178 min | Crime, Drama

In Las Vegas, two best friends - a casino executive and a mafia enforcer - compete for a gambling empire and a fast-living, fast-loving socialite.

Director: Martin Scorsese | Stars: Robert De Niro , Sharon Stone , Joe Pesci , James Woods

Votes: 563,645 | Gross: $42.44M

Greed, deception, money, power, and murder occur between two best friends, a mafia underboss and a casino owner, for a trophy wife over a gambling empire.

20. The Social Network (2010)

PG-13 | 120 min | Biography, Drama

As Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg creates the social networking site that would become known as Facebook, he is sued by the twins who claimed he stole their idea and by the co-founder who was later squeezed out of the business.

Director: David Fincher | Stars: Jesse Eisenberg , Andrew Garfield , Justin Timberlake , Rooney Mara

Votes: 758,299 | Gross: $96.96M

Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg creates the social networking site that would become known as Facebook, but is later sued by two brothers who claimed he stole their idea, and the co-founder who was later squeezed out of the business.

21. Christiane F. (1981)

R | 138 min | Biography, Drama

A teen girl in 1970s Berlin becomes addicted to heroin. Everything in her life slowly begins to distort and disappear as she befriends a small crew of junkies and falls in love with a drug-abusing male prostitute.

Director: Uli Edel | Stars: Natja Brunckhorst , Eberhard Auriga , Peggy Bussieck , Lothar Chamski

Votes: 29,383

A bored, aimless 14-year-old girl falls into the drug scene in Berlin in the 1970s after attending 'The Sound', a modern new disco. In search of acceptance and freedom, she falls in with a teenage boy who is hooked on heroin and eventually develops an addiction of her own.

22. The Private Lives of Pippa Lee (2009)

R | 98 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance

After her much older husband forces a move to a suburban retirement community, Pippa Lee engages in a period of reflection and finds herself heading toward a quiet nervous breakdown.

Director: Rebecca Miller | Stars: Robin Wright , Alan Arkin , Mike Binder , Winona Ryder

Votes: 14,219

23. A Scanner Darkly (2006)

R | 100 min | Animation, Comedy, Crime

An undercover cop in a not-too-distant future becomes involved with a dangerous new drug and begins to lose his own identity as a result.

Director: Richard Linklater | Stars: Keanu Reeves , Winona Ryder , Robert Downey Jr. , Rory Cochrane

Votes: 117,097 | Gross: $5.50M

24. Limitless (I) (2011)

PG-13 | 105 min | Sci-Fi, Thriller

A mysterious pill that enables the user to access 100% of his brain's abilities transforms a struggling writer into a financial wizard, but it also puts him in a new world with many dangers.

Director: Neil Burger | Stars: Bradley Cooper , Anna Friel , Abbie Cornish , Robert De Niro

Votes: 612,171 | Gross: $79.25M

With the help of a mysterious pill that enables the user to access 100 percent of his brain abilities, a struggling writer becomes a financial wizard, but it also puts him in a new world with lots of dangers.

25. Lucy (I) (2014)

R | 89 min | Action, Sci-Fi, Thriller

A woman, accidentally caught in a dark deal, turns the tables on her captors and transforms into a merciless warrior evolved beyond human logic.

Director: Luc Besson | Stars: Scarlett Johansson , Morgan Freeman , Choi Min-sik , Amr Waked

Votes: 534,020 | Gross: $126.66M

26. Cheech and Chong's Next Movie (1980)

R | 99 min | Comedy, Crime

Cheech and Chong live in a decrepit old house and drive their neighbour crazy with their loud music, weed smoking and general anarchy and slacker view on life. Then Chong meets Cheech's Texan cousin Red and things kick up a notch.

Director: Tommy Chong | Stars: Cheech Marin , Tommy Chong , Evelyn Guerrero , Betty Kennedy

Votes: 14,955 | Gross: $41.68M

The two stoners and their friends go through another series of crazy, drug-influenced misadventures.

27. The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

R | 180 min | Biography, Comedy, Crime

Based on the true story of Jordan Belfort , from his rise to a wealthy stock-broker living the high life to his fall involving crime, corruption and the federal government.

Director: Martin Scorsese | Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio , Jonah Hill , Margot Robbie , Matthew McConaughey

Votes: 1,582,147 | Gross: $116.90M

Based on the true story of Jordan Belfort, from his rise to a wealthy stock-broker living the high life to his fall involving crime, corruption and the federal government.

