The 15 Most Creative, Mind-Bending Time Travel Movies Ever Made

With Safety Not Guaranteed and About Time , these are the best movies about time travel you haven't seen yet.

time travel movies

We've been independently researching and testing products for over 120 years. If you buy through our links, we may earn a commission. Learn more about our review process.

Ever wish you could go back in time and handle a situation differently — or live through a historic event before your time? You're not the only one. Time travel has captured the imagination of countless creatives over the years, giving us some fascinating, morally challenging and even hilarious movies. We may not be able to talk a walk into the past — but as some of these films prove, that may be a good thing.

About Time (2013)

best time travel movies   about time

Instead of altering history and life as we know it, the protagonist in this charming British film uses his time-traveling abilities for something a little more relatable: finding love. The result is a surprisingly sweet and criminally underrated romantic comedy.

RELATED: The 60 Best Romantic Comedies of All Time to Stream Right Now

Predestination (2015)

best time travel movies   predestination

Based on Robert Heinlein’s short story All You Zombies , this Ethan Hawke movie will leave you guessing (and second-guessing) the whole time. Without spoiling the ending, it's definitely worth watching again.

The Time Traveler's Wife (2009)

best time travel movies   time travels wife

Of the three movies where Rachel McAdams dates a time traveling man (girlfriend's got a type), the drama is definitely the most serious. Based on Audrey Niffenegger's 2003 novel of the same name, Clare tries to build a life with the man she loves — while dealing with the fact he has no control over where and when he will travel through time.

Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989)

bill and ted's excellent adventure

Excellent! You're going to want to revisit this goofy, fun time travel flick before Keanu Reeves returns for the upcoming sequel.

Groundhog Day (1993)

groundhog day

Does living the same day over-and-over again count as time travel? This Bill Murray film about a weather man trapped in the worst day of his life is a classic, so we're going to count it.

Doctor Strange (2016)

doctor strange

Marvel fans are probably already familiar with Benedict Cumberbatch's role as a neurosurgeon with the powers to access alternate dimensions, but even if you're not familiar with the Marvel Universe, you can still enjoy this superhero romp.

RELATED: How to Watch All 24 Marvel Movies in the Correct Order

Back to the Future (1985)

back to the future

If you're looking for some good, old-fashioned nostalgia, this 80s classic holds up! Michael J. Fox stars as Marty McFly, a teen who accidentally who accidentally gets stuck in the 1950s thanks to his mad scientist friend — and must make sure his parents fall in love with each other so he can still exist!

Interstellar (2014)

interstellar

Trippy, mind-bending, and everything you want out of a time-travel movie, Christopher Nolan's time-traveling space epic will stay with you long after you finish watching,

Donnie Darko (2001)

donnie darko

Though it initially flopped at the box office, this film gathered a cult-following when it was released on DVD, thanks to Jake Gyllenhaal's intense performance and the surrealist images and themes just waiting to be dissected and discussed. See if you can untangle this famously dense plot for yourself.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)

harry potter and the prisoner of azkaban

One of the best Harry Potter films happens to also be a time-traveling tale. Hermione uses a "Time Turner" to take more classes at Hogwarts, but that's not all Harry and his friends use the device for.

Time Bandits (1981)

time bandits

Terry Gilliam's endlessly imaginative film follows an 11-year-old boy who teams up with 6 dwarves for an adventure through time.

Safety Not Guaranteed (2012)

safety not guaranteed

A classified ad from a mysterious man looking for a time-traveling companion intrigues three cynical Seattle journalists. An unexpected connection forms between the would-be scientist and one of the reporters in this low-key indie.

Primer (2004)

primer

Two engineers create an invention that can alter time — and butt heads over how to handle the magnitude of their creation.

Time After Time (1971)

time after time

H.G. Wells pursues Jack the Ripper in 1970's San Fransisco — as outlandish as the premise is, it's a fascinating movie once you get on board with it.

The Terminator (1984)

the terminator

Two time travelers from the future, an evil cyborg and a resistance fighter, fight over the life of modern woman Sarah Connor, after it's revealed her fate can save humanity.

preview for Good Housekeeping US Section: Life

@media(max-width: 64rem){.css-o9j0dn:before{margin-bottom:0.5rem;margin-right:0.625rem;color:#ffffff;width:1.25rem;bottom:-0.2rem;height:1.25rem;content:'_';display:inline-block;position:relative;line-height:1;background-repeat:no-repeat;}.loaded .css-o9j0dn:before{background-image:url(/_assets/design-tokens/goodhousekeeping/static/images/Clover.5c7a1a0.svg);}}@media(min-width: 48rem){.loaded .css-o9j0dn:before{background-image:url(/_assets/design-tokens/goodhousekeeping/static/images/Clover.5c7a1a0.svg);}} Entertainment

where to watch stream mean girls 2024 movie

'NCIS' Fans Receive Tony DiNozzo Spinoff News

american idol 2024 judges kyra waits audition reaction

Why 'AI' Judges Gave Kyra Waits a Standing Ovation

only murders in the building “the white room” episode 304 charles’s stage fright reaches unimaginable heights, involving a break from reality and multiple baby dolls mabel is confronted by a mysterious individual from her past with a pivotal proposal mabel selena gomez, oliver martin short and charles steve martin, shown photo by patrick harbronhulu

'Only Murders in the Building' Season 4 News

luke newton as colin bridgerton, nicola coughlan as penelope featherington in episode 302 of bridgerton

All Your 'Bridgerton' Season 3 Questions, Answered

in indianapolis, in, mina starsiak hawk shows off the backyard of this home to sienna and friend sylva, as seen on house hunters all stars, season 1

A 'House Hunters' Spin Off is Coming to HGTV

the voice 2024 reba mcentire john legend today show audition instagram

Read Why Reba Called Out Hoda and Jenna

new york january 11 more than meets the eye erin tries not to feel overpowered as her new boss shadows her at work just as shes trying to get a nervous eye witness to reveal the identity of who shot her boyfriend also, the serial killer who previously held danny and baez hostage resurfaces, and when jaime arrests an intrusive reporter who appears at a series of store lootings, it leads to a standoff between frank and the attorney general over the press first amendment rights, on blue bloods, friday, march 5 1000 1100 pm, etpt on the cbs television network pictured donnie wahlberg as danny reagan photo by patrick harbroncbs via getty images

NKOTB Fans Are Trying to Save 'Blue Bloods'

who will replace katy perry american idol judge

Who Will Replace Katy Perry on 'American Idol'?

actress tiffani thiessen

The $23 Moisturizer Tiffani Thiessen Swears By

savannah guthrie today show floral dress instagram reaction

See Savannah Guthrie's Stunning Floral Dress on IG

reba mcentire amfoot superbowl chiefs 49ers

Reba McEntire Wore This $9 Drugstore Concealer

10 great lesser-known time-travel films

Trip back through history with our list of terrific time-travelling movies that deserve to be better known.

4 December 2014

By  David Parkinson

british movie time travel

Although H.G. Wells published The Time Machine in 1895, the same year that the Lumière brothers projected the first moving images to a paying audience, cinema was slow to recognise the dramatic potential of time travel. Master illusionists like Georges Méliès passed up the opportunity to travel through time and space. But Fritz Lang embraced the notion in Destiny (1921), which took its cues from Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol (1843) and D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance (1916) in showing how Death (Bernhard Goetzke) allows a 19th-century waif (Lil Dagover) to travel across history to Baghdad, Venice and China in a bid to save her lover’s life.

Dreams were Dagover’s mode of transportation and concussion enabled Harry Myers to find himself in Camelot in Emmett J. Flynn’s 1921 take on Mark Twain’s satirical fantasy, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. A decade later, an enchanted radio took Will Rogers to the same destination in David Butler’s sound remake. But it wasn’t until Felix Aylmer’s shiny Time Ball landed in Elizabethan England in Walter Forde’s Time Flies (1944) that screen time travel was accomplished in a specially designed machine.

Get the latest from the BFI

Sign up for BFI news, features, videos and podcasts.

Three years later, Hollywood got in on the act when Kane Richmond boarded John Merton’s Time Top to venture back 200 years to retrieve a formula from an uncharted island in Spencer Gordon Bennet and Thomas Carr’s serial, Brick Bradford. But it was 1960 before George Pal got round to filming Wells’s 802,701 encounter with the Eloi and Morlocks of a future Earth and, even though time travel became a familiar plotline in TV shows like The Twilight Zone, Doctor Who and Star Trek, features exploring the subject, such as Franklin J. Schaffner’s Planet of the Apes (1967) and Luis Buñuel’s The Milky Way (1968), remained comparatively rare.

Everything changed in the blockbuster era, however, with James Cameron’s The Terminator (1984) and Robert Zemeckis’s Back to the Future (1985) focusing more on spectacle than plausibility. Subsequently, filmmakers have sought variations on the theme that allow travellers to pass along fixed timelines and through multiverses, as well as enter loops and paradoxes. Some have permitted free travel, while others have opted for involuntary jaunts. A few have attempted profound statements on humanity’s place in an unknowable scheme, but the majority have settled for escapist entertainment that fires the imagination without overtaxing the intellect.

Yet, away from the arthouse masterpieces (La Jetée, 1962), the slacker comedies (Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, 1989), the canny satires (Groundhog Day, 1993), the conundrums (Donnie Darko, 2001), the nostalgic fantasies (Midnight in Paris, 2011), the high-concept thrillers (Looper, 2012) and the comic-book escapades (X-Men: Days of Future Past, 2014), there are those time-travelling gems that have somehow slipped off the radar … 

Time Flies (1944)

Director: Walter Forde

british movie time travel

Produced by Gainsborough during the Second World War, this trip down memory lane had a ‘hands across the water’ feel, as Brits Tommy Handley and Felix Aylmer are transported back to Elizabethan times in the company of American entertainers Evelyn Dall and George Moon.

Although the metallic spherical time machine concocted by production designer John Bryan and effects master Jack Whitehead made screen history, the core storyline was a little less original, as it recalled Thomas Bentley’s Old Bill ‘Through the Ages’ (1924), a spin-off from a popular Bruce Bairnsfather comic strip that saw soldier Syd Walker hallucinate his way back to Merrie England after eating a tin of lobster in the trenches. However, while he merely looked on as Shakespeare (Austin Leigh) bored Queen Elizabeth (Gladys Ffolliott) with passages from Hamlet, Dall helps the Bard (John Salew) write the Romeo and Juliet balcony scene before breaking into a jazz number.

Je t’aime je t’aime (1968)

Director: Alain Resnais

british movie time travel

Concluding her 2014 review of this 1968 revival, New York Times critic Manohla Dargis averred: “Cinema is a time machine, and, as he has long proved, from Last Year at Marienbad to Muriel and beyond, Mr Resnais is its ultimate time traveller.”

Time, space and memory were certainly key to Alain Resnais’s oeuvre, but he adopts an audaciously cubist approach to their depiction in this saga meticulously constructed from slivers and fragments by editors Albert Jurgenson and Colette Leloup. Resnais told Stan Lee (with whom he developed two unrealised sci-fi projects) that he learnt English from Marvel comics and he indulges his sense of the fantastic by having suicide survivor Claude Rich test a time machine by travelling back a year to relive a single minute. However, the apparatus (designed by Jacques Dugied Pace) malfunctions and Rich is trapped in a vortex that confronts him with key moments in his marriage to Olga Georges-Picot.

Slaughterhouse-Five (1972)

Director: George Roy Hill

british movie time travel

Despite winning Cannes’s jury prize, George Roy Hill’s adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut’s acclaimed novel has consistently been unfavourably compared with Alain Resnais’s Je t’aime je t’aime and placed alongside Mike Nichols’s take on Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 (1970) as a brave stab at an unfilmable book.

Yet Hill, screenwriter Stephen Geller and editor Dede Allen make shrewd use of visual, verbal and sonic cues to show how middle-aged optometrist Billy Pilgrim (Michael Sacks) is randomly buffeted by memory and fate after he becomes “unstuck in time”. His return to the abattoir where he sheltered from the 1945 firebombing of Dresden as a PoW is depicted with a terrifying authenticity that gives way to tragic absurdity, as Billy and starlet Montana Wildhack (Valerie Perrine) are abducted by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore and put on display in a zoo. Charlie Kaufman is reportedly reworking the text for Guillermo del Toro, but this version deserves reappraisal.

The Amazing Mr. Blunden (1972)

Director: Lionel Jeffries

british movie time travel

Director Lionel Jeffries adapted this follow-up to The Railway Children (1970) from an Antonia Barber novel entitled The Ghosts, a time-slip story that employs a potion made from woodland herbs to transport two children back a century in order to save a time-travelling brother and sister from the fire that will otherwise kill them.

Opening in a Pinewood recreation of Camden Town in 1918, the action moves to the derelict shell of Heatherden Hall, as siblings Lynne Frederick and Garry Miller accompany mother Dorothy Alison after she accepts solicitor Laurence Naismith’s offer to become caretaker of the crumbling Langley Park. But the scene soon shifts to 1818, as Frederick and Miller strive to protect Rosalyn Landor and Marc Granger from the machinations of the dastardly Diana Dors and David Lodge. Veering between suspense and pantomime, this ends with a satisfying twist and the half promise of a sequel. But it never materialised.

Tomorrow I’ll Wake Up and Scald Myself with Tea (1977)

Director: Jindrich Polák

british movie time travel

Jindrich Polák is best known to non-Czech audiences for the Stanislaw Lem adaptation, Ikarie XB -1 (1963). But this take on Josef Nesvadba’s short story deserves to be equally renowned, as much for a moment of devastating poignancy inside Adolf Hitler’s bunker on 8 December 1941 as for its wonderfully convoluted plotline and the throwaway gags involving anti-ageing pills, a green incapacitating spray and a dissolving dishwashing detergent.

At the centre of the mayhem is Petr Kostka, who plays both womanising pilot Karel Bures and his milquetoast inventor twin Jan, who helped design a rocket capable of taking tourists to any point in history. But, when Karel chokes to death on a bread roll, Jan finds himself blasting off with a Nazi cadre intent on offering the Führer a hydrogen bomb. The SFX are a little creaky, but this is a worthy successor to the mischievous sci-fi classics of Karel Zeman. 

Time after Time (1979)

Director: Nicholas Meyer

british movie time travel

Nicholas Meyer made his directorial debut with this rousing century-crossing clash between Jack the Ripper and H.G. Wells, which was based on an unpublished novel by Karl Alexander. Anachronisms and implausibilities abound, but they actually enhance a story that sees murderous physician Leslie John Stephenson (David Warner) steal the time machine that Wells (Malcolm McDowell) is about to demonstrate to his dinner guests in 1893 London and flee from the pursuing police to San Francisco in 1979.

Revelling in the depravity and violence he encounters (“Ninety years ago, I was a freak. Now … I’m an amateur.”), Stephenson has no desire to return and face justice when Wells follows him and their friendship founders further over sexually liberated bank clerk Amy Robbins (Mary Steenburgen). But, amid the gags about the shock of the new, the knowing references to “non-return keys” and “vapourising equalisers” firmly root this romcomedic thriller in the sci-fi genre. 

Les Maîtres du temps (1982)

Director: René Laloux

british movie time travel

The time-travelling occurs late in the action of this animated adaptation of Stefan Wul’s 1958 novel, The Orphan of Perfide. Yet it proves crucial to unlocking the secret at the heart of René Laloux’s follow-up to the revered Fantastic Planet (1973), which also boasted designs by Jean ‘Moebius’ Giraud.

Similarities to Yellow Submarine (1968) and Star Wars (1977) abound, as space pilot Jaffar heads to Perfide to rescue Piel, the son of a friend who has been killed by giant hornets. Passengers Prince Matton and his sister Belle are incensed when Jaffar diverts the Double Triangle 22 to collect wizened pal Silbad and his gnome-like companions, Yula and Jad. But they prove their worth during encounters with the faceless angels of Gamma 10 and the piratical troopers from Interplanetary Reform, before the Masters of Time whisk the spaceship out of the gravitational field of the Blue Comet and send it six decades into the past. 

The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey (1988)

Director: Vincent Ward

british movie time travel

Warning against the twin perils of contagion and conflagration, Vincent Ward’s stylised parable draws heavily on the art of Bosch, Bruegel and Grünewald, as well as the cinema of Ingmar Bergman and Andrei Tarkovsky. But this odyssey across time is also gently humorous and cannily avoids the broader strokes employed by Jean-Marie Poiré in Les Visiteurs (1993).

Production designer Sally Campbell and cinematographer Geoffrey Simpson contribute significantly, as an expedition through a mineshaft sees Connor (Bruce Lyons), his visionary nine-year-old sibling Griffin (Hamish McFarlane) and their four companions pass from monochrome Cumbria in 1348 to colourful modern-day Auckland in the hope that raising a copper cross on the cathedral spire will protect their village from the Black Death.

Ward had the idea while stranded between the lanes of a German autobahn and, fittingly, his favourite response came from Werner Herzog: “My God, this looks like a hard film to make!”

Timecrimes (2007)

Director: Nacho Vigalondo

british movie time travel

Few have travelled more often through time to unravel mishaps than Family Guy’s Stewie Griffin. But Karra Elejalde gives him a run for his money in writer-director Nacho Vigalondo’s feature debut, which brought a new complexity and sophistication to the realms of causal paradox and alternate timelines.

Elejalde winds up in scientist Vigalondo’s time pod after wandering into an institute adjoining the woods where he had been assaulted by a bandaged stranger after venturing from his garden for a closer look at the naked girl (Bárbara Goenaga) he had spotted through his binoculars. But a 90-minute backward jaunt turns Elejalde into a spectator of the events in which he has just participated and a further trip only exacerbates matters. Cinema rarely chronicles looping excursions with such keen acuity, but Australian first-timer Hugh Sullivan has recently matched Vigalondo’s ingenuity in The Infinite Man (2014), which resembles a cross between Primer (2004) and Last Year at Marienbad (1961).

Safety Not Guaranteed (2012)

Director: Colin Trevorrow

british movie time travel

Originally published in issue 92 of the Backwoods Home Magazine, John Silviera’s cod personal ad about a time traveller seeking a companion had taken on a life of its own by the time screenwriter Derek Connolly saw it some 15 years later. However, Connolly and debuting director Colin Trevorrow saw past such sly lines as “you’ll get paid after we get back”, “must bring your own weapons” and “I have only done this once before” to concoct a mumblecoresque lo-fi romcom around rookie journalist Aubrey Plaza, who is sent to investigate Pacific Northwest shelf-stacker Mark Duplass, who has placed an identically eccentric message.

Amid the droll banter and deadpan set-pieces, a parallel love story develops between Plaza’s cynical co-reporter, Jake Johnson, and his old flame, Jenica Bergere. But, as Plaza starts to believe she actually can go back and prevent her mother’s fatal car crash, she receives not one, but two life-changing surprises.

Sci-Fi: Days of Fear and Wonder, a major BFI celebration of film and  TV ’s original blockbuster genre, ran from October to December 2014.

BFI Player logo

Discover award-winning independent British and international cinema

Free for 14 days, then £4.99/month or £49/year.

Other things to explore

5 things to watch this weekend – 1 to 3 march.

By Sam Wigley

10 great French thrillers

By David Parkinson

10 to see at Glasgow Film Festival 2024

By Josh Slater-Williams

Log in or sign up for Rotten Tomatoes

Trouble logging in?

By continuing, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and to receive email from the Fandango Media Brands .

By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Policies , and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes.

Email not verified

Let's keep in touch.

Rotten Tomatoes Newsletter

Sign up for the Rotten Tomatoes newsletter to get weekly updates on:

  • Upcoming Movies and TV shows
  • Trivia & Rotten Tomatoes Podcast
  • Media News + More

By clicking "Sign Me Up," you are agreeing to receive occasional emails and communications from Fandango Media (Fandango, Vudu, and Rotten Tomatoes) and consenting to Fandango's Privacy Policy and Terms and Policies . Please allow 10 business days for your account to reflect your preferences.

OK, got it!

Movies / TV

No results found.

  • What's the Tomatometer®?
  • Login/signup

british movie time travel

Movies in theaters

  • Opening this week
  • Top box office
  • Coming soon to theaters
  • Certified fresh movies

Movies at home

  • Netflix streaming
  • Amazon prime
  • Most popular streaming movies
  • What to Watch New

Certified fresh picks

  • Dune: Part Two Link to Dune: Part Two
  • Stopmotion Link to Stopmotion
  • Orion and the Dark Link to Orion and the Dark

New TV Tonight

  • The Regime: Season 1
  • The Gentlemen: Season 1
  • The Reluctant Traveler With Eugene Levy: Season 2
  • Queens: Season 1
  • Blown Away: Season 4
  • Animal Control: Season 2
  • The Cleaning Lady: Season 3
  • Alert: Missing Persons Unit: Season 2
  • Hot Wheels: Let's Race: Season 1

Most Popular TV on RT

  • Shōgun: Season 1
  • Avatar: The Last Airbender: Season 1
  • The Tourist: Season 2
  • One Day: Season 1
  • American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders: Season 1
  • House of Ninjas: Season 1
  • Constellation: Season 1
  • The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live: Season 1
  • The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin: Season 1
  • Best TV Shows
  • Most Popular TV
  • TV & Streaming News
  • Prime Video

Certified fresh pick

  • Elsbeth: Season 1 Link to Elsbeth: Season 1
  • All-Time Lists
  • Binge Guide
  • Comics on TV
  • Five Favorite Films
  • Video Interviews
  • Weekend Box Office
  • Weekly Ketchup
  • What to Watch

Best Horror Movies of 2024 Ranked – New Scary Movies to Watch

52 Best Stop-Motion Animated Movies of All Time

Women’s History

Awards Tour

New Movies & TV Shows Streaming in March 2024: What To Watch on Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+, and More

TV Premiere Dates 2024

  • Trending on RT
  • Play Movie Trivia
  • Dune: Part Two

2013, Romance/Comedy, 2h 4m

What to know

Critics Consensus

Beautifully filmed and unabashedly sincere, About Time finds director Richard Curtis at his most sentimental. Read critic reviews

You might also like

Where to watch about time.

Rent About Time on Amazon Prime Video, Vudu, Apple TV, or buy it on Amazon Prime Video, Vudu, Apple TV.

Rate And Review

Super Reviewer

Rate this movie

Oof, that was Rotten.

Meh, it passed the time.

It’s good – I’d recommend it.

So Fresh: Absolute Must See!

What did you think of the movie? (optional)

You're almost there! Just confirm how you got your ticket.

Step 2 of 2

How did you buy your ticket?

Let's get your review verified..

AMCTheatres.com or AMC App New

Cinemark Coming Soon

We won’t be able to verify your ticket today, but it’s great to know for the future.

Regal Coming Soon

Theater box office or somewhere else

By opting to have your ticket verified for this movie, you are allowing us to check the email address associated with your Rotten Tomatoes account against an email address associated with a Fandango ticket purchase for the same movie.

You're almost there! Just confirm how you got your ticket.

About time videos, about time   photos.

When Tim Lake (Domhnall Gleeson) is 21, his father (Bill Nighy) tells him a secret: The men in their family can travel through time. Although he can't change history, Tim resolves to improve his life by getting a girlfriend. He meets Mary (Rachel McAdams), falls in love and finally wins her heart via time-travel and a little cunning. However, as his unusual life progresses, Tim finds that his special ability can't shield him and those he loves from the problems of ordinary life.

Rating: R (Some Sexual Content|Language)

Genre: Romance, Comedy, Fantasy

Original Language: English

Director: Richard Curtis

Producer: Tim Bevan , Eric Fellner , Nicky Kentish Barnes

Writer: Richard Curtis

Release Date (Theaters): Nov 8, 2013  wide

Release Date (Streaming): Oct 1, 2015

Box Office (Gross USA): $15.3M

Runtime: 2h 4m

Distributor: Universal Pictures

Production Co: Working Title Films

Sound Mix: Dolby Digital

Cast & Crew

Domhnall Gleeson

Rachel McAdams

Tom Hollander

Margot Robbie

Lindsay Duncan

Lydia Wilson

Richard Cordery

Will Merrick

Lisa Eichhorn

Jimmy Kincade

Richard Curtis

Screenwriter

Eric Fellner

Nicky Kentish Barnes

Executive Producer

Liza Chasin

Amelia Granger

John Guleserian

Cinematographer

Film Editing

Nick Laird-Clowes

Original Music

John Paul Kelly

Production Design

David Hindle

Supervising Art Direction

Art Director

Liz Griffiths

Set Decoration

Verity Hawkes

News & Interviews for About Time

New on Netflix in April 2022

Ross Lynch’s Five Favorite Films

Critics Consensus: Thor: The Dark World is Pretty Strong

Critic Reviews for About Time

Audience reviews for about time.

http://cinephilecrocodile.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/about-time-dir-richard-curtis-2013-im.html

british movie time travel

Working Title pictures are almost their own cliche these days with their fantasy portrayals of upper-middle class British life that seem even further removed from reality now than before. This one even borrowed an idea from Four Weddings & A Funeral with the dress-picking scene. Still, if you forgive the shaky camera work, this one employs a clever plot device to dissect Richard Curtis's philosophical musings on life with another heart-warming feel-good story to add to the collection.

About Time A rare example of a romantic comedy done in a fresh, memorable, and heartfelt way, About Time is an immensely enjoyable film. It takes an outlandish premise, that of time travel, and puts it in a narrative context that makes one hardly question it, and actually adds something to the story. Far from being a gimmick, it makes for a genuinely interesting exploration of the meaning of love, free will, death, and the choices we make. The chemistry between Domhnall Gleeson and Rachel McAdams is outstanding, as the two enliven every scene. It's a captivating film, it's an emotional film, and it's a funny film. 4.5/5 Stars

Not your typical romcom, relying on a time travel fantasy element. This film is well acted and charming, with a surprisingly profound message. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Movie & TV guides

Play Daily Tomato Movie Trivia

Discover What to Watch

Rotten Tomatoes Podcasts

How About Time's Time Travel Works

About Time Mary and Tim caught in the rain

Hello again, fellow time travelers! Welcome back to the lab for another installment of getting you from here to there in the now and then. And this time, I promise you, we’re sticking to the schedule. I’ve been very careful about my messages and texts for the last week after that Tenet rundown , and it looks like Future Mike doesn’t have any special assignments involving the next hot ticket at the box office. So, as planned, this week’s romp through the timeline is the utterly charming, and devastatingly beautiful About Time , from writer/director Richard Curtis .

Before we go too far, don’t forget to bone up on some of our past trips into time travel, as everything from Back to the Future to Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure has been examined in our corner of the CinemaBlend offices. It might be our past, but it could be your future, so act accordingly. Now if you’ll excuse us, it’s time to find a nice, quiet cupboard, and take off into the time traveling antics of About Time .

The Time Travel In About Time

If you had to describe the time travel in About Time , there’s two words that say it all: charmingly British. From the way that Tim (Domnhall Gleeson) travels through time, to the reasons why, it’s all sweetly intentioned, and rooted in the emotional journey of his character. And oddly enough, he learns about his abilities on New Year’s Day, after a very interesting family chat.

Who's Time Traveling

The ability to time travel in About Time is only available to the men of the Lake family. However, on top of seeing not only Tim, but also his father James ( Bill Nighy ) traveling in time, we do get to see Tim take his sister Katherine (Lydia Wilson) on one very important trip.

From When To When

Here’s where About Time starts to differentiate itself from its time travel contemporaries, as it introduces a clause that only Dr. Sam Beckett himself seems familiar with. In this particular usage of time travel, you can only go to a moment you’ve lived through before. And what’s more, you can’t travel into the future. So Tim travels back and forth through his own personal timeline, with the farthest trip being to a childhood day at the beach.

The Purpose Of Their Trip

Overall, Tim Lake is trying to change his life, and the lives of those he loves, for the better in About Time . Starting with trying to find a girlfriend, Tim eventually falls back on traveling through time to save Katherine from a particularly bad car crash. By time he arrives at the end of About Time’s story, all Tim wants to do is see his dad one last time before he dies.

How Time Travel Happens In About Time

The time travel in About Time has to be one of the simplest methods ever employed in the history of temporal travel. And the key to making sure you get to where you want to go is a skill any young person can clearly master: concentration. According to Tim’s father, James, this is how you time travel:

You go into a dark place, big cupboards are very useful, generally. Toilets in a pinch. Then you clench your fists… think of the moment you’re going to, and you’ll find yourself there.

These particular conditions lead to the greatest limitation of About Time’s premise. In an ingenious twist, the Lake men can only travel through their own personal existence and experiences. Which means that technically, the vehicle/conduit of time travel in this film is literally, the traveler’s own body. So on the positive side of things, About Time doesn’t need any expensive time travel effects or vehicles to get to where it’s going. However, there is the fact that unless you’re a male member of the Lake bloodline, or one decides to take you on a trip through time, you can’t make the big jump.

There’s also the added caveat of how you, or the person that’s taking you through time, can only go places that the traveler has been before, and can remember. So before you think of killing Hitler, or shagging Helen of Troy, remember that, as James told Tim during their cozy Ted Talk on Time Travel, you can’t. Though, this also explains why Uncle Desmond (Richard Cordery) is never mentioned as time traveling, as his absent mindedness would probably scrap any potential attempts he’d make to travel back and forth through his lifetime.

Can History Be Changed As A Result Of Time Travel In About Time?

