time travel movies hugh jackman

12 Best Romance Movies That Incorporate Time Travel, Ranked

People will do anything for love.

Who would've thought that manipulating time would forge some of the great love stories? Whether it's found within the chivalry of the gentlemanly past or the future of civilization, cinema has shown that love has no bounds – even if it means traveling through time to get it. Where it may be a common trope for the sci-fi genre, romance flicks have also surprisingly used it to their advantage.

From classic rom-coms like 13 Going on 30 and The Lake House , to more hidden gems like If Only – these movies use the phenomenon of time travel to intertwine greater levels of fantasy and magic . Not only does this increase the overall cinematic experience, but these time travel romance movies also make the love stories incredibly epic.

12 '13 Going on 30' (2004)

Director: gary winick.

After being humiliated on her 13th birthday, Jenna Rink ( Christa B. Allen ) wishes to escape her life of pre-teen unpopularity and become a well-adjusted grownup in this time travel rom-com. She's shocked when she wakes up to find her wish has come true; somehow Jenna ( Jennifer Garner ) is now 30 and living in 2004. Soon she realizes how adulthood has its own set of struggles – one particularly being her love life.

As an iconic 2000s rom-com , 13 Going on 30 has warmed fans' hearts for decades. Largely driven by Garner's bubbly innocence, Jenna's connection with Matt (Mark Ruffalo) is undeniably pure and one of the great depictions of friends-to-lovers. This movie also uses time travel to put forth the message of how time is precious; by choosing to only look towards the future, one would never absorb the milestones of the present.

13 Going on 30

Watch on Netflix

11 'When We First Met' (2018)

Director: ari sandel.

Having been friend-zoned by the girl of his dreams after meeting her at a Halloween party, Noah ( Adam DeVine ) remains close to Avery ( Alexandra Daddario ). Three years later, she's now engaged to someone else. Suddenly, Noah stumbles on the opportunity to travel back in time to the moment they met, giving him the chance to alter his life, and get the girl.

In an almost Groundhog Day scenario (and it's worth noting that film is a benchmark for romantic time-travel movie), When We First Met is a humorous film that's filled with charm and charisma thanks to the talents of the cast , especially in the case of DeVine. Where the romantic connection is present between characters, it isn't with whom you'd naturally expect as this is a classic tale that teaches audiences that everything happens for a reason.

When We First Met

10 'kate & leopold' (2001), director: james mangold.

Kate ( Meg Ryan ) is a 21st-century woman who's determined to focus on her career. She thinks she doesn't need romance in her life at all, that is until she meets Leopold ( Hugh Jackman ), an English Duke from the 19th century who's accidentally brought to the future via a portal made by her ex-boyfriend, Stuart ( Liev Schreiber ).

Where Kate & Leopold may be cheesy at times with the classic fish-out-of-water tropes, this movie is an underrated feel-good romance that will easily keep one warm and cozy. Don't expect it to be anything groundbreaking, but it's perfect for a chill night that needs a film that's mildly entertaining. With the script's quick wit and fun character dynamics, this twisted modern-day fairytale shows how love doesn't always come to us in the most expected ways.

Rent on Apple TV

9 'The Lake House' (2006)

Director: alejandro agresti.

As lonely doctor, Kate Forster ( Sandra Bullock ), moves out of her beloved lake house, she begins to exchange letters with its newest resident, a frustrated architect named Alex Wyler ( Keanu Reeves ). The two instantly spark a connection and form a budding romance. The only problem – she's living in the year 2006, whereas he's in 2004.

An epic love story where two are separated by time, this romantic flick is special in the way that it portrays the simplicities of intimacy. With only the written word to connect, Kate and Alex's closeness is unlike any other in The Lake House . It's also refreshing to see Keanu Reeves in a non-action role , which he pulls off with ease. The two main characters need not rely on physical attraction or physical needs, they're brought together by a deeper connection – one built on stories, soul, and emotions.

The Lake House

8 'if only' (2004), director: gil junger.

Struck with grief after the sudden loss of his girlfriend Samantha ( Jennifer Love Hewitt ), Ian ( Paul Nicholls ) is given the opportunity to relive the day she died and rewrite his wrongdoings. The repetition of time allows him to become a better partner and fix things before the impending tragedy, but it also brings some unexpected pain as he relives the best and worst moments of his relationship.

Despite being an emotional and bittersweet tale, If Only is filled with hope and true love. It sends a message to viewers about how important it is to treasure every moment, every milestone, and to treat every day as if it were your last. It's not an innovative concept by any stretch, but with the palpable chemistry between Hewitt and Nicholls, fans will be moved by their devotion towards each other, even until the film's final bittersweet twist .

Watch on Peacock

7 'The Time Traveler's Wife' (2009)

Director: robert schwentke.

Henry Detamble ( Eric Bana ) is a librarian from Chicago who struggles with his rare genetic disorder that causes him to randomly travel through time, uncontrollably. His life becomes more complex when he meets and marries the love of his life, Claire ( Rachel McAdams ), as she must now learn to cope with her husband's condition.

An interesting spin on star-crossed lovers, The Time Traveler's Wife captures the struggles of fated love. Where Henry and Claire's story is romantic and tender, it's also incredibly bittersweet. With Henry's condition, fans (as well as Claire) are never sure of when he'll disappear. So when he does on occasions like their wedding, the heartbreak and tension are palpable. Their love story may be unconventional, but there's beauty to it.

The Time Traveler's Wife

6 'somewhere in time' (1980), director: jeannot szwarc.

Enamored and infatuated by a vintage portrait that hangs in a grand hotel, playwright Richard Collier ( Christopher Reeve ) finds a way to travel through time to 1912 to meet Elise McKenna ( Jane Seymour ), a stage actor. Where the two seem destined to be together, conflicts arise when Elise's obsessive manager, William ( Christopher Plummer ), tries to stop them.

A great movie that's severely slept on, Somewhere in Time tells the story of an unworldly and impossible love. With a brilliant concept and beautiful chemistry between Reeves and Seymour , this movie is one for the romantics and dreamers. It shows the sheer lengths someone is willing to go to find their soulmate – even if it means going through time itself.

Watch on Tubi

5 'Back to the Future Part III' (1990)

Director: robert zemeckis.

As the third and final chapter to their adventures, Marty McFly ( Michael J. Fox ) must travel back in time to 1885 to the Old West to save his friend, Doctor Emmett Brown ( Christopher Lloyd ), from his impending murder. Matters become more complicated when Marty realizes that Doc has fallen deeply in love with local school teacher, Clara Clayton ( Mary Steenburgen ).

Though not a typical romance movie, Back to the Future Part III , is a film spearheaded by the themes of love. Where there are romantic storylines in the previous installments, Doc and Clara's is a breath of fresh air – mostly because Doc is a character that's so determined to avoid the supposed banalities of love. And yet, here he is, willing to be stuck in a foreign time period for the sake of love, happiness, and true companionship.

4 'The Girl Who Leapt Through Time' (2006)

Director: mamoru hosoda.

A popular anime movie for beginners , The Girl Who Leapt Through Time tells the story of Makoto Konno (voiced by Riisa Naka ), who learns that she has the ability to time travel. She soon uses her newfound power to fix the small things in her daily life, from schoolwork to friendships. When she meets another person who can time travel, the two develop an unconventional bond.

Chiaki Mamiya (voiced by Takuya Ishida ) helps the protagonist realize and fix the consequences of messing with time, but soon reveals something heartbreaking to her. Their romance is complicated by the fact that Chiaki isn't from Makoto's present day, and eventually has to leave. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time will have fans rooting for the time-traveling duo's success until the tear-jerking end.

3 'Midnight in Paris' (2011)

Director: woody allen.

Whilst on a holiday in Paris with his fiancé and her family, Gil Pender ( Owen Wilson ) – a screenwriter and aspiring author – develops a habit of touring the city alone. One night he finds himself swept back in time to the 1920s where he meets his favorite cultural and artistic icons. By experiencing life in the past, he is forced to confront his dissatisfactions with the present.

As a romance movie, Midnight in Paris offers multiple romantic interests, each with its own qualities and individual purposes. From Inez's (McAdams) 21st-century realism, to Adriana's ( Marion Cotillard ) 1920s romanticized attitude to life, Gil is forced to reflect on what kind of love will give him true happiness. He'll even come to terms with the dangers of escapism. It's a severely underrated Owen Wilson movie , with the actor's performance being a delicate and moving one that anchors the entire story.

Midnight in Paris

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

2 'About Time' (2013)

Director: richard curtis.

Life changed forever when Tim Lake ( Domhnall Gleeson ) turned 21 as his father revealed an odd hereditary trait; all the men in their family have the ability to time travel. Though initially shocked, Tim decides to use his skill to alter his past to improve his future. His main goal – bolster his love life and win the heart of Mary (Rachel McAdams). He soon realizes that his power can have serious consequences if used incorrectly.

With a clever concept, a beautiful script, and a great cast, this poignant movie is one that masterfully tackles the topics of love, redemption, and loss. Where Gleeson and McAdams' chemistry is incredibly sweet, About Time is a movie about more than a simple romantic story . It uses time to talk about the importance of living in the moment and the consequences of one's choices. Viewers can expect its small-scale intimate story to move most to tears.

1 'Your Name' (2016)

Director: makoto shinkai.

Your Name is a massively popular and beloved anime film that blends fantasy, romance, and sci-fi together. It tells the story of two high school students – Taki Tachibana (voiced by Ryunosuke Kamiki ) and Mitsuha Miyamizu ( Mone Kamishiraishi ) – who inexplicably begin to swap bodies. The two characters have never met, but begin to improve each other's lives. Before they know it, they slowly fall in love in the process of learning about each other's realities.

It's impossible to talk about the time travel aspect of Your Name without completely spoiling the plot , but audiences who enjoy emotional animated films should consider this essential viewing for its notoriously tear-jerking twist. The gorgeous visuals and heartbreakingly romantic story easily make it the best film to show the potential of combining love and time travel in film.

Your Name (2016)

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NEXT: The Best Romantic Movies of All Time, Ranked

You need to watch the most heart-pounding time-travel movie on HBO Max ASAP

This early 2000s movie proves love transcends space and time.

Before James Mangold took Wolverine to Japan in the 2013 X-Men movie, the director took Hugh Jackman on a time travel adventure. While Mangold and Jackman are best known for their X-Men films, The Wolverine and Logan , the two first collaborated in a 2001 romantic comedy.

But it wasn’t just any romantic comedy. It’s one fused with a science fiction premise that starred a rom-com icon and helped transform Hugh Jackman from the gritty, action hero audiences saw in 2000’s X-Men to the charming leading man he’s known as today. That movie is none other than Kate & Leopold .

More than 20 years later, Kate & Leopold remains an enjoyable sci-fi romp. Here is why you need to watch Meg Ryan and Hugh Jackman in the heartfelt comedy, now streaming on HBO Max.

WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE SCI-FI MOVIE? Tell us now for a chance to get paid to write an article for Inverse .

Kate & Leopold follows the story of Leopold (Hugh Jackman), an aristocrat living in 19th-century New York who accidentally falls through a time portal and travels to the early 21st century. Leopold’s predicament was caused by his great-great-grandson Stuart (Liev Schreiber), a physicist who discovered the portal, time traveled, and roused Leopold’s suspicions, leading the nobleman to chase Stuart back to the future.

Reasonably, Leopold is stunned to discover himself in an entirely new century, and much of the movie’s comedy derives from his antiquated, over-the-top reactions to early 2000s technology. The film quickly lets Leopold on the loose (after Stuart accidentally tumbles into an empty elevator shaft), and that’s when he meets Stuart's ex‑girlfriend, Kate (Meg Ryan), and her brother, Charlie (Breckin Meyer).

With Stuart gone, Kate and Charlie become Leopold’s defacto guides to living in modern-day New York. Both don’t believe he time traveled but think he’s an actor who is entirely too committed to this craft. Kate’s cynicism is a stark contrast to Leopold's utter sincerity. She can’t take him seriously, but his presence demands nothing less. It results in plenty of entertaining chemistry-filled banter.

Meg Ryan and Hugh Jackman star in Kate & Leopold .

But Leopold’s unwavering earnestness wins over Kate, and before you know it, the two begin to fall in love. That doesn’t come without its complications. The longer Leopold stays in the 21st century, the more the ramifications of his time-traveling begin to manifest. In this fictional tale, Leopold is the inventor of what would be the elevator, and his hesitation to return to the past has elevators across New York City malfunctioning.