28. Carlito's Way (1993)

R | 144 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller

A Puerto Rican former convict, just released from prison, pledges to stay away from drugs and violence despite the pressure around him and lead on to a better life outside of N.Y.C.

Director: Brian De Palma | Stars: Al Pacino , Sean Penn , Penelope Ann Miller , John Leguizamo

Votes: 232,283 | Gross: $36.95M

29. City of God (2002)

R | 130 min | Crime, Drama

In the slums of Rio, two kids' paths diverge as one struggles to become a photographer and the other a kingpin.

Directors: Fernando Meirelles , Kátia Lund | Stars: Alexandre Rodrigues , Leandro Firmino , Matheus Nachtergaele , Phellipe Haagensen

Votes: 800,643 | Gross: $7.56M

Two boys growing up in a violent neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro take different paths: one becomes a photographer, the other a drug dealer.

30. American Gangster (2007)

R | 157 min | Biography, Crime, Drama

An outcast New York City cop is charged with bringing down Harlem drug lord Frank Lucas, whose real life inspired this partly biographical film.

Director: Ridley Scott | Stars: Denzel Washington , Russell Crowe , Chiwetel Ejiofor , Josh Brolin

Votes: 452,360 | Gross: $130.16M

In 1970s America, a detective works to bring down the drug empire of Frank Lucas, a heroin kingpin from Manhattan, who is smuggling the drug into the country from the Far East.

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The Evolving Danger of the New Bird Flu

An unusual outbreak of the disease has spread to dairy herds in multiple u.s. states..

This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email [email protected] with any questions.

From “The New York Times,” I’m Sabrina Tavernise, and this is “The Daily.”

[MUSIC PLAYING]

The outbreak of bird flu that is tearing through the nation’s poultry farms is the worst in US history. But scientists say it’s now starting to spread into places and species it’s never been before.

Today, my colleague, Emily Anthes, explains.

It’s Monday, April 22.

Emily, welcome back to the show.

Thanks for having me. Happy to be here.

So, Emily, we’ve been talking here on “The Daily” about prices of things and how they’ve gotten so high, mostly in the context of inflation episodes. And one of the items that keeps coming up is eggs. Egg prices were through the roof last year, and we learned it was related to this. Avian flu has been surging in the United States. You’ve been covering this. Tell us what’s happening.

Yes, so I have been covering this virus for the last few years. And the bird flu is absolutely tearing through poultry flocks, and that is affecting egg prices. That’s a concern for everyone, for me and for my family. But when it comes to scientists, egg prices are pretty low on their list of concerns. Because they see this bird flu virus behaving differently than previous versions have. And they’re getting nervous, in particular, about the fact that this virus is reaching places and species where it’s never been before.

OK, so bird flu, though, isn’t new. I mean I remember hearing about cases in Asia in the ‘90s. Remind us how it began.

Bird flu refers to a bunch of different viruses that are adapted to spread best in birds. Wild water birds, in particular, are known for carrying these viruses. And flu viruses are famous for also being shapeshifters. So they’re constantly swapping genes around and evolving into new strains. And as you mentioned back in the ‘90s, a new version of bird flu, a virus known as H5N1, emerged in Asia. And it has been spreading on and off around the world since then, causing periodic outbreaks.

And how are these outbreaks caused?

So wild birds are the reservoir for the virus, which means they carry it in their bodies with them around the world as they fly and travel and migrate. And most of the time, these wild birds, like ducks and geese, don’t even get very sick from this virus. But they shed it. So as they’re traveling over a poultry farm maybe, if they happen to go to the bathroom in a pond that the chickens on the farm are using or eat some of the feed that chickens on the farm are eating, they can leave the virus behind.

And the virus can get into chickens. In some cases, it causes mild illness. It’s what’s known as low pathogenic avian influenza. But sometimes the virus mutates and evolves, and it can become extremely contagious and extremely fatal in poultry.

OK, so the virus comes through wild birds, but gets into farms like this, as you’re describing. How have farms traditionally handled outbreaks, when they do happen?

Well, because this threat isn’t new, there is a pretty well-established playbook for containing outbreaks. It’s sometimes known as stamping out. And brutally, what it means is killing the birds. So the virus is so deadly in this highly pathogenic form that it’s sort of destined to kill all the birds on a farm anyway once it gets in. So the response has traditionally been to proactively depopulate or cull all the birds, so it doesn’t have a chance to spread.