History can absolutely be changed in About Time , but within a limited scope. Again, since you’re traveling back in time within your own body/experiences, you can only affect events that happen in moments you’ve already lived and can remember. Though that’s messy enough, as Tim discovers that you can totally overwrite experiences you’ve had, and those moments aren’t easy to get back.

The first huge example of this is when Tim goes back to save temporary roommate/playwright Harry’s (Tom Hollander) latest play. As Tim wants to prevent an actor (Richard E. Grant) from forgetting his lines during a big monologue, he alters his originally fated first date with the love of his life, Mary ( Rachel McAdams ). As he no longer goes out to dinner on that double date he first met Mary during, Tim finds out that he no longer has Mary’s number in his phone. Not to mention, his second first meeting with Mary is so much more awkward than their serendipitous first encounter. So while you can change history, it’s not advised as some pretty serious consequences can arise. This cannot be stated enough, as any trips past some special landmarks in Tim’s life lead to some unpredictable circumstances.

What Are The Consequences Of Time Travel In About Time?

The other, more major change to history that Tim tries to affect in About Time is when he tries to make sure his sister Katherine, affectionately referred to as “Kit Kat,” never meets her deadbeat boyfriend Jimmy (Tom Hughes). While Tim brings his sister back to that fateful New Year’s Eve party that opens the film, and makes sure she and Jimmy never start their relationship, Tim has inadvertently set off a butterfly effect event.

Even changing events ever so slightly, so Katherine never experiences her rock bottom car accident, has its consequences. Upon returning to his own wife and child, Tim learns that if you go back past the birth of a child in the family, your actions will change the sperm that hits the egg. Hence, a different child is born, and the daughter you left at home is now a son you never had.

Not only did James forget to tell Tim about this rather crucial fact, but it’s also the reason that he and his son are unable to keep in touch through their special abilities. Ultimately, Tim retires his time traveling abilities after his third child’s birth, who just happens to be the first child born after his own father’s death. Save for one final trip before his latest daughter’s arrival, which in turn leads to one last bittersweet trip back into Tim’s childhood, he swears to never use those abilities again.

Another silver lining to this story is the fact that while Tim really shouldn’t prevent Katherine’s horrible experiences with Jimmy, and by extension her car crash, he can use knowledge from that alternate timeline to improve her life in the here and now. Remembering that his friend Jay (Will Merrick) totally has a crush on her, Tim makes sure that Katherine makes that love connection, with the same result, just in the present. Which ultimately clues Tim in on the joys of living life as a one-time experience, rather than a series of redrafts to attain a desired result. We’re not crying, you’re crying.

Time For Another Extraordinary, Ordinary Adventure

At this point, you’re probably drying your eyes as much as we are, as About Time is a sci-fi tale of time that really reminds you how precious life is. You might not want to put those tissues away just yet, as we’re about to head back to that world where no one has gone before , with the time traveling antics of Star Trek: Generations . So you might still find yourself getting a bit misty when all is said and done on that front.

Which leaves us with one last piece of business to take care of: if you, or someone you know has a time travel film they’d want to see examined here at the CinemaBlend labs, our inbox is always open to suggestions! So drop us a line in time, and tell us which adventure you’d like to see examined through our keen intellect. Until next week, we hope that you’ve enjoyed another trip from here to there in the now and then.

british movie time travel

CINEMABLEND NEWSLETTER

Your Daily Blend of Entertainment News

Mike Reyes

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.

32 Great Pieces Of Giles Wisdom From Buffy The Vampire Slayer

32 Quotes From The Twilight Movies That Are Surprisingly Funny

Will Smith Shares That Bad Boys 4 Has Finished Filming, And Fingers Are Crossed It Hits Its Release Date

Most Popular

By Danielle Bruncati March 04, 2024

By Mike Reyes March 04, 2024

By Carly Levy March 04, 2024

By Erik Swann March 04, 2024

By Megan Behnke March 04, 2024

By Dirk Libbey March 04, 2024

By Heidi Venable March 04, 2024

By Aatif Sulleyman March 04, 2024

By Eric Eisenberg March 04, 2024

By Ryan LaBee March 04, 2024

  • 2 ’It Was Sobering’: Nathan Fillion Just Opened Up About The Rookie: Feds’ Surprise Cancellation
  • 3 The Sweet Story Behind How Dave Bautista Adopted Millie Bobby Brown’s Dog
  • 4 Jeff Probst And I Feel The Same Way About Survivor’s 90 Minute Episodes
  • 5 After Jonathan Majors Was Found Guilty In His Assault Trial, He And Girlfriend Meagan Good Reveal How They’re Doing

Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, 1991.

The 20 best time-travel movies – ranked!

As Adam Driver accidentally winds up 65m years ago , facing not just dinosaurs but an asteroid, we count down the best films about going backwards, or forwards, through the ages

20. Timecop (1994)

Regardless of what anyone says, I believe in my heart that Timecop was greenlit because someone showed a studio executive a picture of Jean-Claude Van Damme and said the word “Timecop” out loud, at which point they had to throw a script together as quickly as possible. Nothing about Timecop makes sense. It is the most 90s film ever made.

19. Tenet (2020)

I have to be careful here, because Tenet might not be a time-travel movie. Certainly time passes in it and some of the people are going backwards in time in it. But I’ve seen this movie twice now, and it mainly just seems to be about people mumbling everything, except for Kenneth Branagh, who gets to shout very loudly three times. Anyway, here it is.

18. Cavegirl (1985)

Finally, a film that uses time-travel for the correct reason; to allow a horny 1980s high school student to go back to prehistory so that he can convince a smoking hot, bikini-wearing cavegirl to have it off with him. You will note I’ve ranked this above Tenet .

17. Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999)

Heather Graham and Mike Myers in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me.

Weird to think that Austin Powers was originally a fish-out-of-water comedy, in which the promiscuous titular character had to navigate the (then) uptight world of the 1990s. That all fell apart for the sequel, where Powers was sent back to the 60s to shout his catchphrases at people who actually appreciated them. That makes it a time-travel movie, right?

16. The Butterfly Effect (2004)

God, this film. In summary: Ashton Kutcher plays a man who experiences blackouts, only to learn some years later that he can travel back in time and inhabit his younger self’s mind during the blackouts. But in doing so, he unleashes a world of unintended consequences. He becomes a murderer and loses limbs. Seek out the director’s cut if you can, because it ends with Kutcher’s character deliberately strangling himself in the womb with his umbilical cord. No, really.

15. The Tomorrow War (2021)

Wherein Chris Pratt is drafted into a war that takes place 26 years later, because the invading aliens have already killed all the soldiers who were alive at the time. It’s a great premise for a film – we all pay the price for the actions of other generations – let down by a truly confusing ending. Admit it, you forgot this film even existed, even though it cost $200m to make and only came out 18 months ago.

14. The Time Travelers (1964)

A 1964 movie made on the cheap with genuinely terrible effects, The Time Travelers is about a group of scientists who travel to the future, fight some mutants and then return. What sets it apart, though, is its crazed ending. The film ends with the scientists venturing into the distant future, whereupon the film plays through again, faster and faster and faster until it cuts away to a still of the galaxy. Are they trapped in a loop? Is free will an illusion? Did the producers just run out of money? We may never know.

13. The Adam Project (2022)

A buddy movie where the buddies are the same person … Walker Scobell and Ryan Reynolds in The Adam Project.

In which a young boy’s life is turned upside down when he is visited by an older version of himself from the future. The good news? He grows up to be a fighter pilot. The bad news? He also grows up to have all the cadences and surface-level snarky patter of Ryan Reynolds. What follows is a buddy movie where the two buddies are the same person.

12. Hot Tub Time Machine (2010)

So seminal that it was namechecked in Avengers: Endgame . A flat-out comedy that primarily exists to allow a bunch of middle-aged men to act like teenagers, Hot Tub Time Machine is a film about an enchanted Jacuzzi that sends people back to the mid-1980s. Possibly a bit too bawdy for its own good, there’s a hint of a message about the unreliability of nostalgia here.

11. Flight of the Navigator (1986)

This family film involves a young boy who goes missing in a Fort Lauderdale ravine, only to show up eight years later having not aged. There are UFOs and rubbery little creatures and whatnot, but there’s a real emotional wallop to the moment when the boy realises that the world has moved on without him, right down to the scene (that plays out like a horror movie) where the boy realises that his parents have become unrecognisably ancient, even though they are probably only in their early 40s.

10. Primer (2004)

Some see Shane Carruth’s Primer as the gold standard of what a time-travel film should be. It’s the sort of movie that seems unnervingly realistic, from the down-at-heel engineers to the unshowy nature of time travel itself, where people in effect just get in and out of some boxes. Almost entirely unwilling to explain itself, for years Primer fans have come to rely on a series of graphs and charts to figure out what the film actually is.

9. Safety Not Guaranteed (2012)

A time-travel movie that may or may not have any actual time-travel in it, Colin Trevorrow’s Safety Not Guaranteed is a delicate wonder of a thing. A man places an ad in a magazine asking for a time-travel companion – “Must bring your own weapons. I have only done this once before” – and the respondents slowly come to realise that all is not quite as it seems.

8. Planet of the Apes (1968)

Maurice Evans and Charlton Heston in Planet of the Apes.

If you haven’t seen Planet of the Apes, then the fact that I’ve put it on a list of time-travel movies is probably quite a heavy spoiler, and for that I’m sorry. But what a reveal this is – what seems at first like a silly movie about Charlton Heston being persecuted by some monkeys quickly becomes something darker and much more sinister. That new Adam Driver movie probably could have achieved something similar, if it hadn’t blabbed its big secret in the trailer.

7. Avengers: Endgame (2019)

Endgame is a lot, so much so that it is effectively a time-travel movie bookended by two entirely separate movies. And, yes, it takes a lot of liberties with time-travel, from Tony Stark’s “Huh, I did it” invention to the lazy referencing of other time-travel movies as a shorthand for what the characters can do. Nevertheless, when they get to it, the film nails it. The Battle of New York is the obvious highlight, with Captain America fighting Captain America and the Hulk embarrassed by his unreconstructed former self, but the heart of the film really comes when Tony meets his father as a man and learns to let go of the past.

6. Interstellar (2014)

Interstellar is also a lot. But at its core is a simple ethical quandary: would you try to save the world if it meant missing your children’s entire lives? Matthew McConaughey has to touch down on a planet during a space trip. The problem is that every hour he spends there is equal to seven years on Earth. Is the trip important enough for him to miss seeing the wonder of his children grow into adults? Technically, if you want to be fussy about this, Interstellar is a time dilation movie rather than a time-travel movie. But it gets a pass, largely because McConaughey sells the agony of the moment so beautifully.

5. Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989)

A hilarious example of predestination … George Carlin, Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.

There are times when Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure feels like it was written by a toddler off his face on pop. But that’s a deliberate ploy, a way to camouflage all the careful rigour that underpins the script. The lead characters are initially reluctant to embark on their time-travel adventure, until they’re visited by versions of themselves from the near future who compel them to do it; a beautiful and hilarious example of predestination in action. Extra points are awarded thanks to the film’s total lack of interest in consequences. Swiping Abraham Lincoln and Napoleon from their respective eras has no bearing on world history whatsoever, which is probably quite lucky.

4. Looper (2012)

One problem with time-travel movies is that the rules always need to be explained upfront. In lesser hands, this can lead to all manner of clunky, stilted exposition. But when Rian Johnson dabbled in the genre with Looper , he gave us a masterclass in “show, don’t tell”. The sequence where poor Paul Dano’s character is tortured at two different points in time simultaneously, with the older version following instructions carved into the younger version’s arm, is arguably one of the most inventive uses of time-travel in the entire history of cinema. All that plus this is Bruce Willis’s last truly great performance.

Bruce Willis as Joe in Looper.

3. The Terminator (1984)/Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

The lure of the first two Terminator movies were the killer robots running around murdering everyone. But they were very smartly built around a framework of pure time-travel. We only see the future in brief flashes, but what’s important is the present. It is very, very important that Kyle Reese (a guy from the future) has sex with Sarah Connor (a woman from the present), because only that will save humanity as we know it. It’s a hell of a pickup line, but the device also elevates what could have simply been a shonky B-movie into the realm of the classics.

2. Idiocracy (2006)

The smartest time-travel movies use the device as a mirror, telling us more about the times we live in now than the times the characters visit. Enter Idiocracy, Mike Judge’s stinging satire about modern times. An average person is cryogenically frozen and wakes up in the future, shocked to discover that the global IQ has fallen off a cliff in the intervening years. Surrounded by aggressive stupidity, he single-handedly saves the US from famine by suggesting that they use water – and not an electrolyte drink – to grow crops. We are conservatively 15 years from this happening in real life.

1. Back to the Future (1985)/Back to the Future Part II (1989)

Prescient … Michael J Fox and the Hoverboard Girls in Back to the Future Part II.

The only conceivable first choice. The first two Back to the Future films (the third, which is basically just a western, is far less imaginative) have come to define time-travel as a genre. They deliver a complex set of hard sci-fi rules about what can and cannot happen during time-travel and – miraculously – manage to do it in a way that kids can understand. Good music, cool clothes, a million catchphrases and, in the case of the second film, an unnervingly prescient prediction of how Donald Trump would turn out. Just perfect.

  • Science fiction and fantasy films
  • Back To The Future
  • Avengers: Endgame
  • Interstellar

Most viewed

Wrong, Actually: 3 Time-Travel Problems in Richard Curtis’s About Time

There's a lot Richard Curtis gets right in his new movie. But as sci-fi fans might tell you, there's some things he gets wrong too

british movie time travel

[WARNING:  This post contains plot details and mild spoilers about the new movie  About Time.]

Let’s face it, any movie that deals with time travel is going to face some pretty complicated plotting issues right off the bat — the very idea of time travel itself is riddled with paradoxical dilemmas. But there are some films that manage to navigate the paradoxes without raising too many obvious red flags. Unfortunately, About Time , which is opening in wide releasee on Nov. 8, is not one of those films.

The movie’s plot centers on Tim (Domhnall Gleeson), an affable Brit who learns from his father (Bill Nighy) that the men in their family have the ability to travel back in time. All they have to do find a dark, quiet place, clench their fists and think of a time in their past — and they’ll be transported there. Tim, naturally, uses his ability to perfect his love life and marry his dream girl (Rachel McAdams).

Writer-director Richard Curtis, who’s the brain behind much-loved  films like Four Weddings and a Funeral , Notting Hill and Love, Actually , told my colleague Lily Rothman that he did work to reconcile the time-travel aspect of the film with his romantic vision, and she reveals that he did get the heart of the movie scientifically correct. As Rothman points out , Curtis’s film is more concerned with the emotional implications of time travel, rather than the geeky nuts and bolts of it.

But, what’s likely to charm the rom-com fans is almost certain to frustrate the sci-fi crowd. Here are three problems with time travel in About Time that we can’t get past:

Merging messiness

In time travel, one of two things can happen. Either the time traveler will exist separately from his past self, which means there would be two of the same person existing in one time period. Or the time traveler will merge with the past self, inhabiting his body so there is only one person. The latter is the route that Curtis goes with, though the details are unclear in the execution.

For example, when Tim goes into a closet and clenches his fists, he occasionally travels through time and merges with Past-Tim who, for some reason, is also standing in the same closet. No explanation is given to explain how Past-Tim happened to be in the closet or, more complicatedly, if Past-Tim just disappeared from what he was doing at the moment Future-Tim traveled back in time, so they could meet and merge in the closet. Even more confusing, there are a few instances when Tim travels back and merges with Past-Tim, who’s not in the closet but sitting amongst a group of people.

The movie sets up its rules – and then breaks them

Most time-travel movies attempt to avoid some of the inherent paradoxes associated with time travel by setting out very specific rules and sticking to them. About Time makes an attempt at setting up such rules, but breaks them, repeatedly, without much explanation.

The rules laid out by Tim’s father are that only the men in the family can travel back in time — never into the future — and only to a time when they were actually alive. Fair enough. But later on in the movie, Tim’s sister Kit Kat is actually able to travel back years in time with her brother, simply by holding his hands. Not only that, rather than traveling back in time and having to wait there, reliving everything that happened in order to catch up to where they started out, Tim and Kit Kat travel back to the present — or their future, depending on how you look at it. So it would seem that: (1) it’s not only the men in the family who can travel in time, and (2) they actually can travel into the future, depending on their starting point.

The Butterfly Effect exists — kind of

Early on in About Time , Tim’s father makes a passing mention of the so-called Butterfly Effect — the idea that even the smallest things you do in the revisited past will have a ripple effect on subsequent events and, in some cases, irrevocably change the course of history. That idea also jibes with a rule that Tim’s dad reveals later on in the movie — traveling to a time before your child is born will erase that child, who was the result of a very specific moment (and very specific sperm).

Tim, unfortunately, does not know about this rule until he travels back many years and accidentally erases his daughter Posy, replacing her with a little boy. Yet, without any explanation, Tim is able to go back and undo the Posy-erasure. Even more confounding, later on in the film Tim and his father travel together to a time when Tim was a little boy, which, obviously was before his children were born. But this time he’s able to return to his still-unaltered present. It’s the most confusing aspect of the film.

Which is unfortunate. Curtis has definitely created a movie full of delightful British characters, an oh-so-sweet love story and more than a few moments that tug at the heart-strings, but the sci-fi fans out there likely won’t be able to see its charms through the gaping time-travel plot-holes.

Things you buy through our links may earn  Vox Media  a commission.

The 25 Greatest Time-Travel Movies Ever Made

british movie time travel

It must say something, surely, about humans, how often time-travel movies are about returning to the past rather than jumping to the future. As Mark Duplass’s forlorn character says in Safety Not Guaranteed , “The mission has to do with regret.” With all the potential to explore the unknown world of the future, so often when our minds conspire to bend the rules of time it’s instead to rehash the old. It’s compelling to watch a character in a movie do what we cannot — right past wrongs or uncover the reason for or meaning behind the events in their lives, whether they be emotionally catastrophic or merely geopolitically motivated.

So absent is the future from the canon, in fact, that when it is involved, typically future dwellers are leaving their own time to come back to the present. Back to the Future Part II aside, it seems as if there’s something about going forward in time that just doesn’t track for humans. (Of course, you could argue that this is because the present-day concept of bidirectional time travel would infinitely multiply or change beyond recognition any future that may occur, but that’s a knot for another article.)

In any case, the time-travel stories deemed worthy of Hollywood budgets aren’t always straightforward in their mechanics. Some films on this list barely qualify as time-travel movies at all; others could hardly qualify as anything else. There are movies about trips through time but also ones about the bending and fracturing and muddying thereof; then there are those about, as Andy Samberg aptly puts it in Palm Springs , “one of those infinite time-loop situations you might have heard about.” There’s even a movie in which we get only 13 seconds’ worth of time travel, when it functions more like a joke whose punch line hits at the film’s climax.

What these films all do have in common is a fascination with changing the way time works. That being said, the list leaves out movies in larger, more extended franchises in which time meddling is a one-off dalliance thrown into a sequel with little by way of foreshadowing: think Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban , Avengers: Endgame , and Men in Black III . (It also leaves off perhaps the Ur-time-travel movie, Primer , and the quite good Midnight in Paris because their directors don’t deserve the column inches.) We’re looking at self-contained stories using time mechanics from the start, with preference given to those that involve themselves more intently with the ins and outs of time travel; that ask questions about time, aging, memory and so forth; and that try to succeed at it in new and interesting ways. So let’s get to it.

25. Galaxy Quest (1999)

Does Galaxy Quest really count as a time-travel movie? Some compelling reasons argue that it doesn’t: Time travel isn’t a major factor in the plot, and the time traveling that does occur is, yes, only a 13-second jump. But its use of time travel is meaningful insofar as the movie itself is a loving spoof of Star Trek , which makes use of time travel in three films ( one of which made this list ), not to mention dozens of episodes across its various TV iterations. Tacking on time travel as a deus ex machina for the actors in a Star Trek– like show pressed into service as an actual space crew by an endangered alien race is the exact right amount of ribbing in a movie that’s as on point as it is hilarious.

Galaxy Quest is available to rent on Amazon .

24. Happy Death Day (2017)

Pick away at the surface of a time-loop movie and you find a horror movie. Most of the entries on this list are covered in enough feel-good spin to land as comedies, but Happy Death Day stares the horror of the time-loop phenomenon right in the face. (It’s also quite funny.) Reliving the same day over and over is an unimaginably potent form of psychological torture, and adding murder to the equation does little to dull that edge. The film follows a college-age protagonist struggling to escape from a masked slasher hell-bent on killing her again and again while she tries to solve the mystery of how she got stuck in a time loop.

Happy Death Day is available to rent on Amazon .

23. Back to the Future Part II (1989)

Seriously, this may be the only good movie in which the film’s whole focus is using a time machine to travel into the future. The fact that it’s a sequel is telling — the characters already traveled into the past in the first movie , and the filmmakers decided to save “traveling even further into the past“ for the third film in the trilogy. Still, Back to the Future Part II is a fun time that makes great use of sight gags and references, recasting scenes from the first film in the distant future year of 2015 with all its hoverboards and self-lacing Nikes.

Back to the Future Part II is available to rent on Amazon .

22. See You Yesterday (2019)

It’s a dirty little secret of time-travel movies that they tend to be, well, pretty white. Tenet ’s Protagonist aside, if Hollywood’s sending someone through time, they’re almost certainly not a Black person, and for obvious reasons: Most of post-contact North American history is deeply unfriendly to people of color, and the problems a person running around out of time and place is going to encounter are deeply compounded if they’ll likely be the target of racist abuse or violence — which makes See You Yesterday all the more compelling. Produced by Spike Lee and featuring one of filmdom’s most famous time travelers in a cameo role, it follows a Black teenage science prodigy who uses a time machine to try to save her brother from being killed by a police officer.

See You Yesterday is streaming on Netflix .

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

No offense to the Back to the Future franchise, but time travel never looks more fun on film than it does in the first Bill & Ted movie. It’s a concept that feels distinctly of a different era, so pure is its zaniness, that it’s hard to imagine anyone concocting it today. The titular duo, Californian high-school students in the ’80s, travel through the past looking for historical figures in order to ace a history project, then bring them all back to the present. High jinks ensue! We get Genghis Khan in a sporting-goods store and Mozart on an electric keyboard. What more could you want?

Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure is streaming on HBO Max .

20. Source Code (2011)

Time-travel-film aficionados know this won’t be Jake Gyllenhaal’s only stop on this list, but no matter. Source Code finds him repeating the same eight minutes over and over as he struggles to find the culprit in a train bombing — with each replay ending in his own death by explosion. For some reason, a romantic subplot is shoehorned into this, along with a bunch of frankly unnecessary technical mumbo-jumbo, but the core idea is a compelling mix of the time-loop movie and the train whodunit that Gyllenhaal is a perfect fit for.

Source Code is available to rent on Amazon .

19. 12 Monkeys (1995)

Some sort of law of nature dictates that every genuinely good idea and/or piece of true art has to at some point be turned into a Hollywood movie. Thank God La Jetée was adapted into something that can stand on its own feet artistically. 12 Monkeys may not retain its source material’s black-and-white look or stripped-down, static-image presentation, but it is a rollicking good time nonetheless. That’s in no small part due to director Terry Gilliam getting the best out of Bruce Willis and a young Brad Pitt, and recasting World War III as a planet-decimating virus. Which, like at least one other movie on this list , “speaks to the present moment,” or whatever.

12 Monkeys is available to rent on Amazon .

18. Run Lola Run (1998)

Unlike almost all of the other films on this list, the terms time travel and time machine don’t show up anywhere in Run Lola Run . Rather, it’s a sort of de facto time-loop scenario in which the protagonist tries repeatedly to pay a ransom to save her boyfriend’s life. In fact, if not for a few key details, it could easily be characterized (and often has been) as an alternate-endings movie rather than a time-travel film. But the fact that Lola seems to be learning from her past attempts with each successive one suggests that she is, indeed, using knowledge gained from previous loops to bring a satisfactory end to this situation.

Run Lola Run is available to rent on Amazon .

17. Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

One of the most striking things about Groundhog Day is the mutability and replicability of its core conceit. Perhaps the best case in point is Edge of Tomorrow , sometimes known as Live. Die. Repeat. after its original tagline. It’s the kind of physically grueling movie only an actor as genuinely unhinged as Tom Cruise could pull off. A noncombatant thrust into a war against invading aliens, Cruise’s character finds himself reliving day one of combat over and over, slowly but surely refining his techniques in order to survive the extraterrestrial onslaught. Like the central twosome in the much less violent Palm Springs , he winds up with a partner in (war) crime, teaming up with the similarly time-trapped Emily Blunt, and the explanation for the replay glitch here is actually pretty satisfying.

Edge of Tomorrow is streaming on Fubo TV .

16. Star Trek (2009)

If you could create some sort of an advanced stat to measure controversy generated per unit of interesting filmmaking decisions, J.J. Abrams would have to be near the top in terms of his ability to rig up movie drama from almost nothing. This is a guy whose filmography is like Godzilla rip-off, Spielberg homage, safe reboot of cherished IP, repeat. Star Trek may be his best film, though, a sure-footed reinvention of a dorky sci-fi franchise that made it, well, cool. Somehow, the beauty of Spock and Kirk’s bromance being woven through chance encounters with future selves kind of … works?

Star Trek is available to rent on Amazon .

15. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2006)

There’s a relative dearth of time travel in animated film, which perhaps is a function simply of the fact that it’s less impressive to stage in a world that’s already unreal. If you can Looney Tunes your way through physics, what’s so special about grabbing the flow of time and tying it into a bow? Still, the original Girl Who Leapt Through Time deserves mention here. It’s a beautiful story that interlaces the complexity of time leaping with the intensity of teenage emotion and the thorny process of growing up where the opportunity to redo things leads, over time, to growth — a less shitty Groundhog Day , in a way.

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is available to rent on Amazon .

14. Safety Not Guaranteed (2012)

She may not be the most famous, decorated, or emulated actress of her generation, but Aubrey Plaza is someone whose personality spoke to the irony-soaked 2010s in a way that simply could not be denied. Her character on Parks and Recreation , April Ludgate, was, by all accounts, created specifically to channel Plaza’s real-life personality to the screen, and she plays essentially the same character in Safety Not Guaranteed . Here, she’s a sarcastic intern at a magazine working on a story about a would-be time traveler and using her feminine wiles to slowly gain his trust. The chemistry between Plaza and Mark Duplass is probably the film’s high point; the subplot about the FBI feels like it was clipped out of a bad X-Files episode.

Safety Not Guaranteed is streaming on Tubi .

13. La Jetée (1962)

At only a 28-minute run time, La Jetée is arguably too short to merit inclusion on this list. However, what it lacks in content (and in, well, moving images; it’s almost exclusively a collection of static black-and-white shots set to voice-over), it more than makes up for in inventiveness and influence, and it would be a travesty to leave it out in favor of more recent by-the-book fare. Tracing the tale of a man held prisoner in post-WWIII Paris being used in time-travel experiments as his captors seek to remedy the postapocalyptic state of the world, he’s sent into both the future and the past and ends up unraveling a lifelong personal mystery while he’s at it.

La Jetée is streaming on the Criterion Channel .

12. Planet of the Apes (1968)

Unlike the worse but more straightforwardly time-traveling Tim Burton remake, the relationship between the original Planet of the Apes and time travel is inexact — technically, the astronaut crew that lands on the titular planet does travel forward 2,000 years, but it’s not done via a time machine. The travel isn’t instantaneous: It literally does take them 2,000 years to get there; they’re just unconscious and on life support. Still, the way the film’s ending handles the iconic reveal is exactly in line with the best of the time-travel canon, the telescoping, mise en abyme feeling of the world shifting in front of your very eyes without your moving an inch.

Planet of the Apes is available to rent on Amazon .

11. Groundhog Day (1993)

The famous Bill Murray vehicle essentially invented the infinite-time-loop genre (and it’s hardly a movie that succeeds on the strength of its concept alone), but the idea at its core is so steeped in the casual misogyny of late-’80s and early-’90s cinema that it’s hard to watch today without cringing. Murray’s character employing what amounts to PUA-style techniques over and over and over in a desperate bid to fuck his hapless co-worker just doesn’t hit the way it did back then. If the story arc didn’t present a guy detoxifying himself of the worst aspects of masculinity in order to be worthy of a woman’s love as the primary way for a 20th-century white man to achieve full personhood, this would be much higher on the list.

Groundhog Day is streaming on Starz .

10. Predestination (2014)

This is probably the most complicated film on the list. Following a “temporal agent” (played by Ethan Hawke) who’s trying to prevent a bombing in 1970s New York, it’s based on a Robert A. Heinlein short story and features Shiv Roy herself, Sarah Snook, in a star-making turn as someone with a complicated backstory and a secret. Like the best sci-fi, the film’s premise raises all kinds of fascinating questions about the titular concept and throws in some interesting musings on sex, gender, and the self in the process.

Predestination is streaming on Tubi .

9. Looper (2012)

Wes Anderson gets a lot of flak for his overwrought twee visuals, but Rian Johnson has a knack for making movies that feel and function like dioramas even if they don’t look it. Narratively speaking, everything here is constructed just so — and there’s a certain beauty in that — but who ever had a profound experience of art by looking at a diorama? Looper was probably Johnson’s least precious pre– Star Wars film, which is nice because the temptation to drastically overmaneuver the mechanics of a time-travel story can lead to disaster. The tech used to Bruce Willis–ify Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s face is distracting, and the third act’s retreat from the postapocalyptic city of the future to the postapocalyptic corn farm of the future is a brave choice that the film struggles to land. Still, Johnson’s vision of a future in which organized crime runs time travel is compelling and well worth a watch.