If Leopold were to go back to the 19th century, he would have to leave Kate, who the movie paints as an independent, career woman — a far cry from the women in Leopold’s time. But this is a romantic comedy where love and fate are tightly intertwined and ultimately compatible. Kate & Leopold uses that logic to deliver a classic rom-com ending, but it doesn’t quite pull it off. It also leaves you wondering about its time travel element, which is full of contrivances and plot holes. Without spoiling the movie, one example is how the ending makes Kate’s past relationship with Stuart very strange and problematic in hindsight.

Yet, upon one’s first viewing, it’s impossible not to be swept away by Leopold’s grand overtures and the chemistry that blossoms between the film’s two stars. However you feel about the ending, there’s no doubt that Kate & Leopold was a great beginning for another new relationship at the time. After all, the ongoing collaboration between James Mangold and Hugh Jackman would eventually bring us another heart-stopping adventure, Logan , one of the best superhero films of all time.

Kate & Leopold is now streaming on HBO Max .

This article was originally published on Jan. 12, 2022

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(Photo by Ben Rothstein/20th Century Fox Film Corp.)

All Hugh Jackman Movies Ranked

Like Robert Downey Jr. and Tony Stark, or Patrick Stewart and fellow X-Men favorite Professor Xavier, it’s near impossible to separate Hugh Jackman from Wolverine, the comic book character he helped immortalize on the big screen, so let’s just get that right out of the way. Jackman will forever be associated with the self-healing mutant with the adamantium claws, and now that he’s officially done playing the character, good luck to whoever attempts to fill his shoes next.

Outside of the X-Men universe , though, Jackman has also proven to be a multi-faceted leading man, starring in romantic comedies ( Kate & Leopold , Scoop ), sweeping adventures ( Australia , Pan ), family films ( Happy Feet , Real Steel ), musicals ( Les Misérables , The Greatest Showman ), mysteries ( The Prestige , Prisoners ), and just about everything in between. It’s no wonder some of the biggest directors working today, from Christopher Nolan to Darren Aronofsky to Denis Villeneuve, have sought his talents for their films. And in 2024, he’s returning to Wolverine with the third Deadpool film. To celebrate his eclectic career, we’ve pulled together all Hugh Jackman movies and ranked them by Tomatometer, so have a look and see where your favorites land.

Logan (2017) 93%

Bad Education (2019) 94%

X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) 90%

Missing Link (2019) 88%

X2 (2003) 85%

X-Men (2000) 82%

Prisoners (2013) 81%

Eddie the Eagle (2016) 82%

The Prestige (2006) 77%

Happy Feet (2006) 76%

Rise of the Guardians (2012) 74%

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Kate & Leopold

2001, Romance/Comedy, 2h 1m

What to know

Critics Consensus

Though Jackman charms, Kate and Leopold is bland and predictable, and the time travel scenario lacks inner logic. Read critic reviews

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Kate & leopold videos, kate & leopold   photos.

Kate McKay (Meg Ryan) is a modern day executive, a 21st century woman driven to succeed in the corporate world. Leopold, the third Duke of Albany, is a charming gent and bachelor of the late 18OOs. With career and social expectations looming, each has grown cynical about the very notion of falling in love. But when a rip in the fabric of time thrusts Leopold into present day New York, the potential for an old-fashioned modern romance ignites.

Rating: PG-13 (Brief Strong Language)

Genre: Romance, Comedy, Fantasy

Original Language: English

Director: James Mangold

Producer: Cathy Konrad

Writer: James Mangold , Steven Rogers , Steven Rogers

Release Date (Theaters): Dec 25, 2001  wide

Release Date (Streaming): Oct 11, 2016

Box Office (Gross USA): $47.1M

Runtime: 2h 1m

Distributor: Miramax Films

Production Co: Miramax Films, Konrad Pictures

Sound Mix: Dolby SR, DTS, Dolby Stereo, Surround, SDDS, Dolby A, Dolby Digital

Aspect Ratio: Flat (1.85:1)

Cast & Crew

Hugh Jackman

Liev Schreiber

Breckin Meyer

Charlie McKay

Natasha Lyonne

Bradley Whitford

J.J. Camden

Paxton Whitehead

Uncle Millard

Spalding Gray

Dr. Geisler

Philip Bosco

James Mangold

Screenwriter

Steven Rogers

Cathy Konrad

Kerry Orent

Executive Producer

Stuart Dryburgh

Cinematographer

Mark Friedberg

Production Design

Donna Zakowska

Costume Design

David Brenner

Film Editing

Robert Stromberg

Visual Effects Supervisor

Original Music

Christopher Goode

Co-Producer

Bob Weinstein

Harvey Weinstein

Meryl Poster

News & Interviews for Kate & Leopold

Perry "Madea" Monkey Out of Three Box Office Newcomers

Mangold Climbs Aboard the "3:10 to Yuma"

Critic Reviews for Kate & Leopold

Audience reviews for kate & leopold.

The starting point of this romantic fantasy is the curious argument that integrity, honesty, and responsibility are just as important to romance as good looks, which is not something most rom-coms might put forward, and that most modern men lack these characteristics. And so when Hugh Jackman appears, royalty from another era and the personification of those characteristics, Meg Ryan's put-upon modern-day lass cannot help but be swept away. And why not? All of the men in her life lack responsibility and direction: her boss (Bradley Whitford) wants to use her for sex, her ex-boyfriend (Liev Schrieber) is too self-absorbed with unrealistic fantasies, and even her brother (Brecklin Meyer) is, well, simply an actor. It's a generic telling of a romance fable though, with more tricks, like playing "Moon River" to evoke a feeling, than substance, like giving our couple something to bond over, even while being more compelling than the usual grist for this mill.

Jackson steals the film from Ryan who is just going through the motion. better then expected, sadly the dialogue is quite bad at times

This movie is all kinds of weird, but I love it for that reason. Time travel and love stories have never been so eloquently put together like this. Hugh Jackman dominates the screen as Leopold, becoming the epitome of an English Gentleman who loves his good butter and tea. Meg Ryan also does a great job at making the humor work so well. It's almost like a British interpretation of Back To the Future, only with a lot of Margarine bashing.

Leopold (Hugh Jackson) is an English Duke living in New York who is accidentally transported from the Nineteenth Century to present day New York. Kate (Meg Ryan) is a successful businesswoman living also in New York, but in 2001. The movie dwells on Leopold's adaptation to rudeness, quick pace and lack of culture. "A gentleman is a gentleman, and there are things that he does and does not do." Hugh Jackman is phenomenal (ohhhh la la) and the guy who plays Kate's brother (Breckin Meyer) is genuinely funny in the scene where he is trying to pick up a girl. Liev Schreiber was also superb. Can be a little cheesy but this movie is pure fun to watch, if you're in the mood for a romantic comedy escape from reality.

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"Kate & Leopold" is a preposterous time-travel romance in which the third Duke of Albany leaves the New York of 1876 and arrives in the New York of Meg Ryan . Well, of course it's preposterous: Time travel involves so many paradoxes that it is wise, in a romantic comedy like this, to simply ignore them. The movie is not really about time travel anyway, but about elegant British manners vs. American slobbiness. Like the heroine of one of those romance novels her best friend reads, our gal Meg is swept off her feet by a wealthy and titled English lord.

Ryan plays Kate, who works in market research and is responsible for promoting products of dubious value. She's dating Stuart ( Liev Schreiber ), a half-loony inventor who discovers an opening in the matrix of time, jumps off the Brooklyn Bridge, finds himself in 1876--and returns with his own great-great-grandfather, Leopold, duke of Albany ( Hugh Jackman ).

It is inevitable that Kate will overcome her lukewarm affection for Stuart and fall in love with the dashing Englishman (even though the first time she sees him in military costume, she thinks he's dressed as Sgt. Pepper). Meg Ryan does this sort of thing about as well as it can possibly be done, and after " Sleepless in Seattle " and " You've Got Mail ," here is another ingenious plot that teases us with the possibility that true love will fail, while winking that, of course, it will prevail.

"Kate & Leopold" wisely does not depend on the mechanics of the developing romance for its humor. Instead, it uses its fish-out-of-water plot to show Leopold as a proper, well-behaved English aristocrat, astonished by what he finds in modern Manhattan. He's struck not so much by the traffic and the skyscrapers as by the manners. Walking a dog, he's asked by a cop if he plans to scoop the poop, and draws himself to his full height to intone: "Are you suggesting, madam, there exists a law compelling gentlemen to lay hold of canine bowel movements?" Both Leopold and his descendant, Stuart, are inventor types. Leopold, we learn, designed the Brooklyn Bridge and invented the elevator. Stuart not only discovered the portal in time, but had enough confidence in his calculations to jump off the bridge and trust that it would open for him. Why he lands on his feet instead of falling to his death in the 1876 river is a question the movie prudently ignores.

The movie, directed by James Mangold (" Heavy ," "Girl Interrupted") and written by Mangold and Steven Rogers , has some droll scenes after Kate enlists Leopold to appear in a TV commercial for Farmer's Bounty, a low-calorie spread. Leopold's accent and his sincere conviction are perfect, and the spot goes well until he actually tastes the product, and compares it to saddle soap or raw suet: "It's revolting!" Kate tries to calm him: "It's diet. It's supposed to taste awful." One of the reasons the movie works is because we like the goodness of the characters; it's wise, I think, to let Schreiber get over his romantic disappointment as quickly as possible, and become a co-conspirator for love. (Apart from any other reason, Stuart knows that unless Albany returns to 1876 and starts a family, Stuart will never exist.) We know there will be scenes where Kate the practical and cynical girl is swept off her feet by old-fashioned romance, and there are: a candlelit rooftop dinner, and a moment when Leopold tucks her in, she asks him to stay, and he does, in full uniform.

I have here a precautionary message from Will Shank of Toronto, Ontario, who writes that before I review "Kate & Leopold" there are a couple of things I should know: "Prince Leopold, the duke of Albany, was a hemophiliac and, although he has been described as daring and high-spirited, would not have been foolish enough to participate in the dangerous stunts seen in the trailer. He was sickly all his life and his mother, Queen Victoria, expressed surprise that he lived long enough to be married and have a child. Also, Victoria and her children spoke German among themselves, not English. People who knew them related that when they did speak English, it was with a strong German accent." Thanks, Will. The next time I meet James Mangold, I'll ask him why he didn't make "Kate & Leopold" the story of a hemophiliac with a German accent who was afraid to jump off bridges. Sounds like a movie we are all waiting to see.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Film Credits

Kate & Leopold (2001)

Rated PG-13 For Brief Strong Language

118 minutes

Breckin Meyer as Charlie

Meg Ryan as Kate

Philip Bosco as Otis

Bradley Whitford as J.J. Camden

Hugh Jackman as Leopold

Natasha Lyonne as Darci

Liev Schreiber as Stuart

• Steven Rogers

Directed by

• James Mangold

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Movie Review

Kate & leopold.

US Release Date: 12-25-2001

Directed by: James Mangold

Starring ▸ ▾

• Meg Ryan ,  as
• Hugh Jackman ,  as
• Leopold Mountbatten
• Liev Schreiber ,  as
• Stuart Besser
• Breckin Meyer ,  as
• Charlie McKay
• Natasha Lyonne ,  as
• Bradley Whitford ,  as
• J.J. Camden
• Spalding Gray ,  as
• Dr. Geisler
• John Rothman as
• Executive #1

Meg Ryan and Hugh Jackman in Kate & Leopold .

When I was little, I was able to get lost in things easily. A book, a TV show, or a movie, if good enough, would make me forget my surroundings, the stress of everyday life, the time of day, and any other outside stimulus. But as I've gotten older, it's become harder and harder for that loss of self to occur during anything. So when that rare movie or book comes along into which you are able to totally immerse yourself, you relish the moment. Such was the case last night when I saw Kate & Leopold .

Of course it helped that this movie starred Meg Ryan and Hugh Jackman, both of whom I am a huge fan of, took place in New York, which I also love, and featured time travel, one of my all time favorite plot devices. All of that, added to a sweet love story, and a great supporting cast, gives you two sensational hours worth of entertainment.

Meg Ryan plays Kate, an executive at a Marketing and Research firm, who's recently broken up with her long time boyfriend (Liev Schreiber). He's an eccentric scientist who's discovered a way to travel into the past. While visiting the 1870's he meets his great-grandfather, the Duke Leopold, who follows him back through the hole in time and winds up in modern day New York.