So that’s pretty costly for farmers.

It is. Although the US has a program where it will reimburse farmers for their losses. And the way these reimbursements work is they will reimburse farmers only for the birds that are proactively culled, and not for those who die naturally from the virus. And the thinking behind that is it’s a way to incentivize farmers to report outbreaks early.

So, OK, lots of chickens are killed in a way to manage these outbreaks. So we know how to deal with them. But what about now? Tell me about this new strain.

So this new version of the virus, it emerged in 2020.

After the deadly outbreak of the novel coronavirus, authorities have now confirmed an outbreak of the H5N1 strain of influenza, a kind of bird flu.

And pretty quickly it became clear that a couple things set it apart.

A bald eagle found dead at Carvins Cove has tested positive for the highly contagious bird flu.

This virus, for whatever reason, seemed very good at infecting all sorts of wild birds that we don’t normally associate with bird flu.

[BIRD CRYING]

He was kind of stepping, and then falling over, and using its wing to right itself.

Things like eagles and condors and pelicans.

We just lost a parliament of owls in Minneapolis.

Yeah, a couple of high profile nests.

And also in the past, wild birds have not traditionally gotten very sick from this virus. And this version of the virus not only spread widely through the wild bird population, but it proved to be devastating.

The washing up along the East Coast of the country from Scotland down to Suffolk.

We were hearing about mass die-offs of seabirds in Europe by the hundreds and the thousands.

And the bodies of the dead dot the island wherever you look.

Wow. OK. So then as we know, this strain, like previous ones, makes its way from wild animals to farmed animals, namely to chickens. But it’s even more deadly.

Absolutely. And in fact, it has already caused the worst bird flu outbreak in US history. So more than 90 million birds in the US have died as a result of this virus.

90 million birds.

Yes, and I should be clear that represents two things. So some of those birds are birds who naturally got infected and died from the virus. But the vast majority of them are birds that were proactively culled. What it adds up to is, is 90 million farmed birds in the US have died since this virus emerged. And it’s not just a chicken problem. Another thing that has been weird about this virus is it has jumped into other kinds of farms. It is the first time we’ve seen a bird flu virus jump into US livestock.

And it’s now been reported on a number of dairy farms across eight US states. And that’s just something that’s totally unprecedented.

So it’s showing up at Dairy farms now. You’re saying that bird flu has now spread to cows. How did that happen?

So we don’t know exactly how cows were first infected, but most scientists’ best guess is that maybe an infected wild bird that was migrating shed the virus into some cattle feed or a pasture or a pond, and cattle picked it up. The good news is they don’t seem to get nearly as sick as chickens do. They are generally making full recoveries on their own in a couple of weeks.

OK, so no mass culling of cows?

No, that doesn’t seem to be necessary at this point. But the bad news is that it’s starting to look like we’re seeing this virus spread from cow to cow. We don’t know exactly how that’s happening yet. But anytime you see cow-to-cow or mammal-to-mammal transmission, that’s a big concern.

And why is that exactly?

Well, there are a bunch of reasons. First, it could allow the outbreak to get much bigger, much faster, which might increase the risk to the food supply. And we might also expect it to increase the risk to farm workers, people who might be in contact with these sick cows.

Right now, the likelihood that a farmer who gets this virus passes it on is pretty low. But any time you see mammal-to-mammal transmission, it increases the chance that the virus will adapt and possibly, maybe one day get good at spreading between humans. To be clear, that’s not something that there’s any evidence happening in cows right now. But the fact that there’s any cow-to-cow transmission happening at all is enough to have scientists a bit concerned.

And then if we think more expansively beyond what’s happening on farms, there’s another big danger lurking out there. And that’s what happens when this virus gets into wild animals, vast populations that we can’t control.

We’ll be right back.

So, Emily, you said that another threat was the threat of flu in wild animal populations. Clearly, of course, it’s already in wild birds. Where else has it gone?

Well, the reason it’s become such a threat is because of how widespread it’s become in wild birds. So they keep reintroducing it to wild animal populations pretty much anywhere they go. So we’ve seen the virus repeatedly pop up in all sorts of animals that you might figure would eat a wild bird, so foxes, bobcats, bears. We actually saw it in a polar bear, raccoons. So a lot of carnivores and scavengers.