Looper is streaming on Netflix .

8. Donnie Darko (2001)

Donnie Darko is a bit of a genre mash-up. Part high-school movie, part sci-fi flick, part bleak meditation on the soullessness of late-’80s America, it’s nevertheless a weirdly successful piece of filmmaking that makes fantastic use of a young Jake Gyllenhaal, a great supporting cast (Maggie Gyllenhaal, Drew Barrymore, Jena Malone, and Patrick Swayze among others), and an absolutely iconic haunting cover of Tears for Fears’ “Mad World.” Watching high schoolers navigate parallel universes, wormholes, and time travel is a dicey proposition, but director Richard Kelly makes it work, somehow.

Donnie Darko is streaming on HBO Max .

7. Back to the Future (1984)

While it’s clearly superior to the sequel (and leagues ahead of the final film in the trilogy), the original Back to the Future is a bit of a mess (John Mulaney was right , to be honest). Its racial and gender politics are cringey, and the incest subplot is weird (“It’s your cousin Marvin. Marvin Pornhub . You know that new plot element you’ve been looking for?”), but there’s a clear interest in time travel beyond its shimmering surface: the very real addressing of the “grandfather problem” in time travel via the slow disappearance of Marty from his family photo, the accidental invention of rock music, and a genuine curiosity about the nuts-and-bolts mechanics of time machines. Ahh, what the hell. It’s a romp.

Back to the Future is available to rent on Amazon .

6. Palm Springs (2020)

No offense to Gen-Xers and boomers, but the best time-loop movie of all time is Palm Springs . The film isn’t without its missteps, but it’s much more curious about life than Groundhog Day was through the eyes of Murray’s misanthrope. Cristin Milioti and Andy Samberg‘s characters, stuck in the loop together, are a perfect comedic match, and their shared humanity makes for a beautiful arc. The film raises questions about what’s worth doing in life when nothing lasts and how to stay sane when every day is the same. Of course, as a sort of polar opposite of Tenet , it benefited from coming out during the pandemic by speaking, as it does, to the experience of lockdown.

Palm Springs is streaming on Hulu .

5. Tenet (2020)

Interstellar wasn’t enough for Chris Nolan, apparently. Tenet ’s legacy may end up being little more than that of the COVID action movie no one saw — a bloated thriller that Nolan fought to get into theaters and bar from home viewing reportedly to swell the size of his own pockets. It really did suffer from bad timing, though, because this is genuinely a quintessential big-screen popcorn movie whose absurdity is all the more palatable when it’s given the audiovisual bombast it deserves. Ambitious in scope as it traces a war on the past by the future (yes, you read that right), Tenet is as enamored of action tropes as it is in bucking them, and its investment in rendering visible the brain-bendingly knotty mechanics of moving through time is laudable, even when the movie itself remains opaque — as impenetrable as the future, as hazy as the past.

Tenet is streaming on HBO Max .

4. The Terminator (1984)

A partner to Blade Runner in the mid-’80s invention of sci-fi noir, The Terminator is a stunning film in many ways, despite the third act’s now-iffy visual effects. While it’s not James Cameron’s debut, and it would go on to be bested by its sequel , it functions as an incredible showcase for an emerging young director who would exclusively make big stories for the rest of his career. Arnold Schwarzenegger is perfectly cast as the relentless, unemotional killer cyborg sent back from the future to terminate the mother of the eventual resistance leader, and the film’s romantic subplot has just the perfect amount of time-travel-induced cheesiness for it to work.

The Terminator is streaming on Amazon Prime Video .

3. Interstellar (2014)

It’s not inaccurate to say Christopher Nolan is a director who’s more interested in scale and scope than in expressing the minutiae of the human experience in its purest form. But in Interstellar, a Nolan movie in its titular ambitions, there’s a core element of time travel wrought not as sci-fi fireworks but as a paean to the sheer force and will of the power of love. It both does and doesn’t work, depending on your capacity for cheese in space, but even besides that, Nolan’s use of time as story arc — the way Miller’s planet functions, in particular — is conceptually masterful in the best kind of time-travel-movie way.

Interstellar is streaming on Paramount+ .

2. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

Whereas the franchise’s first movie spends more time on the question of time travel, in the second it takes a bit of a back seat to the action itself. It’s hard to fault director James Cameron for this decision; T2 remains one of the best action movies of the ’90s and — along with Jurassic Park and The Matrix — one of the decade’s best when for special effects. The groundbreaking T-1000 would honestly be enough to get this movie on the list; a tween John Connor grappling with questions of predestination and the fact that he is vicariously responsible for his own conception feel almost like icing on the time-travel cake. Much as in 12 Monkeys , time travel here is mistaken for delusion, as valiant Sarah Connor, in a Cassandra-esque nightmare, has to battle against the future only she knows is coming. Of course, Cassandra never had access to any firepower stored in underground desert arsenals.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day is streaming on Netflix .

1. Arrival (2016)

It’s fair to wonder whether Arrival really is, in fact, a time-travel movie. The Ted Chiang short story it’s based on isn’t about time travel per se; rather, it’s an exploration of alternate forms of temporal understanding. The linguist protagonist, played by Amy Adams, doesn’t travel through time so much as come to experience it differently. Still, the plot ends up hinging on foreknowledge that she is granted not via visions but by actually experiencing her future simultaneously with her present and past. For our purposes, though, that’s time fuckery enough to merit inclusion, and boy howdy does the film deliver in overall quality. Partly, that’s simply a question of the source material. Chiang is arguably the most talented (and possibly the most decorated) American sci-fi writer of his generation. But the source story is not especially Hollywood friendly, and director Denis Villeneuve has adopted it lovingly, borrowing a plot device from another of Chiang’s stories, the more straightforwardly time-travel-based “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate,” in order to add some third-act blockbuster flavor. The result is a beautiful meditation on love, choice, and courage that packs art-film ethos into a genuine sci-fi blockbuster.

Arrival is streaming on Hulu and Paramount+ .

  • vulture homepage lede
  • timey-wimey
  • vulture lists
  • time travel
  • vulture picks

Most Viewed Stories

  • Cinematrix No. 7: Mar 5, 2024
  • Saturday Night Live Recap: Sydney Sweeney’s Saturday Night Yikes
  • The 100 Fights That Shaped Action Cinema
  • Glasgow’s Sad Oompa Loompa Isn’t Gonna Sugarcoat This
  • Picking His Fights
  • The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live Recap: Of All the Gin Joints

Editor’s Picks

british movie time travel

Most Popular

  • Curb Your Enthusiasm Recap: Defamatory Brick

What is your email?

This email will be used to sign into all New York sites. By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy and to receive email correspondence from us.

Sign In To Continue Reading

Create your free account.

Password must be at least 8 characters and contain:

  • Lower case letters (a-z)
  • Upper case letters (A-Z)
  • Numbers (0-9)
  • Special Characters (!@#$%^&*)

As part of your account, you’ll receive occasional updates and offers from New York , which you can opt out of anytime.

The Best Time-Travel Movies of … All Time

Matthew McConaughey wearing an astronaut suit in Interstellar

Time: ravager of youth, spoiler of milk—humanity’s oldest and deadliest foe. Yet in films we can conquer time easily, running it forward and back, skipping into the future or past with a simple edit. Filmmakers constantly travel through time, so it’s no coincidence that there are so many films where this trick becomes a plot conceit.

Unfortunately for their protagonists, the best time-travel films often show us that time’s prison is inescapable. Even when the characters look like they’ve found a way out, from natural wormholes to heretical machines, their fates are usually shown to be predetermined. Often they end up stuck in time loops, or just dead. Time and death are close companions .

Of course, this chaos translates into mind-bending entertainment for the viewer, so without further ado, let us introduce our picks for the best time-travel movies.

Terminator 1 and 2 are really quite different movies. In the first, Arnie, the terminator, is the bad guy. He’s sent back in time by our machine overlords to kill a woman who will give birth to a child that will lead the human resistance to victory. A human from said resistance is sent back to stop Arnie. It’s a dark and weird story, a classic action film made on a stringent budget. The second, in contrast, is a big-budget extravaganza, featuring perhaps the greatest special effects in movie history relative to their time. Here, Arnie, now a blockbuster star, demanded to play the good guy: He’s still a robot, but he’s defending the kid from the icy, and more advanced, T-1000 robot.

While studios still struggle to adapt games to film and TV, they nevertheless exert a significant influence over these older passive mediums. In a smart essay in The New Yorker back in 2012, James Verini pointed out that Christopher Nolan’s films should be thought of as games, “contests with rules and phases, gambits and defenses, many losers and the occasional victor.” Edge of Tomorrow should be thought of similarly. Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt must escape a time loop to save humanity from an alien invasion. In other words, after seeing game over, they start the level again, this time with more knowledge on how to beat it. A smart and blistering sci-fi thriller.

The most famous art house film about time travel, La Jetée follows a man sent back from a post-WW III dystopia to save the future, and to find the truth behind a traumatic memory of his past. Only 28 minutes long, the film is a simple series of black and white photographs put to a hazy narrative, yet it's captivating. Terry Gilliam turned it into 12 Monkeys , a zany, colorful caper starring Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt, a similarly weird but tonally different film.

This modern sci-fi classic follows the alien arrival of giant, peaceful, ink-inscribing squids. Before geopolitical squabbles can escalate the situation into a nuclear exchange, Amy Adams must translate the squid’s inky pleas into American English. (Spoiler: It relates to time travel.) This visually stunning film is based on Story of Your Life , a short by Ted Chiang, one of the best living sci-fi writers. The movie is a great introduction to his writing.

A classic featuring Bill Murray at his laid-back best. Murray plays a jerkish newsman who wakes up one morning to find that he is stuck in a time loop on Groundhog Day (and, yes, that is where the term comes from). Fear gives way to joy as he realizes he is now an omniscient god. This then gives way to boredom as he lives out the same day an infinite number of times, and Murray must work out why he has been cursed. Still a moving and thoughtful comedy.

This is really the time-travel movie to beat them all, if you really want to get into the nuts and bolts of time travel itself. Two engineers accidentally discover an A-to-B causal loop side effect: They can travel back a short distance of time, and they begin using it to make huge amounts of money on the stock market. What follows is a highly technical and philosophical take on the implications of time travel.

Back to the Future is a series so imprinted on the American consciousness that most know its characters and inventions even if they haven't seen the movies. You know Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly, Christopher Lloyd as Doc Brown. You recognize the self-lacing Nikes (available to buy for more than $10,000). You recognize the Delorean time machine (a replica goes for $750,000). They're fun and imaginative comedy adventures, and they remain family favorites—even if the idea that Marty McFly invented rock and roll is pathetic.

Looper is a fantastic, air-tight action film—a compelling world, sketched in just under two hours, with entertaining and interesting characters. Joseph Gordon Levitt plays a contract killer who kills and disposes of his targets in the past, in order to avoid detection in the future. Bruce Willis plays his older self, who Levitt is tasked to kill. The time-travel aspect being realistic isn’t really the point of the film. Writer Rian Johnson contrasted it directly to Primer , where the rules of time travel are so important; Looper was intended instead as a character-driven thriller.

One of the highest-grossing anime films of all time, Your Name is a slick, ever so slightly hollow affair, but undoubtedly fantastic entertainment. Two school kids swap bodies each night, bicker about wrecking each other's lives, then eventually fall in love. They must fight through time to save a town from an apocalyptic disaster. The animation is gorgeous, painterly, and fluid, the music from Radwimps is brilliant earworm pop, and the story is a real tearjerker.

Where the time travel in Christopher Nolan's Tenet was left largely unexplained, in Interstellar he actually seems interested in teaching his audience, and he does an admirable job depicting some of the implications of Einstein’s theory of general relativity. The movie’s dialog can be a bit saccharine and vapid, but the visit to a planet of mountain-high waves, where years pass as minutes, is just a great piece of cinema, worth the price of entry alone.

A cult classic that rocketed Jake Gyllenhaal to massive fame. It’s one of those high-concept films that bombards you with lore but really isn't as smart as it thinks it is. It’s best to just sit back and let it wash over you, including, of course, Frank, the iconic black bunny rabbit, who tells Gyllenhaal the world will end in 28 days. It’s also an important artifact of millennial culture. Any Gen Z cultural critic trying to understand millennial neuroses should definitely add this film to their research.

The original Planet of the Apes is a deeply odd film—there’s something disconcerting about the apes, but the prosthetic makeup techniques by artist John Chambers were revolutionary at the time. While the prequels with Andy Serkis are certainly more action-packed, the original has got to make this list because it features the most iconic time-travel “twist” in cinema. Charlton Heston’s final revelation as he smashes his fists into the beach at the film’s end has been parodied to death, most notably by The Simpsons —w hich also created a fantastic musical adaptation of the film.

Find anything you save across the site in your account

30 Best Time-Travel Movies to Watch If You’re Ready to Leave 2020 Behind

30 Best TimeTravel Movies to Watch If Youre Ready to Leave 2020 Behind

Does 2020 have you googling “best time-travel movies” as a last-resort attempt to try and transport yourself to a different version of reality? No, just us? Well, it's certainly understandable. Who wouldn't want to get out of this year, if only for a couple hours? The idea that you could potentially jump into a machine and change the past à la Back to the Future or stumble upon an infinite time loop like in Palm Springs is an interesting thought experiment, to say the least.

Or maybe you're just out of things to watch. Whatever the case, the best time-travel movies cover every genre. Looking for a tug-at-your-heartstrings romance? Try About Time or The Time Traveler's Wife (both of which star Rachel McAdams , who must have a thing for time travel). If a sci-fi action flick sounds more appealing, the Terminator films still hold up. For a goofy comedy, watch Hot Tub Time Machine or Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. Like we said, there's something for everyone. 

Image may contain Water Human Person Sunglasses Accessories and Accessory

Palm Springs (2020)

So Palm Springs is not technically a time-travel movie, but it's definitely time-travel adjacent. The film follows Sarah (Cristin Milioti) and Nyles (Andy Samberg), two acquaintances who find themselves perpetually repeating Sarah's sister's wedding day. Frankly, this rom-com might remind you of your own quarantine time loop (in the best way possible, of course).  

Available to stream on Hulu

HOT TUB TIME MACHINE Clark Duke Craig Robinson John Cusack Rob Corddry 2010

Hot Tub Time Machine (2010)

A group of buddies (John Cusack, Craig Robinson, Clark Duke, Rob Corddry) wake up after a night of partying in a ski resort hot tub to find themselves back in 1986. They even look like versions of their younger selves to the others they meet along the way. But can they actually fix the messes their lives have become? 

Available to rent on Amazon Prime Video

THE TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE Eric Bana Rachel McAdams 2009

The Time Traveler’s Wife (2009)

The Time Traveler's Wife is a 2009 science fiction drama film based on Audrey Niffenegger's novel of the same name. The story follows Henry DeTamble (Eric Bana), a man who happens to have the ability to time-travel but has no control over when or where he goes in time. While that's complicated enough, things become even more complex for DeTamble once he starts building a romantic relationship with Clare Abshire (Rachel McAdams).

Available to stream on Netflix  

THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT Ashton Kutcher 2004

The Butterfly Effect (2004)

The Butterfly Effect is a 2004 science fiction thriller film starring Ashton Kutcher as 20-year-old Evan Treborn and Amy Smart as Kayleigh Miller, Treborn's college sweetheart. In the film, Evan finds he can travel back in time to inhabit his former self and attempts to change the present by changing his past. But, as any good time-travel fan can tell you, changing the past means there will be unintended consequences in the future. 

By Emily Tannenbaum

By Daniel Rodgers

IDIOCRACY Luke Wilson Maya Rudolph 2006

Idiocracy (2006)

Joe Bowers (Luke Wilson) is a super-average dude in 2005 who agrees to take part in an experiment (alongside Maya Rudolph ) that puts him into hibernation until 2505. The thing is, when he wakes up, he discovers that humans have become so unintelligent that he's now the smartest person in the whole wide world. It's both hysterical and a cutting satire that draws some parallels to our current state of affairs. 

Available to buy on iTunes

The J.Crew Clothes I Live in Are on Sale for Presidents Day

A Wrinkle in Time (2018)

Ava DuVernay directed an all-star cast in this Disney adaptation of Madeleine L'Engle's beloved 1962 novel of the same name. Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, and Mindy Kaling play three immortal beings who help a young girl (Storm Reid) search for her missing father across space and time.

CLICK Adam Sandler 2006

Click (2006)

Adam Sandler plays a man whose wife (Kate Beckinsale) is frustrated by how much time he spends at work and away from his family. He thinks all his problems are solved when he comes into possession of a magical remote that allows him to fast-forward through the mundane parts of life. But, of course, nothing's quite that simple. 

ABOUT TIME Domhnall Gleeson Rachel McAdams 2013

About Time (2013)

No, you're not seeing things—Rachel McAdams has, in fact, starred in multiple films in which she has a time-traveling partner. In this case, her love is played by Domhnall Gleeson, who is actively trying to change his past in order to have a better future. Prepare to possibly shed a tear or two with this one. 

Available to stream on Netflix

AUSTIN POWERS 2  THE SPY WHO SHAGGED ME Mike Myers Heather Graham 1999

Austin Powers 2: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999)

Yeah, baby! In the second installment of the Mike Myers series, Austin Powers, Dr. Evil, and the whole crew find themselves back in the ’60s. Dr. Evil is trying to steal Austin’s “mojo,” and along with Heather Graham's Felicity Shagwell, the international man of mystery tries to thwart the bad guys. 

AUSTIN POWERS IN GOLDMEMBER Beyonce Knowles Mike Myers 2002

Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002)

After conquering the late ’60s in the second film, the Austin Powers trilogy is completed with a trip back to 1975. Austin teams up with Beyoncé, a.k.a. Foxxy Cleopatra, when Dr. Evil plans to bring back a notorious villain called Johan van der Smut, the titular Goldmember. It is as ridiculous and amusing as the first two films, naturally. 

BACK TO THE FUTURE Michael J. Fox Christopher Lloyd 1985

Back to the Future (1985)

Great Scott! Doc Brown's (Christopher Lloyd) DeLorean time machine sends Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) back to his parents' high school days in 1955, and things get very awkward when his mom (Lea Thompson) develops a crush on him. He has to work hard to make sure his future existence isn't totally erased. 

BACK TO THE FUTURE PART II Michael J. Fox Christopher Lloyd 1989

Back to the Future Part II (1989)

In the second film of the Back to the Future franchise, Marty and Doc find themselves in yet another time-space conundrum. This time they have to travel to 2015 (a world that people in the ’80s imagined would have us all on hoverboards!) to try to make sure the evil Biff doesn’t take over the town. 

BACK TO THE FUTURE III Michael J. Fox Christopher Lloyd 1990

Back to the Future Part III (2000)

The third installment of the Back to the Future trilogy may not be its strongest, but if you're a completist, you're going to want to see Marty's journey through. This time around he and Doc Brown find themselves in the Wild Wild West. Actually, is this the movie that eventually led us to Westworld ?!?

DEJA VU Paula Patton Denzel Washington 2006

Deja Vu (2006)

Technology allows a team of federal agents, including Denzel Washington, to go back in time four days to try to stop a massive ferry bombing set off by a terrorist (Jim Caviezel, who also time-traveled in Frequency ). But will Washington's character also use the tech to stop other crimes, thereby messing with the future? You'll have to watch and see. 

HAPPY DEATH DAY 2U 2019

Happy Death Day 2U (2019)

In the sequel to Happy Death Day , Tree (Jessica Rothe) finds herself in yet another time-loop situation—and this time she seemingly moves through different dimensions. While her life is still very much in danger, this sequel adds some very emotional scenes that happen when an important figure from Tree's past makes her way into the present. 

LOOPER Joseph GordonLevitt 2012

Looper (2012)

In Looper 's version of the future, which was directed by Rian Johnson, time travel totally exists—if you can afford to pay for it on the black market. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a time-traveling hit man who finds himself in quite the predicament when a future version of himself (Bruce Willis) is sent back to eliminate him . 

SEE YOU YESTERDAY from left Dante Crichlow Eden DuncanSmith 2019

See You Yesterday (2019)

Teen science prodigies experimenting in making time-travel backpacks? Um, we're already all the way in. But everything takes a dramatic turn when one of their brothers is killed and the two try to put their work into action to change the past. Did we mention this was also produced by Spike Lee? 

THE TERMINATOR Arnold Schwarzenegger 1984

The Terminator (1984)

In this James Cameron action classic from the ’80s, a cyborg assassin who is disguising himself as a human (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is sent from the future to kill Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) because of the threat her future son will one day become—and a blockbuster franchise was born. 

TERMINATOR 2 JUDGMENT DAY Linda Hamilton 1991

Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

Set 11 years after the original film, this James Cameron–helmed sequel finds Arnold Schwarzenegger's Terminator in the role of protector of Linda Hamilton's son, played by Edward Furlong, because a shape-shifting T-1000 (Robert Patrick) is out to kill him, naturally. Also, Hamilton's fitness routine must have been incredible prefilming because she is a very strong badass . 

BILL AND TED'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE Alex Winter Keanu Reeves 1989

Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989)

Ted “Theodore” Logan (Keanu Reeves) and Bill S. Preston, Esq. (Alex Winter), go on quite the excellent adventure indeed, dudes. The best friends use a phone booth time machine to ensure they both pass their history class—and keep Ted from being shipped off to military school. Their interactions with historical figures are very righteous, and you'll want to watch the original film in preparation for the upcoming reboot . 

Hugh Jackman Meg Ryan KATE and LEOPOLD 2001

Kate & Leopold (2001)

Rom-com meets fantasy in this Meg Ryan–Hugh Jackman film in which Liev Schreiber plays a physicist who opens a portal through which his great-great-grandfather Leopold travels from 19th-century New York to modern times and falls in love with his ex-girlfriend (Ryan). Talk about complicated family dynamics, right? 

PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED from left Kathleen Turner Catherine Hicks 1986

Peggy Sue Got Married (1986)

Peggy Sue is an unhappy woman on the verge of divorce attending her 25-year high school reunion after leaving her cheating husband (Nicolas Cage). Magically, she finds herself reliving her senior year and she's faced with whether or not to change some of the choices she grew to regret as an adult. 

STAR TREK Zoe Saldana 2009

Star Trek (2009)

Directed by science fiction king J.J. Abrams, this reboot of the beloved Star Trek franchise had a unique plot for James T. Kirk (Chris Pine), Spock (Zachary Quinto), and the staff aboard the USS Enterprise: All the action takes place in an alternate reality, because of time travel, which allowed the movie to operate free from any continuity restraints from the original Star Trek series. 

FREQUENCY James Caviezel Dennis Quaid 2000

Frequency (2000)

A New York police officer (Jim Caviezel) in 1999 somehow crosses radio frequencies (get it?!) with the past and soon begins to communicate with his father, a firefighter who died in the line of duty when he was a kid. But will he be able to change what transpired on that tragic day in 1969?

BRAD PITT BRUCE WILLIS TWELVE MONKEYS 1995

12 Monkeys (1995)

Maybe don't watch this one until you're ready for the too-real plot: A deadly virus has wiped out most of humanity, so a prisoner (Bruce Willis) is trained to be sent back in time to find the original virus and help establish a cure. Brad Pitt was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his role in the film. 

Available to stream on HBO.

MEN IN BLACK III from rear Josh Brolin Will Smith 2012

Men in Black III (2012)

Set 15 years after the events of the original Men in Black , this third installment in the franchise was a hit with critics and at the box office for its action-packed plot in which Agent J (Will Smith) must travel back to the 1960s to save a young Agent K (Josh Brolin, in the role originated by Tommy Lee Jones) from a murderous, time-hopping alien. 

CLOCKSTOPPERS Jesse Bradford Garikayi Mutambirwa 2002

Clockstoppers (2002)

If you're feeling an early-aughts teen comedy with a side of time travel, Clockstoppers is, well, your only option. Jesse Bradford plays Zak, the son of a scientist who accidentally finds a watch that can essentially stop time. So, of course, the first thing he does is use it to impress his crush Francesca (Paula Garcés) and best friend Meeker (Garikayi Mutambirwa). 

Available to stream on HBO

SOMEWHERE IN TIME Christopher Reeve Jane Seymour 1980

Somewhere in Time (1980)

Christopher Reeve stars as a playwright who becomes obsessed with the photograph of a woman from 1912 (Jane Seymour), to the point that he magically finds himself transported back in time to find her. Fun fact: Visit Michigan's Mackinac Island, where this was filmed, and you'll feel like you're in another era yourself. The island famously has a ban on motor vehicles. 

THE LAKE HOUSE Keanu Reeves 2006

The Lake House (2006)

Keanu Reeves plays a hot architect, Alex, who renovates a lake house in Wisconsin and sometimes writes romantic love letters to Sandra Bullock's character, Kate. How is that a time-travel movie, you ask? Turns out Alex is living in 2004, while Kate is in 2006—somehow the mailbox at the lake house is a mysterious time portal. 

DEADPOOL 2 Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool 2018

Deadpool 2 (2018)

In this superhero sequel, Wade Wilson a.k.a. Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) reluctantly teams up with the X-Men—including the incredible Zazie Beetz as Domino, a mutant with the ability to manipulate luck—to fight a time-traveling soldier known as Cable (Josh Brolin). Because this is a Deadpool movie, expect a lot of R-rated language and violence. 

The Valentine’s Day Gifts That She Actually Wants

By Malia Griggs

The J.Crew Clothes I Live in Are on Sale for Presidents Day

By Brie Schwartz

Angelina Jolie’s New Blonde Hair Is Giving ‘Girl, Interrupted’

By Danielle Sinay

17 Best G-Spot Vibrators, According to Sex Experts

By Gina Vaynshteyn

The 32 Best TV Shows About Time Travel

time travel TV shows

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

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

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

BBC One Doctor Who

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

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

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

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

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

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

Where to watch Doctor Who:

Timeless, nbc (2016 – 2018).

NBC Timeless

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

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

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

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

Where to watch Timeless:

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

DC's Legends of Tomorrow

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

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

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

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

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

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

Where to watch Legends of Tomorrow:

12 monkeys, syfy (2015 – 2018).

SyFy 12 Monkeys

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

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

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

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

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

Where to watch 12 Monkeys:

Outlander, starz (2014 – present).

british movie time travel

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

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

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

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

Where to watch Outlander:

Travelers, showcase (2016 – 2018).

Netflix Travelers

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

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

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

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

Where to watch Travelers:

Dark, netflix (2017 – 2020).

british movie time travel

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

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

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

Where to watch Dark:

The umbrella academy, netflix (2019 – present).

british movie time travel

Netflix brings another to the list with The Umbrella Academy .

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

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

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

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

Where to watch The Umbrella Academy:

Seven days, upn (1998 – 2001).

british movie time travel

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

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

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

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

Where to watch Seven Days:

Loki, disney+ (2021 – present).

british movie time travel

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

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

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

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

Where to watch Loki:

Making history, fox (2017).

british movie time travel

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

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

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

Where to watch Making History:

Quantum leap, nbc (1989 – 1993).

british movie time travel

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

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

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

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

Where to watch Quantum Leap:

Quantum leap, nbc (2022 – present).

british movie time travel

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

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

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

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

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

Where to watch Quantum Leap reboot:

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

british movie time travel

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

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

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

Where to watch The Way Home:

Russian doll, netflix (2019 – 2022).

british movie time travel

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

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

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

Where to watch Russian Doll:

Undone, prime video (2019 – present).

british movie time travel

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

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

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

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

Where to watch Undone:

Voyagers, nbc (1982 – 1983).

british movie time travel

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

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

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

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

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

Where to watch Voyagers!:

Fringe, fox (2008 – 2013).

british movie time travel

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

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

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

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

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

Where to watch Fringe:

Time after time, abc (2017).

british movie time travel

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

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

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

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

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

Where to watch Time After Time:

11.22.63, hulu (2016).

british movie time travel

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

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

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

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

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

Where to watch 11.22.63:

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

british movie time travel

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

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

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

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

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

Where to watch The 4400:

Somewhere between, abc (2017).

british movie time travel

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

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

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

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

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

Where to watch Somewhere Between:

Terra nova, fox (2011).

british movie time travel

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

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

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

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

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

Where to watch Terra Nova:

Frequency, the cw (2016 – 2017).

british movie time travel

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

Frequency demonstrates this concept perfectly.

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

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

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

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

Where to watch Frequency:

Life on mars, bbc one (2006).

british movie time travel

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

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

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

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

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

Where to watch Life on Mars:

Always a witch, netflix (2019 – 2020).

british movie time travel

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

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

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

Where to watch Always a Witch:

Beforeigners, hbo (2019 – present).

british movie time travel

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

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

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

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

Where to watch Beforeigners:

Alice, sbs tv (2020).

british movie time travel

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

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

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

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

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

Where to watch Alice:

Live up to your name, tvn (2017).

british movie time travel

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

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

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

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

Where to watch Live Up to Your Name:

My only love song, netflix (2017).

british movie time travel

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

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

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

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

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

Where to watch My Only Love Song:

Signal, tvn (2016).

british movie time travel

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

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

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

Where to watch Signal:

Rooftop prince, sbs (2012).

british movie time travel

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

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

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

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

Where to watch Rooftop Prince:

11 comments.

Tomorrow people cw

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

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

Fantastic acting and interesting characters.