The rest of the movie is the story of Kate and Leopold falling in love and Leopold's attempts to blend into modern society. Most of the humor comes from his attempts and struggles to cope with the 21st century.

The romance is sweet and entertaining, mainly due to the extreme likeability of the two leads, and not because of anything overly original in that department, but it's still romantically done, with the appropriate candle lit dinner, long talks, and the various other usual romantic movie moments.

What really makes the movie work is the humor. From the opening speech at the building of the Brooklyn Bridge, right through to the end, the laughs keep the pace of the movie moving along quickly. So quickly, that I didn't even realize that the movie was two hours long until I looked at my watch after the lights went up.

Nearly the only big-name romantic comedy to come out this year, Kate & Leopold is the perfect date movie this Christmas and the perfect way to escape from the stress of everyday life.

Hugh Jackman and Meg Ryan in Kate & Leopold .

I am a big fan of time travel movies. I also am a sucker for a romantic comedy. When Harry Met Sally and Somewhere In Time are a couple of my favorite love stories, Kate & Leopold looked like a combination of the two films so I was eager to watch it. Sadly, it paled compared to either.

Scott has already given you the plot. Man travels through time and falls in love. Well, he sort of falls in love. The movie really gives no reason for the leads to be in love. They say they are and us the audience just have to accept it. However, that was not my big problem with this film.

The problem I had with this movie was the fact that Leopold so easily assimilates himself into the future. Sure there is the awkward crossing the street scene and some playing around in the bathroom, but otherwise he just melds right in with little difficulty. He even shows up everyone around him with his intellect and manners. His character really has no flaws. There is a brief hint at arrogance, but this man is from 1876, wouldn't some of his 100 year old views been considered sexist. None of that is touched on and Leopold comes off as a saint.

The character of Kate is also a bit far fetched. She at first does not believe Leopold is from the past, but as soon as she sees a photo, supposedly from the past, she is willing to jump off a bridge. Hasn't this intelligent career woman ever heard of doctored photos? Ah, but it is for love and this is a love story. Still, I would have an easier time watching this movie if the people in it reacted to something amazing like time travel a bit more.

On the DVD, there is the directors cut. It extends several scenes and adds a few. This is a better version. It gives a bit more info into Kate's character, as well as tries to give the movie a statement about the marketing, and sincerity of love. If only on this version some other scenes had been edited.

Hugh Jackman in Kate & Leopold .

Although Kate & Leopold features an appealing cast in a lighthearted and amusing romantic comedy it is, as Eric mentioned, the victim of too many farfetched plot holes to be truly entertaining. Which is a shame really because the basic premise is quite intriguing. The idea of mixing time travel with romance has rarely been done (at least in recent big-budget Hollywood memory) and could have been the basis for a great movie.

This is not to say that Kate & Leopold is not worth watching. It has moments of genuine humor and the two leads are enormously likable and manage to make the dialogue sound much better than it really has a right to.

Still there is no real tension between them and the ending is downright absurd. The audience is supposed to accept that Kate, a modern career woman, is going to be able to adapt to life in the 1870's because of her love for Leopold. I mean how many women would give up the basic right to vote for love? Ah, but perhaps I am looking too deep into a movie that is intended to inspire feelings rather than thoughts.

Photos © Copyright Miramax Films (2001)

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TV & Movies

11 Things I Noticed Rewatching Kate & Leopold

Did streaming services scrub an insanely creepy plotline from the movie?

Even if you’re an avid fan of the genre, there’s a good chance Kate & Leopold slipped under your rom-com radar. (If you were so lucky, you might’ve found it on a quest to watch Hugh Jackman’s entire filmography, as we all must do at some point.) The 2001 film follows Meg Ryan and Jackman as the titular couple, a 21st-century ad executive and the 19th-century nobleman who travels through time and woos her with old-fashioned affection.

As Kate & Leopold turns 20 this December, its status as a hidden gem of the genre makes some sense. It came out on Christmas, but it’s not a holiday movie; it’s Meg Ryan, but it’s not Nora Ephron. But this in-between-ness makes the film all the more intriguing. Like Kate, your world probably doesn’t look like the vibrant, autumnal oases seen in When Harry Met Sally... or You’ve Got Mail. It might be less cozy, less charming — isolating enough that you’ve considered shifting just to see if those TikTok teens were onto something. (Of course, loving the movie’s message isn’t license to go full born-in-the-wrong-decade. Leopold’s era sucked in its own ways, too.)

If you haven’t rewatched Kate & Leopold recently, there are some fascinating details that might stick out after a fresh viewing. From clues that point to the big twist to concerning time travel implications that rival the ick of Marty McFly and his mom in Back to the Future , it’s time for a Kate & Leopold deep dive.

It Has One Of The Most Brutal Lines, Ever

This movie wastes no time establishing just how unhappy Kate is with her life and her ex, Stuart. In fact, within the first 15 minutes, one of the harshest comebacks in cinematic history tells us everything we need to know. (It also happens to be a line from the 1952 I Love Lucy episode featured in Being the Ricardos. ) When Kate laments that she blew her best years on him, he responds, “Those were your best?” Ouch.

In Kate’s defense, if she really was so unpleasant the whole time, perhaps it was nature’s attempt to prevent her from unwittingly hooking up with her great-great-grandson on the regular. Yeah, the time travel is high-key horrifying, but more on that later.

The Twist Was Teased From The Beginning

More astute viewers might have caught this right away, but the film’s romantic twist (that is, Kate hopping through time to live with Leopold in the past) is foreshadowed from the start. “Who is that? I feel as if I’ve seen her,” Leopold says when he first meets Kate. Ultimately, he had seen her — at his uncle’s party in 1876. It just hadn’t happened on Kate’s timeline yet.

The Plot Is Familiar

A mysterious storybook stranger arrives in modern-day New York and challenges the beliefs of an unlucky-in-love professional? Swap Amy Adams for Hugh Jackman, and you’ve got Enchanted.

So Is The Supporting Cast

Ryan was a bona fide rom-com queen by the time she starred in Kate & Leopold . For his part, Jackman was already clawing his way toward superhero fame after debuting as Wolverine in 2000’s X-Men. But the film also features a supporting cast of very familiar faces before they went on to land their career-defining roles, including Viola Davis as the police offer who schools Leopold on modern laws.

Back in 1876, you can even catch Bob’s Burgers star Kristen Schaal as a guest at Leopold’s dance — her very first film role.

There’s A Toothpaste Easter Egg

From the toilet to the disposable razor, Leopold is fascinated by everything in Stuart’s modern bathroom, but you have to wonder what he thought about the tube of Colgate toothpaste he found. William Colgate was the kind of industrialist Leopold would have grown up learning about. Per the Colgate website , the entrepreneur started selling jarred toothpaste in 1873, three years before Leopold peaced-out of the century.

Hugh Jackman Invented Berries And Cream

Twenty years before the advent of Berries and Cream TikTok, Leopold served this delicious dish to Kate — specifically, strawberries and mascarpone on nine-grain toast. It’s also hilarious that one of the dreamiest things Jackman does in this already very swoon-worthy role is make breakfast. But here we are!

What Is It About Butter Commercials?

To borrow a phrase from Phineas and Ferb , if I had a nickel for every time a butter commercial was used as a major rom-com plot point (hi, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend ), I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice, right?

The Princess Diana Reference Is Spot-On

It makes sense that Kate’s views on love might have been soured by Prince Charles and Princess Diana’s dream-turned-nightmare of a romance — after all, Kate & Leopold came out just four years after Diana’s death. But when Kate calls the royal saga “a cautionary tale” and proof that “you can’t live a fairytale,” the reference feels timely as ever. As Dana Schwartz put it for Bustle last year, we’re in the midst of a Dianaissance. From The Crown to Spencer, the late royal’s tragic story continues to captivate audiences decades later.

The Movie Introduced Hugh Jackman To A Major Collaborator

James Mangold, who directed Jackman in both The Wolverine and Logan, also directed Kate & Leopold. The range!

Leopold Makes An Excellent Point About The Sunday Scaries

It’s no secret that the dread you feel on Sunday nights can sometimes creep into the afternoon. Or the morning. Or, in Kate’s case, the second the clock strikes midnight. As she tells Leopold, who has little concept of a 9-to-5, “Sunday is the day before the day I work, so it gets poisoned.”

Later on, Leopold suggests Kate just, you know, quit her job. “Is this what you do at work, Kate? Research methods to deceive people? Refine lies until they resemble truth? It’s no wonder you dread your workweek,” he tells her. Kate promptly says it’s not so easy. Of course, if you’re as unhappy as Kate, here’s hoping you can find a new job/partner/situation instead of resorting to sketchy time travel. Speaking of which...

The Time Travel Logic Is So Confusing (And Terrifying)

The movie’s time crimes start out fairly innocuous. Like, if Leopold leaving his timeline prevents him from ever inventing the elevator, why do all elevators disappear but everyone still knows what they are?

But that’s quaint compared to the central problem of the movie. Apparently, Stuart is Leopold’s great-great-grandson — at least, going by reviews of the film from when it first came out (thank you, Roger Ebert). Though early descriptions of Kate & Leopold ’s plot feature this detail, later versions of the movie appear to have scrubbed references to Stuart’s great-great-grandpa from the film altogether. Stuart does, however, mention the importance of returning Leopold to 1876 for the sake of his descendants.

Unless Leopold had children with someone else before meeting Kate and just hasn’t mentioned them (OK, fair), then it’s pretty much implied Kate will be his wife and, thus, mother of his future generations. Including Stuart. Kate’s ex. The guy she — ew.

32 Movies Great Movies About Time Travel With Completely Different Rules

Prepare for some serious stipulations.

Is there ever a bad time to watch a time travel movie? Some of the best sci-fi movies in history have tackled this frequently explored topic, and new wrinkles in the fabric of the concept have made the subject more exciting over time. So why don’t we take a look at the different rules these flights of fancy have introduced? Should you be stuck in a time loop, we apologize if this list is starting to get old.

Back To The Future

Everyone loves to talk about how Back to the Future’s time travel works , but there’s one aspect we take for granted throughout the whole trilogy. Doc Brown ( Christopher Lloyd ) may have given Marty McFly ( Michael J. Fox ) the keys to travel through the past, present, and future; but you seriously need to consider the exact spot you’re traveling to. Otherwise, you might find yourself altering history in some intriguing ways. R.I.P. Twin Pines Mall. 

Time After Time

A novel adventure starring the father of time travel H.G. Wells (Malcolm McDowell), Time After Time actually introduced an interesting mechanic to temporal transport. Let’s just say that if you don’t use the Time Machine properly, you could find yourself stuck in your final destination. Or worse, falling through the time-space continuum, without a way back home.

The Terminator

The Terminator's time travel will forever be a head-scratcher, as the existence of John Connor is the ultimate ontological paradox. How else can you explain Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn) being sent back to the 1980s to save the world…and make sure the person who sent him is born in the first place?

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home

The oldest method of time travel in the Star Trek movies, 1986’s The Voyage Home saw Captain Kirk ( William Shatner ) and his crew trying to save the whales through a time heist. This wouldn’t have been possible if it wasn’t for the Enterprise crew using a Klingon Bird of Prey, a slingshot orbit around the sun, and a lot of engineering power to do it.

2004’s Primer is still hotly discussed among time travel aficionados, and it’s not hard to see why. The shenanigans in this test case involve multiple versions of a singular traveler (Shane Carruth) existing in a single timeline, which creates one of the most chaotic timelines ever depicted.

The Adam Project

Story-wise, The Adam Project is pretty cozy when it comes to how it handles time travel. But when it comes to traveling in style, the older Adam Reed ( Ryan Reynolds ) has a Time Jet that’s specifically coded to his DNA! Not many temporal travelers HAVE that, and it prevents so many mistakes other adventures of this sort use for story purposes.

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Avengers: Endgame

How Avengers: Endgame’s time travel works is rather unorthodox, to be honest. Instead of overwriting the past into a more pleasing result, the MCU’s finest are only allowed to use it in the name of stealing/returning the Infinity Stones. Timelines can still create tangent histories, and 2014 Gamora takes over for her slain variant in the films, but you can’t stop “The Snap.”

Lost In Space

If all time travelers had the device Older Will Robinson (Jared Harris) built in 1998’s Lost in Space , they’d have it made. While only one person can travel at a time, exact coordinates in time and space are required; so you can go to a very specific spatial location on the timeline. 

The Butterfly Effect

The Butterfly Effect's time travel works on rules similar to that of Quantum Leap . Evan ( Ashton Kutcher ) can indeed change history, but it’s only within his own life’s timeline. Unfortunately, thanks to the multiple trips leading to continued alterations to the fabric of events, it all adds up in terms of severe physical wear and tear. 