The thinking is that these animals might stumble across a sick or dead bird, eat it, and contract the virus that way. But we’re also seeing it show up in some more surprising places, too. We’ve seen the virus in a bottle-nosed dolphin, of all places.

And most devastatingly, we’ve seen enormous outbreaks in other sorts of marine mammals, especially sea lions and seals.

So elephant seals, in particular in South America, were just devastated by this virus last fall. My colleague Apoorva Mandavilli and I were talking to some scientists in South America who described to us what they called a scene from hell, of walking out onto a beach in Argentina that is normally crowded with chaotic, living, breathing, breeding, elephant seals — and the beach just being covered by carcass, after carcass, after carcass.

Mostly carcasses of young newborn pups. The virus seemed to have a mortality rate of 95 percent in these elephant seal pups, and they estimated that it might have killed more than 17,000 of the pups that were born last year. So almost the entire new generation of this colony. These are scientists that have studied these seals for decades. And they said they’ve never seen anything like it before.

And why is it so far reaching, Emily? I mean, what explains these mass die-offs?

There are probably a few explanations. One is just how much virus is out there in the environment being shed by wild birds into water and onto beaches. These are also places that viruses like this haven’t been before. So it’s reaching elephant seals and sea lions in South America that have no prior immunity.

There’s also the fact that these particular species, these sea lions and seals, tend to breed in these huge colonies all crowded together on beaches. And so what that means is if a virus makes its way into the colony, it’s very conducive conditions for it to spread. And scientists think that that’s actually what’s happening now. That it’s not just that all these seals are picking up the virus from individual birds, but that they’re actually passing it to each other.

So basically, this virus is spreading to places it’s never been before, kind of virgin snow territory, where animals just don’t have the immunity against it. And once it gets into a population packed on a beach, say, of elephant seals, it’s just like a knife through butter.

Absolutely. And an even more extreme example of that is what we’re starting to see happen in Antarctica, where there’s never been a bird flu outbreak before until last fall, for the first time, this virus reached the Antarctic mainland. And we are now seeing the virus move through colonies of not only seabirds and seals, but penguin colonies, which have not been exposed to these viruses before.

And it’s too soon to say what the toll will be. But penguins also, of course, are known for breeding in these large colonies.

Probably. don’t have many immune defenses against this virus, and of course, are facing all these other environmental threats. And so there’s a lot of fear that you add on the stress of a bird flu virus, and it could just be a tipping point for penguins.

Emily, at this point, I’m kind of wondering why more people aren’t talking about this. I mean, I didn’t know any of this before having this conversation with you, and it feels pretty worrying.

Well, a lot of experts and scientists are talking about this with rising alarm and in terms that are quite stark. They’re talking about the virus spreading through wild animal populations so quickly and so ferociously that they’re calling it an ecological disaster.

But that’s a disaster that sometimes seems distant from us, both geographically, we’re talking about things that are happening maybe at the tip of Argentina or in Antarctica. And also from our concerns of our everyday lives, what’s happening in Penguins might not seem like it has a lot to do with the price of a carton of eggs at the grocery store. But I think that we should be paying a lot of attention to how this virus is moving through animal populations, how quickly it’s moving through animal populations, and the opportunities that it is giving the virus to evolve into something that poses a much bigger threat to human health.

So the way it’s spreading in wild animals, even in remote places like Antarctica, that’s important to watch, at least in part because there’s a real danger to people here.

So we know that the virus can infect humans, and that generally it’s not very good at spreading between humans. But the concern all along has been that if this virus has more opportunities to spread between mammals, it will get better at spreading between them. And that seems to be what is happening in seals and sea lions. Scientists are already seeing evidence that the virus is adapting as it passes from marine mammal to marine mammal. And that could turn it into a virus that’s also better at spreading between people.

And if somebody walks out onto a beach and touches a dead sea lion, if their dog starts playing with a sea lion carcass, you could imagine that this virus could make its way out of marine mammals and into the human population. And if it’s this mammalian adapted version of the virus that makes its way out, that could be a bigger threat to human health.

So the sheer number of hosts that this disease has, the more opportunity it has to mutate, and the more chance it has to mutate in a way that would actually be dangerous for people.

Yes, and in particular, the more mammalian hosts. So that gives the virus many more opportunities to become a specialist in mammals instead of a specialist in birds, which is what it is right now.

Right. I like that, a specialist in mammals. So what can we do to contain this virus?