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

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

Where is The Time Tunnel?????

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

i was looking for this comment. such an underrated show

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

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

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

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

'The Adam Project' & 9 Best Time Travel Movies on Netflix

For more mind-bending time travel adventures.

Read update

No matter the time period, time travel movies have always been popular. Whether it is the latest Ryan Reynolds and Netflix collaboration The Adam Project or the sci-fi action masterpiece The Terminator , time travel fans are spoiled for choice. Netflix in particular has plenty of great movies in the genre worth visiting, and some of the best time travel movies on Netflix will have you watching them over and over again.

In Netflix time travel movie The Adam Project , Ryan Reynolds plays a fighter pilot from the future, who crash lands in the present and meets his 12-year-old self. Together they must save the world in a journey that harkens back to Amblin classics from the 1980s while featuring some great needle drops.

Time travel stories have always been a popular narrative choice, with the highest-grossing film of all time, Avengers: Endgame , fitting in the genre. Videogames such as Mortal Kombat 11 also use time travel to great effect. But with The Adam Project being a Netflix original, there are more time travel movies on Netflix to watch after seeing Reynolds quip his way through another memorable performance.

Updated on May 28, 2023, by Ty Weinert:

10 'naked' (2017).

Marlon Wayans being thrown out of his wedding by Dennis Haysbert in Naked

Rob ( Marlon Wayans ) is about to marry the girl of his dreams, Megan ( Regina Hall ). But after a night out with his best friend results in Rob waking up naked in an elevator, he must race to the altar to make it in time. Failing that, Rob wakes up again in the elevator, realizing he is trapped in a time loop and must relive the hour over and over again.

Working like a mix of The Hangover and Groundhog Day , Naked will appeal to anyone who enjoyed those screwball comedies. While it is not one of the best time loop movies , it still offers some laughs and is a good enough way to kill an afternoon on the couch.

Watch on Netflix

9 'Captain Nova' (2021)

Kika Van De Vijver and a drone in Captain Nova

Like The Adam Project , Captain Nova follows a fighter pilot who is sent back in time to stop a catastrophe. Nova ( Kika Van De Vijver ) finds herself transformed into her younger self due to her journey through time, however, making it hard for adults to take her seriously as she warns them of the dangers to come.

Hailing from the Netherlands, Captain Nova makes for a nice change from the American movies that dominate the time travel genre on Netflix. Due to its protagonist's youthful transformation, Captain Nova is a kid-friendly take on the formula and can be enjoyed by the whole family.

8 'See You Yesterday' (2019)

Eden Duncan-Smith and Danté Crichlow in See You Yesterday

Produced by legendary director Spike Lee , See You Yesterday follows two teenage scientists, who are attempting to create a time machine. After one of their older brothers is killed in a police shooting, the pair activate their machine to travel to the past and save him.

While still following the conventions of time travel movies, See You Yesterday stands out with a plot that focuses on relevant social issues. By bringing light to matters that are still plaguing society four years after release, the film is a unique choice within the time travel Netflix catalog.

7 'In the Shadow of the Moon' (2019)

Boyd Holbrook standing closely behind Michael C. Hall In the Shadow of the Moon

Beginning in 1988, In the Shadow of the Moon follows Thomas Lockhart ( Boyd Holbrook ), a police officer determined to become a detective. When his city is plagued by a serial killer, Lockhart begins investigating, eventually discovering the killer comes back every nine years. As the case deepens, time travel eventually becomes a factor.

In the Shadow of the Moon feels like a callback to the detective thrillers of the '90s, like Se7en . While it does tend to lose focus as more outrageous plot points are introduced, In the Shadow of the Moon remains a solid choice for anyone looking to discover their next crime obsession.

6 'Synchronic' (2019)

Jamie Dornan and Anthony Mackie in Synchronic

Another quality entry in acclaimed duo Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson 's trippy shared universe , Synchronic stars Anthony Mackie and Jamie Dornan as paramedics and lifelong friends. After a new drug sweeps their city, resulting in the deaths of its users, the pair investigates after Dornan's daughter goes missing.

The film delves into time travel in ways that will not be spoiled here, but needless to say Synchronic is a trippy film with a central mystery that unravels over time. Both leads excel in their roles and share great chemistry, with Mackie, in particular, delivering a fantastic performance that shows what he can offer when given more meaty roles outside the MCU.

5 'ARQ' (2016)

Robbie Amell in ARQ

Waking up to intruders breaking into his home, an engineer ( Robbie Amell ) finds himself trapped within a time loop. With each death sending him back to the start of the invasion, he works to defeat his pursuers and escape with his lover ( Rachael Taylor ).

ARQ works as a sci-fi spin on films such as Happy Death Day , with the audience learning new information alongside the protagonist with each subsequent loop and eventual death. While not as charming as Happy Death Day , ARQ still offers an enjoyable take on the genre.

4 'When We First Met' (2018)

Adam DeVine in When We First Met

When We First Met follows Adam DeVine , of Workaholics fame, as he repeatedly goes back in time to try and win over the girl of his dreams ( Alexandra Daddario ). Being a romantic comedy, the film stands apart from other time travel movies that focus on more serious consequences.

While We First Met does not offer much new to the genre, though DeVine gives an admirable performance to help carry the film. Fans of his stand-up or the aforementioned Workaholics should have a good time watching his numerous attempts to escape the hellish nightmare called "the friend zone."

3 'Long Story Short' (2021)

Zahra Newman, Rafe Spall, and Ronny Chieng in Long Story Short

Waking up the morning after his wedding to discover that his life is jumping forward in time every few minutes, Teddy ( Rafe Spall ) is forced to use his dwindling time to stay with the woman he loves. With every jump causing them to drift further apart, time is running out for the bumbling lead.

Like When We First Met , Long Story Short uses time travel in a romantic comedy , albeit in a more urgent way. The Australian film was directed by Josh Lawson , known to audiences as Kano, the best part of the recent Mortal Kombat film.

2 'The Adam Project' (2022)

Ryan Reynolds and Zoe Saldana in The Adam Project

When fighter pilot Adam Reed (Ryan Reynolds) travels from 2050 to 2012, he is forced to work together with his 12-year-old self in order to get back home and save his deceased wife Laura ( Zoe Saldana ). The two Adams end up going on a journey full of heart and humor as they travel through time.

The latest in the long line of big-budget blockbusters on Netflix, The Adam Project is one of the best free movies you can access on the service. Reynolds is always a charming lead, and along with Saldana, they are supported by a winning cast that includes Mark Ruffalo , Jennifer Garner , and Catherine Keener .

1 'Mirage' (2018)

A poster for Mirage

When Vera ( Adriana Ugarte ) and her family move into a new home, they discover that a boy died there thirty years ago. Finding a way to communicate with the boy in the past, Vera warns him of his death and saves his life, only to change the flow of time in the process.

As the best time travel movie Netflix has to offer, Mirage is a compelling mystery thriller from Spain. As more circumstances of the boy's death emerge, greater narrative threads are pulled into this time-bending journey, with Ugarte delivering a great performance as the central character.

NEXT: The Best Time Travel Movies Ever Made, Ranked

Awesome, you're subscribed!

Thanks for subscribing! Look out for your first newsletter in your inbox soon!

The best things in life are free.

Sign up for our email to enjoy your city without spending a thing (as well as some options when you’re feeling flush).

Déjà vu! We already have this email. Try another?

By entering your email address you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy and consent to receive emails from Time Out about news, events, offers and partner promotions.

Love the mag?

Our newsletter hand-delivers the best bits to your inbox. Sign up to unlock our digital magazines and also receive the latest news, events, offers and partner promotions.

  • Things to Do
  • Food & Drink
  • Arts & Culture
  • Time Out Market
  • Coca-Cola Foodmarks
  • Los Angeles

Get us in your inbox

🙌 Awesome, you're subscribed!

The 100 Best British Movies

The 100 best British movies

We spoke to over 150 movie experts and writers to put together this definitive list of British films

Dave Calhoun

How exactly does one define British cinema? It’s more difficult to nail down than it seems. Okay, so the accents usually give it away. But the essential qualities of the best British movies are as wide-ranging as the Commonwealth itself. In terms of the stories it tells, it’s basically limitless. Want a widescreen epic? Go straight to the work of David Lean or Powell and Pressburger. In the market for a smaller, more personal drama? Try Joanna Hogg or Shane Meadows. Thrillers? Comedies? Period dramas? Movies about drugs? Movies that seem to be on drugs themselves? The UK film industry has produced them all, each displaying a distinctly English slant.

In compiling this list of the best British movies of all-time, we surveyed a diverse array of actors, directors, writers, producers, critics and industry heavyweights, from Wes Anderson, Mike Leigh, Ken Loach, Sam Mendes and Terence Davies, David Morrissey, Sally Hawkins and Thandiwe Newton. Unsurprisingly, the results are as diverse as the country itself.

Written by  Dave Calhoun, Tom Huddleston, David Jenkins, Derek Adams, Geoff Andrew, Adam Lee Davies, Paul Fairclough, Wally Hammond, Alim Kheraj, Matthew Singer & Phil de Semlyen

Recommended:

💂 50 great British actors 🔥 The 100 best movies of all-time 🎥 The 100 best movies of the 20th century so far 🇬🇧 The 100 best London songs 

An email you’ll actually love

100-91 Best British Movies

In This World (2002)

100.  In This World (2002)

Director Michael Winterbottom Cast  Jamal Udin Torabi, Enayatullah The first of three films by the prolific Michael Winterbottom on this list, ‘In This World’ is the best example of the director’s urge to explore contemporary issues on screen and to employ cinema as a sideways view on current affairs. This, ‘ Welcome to Sarajevo ’, ‘ Road to Guantanamo ’ and ' A Mighty Heart ' were all films discussed on news pages as well as in arts reviews. ‘In This World’ is admirable as a feat: Winterbottom cast two Afghan refugees in Pakistan and with a small crew shooting on digital cameras took them on a journey west over land, through Iran, Turkey and Europe, eventually arriving in London. At a time of headlines about immigration and political trouble in Afghanistan, the effect was to offer an alternative spin on the news and to do it in a manner that made clear the often terrible realities of being a refugee. DC

The Railway Children (1970)

99.  The Railway Children (1970)

  • Family and kids

Director Lionel Jeffries Cast Dinah Sheridan, William Mervyn, Jenny Agutter

As warm and cosy as a cup of Horlicks, Lionel Jeffries’s 1970 adaptation of E Nesbit’s Edwardian children’s novel centres on a well-to-do London family torn apart when its patriarch is arrested on suspicion of treason. With a sudden urge to start life over in the country, the remaining family members – mother Dinah Sheridan and her three children – up sticks and settle alongside a quaint Yorkshire railway line where the film slowly begins to work its very English charm. Jenny Agutter and little Sally Thomsett are the film’s cornerstones, but a special mention to Bernard Cribbins’s archetypal British stationmaster. Naturally, the film won’t play well with today’s digital generation – it’s far too fusty and polite in both tone and colour – but it still has the capacity to generate fond childhood memories. Nice to see it make the list of best British movies, albeit in the penultimate spot. DA

Buy, rent or watch ‘The Railway Children’

Dunkirk (2017)

98.  Dunkirk (2017)

Director Christopher Nolan

Cast Kenneth Branagh, Tom Hardy, Harry Styles

Never has a military defeat looked so victorious as in Christopher Nolan's trifecta of interlocking vignettes in this old-school-feeling epic. Entitled 'Land', 'Sea' and 'Air', they offered three pulse-ratcheting perspectives on the British desperate retreat from France in 1940. Tom Hardy's RAF pilot gets the hero moments, but kudos to Nolan for unearthing a bunch of talented relative unknowns too. We reckon that Harry Styles guy has a future. PDS

Buy, rent or watch ‘Dunkirk’

28 Days Later… (2002)

97.  28 Days Later… (2002)

Director Danny Boyle Cast Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, Brendan Gleeson

Oh no, not fast zombies! Those are the worst kind! Danny Boyle didn’t invent the concept of speedy flesheaters, nor the idea of setting a zombie outbreak in the UK. Nothing about 28 Days Later , frankly, is especially novel. And yet, it feels quite unlike any zombie movie before or since, to the degree that it nearly exists outside the genre. That’s not to say it skimps on scares; to the contrary, it includes some of the most horrifying set pieces of the last two decades. But there’s a humanistic quality in Boyle’s direction unique to the dark, dour canon of post-apocalyptic horror. The characters aren’t just meaty automatons who only exist to be disembowelled - they seem like actual, flesh-and-blood humans desperate to stay that way. (Cillian Murphy is particularly soulful as a bike courier who awakens from a coma in an abandoned London, the world as he knew it fully decimated in less than a month.) That makes it particularly tempting to draw parallels to our current pandemic-stricken world. If we must find some connection, let it be the upnote of hope at the end, when the film’s final word is not ‘help’ but rather ‘hello’.

Theatre of Blood (1973)

96.  Theatre of Blood (1973)

Director Douglas Hickox Cast Vincent Price, Diana Rigg, Ian Hendry Vincent Price adopts the more psyched-out style of British horror in the ’70s in this serial-killer romp that gives the great man a crack at the Shakespearean roles he felt cinema had denied him. As Edward Lionheart, Price plays a ham passed over for the award he most cherishes: Best Actor as voted by the Critics’ Circle. His years of dedication to the Bard are dismissed by his beret-wearing tormenters but prove inspirational when he plots their murders: each is to be despatched in the manner of a Shakespearean death, from ‘Julius Caesar’s’ gang- knifing to a grisly rewriting of ‘The Merchant of Venice’ and the hard-to-swallow cuisine of ‘Titus Andronicus’. It’s a gory, funny trip, as Price dons a series of preposterous disguises to entrap his victims through their own foibles. His post-homicide delivery of Shakespeare will surprise anyone who bought his popular image as a one-dimensional hack, adding yet another layer to a film that satirises both its stars and audience without ever sacrificing its disconcerting edge. PF

Buy, rent or watch ‘Theatre of Blood’

London to Brighton (2006)

95.  London to Brighton (2006)

Director Paul Andrew Williams Cast Lorraine Stanley, Johnny Harris, Georgia Groome The post ‘Lock, Stock…’ landscape is littered with the corpses of a thousand pretenders to the mockney gangster pic throne. Remember ‘ Rancid Aluminium ’? ‘ Love, Honour and Obey ’? ‘ The 51st State ’? ‘ Rise of the Footsoldier ’? Aside from Jonathan Glazer’s eminently stylish ‘ Sexy Beast ’, only Paul Andrew Williams’s pithy and relentlessly entertaining debut has managed to poke its head above the sea of mediocrity. A rape, revenge and road movie (in that order) about a distressed young girl (Georgia Groome) helped by a prostitute (Lorraine Stanley – stunning) to flee a gang of tinpot hoods, it’s a film where no shot, line and character is wasted. Williams claims to have written the film over one weekend, and both the clamp-like tightness of its structure and the bracingly realistic progression of its characters – if you get hurt, you stay hurt – make that entirely believable. DJ

Buy, rent or watch ‘London to Brighton’

24 Hour Party People (2002)

94.  24 Hour Party People (2002)

Director Michael Winterbottom Cast Steve Coogan, Rob Brydon, Ron Cook

24 Hour Party People is the rare music biopic that understands historical accuracy is less crucial than getting the vibe right. That’s not to say Michael Winterbottom’s depiction of the Manchester punk scene of the late ’ 70s and ’80s is a lie - he just makes it clear that, when faced with either presenting the facts or perpetuating the myth, the myth will win out nearly every time. (After all, this is a movie where the Buzzcocks’ Howard Devoto pops up while his avatar is having sex in a club bathroom with another man’s wife to dispute the veracity of the encounter.) And anyway, how could anyone hope to parse truth from fiction when dealing with martyr figures like Joy Division’s Ian Curtis, perpetually soused Happy Mondays frontman Shaun Ryder and professional self-aggrandizers like Factory Records founder Tony Wilson? Best, again, to focus on capturing the vibe, and to that end, Winterbottom pulls out every postmodernist trick he knows, from fourth-wall breaking to to snarky voiceovers to rewinds and freeze-frames. It’s dizzying, maddening, hilarious and nonstop - and in that way, it gets the story exactly right.

Zulu (1964)

93.  Zulu (1964)

  • Action and adventure

Director Cy Endfield Cast Stanley Baker, Jack Hawkins, Michael Caine ‘Zulu’ may take a few liberties with the exact levels of Welshness on show during the Battle of Rorke’s Drift, but – Richard Burton, Catherine Zeta-Jones and gold-standard Richard Burton impersonator Anthony Hopkins notwithstanding –Welsh film fans have never had all that much to cheer about. So we’re keeping this one! An account of the South Wales Border Regiment’s seemingly hopeless last-ditch stand against the massed ranks of the Zulu Nation, it’s a massively successful enterprise – especially from first-time producer (and star) Stanley Baker and a director previously known chiefly for low-budget noirs. That it still stirs the blood and moistens the eye proves that few films manage to be as expansive and yet so intimate as this. ALD

Buy, rent or watch ‘Zulu’

Dead Man's Shoes (2004)

92.  Dead Man's Shoes (2004)

Director Shane Meadows Cast Paddy Considine, Gary Stretch, Toby Kebbell Shane Meadows’s fourth film shows the importance of staying true to your instincts. The Midlands director’s third film, ‘ Once Upon a Time in the Midlands ’ had seen him working with a bigger budget and a more recognisable cast (Rhys Ifans, Ricky Tomlinson, Robert Carlyle, Kathy Burke) and the result, if amiable, was much less raw, personal and anarchic than his first two features and earlier shorts. ‘Dead Man’s Shoes’ was an uncompromising and successful attempt by Meadows to rediscover his old voice. He cast old pal Paddy Considine, who had been gripping as a volatile loner in ‘ A Room for Romeo Brass ’, and went for the jugular with this tale of a man who seeks and dishes out violence in revenge for something terrible that happened in his family’s past. Considine is terrifying, and Meadows pulls no punches in painting a portrait of just how low men can go – for fun and for love. DC

Land and Freedom (1995)

91.  Land and Freedom (1995)

Director Ken Loach Cast Ian Hart, Icíar Bollaín, Tom Gilroy Ken Loach’s 1995 film about fatal splits on the Left during the Spanish Civil War – told from the viewpoint of David (Ian Hart), a Liverpudlian Communist who travels south to Spain to join the cause – achieved an epic look and feel while remaining committed to the cut and thrust of ground-level debate. It remains one of Loach’s most ambitious and important films both for its raw combat scenes and for the way it shines a light on a crucial moment in twentieth-century history. The focus of Jim Allen’s script on one group of militia allows for strong personalities with varying motivations and ideas to emerge, while the book-ending of the story with the discovery in the present of David’s letters by his granddaughter gives it a powerful immediacy. This British movie doubly confirmed Loach’s return from the wilderness in the 1980s and set a precedent for his later films exploring global stories in Nicaragua, Los Angeles and Ireland. DC

Buy, rent or watch ‘Land and Freedom’

90-81 Best British Movies

Blue (1993)

90.  Blue (1993)

8Director Derek Jarman Cast Tilda Swinton, John Quentin, Nigel Terry (voices) ‘My mind is bright as a button, but my body is falling apart.’ It’s rare that a ‘last film’ is conceived as such, but Derek Jarman knew he was dying from Aids-related illnesses when he made ‘Blue’ in 1993 – a film simultaneously broadcast on television and radio months before his death in 1994 at 52. It was his encroaching blindness, much referred to in the voiceover read by several actors, which gave Jarman the idea to apply words to an unchanging, blue screen for 76 minutes. The voiceover is a mix of diary and poetry, relating variously to Jarman’s illness, art and the colour blue. It’s a bold, moving work, but it’s Jarman’s ability to conjure up such a unique, experimental event as ‘Blue’ that we must remember and honour – the way that, with this avant-garde work, he drew attention to him, his work, sexuality and illness and made an unembarrassed, deathbed claim for art itself. DC

The Go-Between (1970)

89.  The Go-Between (1970)

Director Joseph Losey Cast Julie Christie, Alan Bates, Dominic Guard ‘The past is another country. They do things differently there’: one of two Joseph Losey-Harold Pinter collaborations to feature in our poll (the other is ‘ The Servant ’) is this radiant and evocative adaptation of LP Hartley’s tale of thwarted love and class prejudice set against the halcyon British summer of 1900. It was dumped initially by MGM because of its supposed ‘difficulty’ but was subsequently the winner of the Cannes Palme d’Or and a box-office and critical success in the US. The reputations of both the film and late-career Losey went into decline in Britain (if not elsewhere) by the mid-1990s – in 1994 The Independent’s Anthony Quinn, typically, thought this film ‘overrated’ and part of Losey’s decline. But its complexity of feeling, the undoubted chemistry of its reunited stars Julie Christie and Alan Bates, the lushness of cinematographer Gerry Fisher’s Norfolk landscapes and the critical late-1960s sensibility provided by the acute eye and complex psychological insight of Losey – plus the revelatory use of time-frames, flashback and point-of-view in Pinter’s script – guarantee its lasting appeal. WH

Buy, rent or watch ‘The Go-Between’

This Is England (2006)

88.  This Is England (2006)

Director Shane Meadows Cast Thomas Turgoose, Stephen Graham, Jo Hartley You could hear the British movie industry breathe a collective sigh of relief when writer-director Shane Meadows got the breakthrough hit he so richly deserved after much critical but little commercial success with his previous films. Clearly ripped from his own experiences, this rite-of-passage tale sees a naive, isolated youngster (Thomas Turgoose – a revelation) scooped up by some friendly skinheads and introduced to the joys of young love, ska, short hair and oversized, steel toe-capped Doc Martens. But Meadows’s film shows that this initially benign enclave was very different to the growing ranks of supporters of the National Front, even if their appearance was similar. The film established Meadows in a league of his own when it comes to naturalistic, comic dialogue and wringing sensitive performances from young cast members. It also confirmed him as a director whose predominant interest is in contrasting the invigorating highs and vicious lows of English working-class life. DJ

Buy, rent or watch ‘This Is England’

Night and the City (1950)

87.  Night and the City (1950)

Director Jules Dassin Cast Richard Widmark, Gene Tierney, Googie Withers London noir may have been more of a literary movement than a cinematic one, but its undoubted pinnacle – both on the page and screen – is ‘Night and the City’. The film may bear little relation to Gerald Kersh’s far nastier (and more grimly believable) source novel, but Jules Dassin’s stark, unforgiving direction, Max Greene’s oppressive monochrome cinematography and Richard Widmark’s twitchy central performance gives the movie a paranoid power all of its own. The centrepiece scene remains a staggering, emotionally draining wrestling match between avuncular old-timer Gregorius and new-fangled masked avenger The Strangler, arguably the most punishing fight ever committed to celluloid, five unforgiving minutes of sweat, muscle and dogged determination. TH

The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)

86.  The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)

Director David Lean Cast Alec Guinness, William Holden, Jack Hawkins Not even the breeze coming off his twirling moral compass can keep Alec Guinness’s stiff upper lip from wilting in the maddening Burmese heat during David Lean’s truly epic – as opposed to simply lengthy – meditation on the possibilities of humane behaviour in wartime. Guinness is otherwise in fine form as a captured British colonel overseeing Allied troops charged with assisting the Japanese war effort by building said bridge across said river. William Holden’s engaging, wiseacre American GI, on the other hand, is quite unshakeable in his belief that the war would get on quite well without him thank you very much, and spends an enviable amount of the film goosing the nurses in a Ceylon military hospital. Ultimately, both men’s attitudes are compromised to the greater good as the bridge comes crashing down in a riveting scene of unbridled catharsis. ALD

Buy, rent or watch ‘The Bridge on the River Kwai’

God's Own Country (2017)

85.  God's Own Country (2017)

Director Francis Lee

Cast Josh O’Connor, Alec Secareanu

To label Francis Lee’s feature directorial debut as Yorkshire’s answer to ‘ Brokeback Mountain ’ does the film and its actors a disservice. While both films feature the farming of sheep and two men who, while camping in the hinterland, share an intense sexual and romantic bond, the similarities end there. ‘God’s Own Country’ is more of a quiet love story that avoids melodrama for internal struggles with isolation, loneliness and the stark circumstances of hard rural lives. The inability of protagonist Johnny Saxby to open up is delivered with piercing melancholy and palpable physical frustration by Josh O’Connor. This is contrasted with Alec Secareanu’s portrayal of the thoughtful Gheorghe, who exudes a gentle sensitivity. Their unlikely love affair will melt even the most jaded of hearts. AK

Buy, rent or watch ‘God's Own Country’

Fish Tank (2009)

84.  Fish Tank (2009)

Director Andrea Arnold Cast Katie Jarvis, Kierston Wareing, Michael Fassbender Former kids’ TV presenter Andrea Arnold, 49, came to attention in 2005 when she declared live on television that it was ‘the dog’s bollocks’ to be awarded an Oscar for her short film, ‘Wasp’. Since then, she has made two features, ‘ Red Road ’ and ‘Fish Tank’, both of which triumphed at Cannes. Like ‘Red Road’, ‘Fish Tank’ intimately explores the life of one female character on a housing estate, this time potty-mouthed teen Mia (Katie Jarvis), who falls into a relationship with her mum’s new boyfriend (Michael Fassbender). The beauty of Arnold’s films lies in their poetry and brilliance at expressing interior feelings through quiet observation. Arnold was awarded an OBE at the end of 2010 and is now finishing a version of ‘Wuthering Heights’ populated by little-known actors. We suspect – and hope – that Arnold is not about to cross over to the mainstream any time soon. DC

Buy, rent or watch ‘Fish Tank’

A Cottage on Dartmoor (1929)

83.  A Cottage on Dartmoor (1929)

Director Anthony Asquith Cast Hans Adalbert von Schlettow, Uno Henning, Norah Baring  Better known for his sterling Terence Rattigan adaptations ‘The Winslow Boy’ (1948) and ‘ The Browning Version ’ (1951), Anthony Asquith’s recently re-appraised silent melodrama is totally deserving of its place on this list of best British movies and is perhaps the biggest reminder of how much the age of the DVD has allowed us better access to such hidden gems. Edited with the quick-chopping fury of a Darren Aronofsky movie, this pacy and occasionally very funny film looks at a love triangle forming at a busy barber’s shop: hairdresser Joe (Uno Henning) is madly in love with manicurist Sally (Norah Baring) but can’t quite seal the deal, a fact of which Dartmoor farmer and regular customer Harry takes full advantage. As Joe’s jealousy escalates, Asquith’s direction takes on more weird and wonderful forms, referencing silent comedy, German expressionism and Russian montage, sometimes all in the same scene. When violence erupts, it’s swift and brutal, but the film’s main pleasure is its pragmatic handling of the central romance. DJ

Buy, rent or watch ‘The Cottage on Dartmoor’

Orlando (1993)

82.  Orlando (1993)

Director Sally Potter Cast Tilda Swinton, Billy Zane, John Wood Tilda Swinton is said to be planning a collaboration with Apichatpong Weerasethakul, director of ‘ Uncle Boonmee… ’, and if the Thai dream weaver is in any doubt about casting her in one of his metaphysical opuses, he need only watch Sally Potter’s Jarmanesque time, space and gender-switching adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s 1928 novel, ‘Orlando: A Biography’. What’s clear from the off is that Swinton and Potter possess an acute understanding of the droll subtleties of the text about an immortal nobleman who leaves his stamp on various points in modern history and then transforms from man to woman. The film is not merely about the strictures of gender through the ages, but also an essay on the nature of evolution (the Godardian final shot even switches from film to video) and it scores points through knowing casting (Quentin Crisp as Queen Elizabeth I!) and production design that’s just jaw-droppingly plush for what must’ve been a modest budget. DJ

Buy, rent or watch ‘Orlando’

Dr No (1962)

81.  Dr No (1962)

Director Terence Young Cast Sean Connery, Ursula Andress, Joseph Wiseman It might look fresh today, but ‘Dr No’ must have seemed like ‘ Avatar ’ to post-war British audiences. A transgressive explosion of colour, exoticism, modernity and impetuous sex, James Bond’s first mission sees the imperious Sean Connery saunter through an overripe cocktail of Caribbean intrigue abetted by Jack ‘Hawaii Five-O’ Lord as his shifty CIA opposite number Felix Leiter and Ursula Andress as racy cockler, Honey Ryder, all of whom are variously hot under the collar for the bionic hide of Dr Julius No – major player in the Spectre spy organisation we shall become all-too familiar with in further instalments. The bad doctor is the first of many Bond supervillains to crave global domination, but when ‘Dr No’ made its million-dollar budget back 109 times over, it was immediately clear that 007 had come out on top – and would be back for more. ALD

Buy, rent or watch ‘Dr No’

80-71 Best British Movies

Under the Skin (1997)

80.  Under the Skin (1997)

Director Carine Adler Cast Samantha Morton, Claire Rushbrook, Rita Tushingham Women directed only four of our top 100 British movies, although perhaps we should celebrate that all four of those are from the last 20 years, which might suggest the gender gap in cinema is gradually closing. (When the BFI organised a similar poll in 1999, not one director on their list was a woman.) That said, the careers of two of those four directors, Lynne Ramsay and Carine Adler, have stalled in recent years and only Andrea Arnold seems able to move easily from film to film. So far Adler’s 1997 film ‘Under the Skin’ is her one and only feature, but it still remains rare for offering a female writer-director’s view on a woman’s extreme sexuality as a young Liverpudlian woman Iris (Samantha Morton) embraces promiscuity and a heightened sexual awareness as part of the grieving process in the wake of her mother’s death from cancer. Adler might not have fulfilled her promise – but this film launched Morton as one of our most bold and smart young actresses. DC

Buy, rent or watch ‘Under the Skin’

The Offence (1972)

79.  The Offence (1972)

Director Sidney Lumet Cast Sean Connery, Trevor Howard, Vivien Merchant American filmmaker Sidney Lumet brought a keen outsider’s eye to this deliriously depressing slab of British noir. Sean Connery is at his cruel, bullying best as an immoral police detective on the trail of a child molester – a mission that leads to a harrowing, tragic face-off with grateful suspect Ian Bannen and to a long, dark night of the soul in which all the horrors, mis-steps and dismembered bodies Connery has psychically stockpiled over 20 years on the force coalesce into a grisly butcher’s bill that he has no hope of meeting. The film displeased United Artists – who funded it as a thank you to Connery for wigging his way through the previous year’s ‘ Diamonds Are Forever ’, and who didn’t want 007 to be viewed as any more of a pitiless shitbag than strictly necessary – and went unreleased in many countries. But it’s outstanding quality remains undeniable. As does its capacity to unsettle. ALD

Buy, rent or watch ‘The Offence’

Billy Liar (1963)

78.  Billy Liar (1963)

Director John Schlesinger Cast Tom Courtenay, Julie Christie, Wilfred Pickles Few films exemplify the fearsome contradictions inherent in British filmmaking better than ‘Billy Liar’. Is it better to dream of a better world, or to keep both feet planted firmly in the real one? Is escapism a creative act, or an indulgence? Is social class really the thing that keeps us apart, or is it just a convenient distraction? And is London really the promised land, or just a place to ‘lose yourself’? While director John Schlesinger and writer Keith Waterhouse don’t really come up with much in the way of actual answers – perhaps there is no satisfactory solution to Billy’s dilemma – they do a superb job of asking the right questions. Tom Courtenay is unforgettable in the title role, and Julie Christie’s fleeting, flitting presence is as convincing a ‘star is born’ moment as British film has to offer. TH

Buy, rent or watch ‘Billy Liar’

Piccadilly (1929)

77.  Piccadilly (1929)

Director EA Dupont Cast Anna May Wong, Gilda Gray, Jameson Thomas One of the oldest British movies on our list is this glorious silent-era melodrama set mainly in London’s West End in the late 1920s but which takes detours to the slums of Limehouse and to the showbiz world’s less glamorous nooks and crannies. Made on the cusp of the sound era (and a ‘talkie’ prologue exists as an extra on the BFI’s recent DVD), the film has a vibrant, jazz-age energy to it that takes its cue from the dance scenes on the floor of Valentine Wilmot’s (Jameson Thomas) Piccadilly Club – where Charles Laughton has an amusing cameo as a disgruntled diner. Anna May Wong gives an empowering performance as the dancer Shosho and her first appearance, dancing on the sideboard in the club’s scullery, feels as luminous and provocative today as it surely must have in the late 1920s. For us, the film is also a thrilling imagining (almost entirely studio-shot, of course) of a long-gone city. DC

Buy, rent or watch ‘Piccadilly’

Scum (1979)

76.  Scum (1979)

Director Alan Clarke Cast  Ray Winstone, Mick Ford, Julian Firth, John Blundell There have been many movies set inside British lock-ups, ranging from grim and gritty (‘Hunger’, ‘Starred Up’) to oddly jaunty (‘The Italian Job’, ‘Paddington 2’). None of them packs quite the wallop of Alan Clarke’s hugely influential portrayal of life inside of a British borstal. A 22-year-old Ray Winstone is a revelation as Carlin, an offender who finds grimace-inducing things to do with a sock, a couple of snooker balls and his fellow inmates’s jaws. But the violence is all in service of the message, here, as Clarke sets about dismantling brutalising power structures, racism and the disinterest of officialdom in these young lives. Watch it for free here and you’ll still feel its surge of electricity.  