Hot Tub Time Machine

Hot Tub Time Machine is a very special case when it comes to time travel. To be fair, the comedy ensemble franchise gets points for having its protagonists travel only within their own bodies. As for how one can actually travel with said titular device, apparently you need an energy drink, the right hot tub with the right temperature, and some convenient writing. 

Real-time bodily damage. That’s probably one of the most unique additions to Looper’s usage of time travel , as we see people incur damage in the past, only for it to show up on their future selves. Poor Seth ( Paul Dano ) demonstrated that lesson the hard way in Rian Johnson ’s sci-fi masterpiece. 

Star Trek: Generations

What if you could wish really hard to create an alternate timeline? Or what if you could send yourself back to your best memory, and never leave? That’s what The Nexus from Star Trek: Generations could do, and both Captains Kirk (William Shatner) and Picard ( Patrick Stewart ) got a taste of that sweet life, before ultimately using their new power to stop the villainous Dr. Soren (Malcolm McDowell). 

Bill And Ted’s Excellent Adventure

If you ever want to bring a figure from history home for dinner in the present, do it in the universe of Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure . There are little to no consequences, especially when it comes to our heroes (Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves) whisking away two medieval princesses to become betrothed in the 1980s. Seriously, how did that not start a war?

The Time Traveler's Wife

“Chrono Impairment” is a seriously rare affliction, but it’s enough of a headache that it prevents Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana’s clock-crossed lovers from ever enjoying a normal life. Such is the nature of The Time Traveler's Wife , which invented that affliction to send Bana’s character Henry on unpredictable trips at unforeseeable intervals throughout his life. 

Indiana Jones And Dial Of Destiny

For Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny's time travel to actually happen, the world of Harrison Ford’s iconic archeologist needed specific hardware. Aided by some very precise calculations to try and take the Nazis to where they were trying to go, it wasn't as simple as jumping into a car and gunning it to 88 miles per hour. 

Star Trek: First Contact

For a franchise that uses temporal transit as much as the Star Trek series does, there sure are a lot of different ways to go back in time. And if you’re not satisfied with The Voyage Home’s method of a slingshot orbit around the Sun, then you can always do what Star Trek: First Contact did. While I wouldn’t personally recommend waiting for a Borg invasion to cause a temporal wake you can just hitch a ride on; you do you. 

Ok, so technically Tenet’s shenanigans involving time is “time inversion,” rather than time travel. Which only makes the journey, and the resulting reality The Protagonist (John David Washington) lives in all the more complicated. It also makes for some classic Christopher Nolan mind melts.

Would this really be a sci-fi party if author Michael Crichton didn’t show up? Timeline’s time travel is a lot of fun, if you consider using a “human fax machine” to send yourself to medieval times “fun.” In which case, try not to abuse it too much, as every trip has the chance to leave you with transcription errors in your reassembled DNA. Again, we’re working with a fax machine here.  

Somewhere In Time

It’s the moment you’ve been waiting for Christopher Reeve fans! Somewhere in Time just had to be on this list, as it's pretty unique in how it sends a person back through the ages. In the case of Reeve’s playwright Richard, all he needs is a really powerful hypnotic focus to zoom back to 1912. 

Star Trek (2009)

It’s kind of fitting that the 2009 Star Trek reboot would use time travel, given that the series has continually danced with that concept on TV and in movies. For this J.J. Abrams-directed venture, the destructive and inexact force of a black hole is what’s used to accidentally alter time so vastly that William Shatner turns into Chris Pine.

Déjà Vu

Tony Scott’s 2006 action-thriller Déjà Vu is a big movie with a relatively limited scope. With intelligence gathering, and ultimately one human transport, that can only go as far back as four and a half days, Denzel Washington’s work was kind of cut out for him on this caper.

The Tomorrow War

The Chris Pratt-starring time travel ensemble adventure The Tomorrow War has some pretty huge stipulations when it comes to recruiting an army for the future. The largest among them was, of course, you had to be dead according to the records of the future hellscape that pitted humanity against some very nasty creatures.

X-Men: Days Of Future Past

Going from here to there in the then and now in X-Men: Days of Future Past requires a serious amount of power. With Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) going back to his past body, the key to how it all happens lies in the phasing abilities of Kitty Pryde (Elliot Page). So this story uses a very physical, and incredibly vulnerable, method to execute its vision.

Out of all the time travel universes we’ve seen on screen, perhaps the one I feel the most sorry for is the one shown in 12 Monkeys . The basic rule of this Bruce Willis epic’s temporal transit is “hope for the best,” thanks to the method of being shot through time and intending to land in the right place going wrong more often than you think.

Midnight In Paris

Reminiscent of many other vehicular-based time travel films like Back to the Future , any character that travels through time in Midnight In Paris just needs to catch the right ride, at just about Midnight. The experience is bespoke to whoever is traveling, as the period of time that suits them best also dictates the method of transportation provided.

The Final Countdown

Dropping an aircraft carrier from the 1980s into the moments before Pearl Harbor, The Final Countdown delivers a moral dilemma plenty of time travelers have tangled with. But the real difference with this underrated sci-fi movie is the fact that the time-traveling storm that is responsible for the trip is inescapable. You’re going home, whether you want to or not.

Sharing a similarity with the romantic classic Somewhere In Time , Richard Curtis’ About Time allows any potential traveler to jump into the past with merely intense concentration. However, certain caveats are in play, like the recommendation of not traveling past certain life milestones, or the fact that only the men of the Lake family can actually use this gift.

Donnie Darko

Donnie (Jake Gyllenhaal) can’t exactly travel through time in Donnie Darko , but he does have a special temporal ability that’s kind of funny and kind of sad. With the ability to open a wormhole between the present and the past, Mr. Darko can send objects through time; the skill that gives Richard Kelly’s movie its bittersweet ending. 

Kate & Leopold

Kate & Leopold’s usage of a localized time portal is a method as old as time. However, the big difference with this Meg Ryan/Hugh Jackman rom-com is that the journey Leopold (Jackman) takes to the “future” of 2001 robs us all of elevators. Also, there’s a ticking clock on this specific portal’s usage, which only complicates things further.

Groundhog Day

Perhaps the movie that nailed the time loop into the consciousness of the world, Groundhog Day brought us a charming Bill Murray rom-com mixed with a time travel story. Its misanthropic lead needed to change, even as the world around him stayed the same. The rest was sci-fi history in the making. 

Happy Death Day

What happens if you make a Groundhog Day-style time loop into a deadly game? You get a movie like Happy Death Day , in which our initially unlikable lead Tree (Jessica Rothe) is being stalked through a single-day time loop. The big kicker in this variant is that, unlike your standard time loop, Tree has a finite number of cycles before she possibly dies for good.

Where does one start with director Joseph Kahn’s Detention? Well, how about the fact that the teenagers in play (including a pre- Hunger Games Josh Hutcherson) use a stuffed bear as a time travel capsule? Or the fact that a mother/daughter pair can body swap on a permanent basis, and with no consequences? 

And with that, our supreme sampling of time travel trips has come to a close. Which more than likely has left you with a want to watch some of these movies again, or for the first time. That's totally natural, because this is a subgenre that always leaves us with one question: is there ever a bad time to watch a time travel movie?

Mike Reyes is the Senior Movie Contributor at CinemaBlend, though that title’s more of a guideline really. Passionate about entertainment since grade school, the movies have always held a special place in his life, which explains his current occupation. Mike graduated from Drew University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science, but swore off of running for public office a long time ago. Mike's expertise ranges from James Bond to everything Alita, making for a brilliantly eclectic resume. He fights for the user.

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Before there was Logan there was… the frothy, time-traveling rom-com Kate & Leopold ?

When Romance Met Comedy

With When Romance Met Comedy , Caroline Siede examines the history of the rom-com through the years, one happily ever after (or not) at a time.

Would you give up the right to vote in order to marry Hugh Jackman? That’s essentially the question at the heart of Kate & Leopold , a 2001 time travel rom-com about a sensitive 19th-century duke (Jackman) and the cynical modern day New Yorker (Meg Ryan) who winds up falling for him after he tumbles through a crack in time. And it’s a testament to just how good Hugh Jackman is in this movie that even the most ardent feminist might need a second to consider their options. By the time Ryan’s Kate McKay has made the impulsive choice to follow her out-of-time beau back to 1876, you kind of get it. Who needs airplanes, tampons, and access to penicillin when you can have Jackman take you in his arms and waltz you around a ballroom?

Yet the weirdest thing about Kate & Leopold isn’t anything that happens in its wacky time travel plot, which at one point involves Liev Schreiber falling several stories down an empty elevator shaft. It’s the fact that this gauzy romantic comedy was written and directed by James Mangold, who would later re-team with Jackman to make Logan , one of the bleakest, most critically respected superhero films of all time.

At first glance, there’s very little about Kate & Leopold that seems like a natural fit for Mangold’s filmmaking interests, which usually lean toward grizzled dad movies like 3:10 To Yuma , Walk The Line , and Ford V Ferrari . In fact, Mangold was specifically drawn to the idea of helming an escapist studio rom-com because he wanted a change of pace after bursting onto the scene with heavier dramas like Cop Land and Girl, Interrupted . But once you look past the waistcoats and candlelit rooftop dinners, you can actually start to see Mangold’s touch all over this frothy romance.

For one thing, Kate & Leopold is absolutely obsessed with men and their relationships to one another, a go-to subject matter for Mangold. The ensemble is rounded out with major roles for Kate’s scatterbrained ex-boyfriend Stuart (Schreiber), who figures out how to time travel and inadvertently brings Leopold back to the present; her skeevy boss J.J. (Bradley Whitford), who dangles a promotion and a potential romantic relationship as if they’re one and the same; and her boyish brother Charlie (Breckin Meyer), a struggling actor with a floundering love life. Weirdly enough, Mangold’s take on The Wolverine   has more well-rounded female characters than this romantic comedy where the female lead has top billing in the title. There are whole stretches of the movie that leave Kate behind entirely to focus on Leopold and Charlie’s burgeoning friendship, as the old-fashioned duke teaches his modern-day counterpart some lessons in how to successfully court a woman.

While other time travel rom-coms have used their central conceits as metaphors for everything from marriage to maturation , Mangold is interested in shifting ideals of masculinity. The initial fish-out-of-water comedy of Leopold’s arrival in modern-day New York gives way to a study in contrasts between the immature, emotionally stunted men of the present and the noble confidence of a man from the past—whose chivalry isn’t a means to an end, but a genuine code for trying to be a better, more caring person. Kate & Leopold isn’t interested in manhood as it relates to machismo swagger or bro-y gross-out humor, but as it relates to ideals of integrity, honesty, respect, and, most unexpectedly of all, emotional openness. Leopold’s biggest piece of advice to Charlie is that he shouldn’t awkwardly half-flirt with his crush while trying to suss out her interests. “Make your intentions known,” Leopold advises. “Think of pleasing her, not vexing her.”

Of course, it’s wildly ahistorical to think that the person best-suited to teach us how to live sensitive, respectful 21st-century lives is an aristocratic man from the 1800s—even if Leopold is supposed to be a forward-thinking inventor who goes on to patent the elevator. In a lot of ways, it probably would’ve made more sense for Kate & Leopold to be a Thor -style comedy where the displaced outsider learns his lesson, rather than an Enchanted -style story where they change the world around them for the better.

But as Mangold repeatedly points out in the film’s DVD commentary, Kate & Leopold isn’t actually about contrasting the 1870s with the 2000s so much as paying homage to an Old Hollywood style of romantic filmmaking. Beyond its overt nods to Breakfast At Tiffany’s ,   Kate & Leopold has a dreamily timeless quality that evokes movies like   The Apartment   and The Shop Around The Corner .

Mangold encouraged Jackman to play Leopold less as a realistic historical figure and more as a cross between Errol Flynn and Cary Grant. The genius of casting Jackman is that he’s an actor who can be both utterly masculine and gracefully feminine all at the same time. Jackman perfectly embodies the contradictions of Leopold, who has the arrogance of Mr. Darcy mixed with the unending politeness of Clark Kent. He commits to the role just as intensely as he’d committed to his debut as Wolverine the year before .

