88 miles per hour
1985
Featured film
Back to the Future
Directed by Robert Zemeckis
A DeLorean, 88 miles per hour, and the cleanest rules ever set for changing the past. Every time film since answers to this one.
Door 10 · Other Timelines · On Screen
Time-Travel
on Screen
Loops · Machines · Paradoxes · Twelve films
Every screeningIs a departure.
Cinema was the first time machine.
Before any physicist drew a closed loop, a projector was already running time backward, forward, and in circles for a paying audience. These twelve films set the rules the rest argue with: the machine, the loop, the paradox, and the price. What happens when the picture steps off the screen starts here.
To the year 802,701
1960
Machines
The Time Machine
Directed by George Pal
Wells on screen: a Victorian inventor rides his machine to the year 802,701 and finds humanity split in two.
Told in stills
1962
Paradox
La Jetée
Directed by Chris Marker
A time-travel film built almost entirely from still photographs. Memory as a slideshow you cannot exit.
Slower than Earth
1968
Journeys
Planet of the Apes
Directed by Franklin J. Schaffner
Astronauts age slowly while Earth runs ahead of them. The final shot is relativity with the mask off.
A map of the holes
1981
Journeys
Time Bandits
Directed by Terry Gilliam
A boy, six dwarfs, and a map of the holes in creation. History as a place you can fall into.
Erase the future
1984
Paradox
The Terminator
Directed by James Cameron
A machine comes back to erase a man before he can exist. The loop that launched a thousand loops.
One day, repeated
1993
Loops
Groundhog Day
Directed by Harold Ramis
One day, repeated until it is lived correctly. The loop as a school for the soul.
The past refuses
1995
Paradox
Twelve Monkeys
Directed by Terry Gilliam
A prisoner is sent back to find the origin of a plague, and the past refuses every repair.
Drawn on paper
2004
Machines
Primer
Directed by Shane Carruth
Two engineers build the device in a garage and draw the timelines on paper. The most exact diagram in the genre.
Close the loop
2012
Paradox
Looper
Directed by Rian Johnson
Assassins kill targets sent back from the future, until the target is themselves. The loop with a face.
Live it once, well
2013
Loops
About Time
Directed by Richard Curtis
A young man inherits the family gift of redoing his days, and learns the trick is to stop redoing them.
Sealed at both ends
2014
Paradox
Predestination
Directed by the Spierig Brothers
An agent recruits himself across time, chasing a bomber he may have built. The closed loop, sealed at both ends.