A Room for Romeo Brass (1999)

75.  A Room for Romeo Brass (1999)

Director Shane Meadows Cast Paddy Considine, Andrew Shim, Ben Marshall The importance of imperfection cannot be overlooked in British movies: while there’s plenty to be said for the studied slickness of Hitchcock or Lean, I’ll take the shaggy-edged, off-kilter unpredictability of ‘ A Canterbury Tale ’, ‘ Kes ’ or ‘Romeo Brass’ any day. This was Meadows’s second film, his trickiest, his loosest and perhaps his best. It marks the debut screen appearance of Paddy Considine, and though it’s easy (and probably appropriate) to refer to him as our De Niro, it took Bob five years to get to Johnny Boy, while Paddy knocked it flat first time in the ring. The edge-of-your-seat savagery of his performance, contrasted with the sweet-natured, bucolic nature of the central friendship, makes for a more honest and believable portrayal of the shift into adulthood than 100 prim and polished pretenders. TH

Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)

74.  Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)

Director Mike Newell Cast Hugh Grant, Andie MacDowell, Kristin Scott Thomas  The film that set Hugh Grant on the road towards ‘ Notting Hill ’ and a varied career as Britain’s jester of romcom. Using one of Richard Curtis’s less cheesy screenplays, director Newell fashioned a richly rewarding and funny microcosm of various relationships centred mostly around Grant’s likeable bachelor, Charles. The film benefits from a raft of well-observed moments – the subtle comedy of Rowan Atkinson’s tongue-tied vicar, for instance – yet emotions are cleverly twisted once we attend the funeral and the film’s sole serious moment. It’s this scene alone – in which John Hannah reads WH Auden’s poem ‘Funeral Blues’ – that cast the greatest influence over audiences. Emotionally honest and full of human warmth, ‘Four Weddings…’ stands out as one of the most enjoyable of British romcoms. And what’s more, it’s the only film in this list to open with the word ‘fuck!’ DA

Buy, rent or watch ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’

The Man in the White Suit (1951)

73.  The Man in the White Suit (1951)

Director Alexander Mackendrick Cast Alec Guinness, Joan Greenwood, Cecil Parker The price of progress Of all the top-rank Ealing comedies, ‘The Man in the White Suit’ is the one which least deserves the tag, partly because it’s not meant to be funny, and partly because it diverges so much from the Ealing template: it’s not set in London, it doesn’t feature wisecracking criminals, plodding bobbies or apple-cheeked tykes, and it eschews good-natured patriotism in favour of a rather cold, even misanthropic view of class-obsessed workers and short-sighted bosses. Alec Guinness’s blinkered scientist Sidney is every bit as irksome as Professor Marcus in ‘ The Ladykillers ’, but quieter, subtler and less flashy, and while gravel-throated Joan Greenwood and simpering beau Michael Gough feel like a stereotypical Ealing couple, there’s something pathetic about the way they’re so powerless to affect the course of events. The result is a genuinely unusual film: part political treatise, part social satire, even part science fiction, all building towards a magnificently unsettling climax of mob justice. TH

Buy, rent or watch ‘The Man in the White Suit’

The Long Day Closes (1992)

72.  The Long Day Closes (1992)

Director Terence Davies Cast Marjorie Yates, Leigh McCormack, Anthony Watson It’s clear Davies believes we are shaped by the movies we watch. If Fellini saw life as a circus, then Davies sees life as a cinema. Young Bud (Leigh McCormack) is his alter ego, and this is a rhapsodic scrapbook of memories from a working-class Liverpool childhood accompanied by dispatches from the wireless, popular songs and rousing classical standards. Davies rejects a linear narrative in favour of creating layers of emotion through a succession of detached scenes such as Bud’s attempts to get into a cinema and his presence at a drunken family sing-song. But first and foremost this is a film which weighs up the consolations of cinema against the consolations of religion, and – if we are to read anything into the final shot of Bud and a friend watching a film of clouds drifting by starlight as Arthur Sullivan’s song ‘The Long Day Closes’ plays in the background – cinema wins by a mile. DJ

Buy, rent or watch ‘The Long Day Closes’

Edvard Munch (1974)

71.  Edvard Munch (1974)

Director Peter Watkins Cast Geir Westby, Gro Fraas, Iselin von Hanno Bart Left-leaning director Watkins is most famous for the challenging, innovative, vérité-style docs he made in the mid-1960s for the BBC (see ‘ Culloden ’). The negative reaction to – and 20-year banning of – his exposure of the threat of nuclear war in ‘ The War Game ’ (1965) led him into self-imposed, globe-trotting exile and obscurity. Even his masterpiece, ‘Edvard Munch’ – a beautiful, heartbreaking and extraordinarily empathetic three-and-a-half hour meditation on the life and work of the Norwegian painter describing ‘the illness, insanity and death’ that pre-occupied the artist’s life – was largely unavailable for 20-or-so years. It’s surprising therefore to see a place in this poll for a hitherto neglected classic of British cinema, as well as further testament to the power and necessity of DVD revivals. WH

70-61 Best British Movies

Bad Timing (1980)

70.  Bad Timing (1980)

Director Nicolas Roeg Cast Art Garfunkel, Theresa Russell, Harvey Keitel It might have divided the critics with its disturbing notions of sexuality on its release, but ‘Bad Timing’ has grown in reputation to be counted amongst Nicolas Roeg’s best. His mastery of kaleidoscopic inter-cutting techniques – though subdued here – has never found better employment than the chronological quick-step and intersecting flashbacks he uses to reveal the psychosexual labyrinths of a fateful off/on love affair between Theresa Russell’s free-spirited boozehound and Art Garfunkel’s collected, monopolising, Malboro-smoking psychoanalyst. Set amid the icy old-world charm of Vienna, the fragmentary romantic drama builds into a hallucinatory thriller, as Harvey Keitel’s police detective – sans accent but with killer shoulder-length John the Baptist locks – begins to question Garfunkel over Russell’s abortive suicide attempt and forces us to reconsider all that’s gone before. ALD

Buy, rent or watch ‘Bad Timing’

Oliver! (1968)

69.  Oliver! (1968)

Director Carol Reed Cast Ron Moody, Shani Wallis, Oliver Reed For someone who couldn’t play a note of music, Lionel Bart sure knew how to pen a memorable ditty. ‘Consider Yourself’, ‘Got to Pick a Pocket or Two’ and the title song are all up there with the best in the musical genre. Carol Reed’s 1968 film is essentially a watered-down, family-friendly reworking of Dickens’s oft-adapted novel. But with its dark, grimy Dickensian squalor (courtesy of one of Shepperton Studios’ most authentic sets – now sadly dismantled), Oliver Reed’s memorably chilling arch crim Bill Sikes, and at least one shocking murder, the film also displayed a level of foreboding darkness capable of scaring the bejesus out of younger viewers. The rest of the casting, too, is mostly spot-on, none more so than Ron Moody’s iconically OTT performance as slimy child-gang leader, Fagin. A fabulously entertaining family musical, then, but one that, I suspect, is on this list for nostalgic value alone. DA

Buy, rent or watch ‘Oliver!’

Dead of Night (1945)

68.  Dead of Night (1945)

Directors Alberto Cavalcanti, Charles Crichton, Basil Dearden, Robert Hamer Cast Mervyn Johns, Michael Redgrave, Roland Culver   Modern audiences heading into Ealing’s portmanteau chiller keenly anticipating the film Martin Scorsese picked as the fifth scariest movie ever (and also inspired Fred Hoyle to formulate his ‘Steady State’ theory of cosmological expansion, science fans) may find themselves wondering, for a while, what all the fuss was about. The framing narrative, set in a delightful country house populated by jolly upper-crust eccentrics, is more cosy than creepy, the first three episodes – the psychic racing driver, the Victorian children’s party and the haunted mirror – while increasingly ominous, are hardly hair-raising, while the fourth is intentionally funny. So it’s upon Cavalcanti’s closing tale that the film’s reputation rests: the story of a disturbed ventriloquist – or a possessed dummy – has been done so often that one might expect the thrill to have gone. Not so – the final 15 minutes of ‘Dead of Night’ remains the pinnacle of pre-Hammer homemade horror, a truly disturbing flight into the arms of madness. TH

Buy, rent or watch ‘Dead of Night’

Whisky Galore! (1949)

67.  Whisky Galore! (1949)

Director Alexander Mackendrick Cast Basil Radford, Joan Greenwood, Jean Cadell In the post-war years, a number of films were made on both sides of the Atlantic intended to extol national virtues, restore civic pride and celebrate those values which make us who we are. But while the Yanks were busily indulging their national tendency towards flag-waving, pie-making, gingham-sewing and casual racism, we Brits were more likely to sing the praises of pastimes such as authority-baiting, petty larceny and the simple pleasure of drinking to the verge of blindness. ‘Whisky Galore’ is an unashamed celebration of alcoholism: the magic liquor greases the social machinery, gets communities communicating, even cures a bedridden geriatric of all that ails him. But it’s also a celebration of bloody-minded Britishness (or at least Scottishness) and the rebel spirit which, according to Ealing, showed Gerry what for. TH

Wonderland (1999)

66.  Wonderland (1999)

Director Michael Winterbottom Cast Gina McKee, Shirley Henderson, Molly Parker, John Simm Now into his sixties and with a brimming CV to his name, Michael Winterbottom has three films on our list – as probably befits such a gifted stalwart of British cinema and TV. This is the  versatile, Blackburn-born director’s highest-placed film, which may have something to do with just how real and recognisable Winterbottom and writer Laurence Coriat’s vision of London is as he tells of one Bonfire Night weekend in the lives of three variously troubled sisters, played by Gina McKee, Shirley Henderson and Molly Parker. The relationships and events amount to a credible portrait of modern city and family life, but it’s the intimate, improvised shooting style (16mm, natural light, all on location) and Michael Nyman’s evocative, memorable score (this often feels like a film made to music) that define this British movie and give it the sense of immediacy and compassion that make it so enduring. DC

Dracula (1958)

65.  Dracula (1958)

Director Terence Fisher Cast Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Michael Gough Hammer stalwart Fisher delivered this rum and rather gory (for the time) take on Bram Stoker’s horror classic of the battle of wills between a devilish, blood-sucking Transylvanian count and his bookish slayer. It helps that Peter Cushing as Van Helsing and Christopher Lee as Dracula are both on top scenery (and in the case of Lee, neck) chewing form, while you also watch in amazement at how they managed to make such a lavish film on the near-pittance of £81,000. Of course, you can titter at the gothic excess of the production design, how po-faced the whole enterprise is (with its lithe hotties darting around in lace negligees) and the cheapo effects, but the subtext of the story about the tragedy of addiction and the transmission of disease remains deadly serious. DJ

Buy, rent or watch ‘Dracula’

Topsy-Turvy (1999)

64.  Topsy-Turvy (1999)

Director Mike Leigh Cast Jim Broadbent, Allan Corduner, Timothy Spall Notwithstanding ‘ Naked ’ and the second half of ‘ Another Year ’, Mike Leigh’s in some ways most atypical film – it’s a period drama, with song and dance, and rather longer than usual – is also his finest. About Gilbert and Sullivan responding to withering criticism of ‘Princess Ida’ by making a comeback with ‘The Mikado’, it’s the kind of film that perhaps shouldn’t work but does – magnificently, thanks to a clutch of great performances and unshowy but precise direction, which ensures the movie succeeds on three levels: as an illuminating, partly self-reflexive meditation on the creative process; as an unusually vivid insight into just how different the world was as recently as the 1880s (all that wariness of the newfangled telephone!); and as witty, touching, utterly engrossing entertainment. GA

Buy, rent or watch ‘Topsy-Turvy’

Nuts In May (1979)

63.  Nuts In May (1979)

Director Mike Leigh Cast Roger Sloman, Alison Steadman Judging by its surprise inclusion in this poll of British movies, this second episode in Mike Leigh’s ‘Play for Today’ TV series has remained one of the director’s most fondly remembered early features. Originally broadcast in 1976, it centres on a Dorset camping trip embarked upon by bearded, anally retentive and suffocatingly authoritarian husband Keith (Roger Sloman) and his hippy-drippy, plain-Jane wife Candice-Marie (Leigh’s ex-wife Alison Steadman). Leigh’s crafty powers of societal observation are very much to the fore as we witness a gradual breakdown in relations between middle-class Keith and a noisy young fellow camper who refuses to turn his radio off. That Candice-Marie appears to be showing sympathy towards the other party only serves to inflame the situation… It’s a film of so many memorable moments – from Keith’s cringeworthy grovelling when a policeman questions the roadworthiness of his beloved Morris Minor to Candice-Marie’s hilariously lispy vegetarian folk song. DA

Buy, rent or watch ‘Nuts In May’

Deep End (1970)

62.  Deep End (1970)

Director Jerzy Skolimowski Cast Jane Asher, John Moulder-Brown, Diana Dors One of the all-time great London movies, the splendidly sleazy ‘Deep End’ definitively proves that it takes an outsider’s eye to really capture the true textures of a city. Written and directed by Polish filmmaker Jerzy Skolimowski (who cut his teeth co-writing Polanski’s masterful debut ‘ Knife in the Water ’), the film captures the sexual shenanigans of the staff and clientele of a squalid South London swimming bath. Naive teen Mike (John Moulder-Brown) is the new kid, and – amid much inappropriate bum-pinching and his near-rape by regular bather Diana Dors (who else?!) – he falls madly in love with his coquettish manager Susan (a stone-cold tour de force from Jane Asher – who else?). But from its ‘Carry On’-ish opening, the film morphs into something much more sinister, even segueing into ‘ Peeping Tom ’ territory, as Mike’s love turns to violent fixation. Plus, its ultra-seedy depiction of Soho nightlife is the sort of thing you might find nowadays in a Gaspar Noé movie. DJ

Walkabout (1971)

61.  Walkabout (1971)

Director Nicolas Roeg Cast Jenny Agutter, David Gulpilil, Lucien John As reported in the terrific 2008 Ozsploitation doc ‘ Not Quite Hollywood ’, Australian cinema in the late ’60s was non-existent. You can argue the importance of tax breaks, TV training and the burgeoning counterculture, but it’s hard not to see Roeg’s haunting Outback tragedy as a breakthrough moment. Other directors, notably Peter Weir, would refine what would come to be known as the landscape movie, but few would capture the desolate wilderness on every Aussie’s doorstep more convincingly. Remembered chiefly for Jenny Agutter’s borderline inappropriate only-just-of-age nude swim, ‘Walkabout’ possesses innumerable charms, not least David Gulpilil’s heartbreaking performance, an astonishing opening scene and of course Roeg’s ravishing photography. TH

60-51 Best British Movies

The Long Good Friday (1980)

60.  The Long Good Friday (1980)

Director John Mackenzie Cast Bob Hoskins, Helen Mirren, Derek Thompson   That electro-synth score! Bob Hoskins wandering in close-up through Heathrow! The Docklands as the future! And the actor Derek Thompson, whose movie career was stalled by 25 years of playing Charlie in ‘Casualty’! Some of it might look like old episodes of ‘Dempsey & Makepeace’, but John Mackenzie’s gangster thriller still has great energy and momentum and isn’t a patch on recent pretenders to its throne. In retrospect, it’s the location shooting, especially around the docks – post-industry but pre-development – that resonates the most, as well as writer Barrie Keefe’s capturing of the Thatcherite zeitgeist in the person of gangster Harry Shand (Hoskins), who declares ‘I’m not a politician: I’m a businessman with a sense of history, and I’m also a Londoner’ from the back of a yacht cruising under Tower Bridge. Shand’s criminal network and its involvement with the Mafia and the IRA aren’t at all believable, but Keefe’s portrait of corruption and racism among white males in the underworld, police and local government certainly is. DC

Buy, rent or watch ‘The Long Good Friday’

Blackmail (1929)

59.  Blackmail (1929)

Director Alfred Hitchcock Cast Anny Ondra, Sara Allgood, John Longden Which film do you want? The silent version or the more familiar, partly reshot movie that was Britain’s first talkie feature? It doesn’t matter that much, really, since the stylish, occasionally Langian visuals already present in the first cut are still there in the second one, though it’s fascinating to hear Hitchcock’s engagingly experimental, at times even playful approach to sound echoing the elements of expressionism to be found in some of the imagery: the scene in which Anny Ondra’s heroine, having recently stabbed a lecher in self-defence, listens in to a conversation (somewhat improbably) full of references to knives is rightly famous. But, as Tony Rayns has argued, it’s also of interest for its intriguing narrative structure, shifting from a straightforward, rather detached police procedural to something altogether more intimate and messily involving, while the set pieces also display the level of expertise Hitchcock had attained during the silent era as a manipulator of audience emotions and a showman entertainer: the British Museum climax remains a classic sequence. GA

Gregory's Girl (1981)

58.  Gregory's Girl (1981)

Director Bill Forsyth Cast John Gordon Sinclair, Dee Hepburn, Claire Grogan

Of all the British filmmakers who, flush with the success of their first few homegrown efforts, decided to go and seek their fortunes across the pond, the tale of Bill Forsyth is the most cautionary. Forsyth’s first ‘proper’ feature following the youth-theatre experiment ‘That Sinking Feeling’, ‘Gregory’s Girl’ is as flawless an example of personal cinema as this nation has to offer: witty, insightful, beautifully observed and heartbreakingly accurate, it says everything there is to say about suburban lust, adolescent romance, the pressure to fit in – truly, all of teenage life is here. The dialogue is poetic but wholly believable, the cast is note-perfect, the characterisation is broad but distinctive and the photography is simple, unfussy and real. None of which made a blind bit of difference when Forsyth tried to take Hollywood by storm and found himself on the sharp end of studio recuts with his career-ending four-year folly ‘ Being Human ’. Ignominious doesn’t begin to cover it.  TH

Buy, rent or watch ‘Gregory's Girl’

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

57.  2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

  • Science fiction

Director Stanley Kubrick Cast Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester

Okay, so the director, money and most of the cast are American, but it was shot here, dammit, so we’re claiming ‘2001’ as our own. True, the same could go for most of Hollywood’s bigger-budget ’70s and early ’80s efforts (‘Star Wars’, ‘Raiders’, ‘Aliens’…), but none of those films feel remotely British whereas, in a strange way, ‘2001’ does. Perhaps it’s the fact that Kubrick had, by this point, become an honorary Englishman, or the influence of co-writer Arthur C Clarke (himself, ironically, an ex-pat). Perhaps it’s the fact that the groundbreaking effects were, to a large extent, designed and built by British crews, or simply that the film feels so resolutely un-Hollywood in tone, structure and impact. Personally, I attribute the film’s Britishness to the roughly three-minute appearance of Leonard Rossiter: even though he’s supposedly playing a Russian scientist, with Rigsby’s arrival it feels like a little piece of northern suburbia has been transplanted to earth’s orbit.  TH

Buy, rent or watch ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’

Caravaggio (1986)

56.  Caravaggio (1986)

  • Documentaries

Director Derek Jarman Cast Nigel Terry, Sean Bean, Tilda Swinton

The late Derek Jarman took the same anachronistic liberties in depicting the life of his subject – Italian, seventeenth-century painter Caravaggio – as the painter himself did with his subjects. Little-known actor Nigel Terry is great as the violently impulsive title character, and the film comprises flashbacks over his life as he lies dying. Specific focus is given to his fraught relationships with two of his models: Sean Bean’s muscular Ranuccio Thomasoni and Tilda Swinton’s Lena. But this is no cut-and-dried biopic, as Jarman frames the drama within ornate tableaux and honours the complexity of the emotions by reining in the melodrama and telling the story through the stresses of his camera and glances of the actors. As you’d expect from a film about a painter, it’s a visual marvel made from very spare ingredients and with the help of a discerning and intelligent director.  DJ

Radio On (1980)

55.  Radio On (1980)

Director Chris Petit Cast David Beames, Lisa Kreuzer, Sandy Ratcliff

Few British movie debuts come as distinctive – or as quietly influential – as former Time Out Film editor Chris Petit’s Europhile mission statement. Not quite a road movie – England’s not large enough – Petit’s film takes the aesthetic and social imperatives of Wim Wenders’s luminous monochrome and his continental enquiries, transplanting them to the fields and motorways of southern England. A nominal plot – the strange death of a brother in Bristol – prompts a journey west from London into a place beyond narrative cinema. Utterly cinematic, powered by a startlingly resonant late ’70s soundtrack (with Bowie’s ‘Heroes’ the ironic turntable centre) and with an acute sense of transformative hybrid landscapes as equal players in the film’s unfolding sensibility, ‘Radio On’ sits, quite literally, on the precipice between a failing post-war reality and the coming abyss of Thatcherism. More relevant than ever, Petit’s essay on existential enquiry in an English setting remains critical viewing.  GE

Buy, rent or watch ‘Radio On’

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1974)

54.  Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1974)

Directors Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones Cast Graham Chapman, Michael Palin, John Cleese, Eric Idle et al

It’s a miracle this British movie got off the ground. According to interviews given on the most recent DVD release, the production of the Pythons’ first properly scripted feature was not only dogged by differences between its co-directors Terry Gilliam (who was more interested in camera positions and framing) and Terry Jones (who felt they should focus more on performances) but also by Graham Chapman’s alcoholism – he played most of his parts under the influence. But none of this matters one jot: an absurd and very loose conjoining of the Arthurian and Holy Grail legends, the film remains one of the Pythons’ most memorable piss-takes. Soused or not, Chapman is superb in his tailor-made role of a slightly effeminate King Arthur, and who could forget John Cleese’s neatly carved Black Knight (‘It’s just a flesh wound’) or his similarly hilarious abusive French guard (‘You don’t frighten us, English pig-dogs. Go and boil your bottoms, you sons of a silly person’)? Priceless.  DA

This Sporting Life (1963)

53.  This Sporting Life (1963)

Director Lindsay Anderson Cast Richard Harris, Rachel Roberts

In Lindsay Anderson’s first feature film, Richard Harris grimaces and bellows as a miner hired by his local rugby team and condescended to by the club’s management while juggling a difficult home life as the tenant of a widow and single mother. The film didn’t emerge from Tony Richardson and John Osborne’s Woodfall Films, which produced ‘ Saturday Night and Sunday Morning ’, ‘ A Taste of Honey ’ and ‘ The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner ’, but it was very much part of the same movement of filmmakers coming to drama from documentaries and theatre, and looking to represent the lives of young working-class men and women more truthfully. There’s been a backlash against these British movies in recent years (partly levelled at the public school, Oxbridge provenance of the filmmakers), but the fact that most of them ride high on this list suggests they’re still credited with initiating a new age of storytelling in British cinema, both in terms of the range, social and geographical, of subjects and a style of filmmaking that honours realism above all else.  DC

Buy, rent or watch ‘This Sporting Life’

Robinson In Space (1997)

52.  Robinson In Space (1997)

Director Patrick Keiller Cast Paul Scofield (voice)

The late actor Paul Scofield returned to lend his acerbic narration to the middle chapter of Patrick Keiller’s singular ‘Robinson’ trilogy, which began in 1994 with ‘ London ’ and was completed recently with ‘ Robinson in Ruins ’. Static, wittily composed images (vaguely reminiscent of the photography of Martin Parr) of buildings and places of natural interest are harmonised with quotations, music and discourse. Here, the dangerously inquisitive Robinson has been tasked with solving the ‘problem of England’ and takes that as his cue to circumnavigate these hallowed isles and pontificate to his heart’s content. As with ‘London’, Keiller’s Daniel Defoe-inspired script seeks to investigate the social, political and economic present by looking back at the historical and literary origins of numerous venues, which mostly include factories, dockyards and, of course, pubs. It’s ruthlessly intelligent stuff, and the conclusions are strangely prophetic.  DJ

Buy, rent or watch ‘Robinson In Space’

Local Hero (1983)

51.  Local Hero (1983)

Director Bill Forsyth Cast Burt Lancaster, Peter Riegert, Denis Lawson

Cockle-warming comedy can be a tough sell in serious film circles – note that ‘ The Ladykillers ’ and ‘ Kind Hearts and Coronets ’ made this list while the likes of ‘ Passport to Pimlico ’, ‘ The Full Monty ’ and ‘Billy Elliot ’ are nowhere to be found. But there remains a small handful of crowd-pleasers guaranteed to tickle the toes of the most hardened cynic, and ‘Local Hero’ is a prime example. Taking his inspiration from Powell and Pressburger, notably ‘ I Know Where I’m Going! ’ (see no. 26), Forsyth built on the goodwill engendered by ‘Gregory’s Girl’ to craft another tale of life’s better possibilities, not overlooking the chance of disappointment but refusing to submit to easy cynicism. The result is richly emotional without ever spilling into outright schmaltz (well, hardly ever), as what could have been a slushy tale of hugging, learning and growing is tempered with healthy (and often hilarious) sarcasm and a deep understanding of humanity’s capacity for goodness.  TH

Buy, rent or watch ‘Local Hero’

50-41 Best British Movies

Culloden (1964)

50.  Culloden (1964)

Director Peter Watkins Cast George McBean, Alan Pope, the people of Inverness

Produced as a softer option after the BBC thought his blunt atomic-age satire ‘ The War Game ’ too harrowing by half, Peter Watkins’s remarkable reproduction of the 1746 Battle of Culloden stands up as a true one-off of both TV and cinema. Initially coming across like a documentary of your average Sealed Knot weekender, the film delivers a minutely detailed chronicle of the battle via the ingenious method of modern TV news reporting: only the rank odour of the battlefield itself is missing. Grunts from both sides sound off directly to camera, political intrigues are speculated upon by the anchor, and we even get to witness the hordes of malnourished Jacobite rebels being torn apart by the power of the English musket. What’s even more interesting is that Watkins chooses to trace the legacy of the battle, patiently observing as the English army wade across the Highlands slaughtering women and children in the name of communal cleansing and retaining the authority of the British monarchy. It all looks scarily familiar.  DJ

The Souvenir (2019)

49.  The Souvenir (2019)

Director Joanna Hogg The first in a two-part cinematic memoir of rare emotional precision and ambition, Joanna Hogg’s ‘The Souvenir’ tells the semi-autobiographical story of a wannabe filmmaker’s (Honor Swinton Byrne) painful journey through film school and a toxic relationship. A snapshot of London life in Thatcher’s ’80s, it conveys both the airless suffocation of class privilege and the weightless joy of creativity through the eyes of a young woman still learning her own heart. And whether as a coming-of-age drama, a haunting love story, a filmmaking odyssey or simply a time capsule back to an era when everyone wore bad suits and smoked too much, it’s nothing short of a masterpiece.