The film’s laugh-out-loud comedy comes from the fact that Jackman plays Leopold’s befuddlement with modern society completely straight—from his shock at the idea of picking up dog poop to his impassioned rant about the “General of Electric” and his disregard for building an effective toaster. Jackman delivers the comedy with the same intensity as his proclamations of love, leaving Leopold as a man whose unfailing principles are both his biggest strength and his most frustrating flaw. It’s a fantastic performance on every level.

Saddled with a less well-written character, Ryan struggles to hold the screen in the same way. The movie vaguely introduces the idea that Kate is a woman in a man’s world. “You skew male,” J.J. tells her at one point. “You’re like a man. A man who understands women, their desires, their needs. You understand them, but you’re not really one of them.” But it doesn’t really drive home that thread with any specificity beyond the standard “overworked rom-com heroine” archetype—an archetype that isn’t really Ryan’s strong suit anyway.

She’s not bad, exactly, and in fact some of her reaction shots are genuinely lovely. This just isn’t among Ryan’s best work in the rom-com genre, and Kate never fully clicks as a character. Kate & Leopold is too distracted by its men to spend enough time on Kate and the question of what she might lose or gain by following Leopold back into the past. So what stands out most is how inexplicably pointy her hair is.

In contrast, Schreiber, Meyer, and Whitford shine because they’re playing characters who are specific in their quirks and eccentricities. At one point Mangold pauses the plot just to give Stuart an extended monologue about the pain of being called crazy for his open scientific mind. And while it’s a strange diversion for a movie with such nonsensical time travel logic, Schreiber sells the hell out of it. Elsewhere, Jackman and Meyer are so sweet together that there are moments where it feels like the movie should’ve just been a love story between Leopold and Charlie. And in terms of Whitford’s best smarmy performances, I’d rank Kate & Leopold right up there with Billy Madison and Get Out . “The Duke Of Margarine thinks me a serpent,” he scoffs at one point after Leopold has been hired as the spokesperson for a diet butter spread.

I’m both proud and embarrassed to say that I watched this movie so many times during my middle-school years that I can still recite Leopold’s “fresh creamery butter” commercial by heart. And while I’m sure I’m not alone in imprinting on this movie at just the right age for it to become an obsession, for the most part Kate & Leopold is a romantic comedy that’s been a little bit lost to time—fitting considering its subject matter. These days it’s probably best remembered as the film that helped secure Jackman’s rise to leading man status in the years between X-Men and X2 . He was nominated for a Golden Globe and consistently singled out as a highlight across Kate & Leopold ’s mixed reviews. And beyond kicking off his partnership with Mangold, it also seems to have unlocked Jackman’s love of playing forward-thinking Gilded Age men. You could consider Kate & Leopold the first part of an unofficial trilogy with The Prestige and The Greatest Showman .

For all its flaws and forgettability ,   Kate & Leopold works better than it has any right to, mostly thanks to its talented cast and Mangold’s subtly graceful filmmaking, which is filled with long takes and elegant camera moves. There’s something undeniably cozy about this film, even if it never quite lives up to its potential—either in its theatrical edition or its slightly longer director’s cut, which introduces the idea that Leopold is Stuart’s great‑great‑grandfather and gives Kate a few more notes of cynicism.

In either version, Kate & Leopold works best when it leans into the idea that its whole story is a fairy tale. In his commentary, Mangold talks about the movie being sweet and open-hearted in a way that was swiftly falling out of fashion in the early aughts. And his greatest insight of all is that if you need someone to sell your old-fashioned fairy-tale romance, there’s no better Prince Charming than Hugh Jackman.

Next time: Charade is a perfect rom-com thriller for the Halloween season.

“Reminiscence:” Hugh Jackman Tackles Time and Travel to the Past

The budget for Hugh Jackman’s new film “Reminiscence” was $68 million. For this, you get a peek at Miami “after the flood” caused by global warming and a journey into a nearly submerged Miami constructed by “West World” creator and first-time film director Lisa Joy. The sets for sunken Miami were built in New Orelans in an abandoned theme park. Debut Director Lisa Joy says that one of her greatest thrills was walking on set for the first time. This is a futuristic world in which a machine designed, originally, to interrogate prisoners via their dreams, is now used in a post-war society as a way to  stroll down memory lane.

A private investigator of the mind ( Hugh Jackman as Nick Bannister ), assisted by his former partner in the military ( Thandiwe Newton as Emily “Watts” Sanders ), helps clients take a stroll through time in a world where “nostalgia never goes out of style” and “the past is addictive.” Jackman has the right hypnotic vocal quality to guide time travelers. He fills the bill as the Bogart-like centerpiece of a noir thriller that has more than its share of original scenes and images. ( Death-by-piano and Nick’s head submerged in a tank full of electric eels, giving his sidekick Thandiwe Newton a chance to play a kick-ass female rescuer were firsts.)

Various customers come and go in the converted bank building that Nick and Emily use as their dream-trip headquarters. Each individual  gets in an immersion  tank, has electrodes attached to his/her head, and receives a shot in the neck, which helps him or her to revisit the past. Each filmed memory becomes a part of the plot puzzle, a plot that is tremendously complicated. There are so many threads of the plot that must come together to form a complete whole that it destroys some of the film’s momentum.

The holographic images used for the dream sequences were also fantastic, created by Cinematographer Paul Cameron who said, “It needed a certain holographic reality, so the challenge, for me, was to create this illusion for the memories live on set.” Cameron, who had worked with Director Lisa Joy on “West World,” used halo gauze material, a projection system, and a curved screen. The thin mesh was stretched in the shape of a half cylinder and three 20K projectors mapped on the circular screen, including a Sony Venice 4K camera using TODD AO 2X anamorphic lenses for soft vintage-looking rear projection.

The cinematographer can take a huge bow. As he said, “You’re laser projecting onto this fabric that has been stretched into this curved shape that’s a little out of focus.” Said Cameron, “It’s a layer within a layer and so that becomes the syntax of the film. It gets very tricky with Jackman and Ferguson, popping in and out of memory, especially when he even steps into hers for the most surreal moment.”

Let’s talk for a moment about that “most surreal moment.” Even made-up worlds usually have rules about how they work. I commented to my companion that it didn’t seem “right” that Jackman’s character could simply step into a dream sequence that is being replayed, when it  was originally a scene between Rebecca Ferguson’s lead female character Mae and the crooked cop Cyrus Boothe (Cliff Curtis). Some of the “rules” of this future world are spelled out for us. For instance, we know that when a subject is in the tank, if they are asked to summon a memory that they don’t have, they have a fit, like little kids watching  video games who sometimes fall to the floor and have seizures. I wanted to know the “rules” for one character, stepping into the memories of another on replay. Nevertheless, I  enjoyed the “step into my dream” sequence, despite wondering if it was really “allowed” in this Future World.

Besides the Cinematographer’s revolutionary achievements, the sunken world created by the special effects and set people were truly outstanding. Some have mentioned “Inception” as a similar film. That is not surprising, considering that Jonathan Nolan (a producer on this film and husband of the director) is Christopher Nolan’s brother.

Other films mentioned that have the same futuristic look are “Blade Runner,” “Inception,” “Minority Report,” “Strange Days,” “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” “Vanilla Sky,” “Total Recall,” “Déjà vu” and, of course, television’s “West World,” the previous work experience of the director.

The noir attitude, lighting and theme are similar to “Chinatown” and “L.A. Confidential.”

While I thought Hugh Jackman was solid in his role,  I wasn’t as firmly onboard with the casting of Rebecca Ferguson, the Swedish and British actress who starred opposite Tom Cruise in “Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation” (and is set to star in the next “Mission Impossible” film. ) Even though Ferguson appeared in “The Greatest Showman” with Jackman previously, portraying Jenny Lind, as a romantic duo they don’t generate “heat” onscreen. It’s hard to define what this quality is, but when the couple onscreen has it and it works, you know it. When it doesn’t, you may find yourself saying, “What does he see in her?” or “What does she see in him?”

Rebecaa Ferguson, for me, was curiously unconvincing as a femme fatale who instantly mesmerizes at least four of the male characters while performing in seedy nightclubs. She was distant, uninvolved emotionally, and could have been replaced by any attractive female leading lady. (SPOILER) When she ingested some mysterious drug and jumped off a building, I didn’t mourn her passing.

The song “Where or When” is integral to the plot. We hear Ferguson singing it. Her singing, as well, is so-so.  It was hard for me to understand how Ferguson could so reliably captivate so many men so quickly.

Rebecca Ferguson, for me, was part of the reason the film as a whole did not “work.” She is an oddly inert presence throughout. She doesn’t engage us. She is remote. Detached.  Is it because Ferguson’s character ( Mae) in the script is ambivalent, presented as both bad and good? For much of the film we are convinced she is a scheming manipulator. However, from Jackman’s POV, she is his angelic dream girl. Which is correct? It takes the entire film to find out. It is hard to root for her or to root against her, because we are not told whether she is good or bad. She does have an extremely ritzy wardrobe for a girl without electricity in her apartment, and is pictured in clothes-with-midriff-cutouts in nearly every color. Very high fashion. I jotted “Quite the wardrobe for someone with no money for electricity!”

THE SCREENPLAY

Many have expressed their unhappiness with the script. It was on the Black List, as it is called, for some time, which is a list of the best scripts out there that have not yet been made into films.

But what about the actual words the characters speak?

Here are some lines from the script. Decide for yourself if they are good or bad lines:

“The past can haunt a man.”

“Just a series of moments, each one perfect. A bead on the necklace of time.”

“It’s us who haunt the past.”

“Late is a construct of linear time.  We don’t deal in that.”

“Time is no longer a one-way stream.”

“The past is addictive.”

“You can’t remember something that never made an impression.”

“We’re all haunted by something.”

“Memories are like perfume: better in small doses.”

“There is no such thing as a happy ending.”

“To find where she’d gone, I had to know where she’d been.”

“You’ve been had and you don’t even know why.”

“Stay here in this life. Stay here with me.”

“The barons stay alive by drowning everyone else.  Only the rich mold the world to their delusions.”

“When you’re young, you think the future will play out like dominoes.  You have no idea the things that are lined up.”

“Nothing’s an accident with Mae.”

“When the waves came they washed away our lives.”

“You’re an empty man looking for a woman to blame.”

“The truth is not gonna’ set you free.  It’s gonna’ damn you.”

“I was so stupid to think that falling in love could save me.”

“Love is the thing we cling to.”

“Missing people is a part of the world.”

Look back at the films listed that “Reminiscence” is like. If you enjoyed those, you’ll probably like this one—perhaps not as much as the classics I listed, but “Reminiscence” is definitely cut from the same bolt of cloth.

About Connie Wilson

Connie (Corcoran) Wilson (www.ConnieCWilson.com ) was the Quad City Times film and book critic for 15 years and has continued reviewing film uninterruptedly since 1970. She also publishes books in a variety of genres (www.quadcitieslearning.com), has taught writing or literature classes at 6 Iowa/Illinois colleges or universities as adjunct faculty, was Yahoo's Content Producer of the Year 2008 for Politics, is the author of It Came from the 70s: From The Godfather to Apocalypse Now, and writes on a variety of topics at her own blog, www.WeeklyWilson.com. Weekly Wilson is also the name of her podcast on the Bold Brave Media Global Network on Thursday nights at 7 p.m. (CDT).

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Product Description

Winning and romantic time-travel comedy stars Hugh Jackman as Leopold Alexis Elijah Walker, an 1870s English duke who is brought to modern-day New York via a portal invented by his descendant, Stuart (Liev Schreiber). When Stuart is injured in an accident, Leopold is taken in by marketing executive Kate McKay (Meg Ryan). Will the relationship that blooms between the cynical New Yorker and the refined Victorian gentleman survive the 125-year age gap? PG-13-rated version; 118 min./Director's cut; 122 min. Widescreen (Enhanced); Soundtracks: English Dolby Digital 5.1.

Product details

• MPAA rating ‏ : ‎ PG-13 (Parents Strongly Cautioned)
• Product Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 0.7 x 7.5 x 5.4 inches; 2.72 ounces
• Media Format ‏ : ‎ NTSC, Subtitled
• Run time ‏ : ‎ 118 minutes
• Release date ‏ : ‎ February 23, 2021
• Actors ‏ : ‎ Hugh Jackman, Breckin Meyer, Liev Schreiber, Meg Ryan, Natasha Lyonne
• Dubbed: ‏ : ‎ English, French
• Studio ‏ : ‎ Paramount Pictures Home Entertainment
• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B08L3NWDBJ
• Number of discs ‏ : ‎ 1
• #6,393 in Comedy (Movies & TV)

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10 Great Movies About Time Travel

The best time-bending movies on offer.