Well, scientists are exploring new options. There’s been a lot of discussion about whether we should start vaccinating chickens in the US. The government, USDA labs, have been testing some poultry vaccines. It’s probably scientifically feasible. There are challenges there, both in terms of logistics — just how would you go about vaccinating billions of chickens every year. There are also trade questions. Traditionally, a lot of countries have not been willing to accept poultry products from countries that vaccinate their poultry.

And there’s concern about whether the virus might spread undetected in flocks that are vaccinated. So as we saw with COVID, the vaccine can sometimes stop you from getting sick, but it doesn’t necessarily stop infection. And so countries are worried they might unknowingly import products that are harboring the virus.

And what about among wild animals? I mean, how do you even begin to get your head around that?

Yeah, I mean, thinking about vaccinating wild animals maybe makes vaccinating all the chickens in the US look easy. There has been some discussion of limited vaccination campaigns, but that’s not feasible on a global scale. So unfortunately, the bottom line is there isn’t a good way to stop spread in wild animals. We can try to protect some vulnerable populations, but we’re not going to stop the circulation of this virus.

So, Emily, we started this conversation with a kind of curiosity that “The Daily” had about the price of eggs. And then you explained the bird flu to us. And then somehow we ended up learning about an ecological disaster that’s unfolding all around us, and potentially the source of the next human pandemic. That is pretty scary.

It is scary, and it’s easy to get overwhelmed by it. And I feel like I should take a step back and say none of this is inevitable. None of this is necessarily happening tomorrow. But this is why scientists are concerned and why they think it’s really important to keep a very close eye on what’s happening both on farms and off farms, as this virus spreads through all sorts of animal populations.

One thing that comes up again and again and again in my interviews with people who have been studying bird flu for decades, is how this virus never stops surprising them. And sometimes those are bad surprises, like these elephant seal die-offs, the incursions into dairy cattle. But there are some encouraging signs that have emerged recently. We’re starting to see some early evidence that some of the bird populations that survived early brushes with this virus might be developing some immunity. So that’s something that maybe could help slow the spread of this virus in animal populations.

We just don’t entirely know how this is going to play out. Flu is a very difficult, wily foe. And so that’s one reason scientists are trying to keep such a close, attentive eye on what’s happening.

Emily, thank you.

Thanks for having me.

Here’s what else you should know today.

On this vote, the yeas are 366 and the nays are 58. The bill is passed.

On Saturday, in four back-to-back votes, the House voted resoundingly to approve a long-stalled package of aid to Ukraine, Israel and other American allies, delivering a major victory to President Biden, who made aid to Ukraine one of his top priorities.

On this vote, the yeas are 385, and the no’s are 34 with one answering present. The bill is passed without objection.

The House passed the component parts of the $95 billion package, which included a bill that could result in a nationwide ban of TikTok.

On this vote, the yeas are 311 and the nays are 112. The bill is passed.

Oh, one voting present. I missed it, but thank you.

In a remarkable breach of custom, Democrats stepped in to supply the crucial votes to push the legislation past hard-line Republican opposition and bring it to the floor.

The House will be in order.

The Senate is expected to pass the legislation as early as Tuesday.

Today’s episode was produced by Rikki Novetsky, Nina Feldman, Eric Krupke, and Alex Stern. It was edited by Lisa Chow and Patricia Willens; contains original music by Marion Lozano, Dan Powell, Rowan Niemisto, and Sophia Lanman; and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. Special thanks to Andrew Jacobs.

That’s it for “The Daily.” I’m Sabrina Tavernise. See you tomorrow.

April 24, 2024 • 32:18 Is $60 Billion Enough to Save Ukraine?
April 23, 2024 • 30:30 A Salacious Conspiracy or Just 34 Pieces of Paper?
April 22, 2024 • 24:30 The Evolving Danger of the New Bird Flu
April 19, 2024 • 30:42 The Supreme Court Takes Up Homelessness
April 18, 2024 • 30:07 The Opening Days of Trump’s First Criminal Trial
April 17, 2024 • 24:52 Are ‘Forever Chemicals’ a Forever Problem?
April 16, 2024 • 29:29 A.I.’s Original Sin
April 15, 2024 • 24:07 Iran’s Unprecedented Attack on Israel
April 14, 2024 • 46:17 The Sunday Read: ‘What I Saw Working at The National Enquirer During Donald Trump’s Rise’
April 12, 2024 • 34:23 How One Family Lost $900,000 in a Timeshare Scam
April 11, 2024 • 28:39 The Staggering Success of Trump’s Trial Delay Tactics
April 10, 2024 • 22:49 Trump’s Abortion Dilemma