Gallivant (1996)

48.  Gallivant (1996)

Director Andrew Kötting Cast Andrew Kötting, Eden Kötting, Gladys Morris

The incomparable Andrew Kötting – artist, filmmaker, performer – took his eight-year-old daughter Eden and 80-something grandma Gladys on a tour of the British coastline for this anarchic travelogue which turns out to be both a snapshot of the country and a self-portrait of this unlikely trio on an equally unlikely adventure. Kötting’s highly original methods of storytelling mean that ‘Gallivant’ looks nothing like most docs: he mixes formats, throws in archive footage and has much fun with the sound and picture edit. ‘He’s being silly, isn’t he? As daft as they make them,’ says Gladys of her grandson as he swims fully clothed somewhere off the coast of Scotland, having put behind them Sussex, Devon, Cornwall, Wales and the various, illuminating personalities they meet on the road. It’s rare that experimental filmmaking is this humane and enjoyable. The unique result is a work that is both formally radical and eminently accessible and entertaining.  DC

Buy, rent or watch ‘Gallivant’

Hunger (2008)

47.  Hunger (2008)

Director Steve McQueen Cast Michael Fassbender, Liam Cunningham

About as raw and unshakeable as historical dramas get, Steve McQueen’s first feature film is based on the six-week hunger strike conducted by IRA member Bobby Sands at Northern Ireland’s Maze Prison, an ordeal the artist-filmmaker had been obsessed with since childhood. McQueen immersed himself in literature about Sands’ five-year 'no wash protest', and the film presents life in the prison with detailed, near-documentary-style realism. Similarly, Michael Fassbender goes above and beyond to play Sands, dropping 40 pounds to make an already harrowing performance even more searing. It’s a remarkably assured debut for McQueen – see the unbroken, 17-minute single take between Fassbender and Liam Cunningham as a priest trying to convince him to end his strike. He’d go on to make even better films, but none quite so powerful. MS  

Blow-Up (1966)

46.  Blow-Up (1966)

Director Michelangelo Antonioni Cast David Hemmings, Vanessa Redgrave, Paul Bowles

‘Blow-Up’ sees swinging London transformed into a sprawling, alienating crime scene where brusque Notting Hill, ahem, ‘fashion’ photographer Thomas (David Hemmings) believes that while idly snapping away in a South London park, he’s captured a homicide in mid-flow. Antonioni’s attitude towards the hippy-dippy cultural revolution taking place in the city during the 1960s is ambivalent at best. When he takes us on a detour through a Yardbirds gig, it’s left to us to decide whether we’re in heaven or in hell. Yet, his film has a more cynical edge than only being about the sensations of a city. As Thomas’s grasp on his investigation becomes more tenuous, Antonioni twists his film to be about the nature of making, collecting and editing images, also suggesting that – try as we might – life is a first-hand experience that no camera can ever really capture. And to sate the cabaret set, it’s all topped off with some mimed tennis. Splendido!  DJ

Buy, rent or watch ‘Blow-Up’

The Fallen Idol (1948)

45.  The Fallen Idol (1948)

Director Carol Reed Cast Ralph Richardson, Michèle Morgan, Bobby Henrey

Given his reputation as a novelist, it’s easy to forget how major a force Graham Greene became in post-war British cinema, and how many key aspects of national life became cemented in the public consciousness as a result of his extraordinary run of work between ‘ Confidential Agent ’ in 1945 and ‘ Our Man in Havana ’ in 1959. ‘The Fallen Idol’ is primarily a film about class, which even then was nothing new. But it’s Greene’s approach to his topic which sets the film apart: by viewing the social hierarchy through a child’s eyes, the author allows us to view the matter afresh, an approach which would bear fruit again in films as diverse as ‘ The Spanish Gardener ’, ‘ The Go-Between ’ and ‘ Atonement ’. But ‘The Fallen Idol’ is the best of the bunch, and indeed one of the finest British movies about children, about the ways they can be manipulated and betrayed, their loyalties misplaced and their emotions toyed with.  TH

Buy, rent or watch ‘The Fallen Idol’

Repulsion (1965)

44.  Repulsion (1965)

Director Roman Polanski Cast Catherine Deneuve, Yvonne Furneaux

Emeric Pressburger, Karel Reisz, Joseph Losey, Stanley Kubrick… This list isn’t short of writers and directors who brought an outsider’s sensibility to British movies. The young Polish filmmaker Roman Polanski came to London to make his second film – and first in English – and cast 21-year-old Catherine Deneuve as Carole, a fragile young Belgian woman living in South Kensington with her sister and working in a local hairdressing salon. When her sibling goes away for a few days with a boyfriend, Carole’s nervousness and discomfort with men descends into full-blown paranoia, illustrated subtly by Polanski with sparing but sinister visual tricks such as cracking plaster and even hands emerging from walls. The film remains influential on both horror directors and those looking to represent mental breakdown on film (look at Darren Aronofsky’s ‘ Black Swan ’).  DC

Buy, rent or watch ‘Repulsion’

Sabotage (1936)

43.  Sabotage (1936)

Director Alfred Hitchcock Cast Oscar Homolka, Sylvia Sidney, John Loder

‘Sand! Sabotage! Deliberate! Wrecking!’ are the terse first words of Hitchcock’s atmospheric, exciting and sometimes funny, 1936 London-based suspenser, adapted from Joseph Conrad’s ‘The Secret Agent’. This tale of a bomber and saboteur (Oscar Homolka) whose terrorist activities lead his young wife (Sylvia Sidney) and brother into tragedy is full of the master’s touches. It’s moodily rendered with expressionist-tinged chiaroscuro photography by Hitchcock’s regular cameraman of the 1930s, Bernard Knowles, and was subject to a stinging review by long-time doyen of British critical circles, CA Lejeune. ‘I committed a grave error in having the bomb go off. Never repeated it!’, Hitch told the BBC in 1964. But that choice, augmented by the extraordinary and moving study in lonely isolation offered by Homolka as Verloc, helps provide the film with a stature and depth that not only impressed Hitchcock champions and  Cahiers du Cinéma  critics Eric Rohmer and Claude Chabrol in the 1950s, but ensures its place today as the third most favourite Hitchcock film in our poll.  WH

Buy, rent or watch ‘Sabotage’

Fires Were Started (1941)

42.  Fires Were Started (1941)

Director Humphrey Jennings

The documentary-maker Humphrey Jennings has been well remembered in recent years, first with a film in 2002 by Kevin Macdonald and then in 2004 with a biography by Kevin Jackson – which might explain the placing of this and his stirring ‘Listen to Britain’, both wartime films, so high on our list. A leading light of the GPO and Crown Film Units and a founder of Mass Observation, Jennings was responsible for so many of our received images of Britain during World War II. For ‘Fires Were Started’, he filmed firemen in London’s East End but devised characters for them and showed them during both the peace of day and the struggle of fighting a major fire in the docks at night. His film is a celebration of heroism, a lament for lives lost and a stoical expression of the necessary wartime maxim that life must go on. Yes, it’s propaganda – but what humane, artful propaganda it is.  DC

Witchfinder General (1968)

41.  Witchfinder General (1968)

Director Michael Reeves Cast Vincent Price, Patrick Wymark, Ian Ogilvy

The quaint English countryside acts as the backdrop for much enthusiastic sadism in this Civil War tale based very loosely on the life of Protestant zealot Matthew Hopkins and his reign of witch-burning terror in East Anglia’s badlands. While we can only imagine the pleasure of watching original choice Donald Pleasance as the sexually repressed misogynist Hopkins, Vincent Price makes a horribly effective substitute, lisping biblical lore to the screams of his victims on the rack and at the stake. The real star, though, is the textured, bleak cinematography of John Colquillon (who later shot ‘ Straw Dogs ’), which lends an eerie, tripped-out detachment to the pitiless violence and casts the landscape as a timeless witness to casual horror. Despite its camp reputation, ‘Witchfinder’ is grimmer and more effective than many of its costumed contemporaries and fully deserved both the revulsion it attracted at its initial release and the rehabilitation as a classic it has enjoyed since.  PF

Buy, rent or watch ‘Witchfinder General’

40-31 Best British Movies

Ratcatcher (1999)

40.  Ratcatcher (1999)

Director Lynne Ramsay Cast William Eadie, Tommy Flanagan, Mandy Matthews

As debut features go, this one rubs shoulders with the likes of Terrence Malick’s ‘ Badlands ’, Charles Burnett’s ‘ Killer of Sheep ’ and Terence Davies’s ‘ Distant Voices, Still Lives ’ for the sublime fluency of its technique and conviction in the belief that a film doesn’t need a beginning, middle and end to be meaningful, dramatic and poetic. Following on from a trio of shorts, director Lynne Ramsay revisited her birthplace of Glasgow to deliver an account of innocence and experience, love and death during a dustmen’s strike in the early 1970s . The pranks of monosyllabic scamp James (William Eadie) form the core of the film, and we eventually learn that James wants nothing more than to abandon the squalor of the city and move to a new housing project next to a cornfield in which he can frolic. Ramsay asks, ‘Do you know where your kids are?’, but she doesn’t forget that it is possible to be socially responsible and artistically audacious at the same time.  DJ

London (1994)

39.  London (1994)

If you didn't know Patrick Keiller's smartly rambling, tricksy walking tour of our city from 1994, you might think that his title was pompous or presumptive. But his film is anything but as he gives us a fictional, unseen narrator, Robinson (voiced by Paul Scofield), who takes us on a tour of London, known and less known, grand and grotty, around the time of the film’s making, taking in such references as the 1992 general election and the IRA bomb at Bishopsgate in 1993. Cinematic psychogeography, you might call it, but that’s a bit, well, pompous for a film that is endlessly self-mocking, witty and perceptive. If only British cinema produced more such films that dance merrily on the border between fact and fiction – but, then, again, Keiller’s film – the first in a trilogy – is so unique in tone that imitators would easily be caught out.  DC

Buy, rent or watch ‘London’

Went the Day Well? (1942)

38.  Went the Day Well? (1942)

Director Alberto Cavalcanti Cast Leslie Banks, Elizabeth Allan, Frank Lawton

What if, right, the Hun were on the cusp of clinching victory in Europe, and all that stood between your average, flat-capped English patriot and the swift introduction of sauerkraut to the national menu was the collective muscle of a close-knit countryside community? Well, that’s ‘Went the Day Well?’ in a nutshell. It’s a droll, Ealing-made World War II propaganda film that also happens to be a ridiculously taut suspense thriller about how the denizens of the fictional Bramley End put aside their differences and foil a Nazi plot to capture Britain, sometimes even sacrificing life and limb by diving on live grenades and going on ad hoc axe rampages. And if that isn’t enough, it also contains the single greatest dialogue exchange in this entire list, as the well-to-do Mrs Fraser asks Cockney urchin George, ‘Do you know what morale is?’ to which he replies, ‘Yeah, it’s summink what the wops ain’t got.’  DJ

Buy, rent or watch ‘Went the Day Well?’

It Always Rains on Sunday (1947)

37.  It Always Rains on Sunday (1947)

Director Robert Hamer Cast Googie Withers, Edward Chapman, John McCallum

You’ll find Robert Hamer’s ‘ Kind Hearts and Coronets ’, also from Ealing Studios, higher up our list, but two years earlier he made this lesser-known gem which manages to pull off the trick of being both a credible snapshot of post-war East End life and an effective noir thriller as it unfolds over one Sunday in 1947. The plot – a Bethnal Green mother and housewife (Googie Withers) hides an on-the-run con and ex-lover (John McCallum) in her busy home – allows us intimate access to a working-class home. We witness its routines, rituals and relationships, while at the same time we’re hooked in by the suspense of the crime element of the story and the threat of a dangerous romance in contrast to the drabness of lives defined by rationing and duties. There’s the odd over-fruity line or performance, but a stunning final night-time chase sequence in a railway depot more than compensates.  DC

Buy, rent or watch ‘It Always Rains on Sunday’

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962)

36.  The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962)

Director Tony Richardson Cast Tom Courtenay, James Bolam, Julia Foster

As with its French equivalents, much of the British New Wave looks horribly dated in a modern context: all that light jazz, casual romantic disaffection and overeager jump-cutting doesn’t really wash with contemporary audiences. But what’s beyond criticism is the commitment to emotional veracity which fuelled films like ‘The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner’. So while the timeworn clichés of the kitchen sink remain intact – grubby class warfare, county-hopping pseudo-Northern accents, the God’s-eye shot of ‘our town from that hill’ – the film is anchored in Tom Courtenay’s remarkable, remorseless performance as the eponymous runner Colin, torn between selfishness and sacrifice, class loyalty and commercial gain, impossible victory and inevitable surrender.  TH

Buy, rent or watch ‘The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner’

The Servant (1963)

35.  The Servant (1963)

Director Joseph Losey Cast James Fox, Dirk Bogarde, Sarah Miles, Wendy Craig

Two films by the American exile Joseph Losey have made our list, and few would argue that this chilling domestic two-hander from 1963 is his most enduring. It’s Harold Pinter’s tense, subtle script, adapted from a Robin Maugham novel, which gives life to the story of an aristocratic bachelor, Tony (James Fox), who hires a servant, Hugo (Dirk Bogarde), whose machinations, including moving in his girlfriend (masquerading as his sister) as a maid, wear down Tony so that their hierarchical roles blur and mutate. In other hands, this would be a mildly interesting thriller, but Pinter’s sharp characterisations and unspoken suggestions, along with Losey’s full, slavering embrace of the potentials of Tony’s grand Chelsea home, make this a more open, suggestive work, offering ideas to do with class, power and sexuality. The actors are tremendous. For Bogarde, it built on his daring turn in ‘ Victim ’. For Fox, it was a rehearsal for his similarly shape-shifting role in ‘ Performance ’.  DC

Buy, rent or watch ‘The Servant’

A Clockwork Orange (1971)

34.  A Clockwork Orange (1971)

Director Stanley Kubrick Cast Malcolm McDowell, Patrick Magee, Michael Bates

Swap Beethoven for heroin, and Stanley Kubrick’s scandalous 1971 Moog-mare based on Anthony Burgess’s novel might work as a forerunner to ‘ Trainspotting ’. It presents the wayward travails of Little Alex (Malcolm McDowell) a tearaway who likes nothing more than a bit of the old ultra-violence. But after a bungled break-in where he is abandoned by his band of cock-nosed droogs, he is packed off to a hospital to be ‘cured’. The style of filmmaking is at once clinically precise and imaginatively loose. This is down to the multitude of tricks that Kubrick hoists in (slo-mo, fast-forward, cartoon inserts, back projection) to encapsulate the total autonomy these characters have and why they see their behaviour as thrilling. The violence is plentiful and invites a mixture of revulsion and amusement, not least because it is usually overlaid by Walter Carlos’s mad reinterpretations of classical standards. Does it stand up psychologically? Probably not. But as an example of a work in which the filmmaking style matches the tone of the material, it’s peerless.  DJ

Buy, rent or watch ‘A Clockwork Orange’

Secrets & Lies (1996)

33.  Secrets & Lies (1996)

Director Mike Leigh Cast Brenda Blethyn, Timothy Spall, Marianne Jean-Baptiste

‘ Naked ’ proved to many that Mike Leigh was a filmmaker who would continue to surprise well into and beyond his third decade of filmmaking – but ‘Secrets and Lies’ proved the same to everyone else when it won the Palme d’Or and Best Actress prizes at Cannes and was nominated for five Oscars. The story of an adopted, professional black British woman (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) who tracks down her white, working-class birth mother (Brenda Blethyn) came with its own themes and ideas. But it also allowed Leigh to refine interests he had been exploring for years, such as the relationships between parents and kids, the love and antagonism of siblings and our awkward relationships to material wealth. Ultimately, it’s about the power – and destructiveness – of the unspoken, and a climactic barbecue scene, in which Timothy Spall breaks the silence and gives one of the best performances of his career, is both heartbreaking and liberating, for the characters and for us.  DC

Buy, rent or watch ‘Secrets & Lies’

Get Carter (1971)

32.  Get Carter (1971)

Director Mike Hodges Cast Michael Caine, Britt Ekland, John Osborne

Its overfamiliar poster, score and lazy stylistic appropriation by glossy lads’ mags may make the very idea of ‘Get Carter’ something of a chore, but once the train starts rolling, there’s simply no getting off. A cold, impossibly grimy film, ‘Get Carter’ is a ‘ Third Man ’ for the three-day week generation that drags you through the sulphurous backrooms of hell. Michael Caine’s frosty Lahndahn gangster uncovers layer upon layer of villainy as he travels to Newcastle to investigate his brother’s death, but the details – and, for many, the plot – are secondary to the air of desperation, squalor and complicity. ‘The greatest decade in the history of mankind is over and… we have failed to paint it black,’ might well have been the mantra in Ladbroke Grove and Camden Town , but ‘Get Carter’ presents the more desolate reality of those for whom the swinging ’60s were something that happened to other people and a grim, forlorn post-war mindset remained the pervading norm.  ALD

Buy, rent or watch ‘Get Carter’

The Lady Vanishes (1938)

31.  The Lady Vanishes (1938)

Director Alfred Hitchcock Cast Margaret Lockwood, Michael Redgrave

Some argue that Hitchcock made his greatest works in the US, but the presence of four of his British movies on our list suggests that not everybody holds that view – or at least that his earlier work is still held in very high regard. ‘The Lady Vanishes’ builds on the mysterious, on-the-run mood of the earlier, more well-known ‘ The 39 Steps ’ (1935), but its 1938 date, mittel-European setting on a train from an Alpine location and well-integrated political nods slyly tie it to debates over appeasement and engagement. That said, it’s first and foremost a suspenseful thriller as a little old lady, Miss Froy, disappears on a train and everyone bar a young man and woman (Michael Redgrave and Margaret Lockwood) proceed to deny she exists. It’s very funny, and it's ridiculous but masterly twists and turns are made doubly fun by a colourful cast of characters including a nun, a surgeon and a pair of cricket-loving bounders.  DC

Buy, rent or watch ‘The Lady Vanishes’

30-21 Best British Movies

The Ladykillers (1955)

30.  The Ladykillers (1955)

Director Alexander Mackendrick Cast Alec Guinness, Peter Sellers, Katie Johnson

Small wonder this classic Ealing crime caper remains a mainstay of so many film polls. The casting and performances, for a start, are brilliantly sharp. As is Ealing writer William Rose’s finely wrought script: five caricatured criminals (Alec Guinness, Peter Sellers, Herbert Lom, Cecil Parker and Danny Green) masquerading as a group of classical musicians arrive at the King’s Cross home of a dear little old lady (Katie Johnson, who won a Bafta for her pitch-perfect performance) and enquire whether they might rent a few rooms – while they surreptitiously plot an audacious railway robbery. The set-up paves the way for a wonderful series of amusing dialogues between the old biddy and the ‘quintet’ whose pretence she never twigs until the final comically violent frames. Guinness and Lom are the standouts; both look as if they’d strayed in from a Hammer production. Unforgettable.  DA

Buy, rent or watch ‘The Ladykillers’

Peeping Tom (1960)

29.  Peeping Tom (1960)

Director Michael Powell Cast Karl Böhm, Anna Massey, Maxine Audley

Michael Powell stabbed so Alfred Hitchcock could slash. Released months prior to Psycho , this Technicolor horror show traversed similarly transgressive terrain, following the exploits of a serial killer who murders women using a dagger affixed to the end of a camera, and in some ways primed audiences for the audacities Hitch was about to unleash on the world. Another way to look at it is that Powell took the fall. While Psycho further burnished Hitchcock’s legend, Peeping Tom just about ruined Powell’s reputation; he never made another film in Britain. It would take decades for the movie to get its due as a taboo-smashing piece of psychological horror – but as an indictment of a voyeuristic society, its prescience has only grown in the internet age. MS    

Buy, rent or watch ‘Peeping Tom’

The Wicker Man (1973)

28.  The Wicker Man (1973)

Director Robin Hardy Cast Edward Woodward, Christopher Lee, Britt Ekland

The pagan folk revival of the late 1960s and early ’70s was easy to express in music: all you needed was a cape, beard, acoustic guitar and a crumhorn player in winklepickers. In film, it was a different matter: what sane production company was likely to shell out thousands for tales of earth-worship and mystic rites, especially when the target audience was a) notoriously cash-strapped and b) largely confined to rambling country cottages miles from the nearest picture palace? To be fair, Robin Hardy did his best to make ‘The Wicker Man’ a commercial prospect, roping in Hammer legends Christopher Lee and Ingrid Pitt, TV icon Edward Woodward and tabloid eye candy Britt Ekland to help pull in the punters. That the resulting film was still compulsively weird, highly atmospheric and a total financial disaster is a testament to Hardy’s misjudgment of the marketplace. That its rediscovery continues to gather pace almost four decades later is a testament to his skill as a filmmaker.  TH

Buy, rent or watch ‘The Wickerman’

Bill Douglas Trilogy: My Childhood (1972), My Ain Folk (1973) and My Way Home (1978)

27.  Bill Douglas Trilogy: My Childhood (1972), My Ain Folk (1973) and My Way Home (1978)

Director Bill Douglas Cast Stephen Archibald, Hughie Restorick, Jean Taylor-Smith

It would be easy to dismiss ‘My Childhood’ (1972), ‘My Ain Folk’ (1973) and ‘My Way Home’ (1978) – the trilogy of short-ish films made by the late Scottish director Bill Douglas – as textbook examples of the glum social realism that so often besmirches the name of British cinema. These films capture a rare poetry in their depiction of wayward youth, the death of industry and the small, diligent ways in which the downtrodden are able to retain hope and ward off constant darkness. Set during the 1940s in Douglas’s own birthplace (the dead-end mining town of Newcraighall) the emotional focal point of these films is Jamie (Stephen Archibald), an inquisitive, defensive young scamp whose day-to-day existence is a fight for survival and friendship. Filmed with great care and precision in piercing monochrome and with barely any dialogue to drown out the intense expressiveness of the people and the landscapes captured on camera, Douglas has often been cited as Britain’s answer to France’s Robert Bresson. It’s an accolade that makes total sense.  DJ

I Know Where I'm Going! (1945)

26.  I Know Where I'm Going! (1945)

Directors Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger Cast Wendy Hiller, Roger Livesey

‘Will you do something for me before I go away? I want you to kiss me!’ It might be Joan Webster’s (Wendy Hiller) first unplanned move in all of Powell and Pressburger’s film, a witty and characteristically eccentric romance filmed largely in the Western Isles of Scotland about a headstrong young woman who heads north from London to a remote island to marry a wealthy man she barely knows. It’s not just a physical journey for Joan, but a spiritual one, as P&P maroon their heroine on a neighbouring island where she must wait until the weather dies down before continuing her trip. By the time Joan is battling a storm and a whirlpool in a tiny boat, her ‘heart of stone’, as one islander calls it, is finally cracking and she’s woken up to a less material and more honest world represented by the Scottish folk – including Roger Livesey’s local sailor – she meets, a world the filmmakers are happy to celebrate in a fashion that’s unsentimental but still stirring.  DC

Great Expectations (1946)

25.  Great Expectations (1946)

Director David Lean Cast John Mills, Valerie Hobson, Martita Hunt

The chocolate-box social politics and borderline anti-semitism of David Lean’s other Dickens adaptation ‘Oliver Twist’ hasn’t worn so well in the new millennium, but there are no such drawbacks with ‘Great Expectations’. This is a film so deeply ingrained in the national psyche and so widely referenced in popular culture that seeing it for the first time feels like a nostalgic experience, albeit a slightly discomfiting one: for all the film’s rosy-cheeked, aspirational cheer, the dark undercurrents of the novel are never ignored. The way Lean weaves elements of Universal horror and film noir into his depiction of nineteenth-century London is breathtaking, and his treatment of Miss Havisham as a giant time-ravaged spider-queen wrapped in a crumbling web of dust and rotting lace finds unexpected echoes in everything from ‘ Psycho ’ to ‘ Aliens ’.  TH

Buy, rent or watch ‘Great Expectations’

Brazil (1985)

24.  Brazil (1985)

Director Terry Gilliam Cast Jonathan Pryce, Robert De Niro, Katherine Helmond

Thank God for Universal Studios. Not only did they finance Terry Gilliam’s one and only undisputed masterpiece, but thanks to the machinations of short-sighted studio supremo Sid Sheinberg, who ordered a re-cut, they managed to ensure that ‘Brazil’ became a critical cause célèbre and cult classic, with Gilliam the poster child for the battle between art and commerce. The film would have endured either way, but its abject failure might have brought Gilliam’s career to a juddering halt sooner than it otherwise did. Grim, confusing and scattergun it may be, but ‘Brazil’ is a film rich in deep and diverse pleasures, many of them uniquely British: Jonathan Pryce’s nervy, utterly isolated performance, cameos from the likes of Ian Holm, Bob Hoskins, Jim Broadbent, Michael Palin, Simon Jones and Gordon Kaye, the oppressively beautiful, wholly London-ish architecture, and a pervasive, post-war, proletarian sense of utter helplessness and bureaucratic desperation from which the only escape is sweet oblivion.  TH

Buy, rent or watch ‘Brazil’

Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

23.  Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

Director David Lean Cast Peter O’Toole, Omar Sharif, Alec Guinness

At the time of its release in 1962, David Lean’s desert epic dwarfed the oppostition both in length (228 minutes) and breadth. But what is it about this particular film that springs mostly to mind when composing, from memory alone, one’s favourite list of British movies? There’s the exoticism of its unique Saharan locations; Maurice Jarre’s stirringly melodious string-laden score; and, above all, the undeniable quality of Freddie Young’s cinematography. Indeed, that single shot of Omar Sharif’s extraordinarily slow emergence through the distant haze of the desert sun remains one of cinema’s singularly most striking and iconic moments. And you’ve got to hand it to Peter O’Toole; he plays the role of TE Lawrence – a British Army liaison officer during the Arab v Turkish revolt of 1916 – with gusto.  DA

Buy, rent or watch ‘Lawrence of Arabia’

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960)

22.  Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960)

Director Karel Reisz Cast Albert Finney, Rachel Roberts, Shirley Anne Field

This is a man’s world

Forging the template for films about swarthy, unreconstructed men whose only solace can be found in the bottom of a pint glass, Karel Reisz’s raucous and relevant 1960 character study showed the lengths that the young, disenfranchised working-class stiff would go to shirk the responsibilities of adulthood. Based on the first novel by ‘Angry Young Man’ author Alan Sillitoe, (who also wrote ‘ The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner ’), the film gave Albert Finney his big break as the hard-drinking, hard-smoking and hard-loving Arthur Seaton, a nihilistic machine worker in Nottingham who habitually funnels his modest wage packet on pleasures of the flesh. Finney’s all-pistons-firing lead performance is note-perfect, and props still go to him for making us empathise with Arthur’s naivety rather than being alienated by his bravado and the fact that he’s, well, a bit of a shit. Makes a lovely double with ‘ Billy Liar ’, only Billy never got duffed up by squaddies. Alas…  DJ

Buy, rent or watch ‘Saturday Night and Sunday Morning’

Nil by Mouth (1997)

21.  Nil by Mouth (1997)

Director Gary Oldman Cast Kathy Burke, Ray Winstone

What a pity Gary Oldman has never been able to fulfil his dream of following up this, his directorial debut! However fine many of his performances had been, both the writing and the direction of this deservedly acclaimed British movie displayed considerably more than great promise. ‘Nil by Mouth’ remains, even now, one of the most painfully honest and eloquent studies of a kind of London working-class life. Often erroneously described as ‘autobiographical’, the film’s astute portrait of macho violence, alcoholic excess, drug addiction and petty criminality nevertheless benefitted from Oldman’s proximity to such behaviour in his early years, and that, coupled with a style partly inspired by Cassavetes, makes for a movie as riveting in its raw, nocturnal ‘realism’ as it is unsentimental in its humanity and dark humour. It won Kathy Burke a Cannes prize, revived Ray Winstone’s fortunes and kickstarted the acting career of the director’s sister (under the pseudonym of Laila Morse).  GA

20-11 Best British Movies

Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979)

20.  Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979)

Director Terry Jones Cast Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Michael Palin, Eric Idle et al

One of the strangest but most welcome side effects of great comedy is the way it crystallises ideas, bringing concepts previously vague and inexpressible into the public consciousness. How long into a chat about the splintering of political pressure groups before someone mentions the People’s Front of Judea? When talking about the impossibility of a successful military occupation, how long before someone mentions what the Romans did for us? When discussing religion in general, and cults in particular, how long before someone pipes up, ‘Yes, we’re all individuals?' The controversy may have faded, but three decades on, ‘Life of Brian’ still dominates our perceptions of organised religion (and organised resistance) and their many obfuscations, untruths and double standards in a way that is not just remarkable, but extremely heartwarming.  TH