Time travel is one of the most popular tropes in movie history, having been used to create taut thrillers, unflinching horrors and poignant dramas for nearly a century now.

Over the last few years in particular, time travel movies have become more popular than ever, with various directors from around the world using it to weave together complex tales of identity, futuristic wars, superheroes, the end of the world and romance.

Not all of them are very good, though. Many time-bending movies over the years - be them mindless action flicks like the recent Tomorrow War or uninspired comedies like When We First Met - have made the fatal flaw of focussing too much on the time travel aspect of the story rather than the emotion or character at the film's core, leaving the movie an unfocussed, forced shambles.

For this list, we're steering clear of the let-downs and shifting focus to some of the best time travel movies on other. This isn't a definitive list by any means, but one which attempts to tackle the genre from various different angles, including rom-coms, sci-fi thrillers and time-loop classics.

With that in mind, here are 10 great movies about time travel you just have to see...

10. X-Men: Days Of Future Past (2014)

One of the best X-Men films on offer, Days of Future Past used a great time travel technique to effectively re-write the entire series and erase the events of the previous films.

In a dystopian future where the Sentinels have been programmed to hunt down and kill all mutants, Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) is sent back to the 1970s to change the world before it's too late.

Relying heavily on its all-star cast - which also includes James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Evan Peters, Elliot Page and Jennifer Lawrence - the dark and innovative sequel is bursting with exceptional fan service, rich character development and a genuinely unpredictable second half.

From Jackman's typically inspired performance and the final farewell of some of the franchise's most dependable mainstays, to the emotional finale and the inventive world-building, Days of Future Past isn't just one of the best X-Men films, but a brilliant sci-fi time travel flick in its own right.

I get to write about what I love, so that's pretty cool. Be excellent to each other. You can catch my other work here: https://halfwaydown.substack.com/

Meg Ryan, Hugh Jackman Team for Time Travel Romance

Every now and then there's news of a film that's a hard sell on paper.¿ This sounds like one of those films.¿¿ Today's Variety dishes that Meg Ryan has signed on to join X-Men star Hugh Jackman in Kate & Leopold , a romantic time-travel comedy.¿¿¿

The project has been in development at Miramax since 1994, and has seen the likes of Sandra Bullock attached to the role of Kate.¿ The script, by Steven Rogers ( Hope Floats ), tells the tale of a 19th century duke (Jackman) who falls in love a modern-day New York girl (Ryan), and must travel through time to be with her.

Jackman next appears in Swordfish and Animal Husbandry , while Ryan will grace us with her on-screen presence in next month's Proof of Life .

¿ Brian Linder thinks this sounds a really odd film.¿ Not bad necessarily, just odd.

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Deadpool & Wolverine Director Shawn Levy Reveals Who Encouraged Him to Meet Ryan Reynolds: Hugh Jackman (Exclusive)

Long before Ryan Reynolds and director Shawn Levy joined forces for the upcoming ‘Deadpool & Wolverine,’ costar Hugh Jackman predicted they’d hit it off

Michael Loccisano/WireImage

Ryan Reynolds and Shawn Levy are more than just actor and director to each other. As the Deadpool & Wolverine director tells PEOPLE, “Ryan and I have become extremely close friends.”

How much time does the dynamic duo spend together? “A lot,” says Levy, 55, at CinemaCon on April 11. “More than I've spent with any male friend since literally high school.”

The two Canadian filmmakers live in New York City “half a block from each other," he says, "so it's all very intertwined — which makes it very convenient for two guys who work as hard as we do.”

Reynolds, 47, has collaborated as both star and producer with Levy on 2021’s Free Guy , 2022’s The Adam Project and now Deadpool & Wolverine , reprising his role as the irreverent Marvel Comics character. 

His costar, it turns out, foretold the long and prosperous friendship between Levy and Reynolds. “You know who predicted it?” the director and co-writer reveals. “ Hugh Jackman .” 

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On the set of his 2011 movie Real Steel starring Jackman, recalls Levy, “Hugh said, ‘For what it's worth, if you ever meet and work with Ryan Reynolds, you're never going to stop.’"

“That was 2010,” he adds with a grin. “Hugh Jackman, the prophet — a little known special talent.”

What does Levy remember about meeting Reynolds and watching Jackman’s prophecy come true? “I met Ryan about a movie we didn't end up making together — that I'll never name — and we just had an ease with each other,” he tells PEOPLE. “But it really, really manifested on our first time [sitting] down to talk about Free Guy .”

He continues: “It was a script that was about video gaming, but we had other themes and messages in mind. And we just connected in terms of wanting to give audiences a movie that transports them, makes them laugh, and isn’t embarrassed about being big-hearted.”

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from juicy celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

Deadpool & Wolverine features Reynolds’ masked anti-hero forging a testy friendship with Jackman’s mutant — a character he first played in 2000’s 20th Century Fox movie X-Men and had retired in 2017 before agreeing to join the next installment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe . 

Levy says that the philosophy he and Reynolds bonded over and brought to Free Guy continued with their new collaboration. “Maybe it’s our shared Canadian-ness,” he quips. Deadpool & Wolverine “is funny as hell. It is audacious. It is action-packed and gnarly. But it's ultimately a character journey of these two characters and it's big-hearted in the telling of that story.”

Before receiving the Director of the Year Award from CinemaCon in Las Vegas’ Caesars Palace April 11, Levy previewed a sequence of footage from Deadpool & Wolverine . The crowd glimpsed Reynolds’ Wade Wilson attempting to create a normal life before being convinced by Matthew Macfadyen 's Time Variance Authority agent to undergo a mission — one that relates to Disney’s Marvel properties themselves. 

Following 2018’s Deadpool 2 , the sequel marks Deadpool’s first official MCU entry . The previous installments were produced and distributed by 20th Century Fox prior to Disney's purchase of the studio and rights to Deadpool and other X-Men characters.

As of April, Levy is still amid the editing process for Deadpool & Wolverine . He and Reynolds, he tells PEOPLE, “will talk about Deadpool as someone else. ‘Hey buddy, we can extend that shot of Deadpool here.’ He's like, ‘No, I think we got to be on Deadpool a little longer.’

“Because in the suit, in the mask, on screen, it becomes something else. It becomes, frankly for me, something bigger and more iconic. So we do occasionally use third person.”

The character’s larger-than-life presence will return to the big screen in Deadpool & Wolverine , in theaters July 26.

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Screen Rant

Wolverine's complete movie timeline explained.

Logan's timeline in the X-Men series is confusing, to say the least, but this chronological order of Wolverine's movie timeline explains everything.

• Logan's complex timeline spans over 100 years, showcasing various comic book forms and his death in Logan.
• X-Men movie timeline is confusing with prequels, sequels, and spin-offs, making it hard for audiences to unravel the knotty timeline.
• Wolverine's journey from 1832-2029 across the course of 9 movies includes pivotal moments like meeting Ichirō Yashida and being recruited into the X-Men.

Hugh Jackman has been in more X-Men movies than any other actor ever since playing Wolverine in the original 2000 movie, and as a result, the powerful superhero has such a complex timeline in the universe. Audiences were introduced to Logan in the snowy outback of Alberta in the first film in the Fox X-Men movie roster , but his timeline begins well over 100 years before that. Over the course of nine films, Logan has taken up many different comic book forms, such as Old Man Logan and Weapon X, all the way up to his death in Logan .

The X-Men movie timeline is undoubtedly confusing, as the series is full of prequels, movies that are part-prequel and part-sequel, and spin-offs that stretch over the course of 100+ years. That means that it can be hard for general audiences to unravel the knotty timeline and lay it out chronologically. It doesn't make it any easier that some movies split the X-Men movie universe into different timelines either. And given that one of Logan's mutant abilities is immortality, the character has certainly lived a full life.

Hugh Jackman's Wolverine story spans from 1832-2029, across the course of 9 movies.

10 Most Exciting Things To Expect From Deadpool & Wolverine

Logan's early life & fighting alongside sabretooth (x-men origins: wolverine).

X-Men Origins: Wolverine is the fourth X-Men movie, but the very first one in the chronological timeline. While 112 years is much longer than most people's whole lives, that timeframe only represents Logan's early life. The movie depicts Logan's birth in 1832 with the name James Howlett, and in the following 12 years, he meets and forms a close bond with his half-brother, Victor Creed, aka Sabretooth.

In 1845, the 12-year-old mutant kills Thomas Logan, the groundskeeper who murdered Logan and Sabretooth's father. After the murder, the brothers run away and become soldiers in several wars, as the movie cuts forward to the Civil War, and given their mutant powers, they don't age a day.

Considering that the movie was critically scathed when it was released, the opening sequence is arguably the only good X-Men Origins: Wolverine scene, as it then jumps decades later to World War I in 1914, and then decades later again to 1944 during World War II where the duo is part of the D-Day Normandy Landings. It's in this montage where Logan and Victor's relationship begins to crack, as Victor starts enjoying the violence and terrors of war.

Logan Meets And Saves Ichirō Yashida (The Wolverine)

The opening of the black sheep of the X-Men franchise, The Wolverine, picks up in the middle of the opening montage of X-Men Origins: Wolverine where he's a U.S. soldier during World War II . Logan is trapped in a prisoner-of-war camp in Nagasaki, Japan, where an atomic bomb is about to be dropped and will wipe out the entire city, including Japanese military officer Ichirō Yashida.

Logan saves Yashida from the blast, and Yashida then watches in astonishment when Logan uses his healing powers. But Yashida doesn't get to enjoy the entire spectacle, as it's still set before the main events of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and Logan hasn't got his adamantium claws yet.

Logan Does Not Get Recruited By Charles And Erik (X-Men: First Class)

Professor Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr first assemble the X-Men in 1962 in X-Men: First Class . The Mark Millar-directed comic book movie features Professor X and Magneto hiring Angel, Darwin, Havok, and Banshee, but there's one mutant who doesn't accept their offer.

Charles and Erik find Logan in a bar and attempt to recruit him. It goes to show how much of a valuable asset Logan is even without his adamantium claws. This scene again takes place within the timeframe of X-Men Origins: Wolverine when Logan was a soldier for the U.S. Army. The location of the bar isn't totally clear, but it's either in Vietnam or in the U.S. right before he's deployed to Vietnam.

Logan Is Recruited Into Team X & Gets Adamantium Claws (X-Men Origins: Wolverine)

Early-late 1970s.

When Wolverine and Sabretooth inevitably end up fighting in the Vietnam War, other soldiers cotton on to their healing powers. This leads to the mutants getting recruited by Stryker and put into his black ops military unit known as Team X. Logan leaves the team due to its sketchy methods of combat and its cavalier attitude toward civilians' lives. William Stryker first appeared in the X-Men franchise in X2 and was played by Brian Cox, but the character's first chronological appearance is years earlier, and Cox was recast in X-Men Origins: Wolverine with a younger Danny Huston.

Years later, under the impression that Victor murdered his girlfriend, Kayla, Logan meets with Stryker once again due to their common threat: Sabretooth. Logan agrees to the Weapon X experiment and has adamantium bonded to his bones, which will help him kill his half-brother.

However, it's revealed that Kayla is still alive and being held captive by Stryker, who shoots Logan with an adamantium bullet. Though that doesn't kill Logan, he does lose his memory. While the movie is often criticized, it does give insight into why Logan was aimlessly living paycheck to paycheck in X-Men, and it seamlessly leads into the first movie.

Logan Becomes Weapon X (X-Men: Apocalypse)

Jackman has an uncredited cameo in X-Men: Apocalypse , as he plays the Weapon X version of Wolverine. A brief digression in X-Men: Apocalypse sees a group of mutants locked inside Stryker's Weapon X base, which hides some untethered beasts.

Weapon X is completely uncaged, as he runs rampant around the base picking off Stryker's henchmen. While this takes place before the events of the original trilogy, it's in a different timeline following the events of X-Men: Days of Future Past. But as that movie ends with Raven freeing Logan from captivity, it requires a lot of suspension of disbelief that he somehow found his way back into Stryker's hands within those 10 years.

Logan Is Recruited Into The X-Men (X-Men)

The first released X-Men Marvel movie is actually the eighth X-Men film in the chronological timeline. Though it's the first time Wolverine is introduced, it directly follows on from X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which was over 20 years earlier.

In that time, it can only be assumed that he had been struggling with the pain that the adamantium causes him following Stryker's experiment, wandering around Alberta with amnesia, and barely making a living as a cage fighter. But after a quick run-in with Sabretooth, Logan is whisked away to Xavier's Mansion where he meets Jean Grey for the first time in this timeline, and after some hesitance, he officially becomes a member of the X-Men .

