The Top 10 Best Time Travel Movies
5. Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure
Wise words that the world needs more now than ever, and we owe them to two of the finest time travelers in movie history, William Stanley Preston, Esq (Alex Winters) and Theodore “Ted” Logan, III (Keanu Reeves). When they’re not spouting words of wisdom, the two are actually a couple of rad dudes on the cusp of failing their history course and having their dreams of becoming the greatest rock band of all time crushed. Well, the future can’t have that, and a totally radical guy from the future named Rufus (George Carlin) brings them a time machine to help them ace their final. The reason? Oh, they single-handedly unite the world in peace and prosperity through their music in the future. Despite how fun Bill & Ted Face the Music is, I had to go with the OG adventure for this list of time travel movies.
4. X-Men: Days of Futures Past
Remember when Fox made X-Men movies that were good? Actually, it seems like things started going downhill pretty fast after Wolverine’s adventure through time. I guess in fixing the past, he inadvertently caused X-Men movies to suck in the future. Personally, I would have rather seen the mutants deal with sentinels rather than watch them suffer through terrible sequels, but when it comes to time travel, you win some, you lose some. Still, Days of Future Past was a fun film, especially because we got to see some of the best mutants from the movies come together to appear on the big screen. We got to see both young and old Magneto and Charles Xavier, the first appearance of Quicksilver (done right if you ask me), and Wolverine… who looks the same age no matter what. It was an exciting adventure, but it’s not the only superhero flick on this list of time travel movies.
3. Avengers: Endgame
Days of Future Past must have done something right because the MCU jumped at the chance to have a bit of time travel of its own in Avengers: Endgame. After the events of Infinity War, it appeared that the Avengers were well and truly boned by old Thanos. Not only did he manage to accomplish his mission of wiping out half the population of the universe, but he also destroyed the Infinity Stones to prevent our heroes from hitting ctrl+z on the whole thing. Utterly defeated, the remaining Avengers decide to risk it all by messing with time to “borrow” past versions of the Infinity Stones in order to undo Thanos’ truly dick move. Endgame has one of the more unique concepts of time travel that I’ve seen on the big screen as Bruce Banner explains that they will be simultaneously traveling to their past and future, which means the normal rules of time travel movies don’t apply in this instance. That alone was reason enough for me to include Endgame on here.
2. Terminator 2: Judgement Day
One thing about time travel movies is that they tend to get some of their “predictions” about the future wrong. Despite there being no Judgement Day in 1997 or any other years that the sequels specified, these films are still some of the best time travel movies of all time. It was a bit of a struggle trying to decide whether to include Judgement Day or the original Terminator on this list but in the end, I decided to go with the one that actually dealt with some of the issues that can pop up with time travel; specifically, what happens when an enormous Austrian android messes up his mission. Hopefully, I’ve made it clear just how complicated time-travel is by this point, so it should come as little surprise that in failing its initial mission, the Terminator ended up ensuring his own creation in the future. A smarter guy would wonder how the universe didn’t unmake itself because of that paradox, but I don’t mind it because big man make bang-bang shoot ‘em and big kabooms!
1. Back to the Future
After all this time, Back to the Future remains the undisputed champion when it comes to time travel movies. Everything about it is the epitome of iconic and constantly referenced in pop culture even to this day. From the heroic Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) to the mad scientist Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) to the time machine itself, the 1982 DeLorean DMC 12. It’s quite simply a masterpiece. Sure, there might be some problems with the science behind it (for starters, the idea of a DeLorean actually reaching 88 mph is ridiculous), but time travel is all theoretical anyway. So, who cares? All I care about is that Back to the Future is a movie that still hasn’t lost it after all these years. It’s just as delightful to watch now as it was the first time. While other time travel movies might come and go, Back to the Future continues to stand the test of time.
Honorable Mention: Interstellar
Alright, so there is kind of a loophole when it comes to time travel. Turns out gravity plays a big part with the passage of time and depending on your relationship in time and space to a major gravitational force, time will pass differently for you. Thus, Interstellar is getting an honorable mention for managing to make all that science stuff super cool as it tells the story of astronauts trying to find a suitable home for humans, and instead end up unraveling secrets of the universe. It’s a bit on the complicated side, but after all these other time travel movies, it might be good to let your brain stretch its legs.
Shout Out: Hot Tub Time Machine
On the other hand, what’s your dumb old brain need to stretch it’s dumb old legs for anyways? I mean, you just did all this reading, so why not let it take a break with one of the funniest time travel movies of all time. Hot Tub Time Machine is basically an 80s parody in the guise of a time travel flick, as a bunch of middle-age burnouts get together to reminisce about the good old days and get thrown through time back to those days. Back in their youthful bodies, they decide to try to change their lives for the better. I’m sure you can guess how that goes though.
Timecop wasn’t number one, right? Okay, then we are still in the right timeline and those were, in fact, the best time travel movies of all time. There are a lot more out there though and I’d love to hear your thoughts on this list and if there are any other films I should check out. As always, I’ll update this list as new time travel movies make their appearance on the big screen. So, be sure to check back to see if the rankings change in the future!