Barry Lyndon (1975)

19.  Barry Lyndon (1975)

Director Stanley Kubrick Cast Ryan O'Neal, Marisa Berenson, Patrick Magee

Is it a surprise that Stanley Kubrick’s ‘Barry Lyndon’ (1975) should beat off ‘A Clockwork Orange’ (1971) and ‘2 001: A Space Odyssey ’ (1968) in our poll for the best-loved British Kubrick? The 1976 Academy showered Kubrick’s painstaking, candlelit version of Thackeray’s 1844 novel of a scoundrel Irish soldier’s picaresque adventures with Oscars for Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design and Best Music. Despite those garlands, however, it was a relative failure at the time – notably in the US, albeit a hit with the discerning Parisians – and by the mid-1980s, its reputation had further declined: our own film editor, Chris Peachment, was not alone when he described it as ‘a triumph of technique over any human content’ and ‘an array of waxwork figures against lavish backdrops’. But what technique; what waxworks; and what backdrops there are in this $11million, three-hour epic, shot over an impossible eight months. ‘“Barry Lyndon” is a story which does not depend upon surprise,’ Kubrick told Michel Ciment in one of his rare interviews, nailing the film’s re-found appeal. ‘What is important is not what is going to happen, but how it will happen. I think Thackeray trades off the advantage of surprise to gain a greater sense of inevitability and a better integration of what might otherwise seem melodramatic or contrived.’ Likewise, as time goes by, Kubrick’s own contrivances – the technical obsessions, the outwardly puppet-like performances, Ryan O’Neal’s seemingly endless wanderings, adventures and increasingly futile ambitions – have themselves fallen away to reveal something quite extraordinary: the shape of a life, a human’s rise and fall, rendered as an epic, mesmeric, suffusing slow dance of immersive cinema – and therefore, not only Kubrick’s most beautiful but also his most empathetic and understanding work.  WH

Buy, rent or watch ‘Barry Lyndon’

The Innocents (1961)

18.  The Innocents (1961)

Director Jack Clayton Cast Deborah Kerr, Michael Redgrave

This superior ghost story is an adaptation of Henry James’s novella ‘The Turn of the Screw’ that still manages to feel more subtle and inventive than the vast majority of spooky pretenders that came in its wake. The story sees Miss Giddens (Deborah Kerr) become governess to two children who live in a sprawling country pile and are the wards of an absent uncle (Michael Redgrave) who lives in London. As Miss Giddens spots ghosts and becomes convinced of the kids’ malevolence, it’s the ambiguity of both the story and film that impress. Is Miss Giddens mad? Are there ghosts? Are both things true, even? If you list a lot of the film’s more creepy tics – sweet but demonic children; ghostly visions; a music-box score; stuffed animals; a scary attic – they now sound like clichés, but the film still works fantastically well as a supernatural-cum-psychological chiller and most obviously feels like a template for Polanski’s ‘ Repulsion ’, ‘ Rosemary’s Baby ’ and even ‘ The Tenant ’.  DC

A Canterbury Tale (1944)

17.  A Canterbury Tale (1944)

Directors Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger Cast Eric Portman, Sheila Sim, John Sweet, Dennis Price

For many, this light-fingered take on Chaucer’s infamous tome will always be Powell and Pressburger’s great work. It’s possibly the film of theirs which touches most poignantly on what it means to live and what it means to be living in England. Amusing, tragic, inquisitive and profoundly poetic, on the surface it’s a World War Two-set shaggy dog story of three unlikely compatriots – a British sergeant, an American GI and a Land Girl – who are thrown together in the sleepy, fictitious town of Chillingbourne which sits on the rail link to Canterbury. No sooner have they disembarked from the train than one of their number is stung by a night-time prowler who’s getting his jollies by putting glue in women’s hair (and no, this isn’t a foresight into ‘ Peeping Tom ’). Their hokey investigation to locate the scoundrel acts as the narrative through-line with which Powell and Pressburger hang a gorgeous, panoramic vision of an England steeped in history, tradition and eccentric, downhome custom. It also takes a comic look at the cultural divisions between America and Britain and the need to bridge that divide for the common good. A heady, almost surreal climax in Canterbury, where the three pals part ways and find comfort in friends, music and memory, is tremendously moving, not least because we also discover the reason why they were all there in the first place.  DJ

Buy, rent or watch ‘A Canterbury Tale’

Black Narcissus (1947)

16.  Black Narcissus (1947)

Directors Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger Cast Deborah Kerr, Sabu, David Farrar

All those prissy critics outraged by Powell’s shift into voyeuristic overkill with ‘ Peeping Tom ’ should have done their homework: from the perverted ‘glue man’ and his ‘sticky stuff’ in ‘ A Canterbury Tale ’ through the abusive, alcoholic anti-romance of ‘ The Small Back Room ’, his films are rife with suppressed deviance and sexual panic, none more so than this unsettling adaptation of Rumer Godden’s nuns-in-peril novel ‘Black Narcissus’. All The Archers’ best work resisted categorisation, and this might be the pinnacle of their tendency for audience-baiting idiosyncracy: set in Darjeeling but shot in West Sussex, the film seems as far out of time as it does out of place, eschewing genre (is it romance? Period drama? Horror? Social satire?) in favour of pure atmosphere and an unparalleled sense of mounting hysteria. Deborah Kerr’s career-best performance is just the icing on the Himalaya.  TH

Buy, rent or watch ‘Black Narcissus’

Withnail & I (1987)

15.  Withnail & I (1987)

Director Bruce Robinson Cast Richard E Grant, Paul McGann, Richard Griffiths

Arguably, three years ago writer-director Bruce Robinson’s riotous black comedy – describing the misadventures of two recent ex-students/‘resting’ young actors in an unwelcoming north London – would have pipped ‘ Kind Hearts and Coronets ’ as the highest, rather than the second-highest-rated British comedy in our poll. At that point, the ‘Withnail & I’ fan club was at its bibulous height, with its ardent admirers, word-perfect in Robinson’s semi-autobiographical script, meeting in Camden pubs to swap quotes and play the DVD-extra drinking games (though, more properly, they should have frequented tea shops, demanding ‘the finest wines available to humanity!’). At auction, Withnail’s ragged Harris check coat went to Chris Evans for £8,000 and the leather worn by Marwood – for he is ‘I’ – was bought by Danny Baker. In 2000, Total Film readers voted it the third-best comedy of all time. That said, ‘Withnail & I’ was no instant success: it managed a paltry three-week run on its opening and, including its 2007 UK Film Council remastered re-release, has only grossed £1.5million in British cinemas. Robinson has said the film’s mid-1980s production for Handmade Films almost made him as penurious as his hero: having to provide £30,000 of his own cash to film Richard E Grant and Paul McGann on their fateful trip in their clapped-out Jaguar MK2 to the Lake District. But if, initially, ‘Withnail & I’ was a cult success, built up on video and DVD viewing, our poll shows it now has a solid place in British viewers’ hearts; its inspirationally funny script, spot-on performances and evocative soundtrack helping to combine a gloriously mocking elegy for Britain’s supposedly Swingin’ Sixties with a moving, bittersweet distillation of personal memory and of friendship recalled.  WH

Buy, rent or watch ‘Withnail & I’

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)

14.  The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)

Directors Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger Cast Roger Livesey, Deborah Kerr

Two things are well known about Powell and Pressburger’s 1943 epic about the life of an old-fashioned ex-army officer serving in the Home Guard during World War II: Churchill disliked the whole idea of it, and may have thought it was about him, and the Blimp character, over-fed and irascible, was inspired by David Low’s cartoon character of the same name in the Evening Standard. The reality is that ‘Colonel Blimp’ is a much more wise, surprising and measured film than either of these things suggest. It’s a film about the unknowability of others, the complexity of lives, the power of time on our character and the influence of history on our behaviour. It has the depth and sweep of a novel, while remaining wonderfully cinematic (think of the duel in Berlin, the snappy montage of animal heads on Blimp’s wall, the desolate battle scenes…). At the time of its release at the height of war, it was also very bold in trying to counter some myths about history and give colour to black-and-white prejudices (not least about Germany and Germans). The trick and power of Powell and Pressburger’s film is that, by first giving us the Blimp we expect – loud, angry, stuck in his ways – and then flashing back and recounting events in his life from 1902 to 1943, including a lifelong friendship with a German officer, a lost love and time spent serving in three wars, they give us an entirely different character: a complex, rounded and sympathetic man. Blimp may not be us, and we may not even like him – but by the end we know and understand him, and that’s the brilliance of Powell and Pressburger’s work.  DC

Buy, rent or watch ‘The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp’

The 39 Steps (1935)

13.  The 39 Steps (1935)

Director Alfred Hitchcock Cast Robert Donat, Madeleine Carroll, Godfrey Tearle

For this writer, Hitchcock’s adaptation of John Buchan’s novel is not only his very finest British movie – for suspense, pace, wit, vivid characterisation, atmosphere and virtuoso set-pieces it even outdoes the brilliant ‘ The Lady Vanishes ’ – but the warmest, most affecting movie of his career. It’s not just that Robert Donat’s Hannay is one of his most sympathetic protagonists (compare him to that other innocent-on-the-run, Cary Grant’s complacent Roger O – ‘for nothing’ – Thornhill in ‘ North by Northwest ’), nor that Donat and Madeleine Carroll, for all their initial sparring, finally make such a lovely couple. No, the entire film is packed with touching moments, from the affectionate depiction of banter between members of the music hall audience at the film’s beginning to the unexpectedly touching moment of Mr Memory’s death at the Palladium, when his brief dialogue with Hannay deftly suggests the men’s mutual respect. In between, there’s the strangely courageous death of the otherwise absurdly exotic female ‘agent’, the cosy, understanding matrimonial love of the Scottish innkeeper for her more innocent husband, and even the steadfast loyalty shown by the villainous Scottish spymaster’s spouse. Most heartbreaking of all, however, are the brief but unforgettable scenes at the crofter’s cottage, where Hannay’s talk of London and perfectly sincere compliments afford the young wife (Peggy Ashcroft) a tantalising glimpse of a far happier life than the one she faces with her mean, brutish husband (John Laurie). These few minutes include some of the subtlest acting to be found in Hitchcock’s oeuvre, not to mention an emotional depth and delicacy he never again quite managed to attain.  GA

Buy, rent or watch ‘The 39 Steps’

Brief Encounter (1945)

12.  Brief Encounter (1945)

Director David Lean Cast Trevor Howard, Celia Johnson

Few British movies divide opinion like ‘Brief Encounter’. Many view the film as cold, heartless, too stiff-lipped to be truly moving (check the current Time Out review by Dave Calhoun for evidence). But without wishing to cause offence to my esteemed colleagues, they’re dead wrong. Because for those willing to chip through the ice-shelf, there’s a raging emotional torrent waiting to sweep them away. And it’s not as though Lean is celebrating these characters’ inability to communicate, to break through their social strictures and live real lives. ‘Brief Encounter’ is a tragedy, not just for two mismatched lovers but for an entire class of people, trapped in empty suburban existences ruled by propriety and that desperate, heartbreaking, terribly British desire to remain anonymous, to avoid offence, to blend in. And therein lies the film’s extraordinary power, because despite the miles and the decades which lie between, that’s still us up there on the screen.  TH

Buy, rent or watch ‘Brief Encounter’

Naked (1993)

11.  Naked (1993)

Director Mike Leigh Cast David Thewlis, Lesley Sharp, Karin Cartlidge

From its initial release, it was clear that ‘Naked’, which is Mike Leigh’s highest-ranked film on our chart of best British movies, was destined to appear on lists like this for years to come. And yet, of all the films in the higher echelons of this list, it might be the most flawed and difficult. There are at least three performances in ‘Naked’ – Katrin Cartlidge as the bruised Sophie, Claire Skinner as shrieking Sandra and Greg Cruttwell as vicious yuppie psycho Jeremy – whose tone threatens to derail the film. And yet, despite these wobbles, ‘Naked’ is a masterpiece and perhaps Leigh’s best film to date, or at least the one which most appeals to his sceptics. Certainly, at the time it marked a departure for Leigh into more mythical, less domestic territory, and in retrospect marked a new maturity in his filmmaking. Set in a seedy, strip-lit London populated almost exclusively by predators and prey, this is the one film in which Leigh drops the idea that life is sweet: his characters are mostly either cruel or pathetic, and drifting above them all – or crawling beneath – is David Thewlis’s Johnny, the derisive observer of everyone else’s flaws who can’t bear to deal with his own. A moustachioed Mancunian angel of death with a mouth like a Salford sewer and a mind teeming with useless information, Thewlis guarantees the film’s central place in our cultural pantheon for another century at least.  TH

Top 10 Best British Movies

Trainspotting (1996)

10.  Trainspotting (1996)

Director Danny Boyle Cast Ewan McGregor, Robert Carlyle, Jonny Lee Miller

At the planning stage of this survey, not a single member of the Time Out Film team would’ve expected Danny Boyle’s eye-wateringly hip, epoch-defining second feature to make much of a dent, let alone break into the top ten. Yet here we are, and it seems that ‘ Slumdog Millionaire ’ (which didn’t place) was not enough to make us overlook the ambition, charisma and sheer, blood, sweat and shit-soaked brio of this 1996 Irvine Welsh adaptation which gave Ewan McGregor a role that – if we’re being honest – he has never bettered.  The film – which now bizarrely makes the mid-1990s Britpop fad appear to have been the cultural highlight of modern times – told of happy-go-lucky junkie Mark Renton (McGregor) and the band of mischievous associates he would occasionally call friends, including Spud (Ewen Bremner), Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller), Tommy (Kevin McKidd) and Begbie (Robert Carlyle). It’s still a lively watch, especially in the way its meandering, episodic first half emphasises the highs of pub fights, drugs scores, casual sex and a sub-aqua, Eno-scored mission down the world’s most disgusting lavatory bowl, only for the second half to condemn the drug culture that so many claimed it was glamourising.  Director Danny Boyle had already shown with his previous film, ‘ Shallow Grave ’ (1994), that he could reel off a juicy, character-driven yarn which had depth and ambiguity, but what makes ‘Trainspotting’ stand above the crowd is the industrious way in which he uses editing and camera movement to convey time, activity, violence, love, ecstasy and pain. Plus, is this the greatest opening five minutes ever?  DJ

Buy, rent or watch ‘Trainspotting’

If.... (1968)

9.  If.... (1968)

Director Lindsay Anderson Cast Malcolm McDowell, David Wood, Richard Warwick

A portrait of life in an English, male boarding school may sound niche and conservative, but Lindsay Anderson’s second feature after ‘ This Sporting Life ’ was one of the most radical British movies of the 1960s – and the first of three films from that decade to enter our top ten.  The mischievous face of Malcolm McDowell as rebellious sixth-former Mick Travis is, in retrospect, an obvious predecessor of his character in ‘A Clockwork Orange’, not least when he iconically appears wearing a fedora and with a scarf wrapped around his face to conceal a moustache. From there, we discover that Travis and his two friends are thorns in the side of their rigid boarding house, where their peers exercise brutal authority purely because of their ties or badges – or, as Travis puts it, ‘That bit of fluff on your tit’.  Many scenes stick in the mind, most of them tinged with a strange comedy. There’s the master who rides a bike into class; the headmaster who opens a drawer to reveal a teacher; Travis’s wrestle with a waitress at a local café… But these more surreal scenes aside, the film’s success is down to its detail: Sherwin and Anderson well knew the world they were satirising, which is why the rituals, slang and behaviour all ring so disturbingly true. That said, the film’s knock-out scene is a rousing, shocking, guns-blazing climax that’s only credible as glorious wish-fulfilment.  The film’s attack on tradition and authority undoubtedly encapsulated and tapped into the counter-cultural mood of the time – but its themes of community, leadership, oppression and rebellion, as well as its edge of comic surrealism and weird fantasy, continue to endure more than forty years later.  DC

Buy, rent or watch ‘If....’

Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)

8.  Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)

Director Robert Hamer Cast Dennis Price, Alec Guinness, Joan Greenwood

The Ealing comedies undoubtedly remain a bastion of British whimsicality, but the results of this poll suggest they have fallen out of favour. Does the fanciful madcap of ‘ The Lavender Hill Mob ’ now just feel empty? Has ‘ Passport to Pimlico ’ lost its political piquancy? And is there too much running around in that otherwise barbed consumerist satire, ‘ The Man in the White Suit ’? Still, you could judge that our contributors were merely hedging their bets by voting for Ealing’s finest: ‘Kind Hearts and Coronets’.  There’s something satisfying about the fact that one of the most charming, literary and romantic films  on this list involves a penniless fop going on a murderous rampage against his aristocratic in-laws. Dennis Price is Louis Mazzini D'Ascoyne, bon mot-dropping avenging angel and class warrior by default, out to take down the remaining D'Ascoyne clan (all played by Alec Guinness) as punishment for excommunicating his dear, dead mother.  The beauty of this film is how easy it is to divorce yourself from its horrors and side with this gentleman psychopath on his quest. Guinness’s broad (though hilarious) caricatures make the pill even easier to swallow, as they show us that Louis’s crimes are little more than a savage attack on the hypocrisy, entitlement and haughtiness of English blue bloods.  DJ

Buy, rent or watch ‘Kind Hearts and Coronets’

Performance (1970)

7.  Performance (1970)

Directors Nicolas Roeg and Donald Cammell Cast James Fox, Mick Jagger, Anita Pallenberg

Oh, to have been a fly on the wall at the first screening of ‘Performance’ for Warner Bros executives. Expecting a jolly, Beatles-esque musical romp starring those loveable rogues The Rolling Stones, they were subjected to 105 minutes of graphic gangland violence, explicit three-way sex, celebratory drug-taking and Mick Jagger in a dress. Dismissed on release as incoherent and indulgent (LA Times critic Richard Schickel described it as ‘the most worthless film I have seen’), ‘Performance’ has grown in stature and influence, culminating in its top ten appearance here, a leap of 41 places since the BFI’s similar list in 1999.  So why is a film which should, by rights, be too dated to watch still gaining traction well into its fourth decade? The sex ’n’ drugs ’n’ rock ’n’ roll aspects don’t hurt, but there’s more to it. Perhaps it’s simply that ‘Performance’ is the most perfect example of imperfection, a ragged, uncontrolled miasma of disparate influences and conflicting ideas, genres and even directors battling for dominance.  But where most superficially similar works of consciousness-expanding ’60s experimentalism are now embarrassing, ‘Performance’ manages to remain confrontational, exhilarating and relevant. True, there’s the odd awkward moment, and the depiction of women leaves something to be desired. But as the story fragments along with James Fox’s consciousness, as Jagger pouts and struts like the world’s sexiest junkie ostrich, as the visuals become more berserk and hallucinatory, you can almost hear Roeg and Cammell rubbing their hands together and chuckling at the sheer, mindblowing intensity and uniqueness of this monster they’ve somehow managed to create.  TH

Buy, rent or watch ‘Performance’

A Matter of Life and Death (1946)

6.  A Matter of Life and Death (1946)

Directors Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger Cast David Niven, Kim Hunter, Roger Livesey, Raymond Massey

This is one of Powell and Pressburger’s most imaginative and thoroughly enjoyable films, but it's also one of Britain’s most substantial fantasy films, in that for all its visual invention, wit, romantic flair and sense of fun, it is most definitely about something.  Actually, of course, it’s about a number of things: the improbable love affair between a British pilot forced to bale out of his plane and the American girl who takes his mayday call; the long-tricky ‘special relationship’ between Britain and the US, strained during the later years of World War Two when the Americans were ‘over here’; and it’s perhaps even to some degree about the likewise uneasy relations between the practitioners of Britain’s documentary-realist tradition and those of the rather more flamboyantly ‘arty’ strand of filmmaking as perpetrated by Powell & Pressburger. (It may not be accidental that our quotidian earthly existence is shown in colour while the fanciful realm of the hereafter is consigned to the monochrome favoured by Grierson et al.)  Perhaps most importantly, however, it’s about exactly what it claims to be: the inevitably symbiotic relationship between life and death, which are in the end all part and parcel of the same thing. The heaven in the film not only reflects the need of many to believe in an afterlife where justice might finally prevail; it is also made quite explicit that it’s a dreamworld, the construct of the poet-pilot’s brain, in traumatic shock after he unexpectedly survives the plunge from his flaming cockpit. Quite dazzling.  GA

Buy, rent or watch ‘A Matter of Life and Death’

The Red Shoes (1948)

5.  The Red Shoes (1948)

Directors Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger Cast Moira Shearer, Anton Walbrook, Marius Goring

The rise of The Archers, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, might be the big story in this new list of the 100 Greatest British Movies. Their presence was, of course, felt in a similar 1999 BFI list: ‘The Red Shoes’ placed in the top ten, with three other films (‘ A Matter of Life and Death ’, ‘ Colonel Blimp ’ and ‘ Black Narcissus ’) and Powell’s ‘ Peeping Tom ’ lurking further down the list. This latest poll has added only two new titles (‘ A Canterbury Tale ’ and ‘ I Know Where I’m Going! ’), but it’s the change in rank which is astonishing: not one of these films has fallen outside the top 30, with two in the top ten and another three in the mid-teens. Considering that their votes were split seven ways, The Archers have received far more votes than any other director on the list.  The increased availability of their work on DVD will have played a major role here, particularly in the rediscovery of the two new titles. But there’s been a shift in critical fortunes, too, beginning before the BFI round-up but gathering pace since: while the gritty heavy-handedness of the Angry Young Men has begun to seem increasingly irrelevant, the emotional richness, subtle wit and visual inventiveness of The Archers’ films seems ever more enchanting and poignant.  And the pinnacle of their achievements remains ‘The Red Shoes’: investing an old story with freshness and vigour and revelling in unabashed emotional excess, this is the absolute peak of Powell’s visionary tendencies as a director, a flawless blend of cinema and dance, animation and music, narrative rigour and experimental freedom, without doubt the most breathtakingly beautiful film ever to come out of these isles.  TH

Buy, rent or watch ‘The Red Shoes’

Kes (1969)

4.  Kes (1969)

Director Ken Loach Cast David Bradley, Lynne Perrie, Freddie Fletcher

As the tide of the 1960s began to recede, taking with it all that class-obsessed ee-by-’eck pub-jazz new wave chest-beating that had threatened to drag British cinema into some kind of socialist-modernist-industrial nightmare, the real realists were revealed, sitting quietly and waiting for someone to notice. And chief among them was (and still is) Ken Loach, this country’s most relentless cinematic artisan, 47 years at the cultural coalface and still no sign of flagging.  ‘Kes’ was Loach’s second feature film, and just a few years later he was struggling to make work for cinema at all: proof, perhaps, that honesty isn’t always the best policy. Because ‘Kes’ is, if nothing else, a powerfully honest piece of work, in its performances and relationships, its treatment of trapped lives, its sad-eyed acceptance of human failings. It’s trite but true to say that Billy Casper stands for the crushed child in all of us, with his beloved kestrel as the soaring soul that school, work, family and society conspire to kill quietly in the woodshed.  But this isn’t the true horror of the film. Because Loach is not just suggesting that Billy’s fate is inevitable, but that it’s necessary: in order to survive in this world of barking gym teachers, harried parents and brutalised big brothers (each of them once as open and inspired as Billy), he’ll have to take his lumps and like it. And so ‘Kes’ remains devastating, the peak of British realism and one of the most heartbreaking works in all of cinema.  TH

Buy, rent or watch ‘Kes’

Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988)

3.  Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988)

Director  Terence Davies Cast  Pete Postlethwaite, Freda Dowie

Too often it’s assumed that there’s an arthouse cabal in British cinema obsessed solely with telling stories of the working classes from a distant perspective and with a drab realism – or, to borrow the moaners’ own word, ‘miserabilism’. Certainly, there are guilty culprits, but if any filmmaker blows such assumptions out of the water, it’s Terence Davies, whose ‘Distant Voices, Still Lives’ is arguably among the very greatest British movies of the last 25 years – a judgement our poll seems to confirm. The doubly good news is that, after a hiatus of a decade, 65-year-old Davies is back behind the camera making feature films and is currently editing an adaptation of Terence Rattigan’s ‘The Deep Blue Sea’, his first film since 2000’s ‘ House of Mirth ’.  This fiercely literate and independent Liverpudlian spent the first 16 years of his career, with three shorts, and then two feature films, ‘Distant Voices, Still Lives’ and ‘ The Long Day Closes ’ (1992), finding different, personal and poetic ways of making sense of his recollections of his childhood in a post-war, working-class Liverpool home. ‘Distant Voices…’ is essentially a portrait of his parents and siblings around the time he was born – but with Davies himself removed from the frame. As such, its fractured, truthful evocation of life in 1940s and ’50s Liverpool is as much about memory as truth. We experience the stuff of life – the brutality of a patriarch (Pete Postlethwaite), a daughter’s wedding, sing-songs at the pub – but the flow of the film is more emotional than chronological, and Davies prefers resonant images and moments to straightforward storytelling. Its songs lift us, while its sadnesses bring us down. Mostly, though, it’s Davies’s love for cinema that is apparent in every single frame of this beautiful film.  DC

Buy, rent or watch ‘Distant Voices, Still Lives’

The Third Man (1949)

2.  The Third Man (1949)

Director Carol Reed Cast Joseph Cotten, Orson Welles, Alide Valli

It swooped in at number one on the BFI’s 1999 British cinema poll, but here, Carol Reed’s The Third Man’ will have to settle for second spot. But, hey: it’s still a masterpiece. The genius at the core of this superlative, bible-black Euro noir is the way it teases you into thinking that you’re watching a disposable pulp yarn about an honest schlub who touches down in a crumbling, post-war Vienna and won’t rest until he uncovers a conspiracy concerning the death of an old pal.  Our hero, Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten), is a writer of dimestore westerns. His pal is Harry Lime (Orson Welles), a bootlegger whose latest grift has landed him in an early grave, or so it seems. The further down the rabbit hole Holly ventures, the more it becomes clear that Reed’s glibness is mere cover for a bleak lament to a world tainted by corruption and evil. Replace Vienna with Los Angeles, and it’s basically ‘Chinatown’.  Inventive and exhilarating though the story is, its beauty lies in its flawlessly judged and occasionally eccentric construction: Robert Krasker’s high-contrast cinematography; Anton Karas’s eerily chipper zither score; and the depiction of a world so divided by politics, religion, gender and language, that you begin to understand why compassion would lose its appeal to these characters. ‘Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever?’ asks Harry Lime. It’s a chilling conundrum that rings with truth and despair, and one of which politicians, businessmen and, well, everyone, should continually be wary.  DJ

Buy, rent or watch ‘The Third Man’

Don't Look Now (1973)

1.  Don't Look Now (1973)

Director Nicolas Roeg Cast Julie Christie, Donald Sutherland The number one film on our list of greatest British movies, is Nicolas Roeg’s hallucinatory 1973 Daphne du Maurier adaptation – the story of a couple, played by Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland, who decamp to a spooky Venice after the death by drowning of their daughter. We can speculate on the roots of its popularity: that it satisfies the genre and arthouse crowds; that it uses framing, sound, editing and camera movement to unreel a transfixing tale and flesh out excruciatingly authentic characters; that it dares to coax out the ghosts lurking in every watery passageway in Venice, Europe’s most ornate and singular city; that it contains arguably the greatest sex scene on film. Or, we can just accept it as a movie whose every glorious frame is bursting with meaning, emotion and mystery, and which stands as the crowning achievement of one of Britain’s true iconoclasts and masters of cinema.  DJ

Buy, rent or watch ‘Don't Look Now’

[image] [title]

More on Time In

Discover Time Out original video

  • Press office
  • Investor relations
  • Work for Time Out
  • Editorial guidelines
  • Privacy notice
  • Do not sell my information
  • Cookie policy
  • Accessibility statement
  • Terms of use
  • Modern slavery statement
  • Manage cookies
  • Advertising

Time Out Worldwide

  • All Time Out Locations
  • North America
  • South America
  • South Pacific
  • Copy from this list
  • Report this list

Time Travel Movies

Movies about and including time machines, time traveling, time loops, time shifting or time bending I've seen.

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

1. The Time Travelers (1964)

Approved | 84 min | Sci-Fi

In 1964, a group of scientists create a portal that takes them to a barren, mutant inhabited, Earth in the year 2071.

Director: Ib Melchior | Stars: Preston Foster , Philip Carey , Merry Anders , John Hoyt

Votes: 2,957

2. Beyond the Time Barrier (1960)

Not Rated | 74 min | Romance, Sci-Fi

In 1960, a military test pilot is caught in a time warp that propels him to year 2024 where he finds a plague has sterilized the world's population.

Director: Edgar G. Ulmer | Stars: Robert Clarke , Darlene Tompkins , Arianne Ulmer , Vladimir Sokoloff

Votes: 1,981

3. Maybe (1999)

109 min | Comedy, Drama, Sci-Fi

After having sex with his girlfriend Lucie in a bathroom, Arthur discovers that a ceiling panel is a time portal to Paris in the future, although it appears more like a sun-baked desert city by that point.