Logan's Relationship With Jean Grey (X-Men 2 & X-Men: The Last Stand)

The climax of X-Men 2 ends in an epic face-off at Alkali Lake, a historical location for Logan. After falling in love with Jean, Logan watches her sacrifice herself to save her friends, family, and colleagues. However, after a flashback of a young Jean Grey with a badly de-aged Patrick Stewart as Professor X , the mutant returns in X-Men: The Last Stand , but as her evil Dark Phoenix alter ego. She works closely with Magneto and even kills Cyclops and Professor X. In a Shakespearean tragedy-like ending, Jean convinces Logan to kill her before she can do any more damage.

Logan Reunites With Ichirō Yashida (The Wolverine)

The Wolverine is more of a sequel to X-Men: The Last Stand than X-Men Origins: Wolverine, as it's set 10 years after Jean's death , and Logan is still tormented by the hallucinations of killing her. The mutant reunites with Ichirō, whom he had saved from an atomic bomb 68 years earlier, one of the many severe injuries that Wolverine survived .

Ichirō offers to transfer Logan's healing abilities to himself, as the power has become a burden on the mutant. That's hardly surprising given that Logan has taken part in so many wars and watched two loves of his life get violently killed. But he refuses, and after fighting Silver Samurai, he retains his immortality and learns to let go of Jean.

Logan's Subconscious Is Put Into His 1973 Self (X-Men: Days Of Future Past)

X-Men: Days of Future Past is part-prequel, part-sequel , as it brings back characters from the original trilogy and X-Men: First Class, as well as being a direct follow-up to The Wolverine . But the 2014 movie was the first proper X-Men film starring Wolverine in eight years.

There's even more Wolverine content in the Rogue Cut , which features Logan meeting Quicksilver's sister and an introspective conversation between him and Beast. In the 2014 movie, Logan rejoins Charles Xavier to protect the mutant race. And the only way to restore the world back to the way it was is for Kitty Pryde to put Logan's subconscious into his 1973 self.

Logan awakens in 1973 where he successfully stops Bolivar Trask, the creator of the Sentinels, and he reawakens back in 2023 in the Xavier Mansion where everyone is alive, including Jean Grey. Logan essentially changed the future where X-Men: The Last Stand doesn't exist, meaning he gets to live happily ever after with Jean and his life isn't all that tragic after all.

That is until the very next time he appears chronologically in Logan where, due to Professor X's dark fate, his life goes back to being a Shakespearean-like tragedy all over again. Nevertheless, X-Men: Days of Future Past is the perfect follow-up to X2 and is the satisfying conclusion that the original movies deserve.

Logan Dies From Adamantium Poisoning (Logan)

Logan is the very last movie in the franchise when it comes to chronological order , which is why the film has so much emotional weight, as it sees him burdened with caring for Xavier in his twilight years following X-Men: Days of Future Past. After eight movies, seeing Logan losing his healing power is absolutely grueling. His healing power had served him well for almost 200 years and all the way up to 2028, as he was the only one of his friends who wasn't killed by Professor Xavier's seizure, also known as the Westchester Incident. But his luck was about to run out in Logan .

Logan loses his healing power in the 2017 movie due to adamantium poisoning and dies after being fatally wounded by X-24. In a poetic ending, if Logan had never had his bones coated in adamantium, which is the very thing that makes the character iconic, he could have lived for hundreds, maybe even thousands of years longer.

However, though it still isn't clear how the character will return or if he'll appear in the MCU's X-Men , Jackman will reprise his role as Wolverine in Deadpool & Wolverine , continuing the mutant's already astonishing legacy. And maybe it'll give finally give him the uplifting ending that he deserves.

*Availability in US

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X-Men is the first film in the long-running superhero franchise centering on the iconic Marvel team. Wolverine and Professor X take center stage as they and the other X-Men attempt to stop Erik Lehnsherr (aka Magneto) after he has a violent response to the proposed Mutant Registration Act. Hugh Jackman stars as Wolverine, alongside Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Halle Berry, Famke Janssen, James Marsden, and Anna Paquin.

Key Release Dates

Deadpool & wolverine.

Deadpool & Wolverine Soda Cup Reveals Hugh Jackman's Wolverine in the Iconic Mask for the First Time

D eadpool & Wolverine finally hits theaters this July, and we just got a first peek at what Hugh Jackman looks like with Wolverine’s iconic cowl.

An early look at the yellow and blue mask comes from CinemaCon 2024, where attendees have spotted cups that feature the upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe movie’s titular duo. As shared by @TheMoviePodcast on X /Twitter, Deadpool’s striking a pose that’s far from new, but Wolverine is donning the mask that fans have waited to see Jackman wear for decades.

The image looks more like art than a real-life picture of Jackman wearing the pointy headpiece, but this small glimpse still marks an important moment for comic book fans. Jackman first suited up as Wolverine for the 2000 X-Men movie, but didn’t actually wear much blue and yellow at all for that film or any of its follow-ups. There were nods to the suit in some movies, including a deleted scene from The Wolverine that featured the outfit’s familiar mask and gloves, but Jackman has never actually been seen in the full get-up until now.

Early set images from Deadpool & Wolverine revealed some shots of Jackman with most of the clawed character’s clothes on, but even these images didn’t include the full piece. While it’s not clear when we’ll get to see the actor’s suit in motion, we don’t have much longer to wait before the film finally reaches superhero fans.

Deadpool & Wolverine comes to theaters on July 26, 2024. For more on how Ryan Reynolds’ third Deadpool film will tie into the MCU, be sure to check out everything we know about the movie . You can also read about why fans think James Marsden will appear as Cyclops and why Vinnie Jones won’t appear as Juggernaut .

Michael Cripe is a freelance contributor with IGN. He started writing in the industry in 2017 and is best known for his work at outlets such as The Pitch, The Escapist, OnlySP, and Gameranx.

Be sure to give him a follow on Twitter @MikeCripe.

'Deadpool & Wolverine' makes a splash with cheeky new footage: 'I'm going to Disneyland'

LAS VEGAS – It's hard to fathom what's more exciting, Deadpool finally diving headfirst into the Marvel Cinematic Universe , or Ryan Reynolds' beloved wisecracking oddball getting his own popcorn bucket.

The good news from CinemaCon is that superhero fans don't have to choose, they're getting both. Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige teased at the convention of theater owners that Deadpool is "designing" a collectible container to sell at concession stands − and director Shawn Levy introduced nine minutes of new footage from "Deadpool & Wolverine" (in theaters July 27).

For those wondering if it'd be the same cursing, fourth wall-breaking Deadpool from the previous Fox films, they got their answer with a whole bunch of f-bombs. In the sneak peek, Wade Wilson (Reynolds) has literally hung up his tights and is now selling cars. His friends throw him a birthday party – complete with cocaine riffs and "Frozen" jokes – but Wade gets nabbed by a goon squad from the Time Variance Authority (see: "Loki" Seasons 1 and 2).

He's taken to see Mr. Paradox (Matthew Macfadyen of "Succession" fame), and this cryptic guy shows him scenes from Marvel movies and tells Wade he can finally be the hero he's always wanted to be. So Deadpool gets a new costume and, in meta fashion, agrees to leave his timeline for the MCU. "Suck it, Fox! I'm going to Disneyland," Deadpool says into the camera before busting it.

Marvel showed some of the chemistry between Reynolds' Deadpool and Jackman's Wolverine, who's also making his MCU debut in the new film. The Disney presentation started with a "Silence your phones" announcement where Wolverine let loose a curse-laden rant – with Deadpool chiming in, "So much testosterone" – and Levy screened a quick scene with Deadpool in a car with Wolverine, dressed in the yellow-and-blue costume from the old 1960s "X-Men" comic books. "Friends don't let friends dress like they play for the Los Angeles Rams," Deadpool cracks.

Anthony Mackie welcomes Harrison Ford to the MCU in 'Captain America: Brave New World'

Feige also gave a few updates to other Marvel projects: "Fantastic Four" (out July 25), starring Pedro Pascal and Vanessa Kirby, begins filming in a few months, while "Thunderbolts*" (May 2, 2025), the supergroup movie with Florence Pugh, David Harbour, Wyatt Russell, Sebastian Stan and more, now has an asterisk as part of its official title. But Feige said he can't talk about that until "after release."

The Marvel chief also debuted the first footage from "Captain America: Brave New World," a political thriller and the first solo movie to feature Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) with the star-spangled shield. "It's been amazing," Mackie reports.

The sneak peek showed one scene where Sam is brought to the Oval Office by President Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross, now played by Harrison Ford. (William Hurt played Ross in Marvel movies before his death in 2022.) The president tells Sam that he's had problems with heroes in the past but wants Sam to rebuild the Avengers. But in another scene, an event at the White House turns bad when Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly) and other super-soldiers are "activated" by a song and try to assassinate the president, leading into an action-packed trailer where Ross brings the sass to Sam. "You're no Steve Rogers," he tells Sam, invoking the name of Chris Evans' previous Cap.

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Hugh Jackman Movies

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

1. Erskineville Kings (1999)

90 min | Drama

Barky, 25, lost soul, left home two years ago to escape his abusive father leaving behind everything in the world that was important to him; now that his father's dead, he thinks it's safe to come home.

Director: Alan White | Stars: Marty Denniss , Hugh Jackman , Andrew Wholley , Aaron Blabey

2. Paperback Hero (1999)

Not Rated | 96 min | Comedy, Romance

An Australian truck driver writes romance novels. His engaged, tomboyish, crop duster best friend's name, Ruby Vale, is unasked used as author. Complications arise when his novel takes off. Will they remain friends or...?

Director: Antony J. Bowman | Stars: Claudia Karvan , Hugh Jackman , Angie Milliken , Andrew S. Gilbert

Votes: 2,348

3. X-Men (2000)

PG-13 | 104 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

In a world where mutants (evolved super-powered humans) exist and are discriminated against, two groups form for an inevitable clash: the supremacist Brotherhood, and the pacifist X-Men.

Director: Bryan Singer | Stars: Patrick Stewart , Hugh Jackman , Ian McKellen , Famke Janssen

Votes: 645,636 | Gross: $157.30M

4. Someone Like You (2001)

PG-13 | 97 min | Comedy, Romance

After being jilted by her boyfriend, a talk show talent scout writes a column on the relationship habits of men which gains her national fame.

Director: Tony Goldwyn | Stars: Ashley Judd , Greg Kinnear , Hugh Jackman , Marisa Tomei

Votes: 27,421 | Gross: $27.34M

5. Swordfish (2001)

R | 99 min | Action, Crime, Thriller

A covert counter-terrorist unit called Black Cell led by Gabriel Shear wants the money to help finance their war against international terrorism, but it's all locked away. Gabriel brings in convicted hacker Stanley Jobson to help him.

Director: Dominic Sena | Stars: John Travolta , Hugh Jackman , Halle Berry , Don Cheadle

Votes: 196,074 | Gross: $69.77M

6. Kate & Leopold (2001)

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

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

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

Votes: 88,997 | Gross: $47.12M

7. X2 (2003)

PG-13 | 134 min | Action, Sci-Fi, Thriller

When anti-mutant Colonel William Stryker kidnaps Professor X and attacks his school, the X-Men must ally with their archenemy Magneto to stop him.

Director: Bryan Singer | Stars: Patrick Stewart , Hugh Jackman , Halle Berry , Ian McKellen

Votes: 575,296 | Gross: $214.95M

8. Halifax f.p. (1994–2001) Episode: Profile of a Serial Killer (1997)

Not Rated | 101 min | Crime

When a shocking massacre in a small-town diner leaves no clues, Forensic Psychologist Dr. Jane Halifax (Gibney) teams up with Senior Detective Eric Ringer (Jackman) for one of the toughest cases of their careers.

Director: Steve Jodrell | Stars: Rebecca Gibney , Shane Connor , Hugh Jackman , Susan Lyons

9. Van Helsing (2004)

PG-13 | 131 min | Action, Adventure, Fantasy

The famed monster hunter is sent to Transylvania to stop Count Dracula, who is using Dr. Frankenstein's research and a werewolf for nefarious purposes.

Director: Stephen Sommers | Stars: Hugh Jackman , Kate Beckinsale , Richard Roxburgh , Shuler Hensley

Votes: 284,142 | Gross: $120.18M

10. Van Helsing: The London Assignment (2004 Video)

Not Rated | 30 min | Animation, Short, Action

In this animated prequel to Van Helsing (2004), Van Helsing travels to Victorian London to catch the mysterious, inhuman serial killer, Mr. Hyde.