Hosted by Sabrina Tavernise

Produced by Rikki Novetsky , Nina Feldman , Eric Krupke and Alex Stern

Edited by Lisa Chow and Patricia Willens

Original music by Marion Lozano , Dan Powell , Rowan Niemisto and Sophia Lanman

Engineered by Chris Wood

Listen and follow The Daily Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music

The outbreak of bird flu currently tearing through the nation’s poultry is the worst in U.S. history. Scientists say it is now spreading beyond farms into places and species it has never been before.

Emily Anthes, a science reporter for The Times, explains.

On today’s episode

Emily Anthes , a science reporter for The New York Times.

Two dead pelicans are pictured from above lying on the shore where the water meets a rocky beach.

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Synchronic (film)
Synchronic is a 2019 American science fiction horror film directed and produced by Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead.Written by Benson, the film shares continuity with other films by Benson and Moorhead, following Resolution and The Endless. Synchronic stars Anthony Mackie and Jamie Dornan as paramedics who investigate a series of inexplicable deaths and their connection to a new designer drug.
New time travel movies in 2024 in Cinema & on VOD
List of the latest time travel movies in 2024 and the best time travel movies of 2023 and earlier. Top time travel movies to watch on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Disney+ & other Streaming services, out on DVD/Blu-ray or in cinema's right now. ... Thanks to a unique drug, the thieves can contact their future selves and learn more about why lies ...
In 'Synchronic,' Time Travel Is Anything but Nostalgic
In Synchronic, Anthony Mackie (right) plays a paramedic discovers a new drug that allows him to travel back in time. Courtesy of XYZ Films. Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead have created three of ...
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A malfunctioning time machine at a ski resort takes a man back to 1986 with his two friends and nephew, where they must relive a fateful night and not change anything to make sure the nephew is born. Director: Steve Pink | Stars: John Cusack, Rob Corddry, Craig Robinson, Clark Duke. Votes: 186,355 | Gross: $50.29M. 12.
More People Need to Watch This Dark Netflix Time Travel Thriller
Jan. 22, 2023 4:16 p.m. PT. 3 min read. Synchronic stars Anthony Mackie and Jamie Dornan. Netflix. Before hitting play on 2019's Synchronic, there's one thing you should know. It's not that it's a ...
'Synchronic' Review: Twisted, Trippy Trips Through Time
Their new movie, "Synchronic," is inspired, at least to some extent, by the wreckage wreaked by designer drugs of dubious legality (the ostensibly synthetic marijuana called K2, for instance ...
Synchronic Drug Explained: Why People Don't Really "Die"
The movie Synchronic focused on the drug Synchronic, which allows young people who take it to travel back in time, but they don't necessarily die from it. Synchronic's world is by and large just like the real world, except for the concept of time travel, which proves bewildering for Steve and Dennis - a pair of EMTs played by Anthony Mackie and Jamie Dornan.
Primer & 9 Other Impressive Indie Time Travel Movies
Synchronic. Starring Anthony Mackie and Jamie Dornan, Synchronic is among the few underappreciated gems created by indie dynamic-duo Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead. Since the film links its time travel to a designer drug, its premise may not sound too plausible on paper. But as seen in other Benson and Moorhead films, it's the execution that ...
Synchronic Explained: Benson & Moorhead's Time-Travel Shared Universe
Dennis, who can't time-travel, still feels unmoored as he loses his family; Steve, whose unique condition allows him to take the drug to its full potential, is a Black man living in the American ...
Synchronic Filmmakers Have More Story Ideas for Their Time Travel Drug
One night the duo must tend to what they think is a routine overdose when, in fact, the incident is tied to a synthetic narcotic called synchronic, which is essentially a time travel drug. With ...
Synchronic Review: A Sharp and Clever Twist on Time Travel
Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead's new movie Synchronic cleverly turns this premise on its head by telling a time travel story where the lack of control is built into the premise and the larger ...
Time loop and time travel movies
A machine from a post-apocalyptic future travels back in time to protect a man and a woman from an advanced robotic assassin to ensure they both survive a nuclear attack. Director: Jonathan Mostow | Stars: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Nick Stahl, Kristanna Loken, Claire Danes. Votes: 413,097 | Gross: $150.37M. 10.