Director: Sharon Bridgeman | Stars: Hugh Jackman , Robbie Coltrane , David Wenham , Grey Griffin

Votes: 3,403

11. Stories of Lost Souls (2005)

90 min | Comedy, Drama, Thriller

Short stories of conquest, desperation and the will to overcome.

Directors: Illeana Douglas , Deborra-Lee Furness , William Garcia , Paul Holmes , Mark Palansky , Col Spector , Toa Stappard , Andrew Upton | Stars: Jason 'Wee Man' Acuña , Naomi Allisstone , William Ash , Nicholas Audsley

12. Happy Feet (2006)

PG | 108 min | Animation, Adventure, Comedy

Into the world of the Emperor Penguins, who find their soul mates through song, a penguin is born who cannot sing. But he can tap dance something fierce!

Directors: George Miller , Warren Coleman , Judy Morris | Stars: Elijah Wood , Brittany Murphy , Hugh Jackman , Robin Williams

Votes: 199,718 | Gross: $198.00M

13. Flushed Away (2006)

PG | 85 min | Animation, Action, Adventure

The story of an uptown rat that gets flushed down the toilet from his penthouse apartment, ending in the sewers of London, where he has to learn a whole new and different way of life.

Directors: David Bowers , Sam Fell | Stars: Hugh Jackman , Kate Winslet , Ian McKellen , Jean Reno

Votes: 138,453 | Gross: $64.67M

14. The Prestige (2006)

PG-13 | 130 min | Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi

After a tragic accident, two stage magicians in 1890s London engage in a battle to create the ultimate illusion while sacrificing everything they have to outwit each other.

Director: Christopher Nolan | Stars: Christian Bale , Hugh Jackman , Scarlett Johansson , Michael Caine

Votes: 1,438,285 | Gross: $53.09M

15. The Fountain (2006)

PG-13 | 97 min | Drama, Mystery, Romance

As a modern-day scientist, Tommy is struggling with mortality, desperately searching for the medical breakthrough that will save the life of his cancer-stricken wife, Izzi.

Director: Darren Aronofsky | Stars: Hugh Jackman , Rachel Weisz , Sean Patrick Thomas , Ellen Burstyn

Votes: 248,582 | Gross: $10.14M

16. Scoop (2006)

PG-13 | 96 min | Comedy, Crime, Fantasy

An American journalism student in London scoops a big story, and begins an affair with an aristocrat as the incident unfurls.

Director: Woody Allen | Stars: Scarlett Johansson , Hugh Jackman , Jim Dunk , Robert Bathurst

Votes: 87,512 | Gross: $10.53M

17. X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)

The human government develops a cure for mutations, and Jean Grey becomes a darker uncontrollable persona called the Phoenix who allies with Magneto, causing escalation into an all-out battle for the X-Men.

Director: Brett Ratner | Stars: Patrick Stewart , Hugh Jackman , Halle Berry , Famke Janssen

Votes: 540,012 | Gross: $234.36M

18. Deception (2018)

TV-PG | 41 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery

A famed magician uses his skills of deception to assist the FBI in solving high-profile cases.

Stars: Jack Cutmore-Scott , Ilfenesh Hadera , Lenora Crichlow , Justin Chon

Votes: 9,958

19. Australia (2008)

PG-13 | 165 min | Adventure, Drama, Romance

In 1939, an Englishwoman inherits a sprawling ranch in northern Australia and reluctantly makes a pact with a stockman to drive 2000 head of cattle over unforgiving landscape.

Director: Baz Luhrmann | Stars: Nicole Kidman , Hugh Jackman , Shea Adams , Eddie Baroo

Votes: 129,671 | Gross: $49.55M

20. The Burning Season (2008)

Not Rated | 89 min | Documentary

Every year, deliberately lit fires rage across Indonesia. They destroy pristine rainforest, endanger orangutans and contribute to climate change. A young carbon trading entrepreneur goes in search of a solution.

Director: Cathy Henkel | Stars: Hugh Jackman , Lone Drøscher Nielsen , Arnold Schwarzenegger , Barnabas Suebu

21. X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)

PG-13 | 107 min | Action, Sci-Fi

The early years of James Logan, featuring his rivalry with his brother Victor Creed, his service in the special forces team Weapon X, and his experimentation into the metal-lined mutant Wolverine.

Director: Gavin Hood | Stars: Hugh Jackman , Liev Schreiber , Ryan Reynolds , Danny Huston

Votes: 529,797 | Gross: $179.88M

22. X-Men: First Class (2011)

PG-13 | 131 min | Action, Sci-Fi

In the 1960s, superpowered humans Charles Xavier and Erik Lensherr work together to find others like them, but Erik's vengeful pursuit of an ambitious mutant who ruined his life causes a schism to divide them.

Director: Matthew Vaughn | Stars: James McAvoy , Michael Fassbender , Jennifer Lawrence , Kevin Bacon

Votes: 722,698 | Gross: $146.41M

23. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (2011)

PG-13 | 120 min | Drama, History

A story set in nineteenth-century China and focusing on the life-long friendship between two girls who develop their own secret code as a way to contend with the rigid social norms imposed on women.

Director: Wayne Wang | Stars: Bingbing Li , Jun Ji-hyun , Vivian Wu , Russell Wong

Votes: 4,005 | Gross: $1.35M

24. Real Steel (2011)

PG-13 | 127 min | Action, Drama, Sci-Fi

In the near future, robot boxing is a top sport. A struggling ex-boxer feels he's found a champion in a discarded robot.

Director: Shawn Levy | Stars: Hugh Jackman , Evangeline Lilly , Dakota Goyo , Anthony Mackie

Votes: 355,053 | Gross: $85.47M

25. Rise of the Guardians (2012)

PG | 97 min | Animation, Action, Adventure

When the evil spirit Pitch launches an assault on Earth, the Immortal Guardians team up to protect the innocence of children all around the world.

Director: Peter Ramsey | Stars: Hugh Jackman , Alec Baldwin , Isla Fisher , Chris Pine

Votes: 192,308 | Gross: $103.41M

26. Les Misérables (2012)

PG-13 | 158 min | Drama, Musical, Romance

In 19th-century France, Jean Valjean, who for decades has been hunted by the ruthless policeman Javert after breaking parole, agrees to care for a factory worker's daughter. The decision changes their lives forever.

Director: Tom Hooper | Stars: Hugh Jackman , Russell Crowe , Anne Hathaway , Amanda Seyfried

Votes: 345,692 | Gross: $148.81M

27. Movie 43 (2013)

R | 94 min | Comedy

A series of interconnected short films follows a washed-up producer as he pitches insane story lines featuring some of the biggest stars in Hollywood.

Directors: Elizabeth Banks , Steven Brill , Steve Carr , Rusty Cundieff , James Duffy , Griffin Dunne , Peter Farrelly , Patrik Forsberg , Will Graham , James Gunn , Brett Ratner , Jonathan van Tulleken , Bob Odenkirk | Stars: Emma Stone , Stephen Merchant , Richard Gere , Liev Schreiber

Votes: 112,133 | Gross: $8.83M

28. Prisoners (2013)

R | 153 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery

When Keller Dover's daughter and her friend go missing, he takes matters into his own hands as the police pursue multiple leads and the pressure mounts.

Director: Denis Villeneuve | Stars: Hugh Jackman , Jake Gyllenhaal , Viola Davis , Melissa Leo

Votes: 807,338 | Gross: $61.00M

29. The Wolverine (2013)

PG-13 | 126 min | Action, Sci-Fi

Wolverine comes to Japan to meet an old friend whose life he saved years ago, and gets embroiled in a conspiracy involving yakuza and mutants.

Director: James Mangold | Stars: Hugh Jackman , Will Yun Lee , Tao Okamoto , Rila Fukushima

Votes: 491,422 | Gross: $132.56M

30. X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)

PG-13 | 132 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

The X-Men send Wolverine to the past in a desperate effort to change history and prevent an event that results in doom for both humans and mutants.

Director: Bryan Singer | Stars: Patrick Stewart , Ian McKellen , Hugh Jackman , James McAvoy

Votes: 744,234 | Gross: $233.92M

31. Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb (2014)

PG | 98 min | Adventure, Comedy, Family

Larry spans the globe, uniting favorite and new characters while embarking on an epic quest to save the magic before it's gone forever.

Director: Shawn Levy | Stars: Ben Stiller , Robin Williams , Owen Wilson , Dick Van Dyke

Votes: 135,265 | Gross: $113.75M

32. Chappie (2015)

R | 120 min | Action, Crime, Drama

In the near future, crime is patrolled by a mechanized police force. When one police droid, Chappie, is stolen and given new programming, he becomes the first robot with the ability to think and feel for himself.

Director: Neill Blomkamp | Stars: Sharlto Copley , Dev Patel , Hugh Jackman , Sigourney Weaver

Votes: 269,186 | Gross: $31.57M

33. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (2015)

PG-13 | 105 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance

High schooler Greg, who spends most of his time making parodies of classic movies with his co-worker Earl, finds his outlook forever altered after befriending a classmate who has just been diagnosed with cancer.

Director: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon | Stars: Thomas Mann , RJ Cyler , Olivia Cooke , Nick Offerman

Votes: 138,126 | Gross: $6.74M

34. Pan (2015)

PG | 111 min | Action, Adventure, Comedy

Twelve-year-old orphan Peter is spirited away to the magical world of Neverland, where he finds both fun and danger, and ultimately discovers his destiny: to become the hero who will be forever known as Peter Pan.

Director: Joe Wright | Stars: Levi Miller , Hugh Jackman , Garrett Hedlund , Rooney Mara

Votes: 67,095 | Gross: $35.09M

35. Eddie the Eagle (2015)

PG-13 | 106 min | Adventure, Biography, Comedy

The story of Eddie Edwards, the notoriously tenacious British underdog ski jumper who charmed the world at the 1988 Winter Olympics.

Director: Dexter Fletcher | Stars: Taron Egerton , Hugh Jackman , Tom Costello , Jo Hartley

Votes: 100,035 | Gross: $15.79M

36. X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)

PG-13 | 144 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

In the 1980s the X-Men must defeat an ancient all-powerful mutant, En Sabah Nur, who intends to thrive through bringing destruction to the world.

Director: Bryan Singer | Stars: James McAvoy , Michael Fassbender , Jennifer Lawrence , Nicholas Hoult

Votes: 460,382 | Gross: $155.44M

37. Logan (2017)

R | 137 min | Action, Drama, Sci-Fi

In a future where mutants are nearly extinct, an elderly and weary Logan leads a quiet life. But when Laura, a mutant child pursued by scientists, comes to him for help, he must get her to safety.

Director: James Mangold | Stars: Hugh Jackman , Patrick Stewart , Dafne Keen , Boyd Holbrook

Votes: 829,395 | Gross: $226.28M

38. The Greatest Showman (2017)

PG | 105 min | Biography, Drama, Musical

Celebrates the birth of show business and tells of a visionary who rose from nothing to create a spectacle that became a worldwide sensation.

Director: Michael Gracey | Stars: Hugh Jackman , Michelle Williams , Zac Efron , Zendaya

Votes: 310,752 | Gross: $174.34M

39. The Front Runner (2018)

R | 113 min | Biography, Drama, History

In 1987, U.S. Senator Gary Hart 's presidential campaign is derailed when he's caught in a scandalous love affair.

Director: Jason Reitman | Stars: Hugh Jackman , Vera Farmiga , J.K. Simmons , Mark O'Brien

Votes: 14,153 | Gross: $2.00M

40. Missing Link (2019)

PG | 93 min | Animation, Adventure, Comedy

Mr. Link recruits explorer Sir Lionel Frost to help find his long-lost relatives in the fabled valley of Shangri-La. Along with adventurer Adelina Fortnight, this trio of explorers travel the world to help their new friend.

Director: Chris Butler | Stars: Hugh Jackman , David Walliams , Stephen Fry , Matt Lucas

Votes: 28,747 | Gross: $16.65M

41. Bad Education (2019)

TV-MA | 108 min | Biography, Comedy, Crime

The beloved superintendent of New York's Roslyn school district and his staff, friends and relatives become the prime suspects in the unfolding of the single largest public school embezzlement scandal in American history.

Director: Cory Finley | Stars: Hugh Jackman , Ray Romano , Welker White , Allison Janney

Votes: 43,424

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