17 Underrated Sci-Fi Movies About Time Travel
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.
'Synchronic' Review: Time Travel
The police are baffled. The only connecting factor seems to be a street drug known as "synchronic," which is new and legal and all the rage. The more that two EMTs — the single, stay-out-all ...
Top 100 Time Travel Movies
1. Back to the Future (1985) PG | 116 min | Adventure, Comedy, Sci-Fi. 8.5. Rate. 87 Metascore. Marty McFly, a 17-year-old high school student, is accidentally sent 30 years into the past in a time-traveling DeLorean invented by his close friend, the maverick scientist Doc Brown.
55 Best Time Travel Movies Of All Time Ranked
2. Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Tri-Star Pictures. "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" holds a number of high-octane superlatives: it's one of the best time travel films of all time, one of the best sci ...
The 25 Greatest Time-Travel Movies Ever Made
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 ...
The Most Underrated Time Travel Movies You Need To Watch
Over the years, some of sci-fi's best movies have involved time travel, be they family adventures like "Back to the Future," thrillers like "12 Monkeys," action movies like "The Terminator," or ...
10 Time-Travel Movies to Stream in Your Past, Present, and Future
10 Best Time Travel Movies to Stream in Your Past, Present, and Future - Netflix Tudum. Travel without leaving home while watching these films that will have you jumping through time.
drug-fuelled, time-travelling fairytale in Melbourne
Time Addicts review - drug-fuelled, time-travelling fairytale in Melbourne. D enise (Freya Tingley) and Johnny (Charles Grounds) are drug buddies living in present-day Melbourne. When they're ...
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Runtime 117 minutes. Alien. is an original and iconic sci-fi horror movie not based on any novel or book. Director Ridley Scott developed the concept, which was fleshed out by screenwriters Dan O ...
The 25 Best Drug Movies of All Time
The 25 best movies about drugs of all time. (in my opinion) This list includes anything from drug abuse to drug dealing to drug trafficking. ... An oddball journalist and his psychopathic lawyer travel to Las Vegas for a series of psychedelic escapades. Director: Terry Gilliam | Stars: Johnny Depp, Benicio Del Toro, Tobey Maguire, Michael Lee ...
The 32 Best TV Shows About Time Travel
Dark, Netflix (2017 - 2020) Netflix's first German original series was the science fiction series Dark, which mixes in some mystery drama with sci-fi: time travel, the apocalypse, wormholes, and parallel worlds.. Dark takes place in Winden, a fictional German town, and begins in 2019 after children begin to disappear from the town. As the show progresses, however, timelines jump ...
Rebel Wilson claims a royal family member once invited her to a drug
Wilson, who was a virgin at the time, left the party before a wild sex scene allegedly broke out. Instagram/@rebelwilson. Wilson, who was a virgin at the time, says she exited the premises before ...
On 'The Tortured Poets Department,' Taylor Swift Could Use an Editor
Over 16 songs (and a second LP), the pop superstar litigates her recent romances. But the themes, and familiar sonic backdrops, generate diminishing returns.
The 30 Best Drug Movies
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson | Stars: Mark Wahlberg, Julianne Moore, Burt Reynolds, Luis Guzmán. Votes: 281,905 | Gross: $26.40M. The story of a young man's adventures in the Californian pornography industry of the late 1970s and early 1980s. 11. Pineapple Express (2008) R | 111 min | Action, Comedy, Crime.
The Evolving Danger of the New Bird Flu
The Evolving Danger of the New Bird Flu. An unusual outbreak of the disease has spread to dairy herds in multiple U.S. states. April 22, 2024, 6:00 a.m. ET. Share full article. Hosted by Sabrina ...

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The 25 Greatest Time-Travel Movies Ever Made

25. Galaxy Quest (1999)

24. Happy Death Day (2017)

23. Back to the Future Part II (1989)

22. See You Yesterday (2019)

21. Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989)

20. Source Code (2011)

19. 12 Monkeys (1995)

18. Run Lola Run (1998)

17. Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

16. Star Trek (2009)

15. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2006)

14. Safety Not Guaranteed (2012)

13. La Jetée (1962)

12. Planet of the Apes (1968)

11. Groundhog Day (1993)

10. Predestination (2014)

9. Looper (2012)

8. Donnie Darko (2001)

7. Back to the Future (1984)

6. Palm Springs (2020)