Director: Cédric Klapisch | Stars: Jean-Paul Belmondo , Romain Duris , Géraldine Pailhas , Ann'So

Votes: 1,699

4. The Time Machine (1960)

G | 103 min | Adventure, Romance, Sci-Fi

A man's vision for a utopian society is disillusioned when travelling forward into time reveals a dark and dangerous society.

Director: George Pal | Stars: Rod Taylor , Alan Young , Yvette Mimieux , Sebastian Cabot

Votes: 44,521

5. The Time Machine (2002)

PG-13 | 96 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

Hoping to alter the events of the past, a 19th century inventor instead travels 800,000 years into the future, where he finds humankind divided into two warring races.

Director: Simon Wells | Stars: Guy Pearce , Yancey Arias , Mark Addy , Phyllida Law

Votes: 129,891 | Gross: $56.68M

6. Timecrimes (2007)

R | 92 min | Horror, Mystery, Sci-Fi

A man accidentally gets into a time machine and travels back in time nearly an hour. Finding himself will be the first of a series of disasters of unforeseeable consequences.

Director: Nacho Vigalondo | Stars: Karra Elejalde , Candela Fernández , Bárbara Goenaga , Nacho Vigalondo

Votes: 68,399 | Gross: $0.04M

7. Biggles: Adventures in Time (1986)

PG | 108 min | Adventure, Family, Sci-Fi

Daring British WWI fighter pilot James "Biggles" Bigglesworth and 1980s low-level business executive Jim Ferguson discover that they can time travel to each other's eras. They try to stop the Germans from changing the outcome of WWI.

Director: John Hough | Stars: Neil Dickson , Alex Hyde-White , Fiona Hutchison , Peter Cushing

Votes: 3,336 | Gross: $0.11M

8. The Final Countdown (1980)

PG | 103 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

A modern aircraft carrier is thrown back in time to 1941 near Hawaii, just hours before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Director: Don Taylor | Stars: Kirk Douglas , Martin Sheen , Katharine Ross , James Farentino

Votes: 26,708 | Gross: $16.65M

9. Dreamland (2007)

Not Rated | 77 min | Sci-Fi, Horror, Mystery

Meghan and Dylan are crossing the Nevada desert in an old car to visit her foster parents, and Meghan sees a little girl alone in the desert. They stop at the "Little A'Le'Inn" diner, a ... See full summary  »

Director: James P. Lay | Stars: Jackie Kreisler , Shane Elliott , Jonathan Breck , Channing Nichols

Votes: 1,128

10. The Philadelphia Experiment (2012 TV Movie)

PG-13 | 89 min | Action, Adventure, Mystery

In 1943 a secret government cloaking project goes awry vanishing a navy destroyer. In 2012, the destroyer reappears, setting off a series of events threatening to destroy the world.

Director: Paul Ziller | Stars: Nicholas Lea , Michael Paré , Ryan Robbins , Emilie Ullerup

Votes: 3,240

11. The Philadelphia Experiment (1984)

PG | 102 min | Adventure, Drama, Romance

A United States Navy destroyer escort participates in a Navy "invisibility" experiment that inadvertently sends two sailors forty years into the future.

Director: Stewart Raffill | Stars: Michael Paré , Nancy Allen , Eric Christmas , Bobby Di Cicco

Votes: 16,642 | Gross: $8.10M

12. Philadelphia Experiment II (1993)

PG-13 | 97 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

In the sci-fi thriller The Philadelphia Experiment the sole survivor of a wartime experiment is catapulted 41 years into the future and must race to save the world as we know it. It's now 10 years later--1993.

Director: Stephen Cornwell | Stars: Brad Johnson , Marjean Holden , Gerrit Graham , John Christian Graas

Votes: 2,219 | Gross: $0.00M

13. Slaughterhouse-Five (1972)

R | 104 min | Comedy, Drama, Sci-Fi

Billy Pilgrim has mysteriously become unstuck in time. He goes on an uncontrollable trip back and forth from his birth in New York to life on a distant planet and back again to the horrors of the 1945 fire-bombing of Dresden.

Director: George Roy Hill | Stars: Michael Sacks , Ron Leibman , Eugene Roche , Sharon Gans

Votes: 13,842 | Gross: $0.57M

14. Grand Tour: Disaster in Time (1991)

PG-13 | 99 min | Mystery, Sci-Fi

Before they can complete renovations on their new inn, Widower (Ben Wilson) and daughter (Hillary) are visited by a woman seeking immediate lodging for her strange group of travellers. Why ... See full summary  »

Director: David Twohy | Stars: Jeff Daniels , Ariana Richards , Emilia Crow , Jim Haynie

Votes: 3,066

15. Thrill Seekers (1999 TV Movie)

PG-13 | 88 min | Action, Sci-Fi, Thriller

A reporter, learning of time travelers visiting 20th century disasters, tries to change the history they know by averting upcoming disasters.

Director: Mario Azzopardi | Stars: Casper Van Dien , Catherine Bell , Theresa Saldana , Peter Outerbridge

Votes: 2,735

16. Donnie Darko (2001)

R | 113 min | Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi

After narrowly escaping a bizarre accident, a troubled teenager is plagued by visions of a man in a large rabbit suit who manipulates him to commit a series of crimes.

Director: Richard Kelly | Stars: Jake Gyllenhaal , Jena Malone , Mary McDonnell , Holmes Osborne

Votes: 845,214 | Gross: $1.48M

17. The Door (2009)

103 min | Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi

A successful artist loses control of his life after his young daughter's death. A chance for a new start appears, but all is not what it seems.

Director: Anno Saul | Stars: Mads Mikkelsen , Jessica Schwarz , Valeria Eisenbart , Thomas Thieme

Votes: 6,321

18. Deja Vu (2006)

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

After a ferry is bombed in New Orleans, an A.T.F. agent joins a unique investigation using experimental surveillance technology to find the bomber, but soon finds himself becoming obsessed with one of the victims.

Director: Tony Scott | Stars: Denzel Washington , Paula Patton , Jim Caviezel , Val Kilmer

Votes: 326,208 | Gross: $64.04M

19. Premonition (I) (2007)

PG-13 | 96 min | Drama, Fantasy, Mystery

A depressed woman learns that her husband was killed in a car accident the previous day, then awakens the next morning to find him alive and well at home; then awakens the day after that to find that he's dead.

Director: Mennan Yapo | Stars: Sandra Bullock , Julian McMahon , Amber Valletta , Shyann McClure

Votes: 81,362 | Gross: $47.85M

20. The Lake House (2006)

PG | 99 min | Drama, Fantasy, Romance

A lonely doctor who once occupied an unusual lakeside house begins to exchange love letters with its former resident, a frustrated architect. They must try to unravel the mystery behind their extraordinary romance before it's too late.

Director: Alejandro Agresti | Stars: Keanu Reeves , Sandra Bullock , Christopher Plummer , Ebon Moss-Bachrach

Votes: 157,115 | Gross: $52.33M

21. Timecop (1994)

R | 99 min | Action, Crime, Sci-Fi

Max Walker, an officer for a security agency that regulates time travel, must fend for his life against a shady politician who's intent on changing the past to control the future.

Director: Peter Hyams | Stars: Jean-Claude Van Damme , Mia Sara , Ron Silver , Bruce McGill

Votes: 63,806 | Gross: $44.85M

22. Timecop: The Berlin Decision (2003 Video)

R | 81 min | Action, Sci-Fi

A Time Enforcement Commission police officer (Jason Scott Lee) travels back in time to prevent a criminal mastermind from gaining control of the future.

Director: Steve Boyum | Stars: Jason Scott Lee , Thomas Ian Griffith , Mary Page Keller , John Beck

Votes: 2,564

23. Veronica 2030 (1999)

R | 70 min | Romance, Sci-Fi

Built for pleasure, Veronica 2030 is a love android from the future - but there's a problem with the programming... The robot has discovered the delicious sensation of human passion. The ... See full summary  »

Director: Gary Graver | Stars: Julia Ann , Joseph Roth , Everett Rodd , Stephanee LaFleur

24. Galaxy Quest (1999)

PG | 102 min | Adventure, Comedy, Sci-Fi

The alumni cast of a space opera television series have to play their roles as the real thing when an alien race needs their help. However, they also have to defend both Earth and the alien race from a reptilian warlord.

Director: Dean Parisot | Stars: Tim Allen , Sigourney Weaver , Alan Rickman , Tony Shalhoub

Votes: 176,774 | Gross: $71.58M

25. Frequency (2000)

PG-13 | 118 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery

An accidental cross-time radio link connects father and son across 30 years. The son tries to save his father's life, but then must fix the consequences.

Director: Gregory Hoblit | Stars: Dennis Quaid , Jim Caviezel , Shawn Doyle , Elizabeth Mitchell

Votes: 115,185 | Gross: $45.01M

26. Looper (2012)

R | 119 min | Action, Drama, Sci-Fi

In 2074, when the mob wants to get rid of someone, the target is sent into the past, where a hired gun awaits - someone like Joe - who one day learns the mob wants to 'close the loop' by sending back Joe's future self for assassination.

Director: Rian Johnson | Stars: Joseph Gordon-Levitt , Bruce Willis , Emily Blunt , Paul Dano

Votes: 600,516 | Gross: $66.49M

27. Triangle (2009)

R | 99 min | Fantasy, Mystery, Sci-Fi

Five friends set sail and their yacht is overturned by a strange and sudden storm. A mysterious ship arrives to rescue them, and what happens next cannot be explained.

Director: Christopher Smith | Stars: Melissa George , Joshua McIvor , Jack Taylor , Michael Dorman

Votes: 128,570

28. Haunter (2013)

Not Rated | 97 min | Fantasy, Horror, Mystery

A teenager is stuck in a time loop that is not quite the same each time. She must uncover the truth, but her actions have consequences for herself and others.

Director: Vincenzo Natali | Stars: Abigail Breslin , Peter Outerbridge , Michelle Nolden , Stephen McHattie

Votes: 18,619

29. Clockmaker (1998 TV Movie)

PG | 90 min | Adventure, Sci-Fi

Friends of a teen who pushed a wrong button in the lair of a clockmaker who controls time all over the world must go back in time to bring him back.

Director: Christopher Coppola | Stars: Anthony Medwetz , Katie Johnston , Zachary McLemore , Pierrino Mascarino

30. Timestalkers (1987 TV Movie)

Not Rated | 100 min | Adventure, Drama, Sci-Fi

Scott McKenzie, a history professor, becomes involved with two time travelers from the year 2586 after making a discovery in an old photograph from 1886.

Director: Michael Schultz | Stars: William Devane , Lauren Hutton , John Ratzenberger , Forrest Tucker

Votes: 1,532

31. Warlock (1989)

R | 103 min | Action, Fantasy, Horror

A warlock flees from the 17th to the 20th century, with a witch-hunter in hot pursuit.

Director: Steve Miner | Stars: Julian Sands , Lori Singer , Richard E. Grant , Mary Woronov

Votes: 18,855 | Gross: $9.09M

32. Source Code (2011)

PG-13 | 93 min | Action, Drama, Mystery

A soldier wakes up in someone else's body and discovers he's part of an experimental government program to find the bomber of a commuter train within 8 minutes.

Director: Duncan Jones | Stars: Jake Gyllenhaal , Michelle Monaghan , Vera Farmiga , Jeffrey Wright

Votes: 546,978 | Gross: $54.71M

33. Mine Games (2012)

TV-14 | 92 min | Horror, Mystery, Thriller

A group of young friends make an incomprehensible discovery in an abandoned mine, but the more they try to change the future, the more they seal their fate.

Director: Richard Gray | Stars: Joseph Cross , Briana Evigan , Rafi Gavron , Julianna Guill

Votes: 4,332

34. Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

PG-13 | 113 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

A soldier fighting aliens gets to relive the same day over and over again, the day restarting every time he dies.

Director: Doug Liman | Stars: Tom Cruise , Emily Blunt , Bill Paxton , Brendan Gleeson

Votes: 730,863 | Gross: $100.21M

35. 12 Monkeys (1995)

R | 129 min | Mystery, Sci-Fi, Thriller

In a future world devastated by disease, a convict is sent back in time to gather information about the man-made virus that wiped out most of the human population on the planet.

Director: Terry Gilliam | Stars: Bruce Willis , Madeleine Stowe , Brad Pitt , Joseph Melito

Votes: 643,933 | Gross: $57.14M

36. Journey to the Center of Time (1967)

Not Rated | 82 min | Sci-Fi

Hard-nosed new boss Stanton takes over a scientific research company upon the death of his benevolent father.

Director: David L. Hewitt | Stars: Scott Brady , Anthony Eisley , Gigi Perreau , Abraham Sofaer

37. Superman (1978)

PG | 143 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

An alien orphan is sent from his dying planet to Earth, where he grows up to become his adoptive home's first and greatest superhero.

Director: Richard Donner | Stars: Christopher Reeve , Margot Kidder , Gene Hackman , Marlon Brando

Votes: 186,537 | Gross: $134.22M

38. Lost in Space (1998)

PG-13 | 130 min | Action, Adventure, Family

The Robinson family was going into space to fight for a chance for humanity. Now they are fighting to live long enough to find a way home.

Director: Stephen Hopkins | Stars: Gary Oldman , William Hurt , Matt LeBlanc , Mimi Rogers

Votes: 74,673 | Gross: $69.12M

39. Peggy Sue Got Married (1986)

PG-13 | 103 min | Comedy, Drama, Fantasy

Peggy Sue faints at a high school reunion. When she wakes up, she finds herself in her own past, just before she finished school.

Director: Francis Ford Coppola | Stars: Kathleen Turner , Nicolas Cage , Barry Miller , Catherine Hicks

Votes: 40,559 | Gross: $41.38M

40. Slipstream (2005)

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

A scientist goes to a bank to meet a pretty bank-teller. His time-machine allows him to go 10 minutes back in time and correct his approaches to her. He's shadowed by 2 FBI agents and the bank gets robbed.

Director: David van Eyssen | Stars: Sean Astin , Vinnie Jones , Ivana Milicevic , Kevin Otto

Votes: 3,499

41. Primer (2004)

PG-13 | 77 min | Drama, Sci-Fi, Thriller

Four friends/fledgling entrepreneurs, knowing that there's something bigger and more innovative than the different error-checking devices they've built, wrestle over their new invention.

Director: Shane Carruth | Stars: Shane Carruth , David Sullivan , Casey Gooden , Anand Upadhyaya

Votes: 113,582 | Gross: $0.42M

42. The I Inside (2004)

R | 90 min | Mystery, Sci-Fi, Thriller

An amnesiac discovers himself leaping through time between 2000 and 2002 as his past returns to him.

Director: Roland Suso Richter | Stars: Ryan Phillippe , Sarah Polley , Piper Perabo , Robert Sean Leonard

Votes: 11,353

43. The Caller (2011)

R | 92 min | Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller

A young divorcee is getting her life back together by moving into an apartment. But what will she do when a strange person repeatedly calls her, and threatens to change her new life around?

Director: Matthew Parkhill | Stars: Rachelle Lefevre , Stephen Moyer , Lorna Raver , Ed Quinn

Votes: 12,081

44. My Science Project (1985)

PG | 94 min | Action, Adventure, Comedy

A high school student and his friend find a strange, orb-like piece of equipment to use as a science project, but must stop it when it begins to threaten mankind.

Director: Jonathan R. Betuel | Stars: John Stockwell , Danielle von Zerneck , Fisher Stevens , Raphael Sbarge

Votes: 6,409 | Gross: $4.12M

45. The Ice Pirates (1984)

PG | 91 min | Action, Adventure, Comedy

In a distant future scarce of water, space pirates get caught after stealing ice from a spaceship. They are sold to a princess looking for her dad. He might have found a planet abundant with water.

Director: Stewart Raffill | Stars: Robert Urich , Mary Crosby , Michael D. Roberts , Anjelica Huston

Votes: 11,761 | Gross: $14.26M

46. Millennium (1989)

PG-13 | 108 min | Drama, Sci-Fi, Thriller

An NTSB investigator seeking the cause of an airline disaster meets a warrior woman from 1000 years in the future.

Director: Michael Anderson | Stars: Kris Kristofferson , Cheryl Ladd , Daniel J. Travanti , Robert Joy

Votes: 6,916 | Gross: $5.78M

47. Sphere (1998)

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

A spaceship is discovered under three hundred years' worth of coral growth at the bottom of the ocean.

Director: Barry Levinson | Stars: Dustin Hoffman , Sharon Stone , Samuel L. Jackson , Peter Coyote

Votes: 112,049 | Gross: $37.02M

48. Men in Black 3 (2012)

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

Agent J travels in time to M.I.B.'s early days in 1969 to stop an alien from assassinating his friend Agent K and changing history.

Director: Barry Sonnenfeld | Stars: Will Smith , Tommy Lee Jones , Josh Brolin , Jemaine Clement

Votes: 384,844 | Gross: $179.02M

49. Army of Darkness (1992)

R | 81 min | Comedy, Horror

When Ash Williams is accidentally transported to 1300 A.D., he must retrieve the Necronomicon and battle an army of the dead in order to return home.

Director: Sam Raimi | Stars: Bruce Campbell , Embeth Davidtz , Marcus Gilbert , Ian Abercrombie

Votes: 193,377 | Gross: $11.50M

50. Pleasantville (1998)

PG-13 | 124 min | Comedy, Drama, Fantasy

Two 1990s teenage siblings find themselves transported to a 1950s sitcom where their influence begins to profoundly change that colorless, complacent world.

Director: Gary Ross | Stars: Tobey Maguire , Jeff Daniels , Joan Allen , William H. Macy

Votes: 135,778 | Gross: $40.57M

51. La Jetée (1962)

Not Rated | 28 min | Short, Drama, Romance

The story of a man forced to explore his memories in the wake of World War III's devastation, told through still images.

Director: Chris Marker | Stars: Étienne Becker , Jean Négroni , Hélène Chatelain , Davos Hanich

Votes: 36,846

52. Timerider: The Adventure of Lyle Swann (1982)

PG | 94 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

A maverick motorbike racer wanders into a top-secret time-travel research test site which unintentionally teleports him to the mid-1800s and ends up having to fight violent outlaws for his survival.

Director: William Dear | Stars: Fred Ward , Belinda Bauer , Peter Coyote , Richard Masur

Votes: 2,475

53. 12:01 (1993 TV Movie)

PG-13 | 92 min | Comedy, Sci-Fi, Thriller

A man likes a woman at work. He sees her get murdered. He gets drunk and zapped at 12:01AM. Next morning she's back and everything is exactly like the day before. The time loops gives him chances to save her.

Director: Jack Sholder | Stars: Helen Slater , Jonathan Silverman , Nicolas Surovy , Robin Bartlett

Votes: 5,485

54. Groundhog Day (1993)

PG | 101 min | Comedy, Drama, Fantasy

A narcissistic, self-centered weatherman finds himself in a time loop on Groundhog Day.

Director: Harold Ramis | Stars: Bill Murray , Andie MacDowell , Chris Elliott , Stephen Tobolowsky

Votes: 680,452 | Gross: $70.91M

55. Back to the Future (1985)

PG | 116 min | Adventure, Comedy, Sci-Fi

Marty McFly, a 17-year-old high school student, is accidentally sent 30 years into the past in a time-traveling DeLorean invented by his close friend, the maverick scientist Doc Brown.

Director: Robert Zemeckis | Stars: Michael J. Fox , Christopher Lloyd , Lea Thompson , Crispin Glover

Votes: 1,296,599 | Gross: $210.61M

56. Back to the Future Part II (1989)

PG | 108 min | Adventure, Comedy, Sci-Fi

After visiting 2015, Marty McFly must repeat his visit to 1955 to prevent disastrous changes to 1985...without interfering with his first trip.

Director: Robert Zemeckis | Stars: Michael J. Fox , Christopher Lloyd , Lea Thompson , Tom Wilson

Votes: 568,966 | Gross: $118.50M

57. Back to the Future Part III (1990)

PG | 118 min | Adventure, Comedy, Sci-Fi

Stranded in 1955, Marty McFly learns about the death of Doc Brown in 1885 and must travel back in time to save him. With no fuel readily available for the DeLorean, the two must figure how to escape the Old West before Emmett is murdered.

Director: Robert Zemeckis | Stars: Michael J. Fox , Christopher Lloyd , Mary Steenburgen , Tom Wilson

Votes: 477,952 | Gross: $87.73M

58. A Sound of Thunder (2005)

PG-13 | 110 min | Action, Adventure, Horror

A single mistake in the past, by a time travel company in the future, has devastating and unforeseen consequences.

Director: Peter Hyams | Stars: Edward Burns , Ben Kingsley , Catherine McCormack , Armin Rohde

Votes: 20,449 | Gross: $1.89M

59. Time After Time (1979)

PG | 112 min | Adventure, Drama, Sci-Fi

H.G. Wells pursues Jack the Ripper to the 20th Century when the serial murderer uses the future writer's time machine to escape his time period.

Director: Nicholas Meyer | Stars: Malcolm McDowell , Mary Steenburgen , David Warner , Charles Cioffi

Votes: 20,513

60. The Time Machine (1978 TV Movie)

99 min | Adventure, Sci-Fi

A scientist builds a machine that will enable him to travel back and forth in time, but when he puts it in motion, he gets more than he bargained for.

Director: Henning Schellerup | Stars: John Beck , Priscilla Barnes , Andrew Duggan , Rosemary DeCamp

61. Somewhere in Time (1980)

PG | 103 min | Drama, Fantasy, Romance

A Chicago playwright uses self-hypnosis to travel back in time and meet the actress whose vintage portrait hangs in a grand hotel.

Director: Jeannot Szwarc | Stars: Christopher Reeve , Jane Seymour , Christopher Plummer , Teresa Wright

Votes: 32,265 | Gross: $9.71M

62. Time Bandits (1981)

PG | 110 min | Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy

A young boy accidentally joins a band of time travelling dwarves, as they jump from era to era looking for treasure to steal.

Director: Terry Gilliam | Stars: Sean Connery , Shelley Duvall , John Cleese , Katherine Helmond

Votes: 67,927 | Gross: $42.37M

63. The Visitors (1993)

R | 107 min | Comedy, Fantasy

A medieval knight and his servant ask a familiar wizard to move them back in time to prevent father-in-law's accidentally killing. Instead, they fly away to the 20th century.

Director: Jean-Marie Poiré | Stars: Christian Clavier , Jean Reno , Valérie Lemercier , Marie-Anne Chazel

Votes: 37,761 | Gross: $0.70M

64. Just Visiting (2001)

PG-13 | 88 min | Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy

A French count is in England to marry the princess. She's killed. A wizard helps him time travel back before the murder - but ends up in Chicago, April 2000. A descendant helps him. Can he return to the 1100s?

Director: Jean-Marie Poiré | Stars: Jean Reno , Christina Applegate , Christian Clavier , Matt Ross

Votes: 20,134 | Gross: $4.78M

65. Summer Time Machine Blues (2005)

107 min | Comedy, Sci-Fi

A sci-fi club concocts a plan to repair a remote by using a time machine that suddenly appears.

Director: Katsuyuki Motohiro | Stars: Eita Nagayama , Yoshiaki Yoza , Daijirô Kawaoka , Munenori Nagano

Votes: 1,667

66. Judas Kiss (I) (2011)

Not Rated | 94 min | Drama, Romance, Sci-Fi

A quirk in time and space gives a failed filmmaker the chance to reshape his destiny when he visits his peculiar alma mater.

Director: J.T. Tepnapa | Stars: Richard Harmon , Genevieve Buechner , Charlie David , Sean Paul Lockhart

Votes: 2,310

67. Enter Nowhere (2011)

Three strangers arrive one by one at a mysterious cabin in the middle of nowhere only to learn they've been brought together for a reason.

Director: Jack Heller | Stars: Katherine Waterston , Scott Eastwood , Sara Paxton , Shaun Sipos

Votes: 12,518

68. Repeaters (2010)

89 min | Action, Crime, Drama

Three twenty-somethings find themselves in an impossible time loop, where each day they awaken to the same terrifying day as the preceding one.

Director: Carl Bessai | Stars: Dustin Milligan , Amanda Crew , Richard de Klerk , Alexia Fast

Votes: 7,034

69. Paycheck (2003)

PG-13 | 119 min | Action, Mystery, Sci-Fi

What seemed like a breezy idea that would net an engineer millions of dollars ends up leaving him on the run for his life and trying to piece together why he's being chased.

Director: John Woo | Stars: Ben Affleck , Aaron Eckhart , Uma Thurman , Michael C. Hall

Votes: 112,954 | Gross: $53.79M

70. The 25th Reich (2012)

85 min | Action, Adventure, Fantasy

In 1943, five US soldiers are recruited by the OSS for a time travel mission to save the world from the tyranny of Hitler's 25th Reich.

Director: Stephen Amis | Stars: Jim Knobeloch , Serge De Nardo , Angelo Salamanca , Jak Wyld

Votes: 1,185

71. Flight of the Navigator (1986)

PG | 90 min | Adventure, Comedy, Family

In 1978, a boy travels eight years into the future and has an adventure with an intelligent, wisecracking alien ship.

Director: Randal Kleiser | Stars: Joey Cramer , Paul Reubens , Cliff De Young , Veronica Cartwright

Votes: 51,405 | Gross: $18.56M

72. Click (2006)

PG-13 | 107 min | Comedy, Drama, Fantasy

A workaholic architect finds a universal remote that allows him to fast-forward and rewind to different parts of his life. Complications arise when the remote starts to overrule his choices.

Director: Frank Coraci | Stars: Adam Sandler , Kate Beckinsale , Christopher Walken , David Hasselhoff

Votes: 354,339 | Gross: $137.36M

73. Stargate (1994)

PG-13 | 116 min | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

An interstellar teleportation device, found in Egypt, leads to a planet with humans resembling ancient Egyptians who worship the god Ra.

Director: Roland Emmerich | Stars: Kurt Russell , James Spader , Jaye Davidson , Viveca Lindfors

Votes: 203,889 | Gross: $71.57M

74. Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989)

PG | 90 min | Adventure, Comedy, Music

Two rock-'n-rolling teens, on the verge of failing their class, set out on a quest to make the ultimate school history report after being presented with a time machine.

Director: Stephen Herek | Stars: Keanu Reeves , Alex Winter , George Carlin , Terry Camilleri

Votes: 140,948 | Gross: $40.49M

75. Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey (1991)

PG | 93 min | Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy

COMMENTS

  1. About Time (2013 film)

    About Time is a 2013 romantic science fiction comedy-drama film written and directed by Richard Curtis, and starring Domhnall Gleeson, Rachel McAdams, and Bill Nighy.The film is about a young man with the ability to time travel who tries to change his past in hopes of improving his future. The film was released in the United Kingdom on 4 September 2013. ...

  2. Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel (2009)

    Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel: Directed by Gareth Carrivick. With Chris O'Dowd, Marc Wootton, Dean Lennox Kelly, Anna Faris. While drinking at their local pub, three social outcasts attempt to navigate a time-travel conundrum.

  3. About Time (2013)

    About Time: Directed by Richard Curtis. With Domhnall Gleeson, Rachel McAdams, Bill Nighy, Lydia Wilson. At the age of 21, Tim discovers he can travel in time and change what happens and has happened in his own life. His decision to make his world a better place by getting a girlfriend turns out not to be as easy as you might think.

  4. Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel

    The film follows two avid science fiction fans (O'Dowd and Wootton) and their snarky mate (Kelly) as they attempt to navigate a time travel conundrum in the middle of a British pub, where they meet a girl from the future (Faris) who sets the adventure in motion. It was released in the UK and Ireland on 24 April 2009.

  5. 15 Best Time Travel Movies

    Predestination (2015) Based on Robert Heinlein's short story All You Zombies, this Ethan Hawke movie will leave you guessing (and second-guessing) the whole time. Without spoiling the ending, it ...

  6. 10 great lesser-known time-travel films

    Although H.G. Wells published The Time Machine in 1895, the same year that the Lumière brothers projected the first moving images to a paying audience, cinema was slow to recognise the dramatic potential of time travel. Master illusionists like Georges Méliès passed up the opportunity to travel through time and space. But Fritz Lang embraced the notion in Destiny (1921), which took its cues ...

  7. Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel

    T his is the worst film of the week, a dire British comedy, to which the only honest response is to soil and then set fire to the Union flag in the foyer of your local cinema. It is, incredibly ...

  8. About Time

    Movie Info. When Tim Lake (Domhnall Gleeson) is 21, his father (Bill Nighy) tells him a secret: The men in their family can travel through time. Although he can't change history, Tim resolves to ...

  9. 'About Time' Time Travel Science

    [ WARNING: This post contains plot details about the new movie About Time, but only details that are already clear if you watch the trailer closely. Movies about time travel don't generally strive for scientific accuracy, and About Time (opening in limited release Nov. 1) is, for the most part, no exception. The film, about a young man who uses his temporal gifts to help him find love, doesn ...

  10. How About Time's Time Travel Works

    According to Tim's father, James, this is how you time travel: You go into a dark place, big cupboards are very useful, generally. Toilets in a pinch. Then you clench your fists… think of the ...

  11. The 20 best time-travel movies

    14. The Time Travelers (1964) A 1964 movie made on the cheap with genuinely terrible effects, The Time Travelers is about a group of scientists who travel to the future, fight some mutants and ...

  12. Wrong, Actually: 3 Time-Travel Problems in Richard Curtis's

    Most time-travel movies attempt to avoid some of the inherent paradoxes associated with time travel by setting out very specific rules and sticking to them. ... Curtis has definitely created a movie full of delightful British characters, an oh-so-sweet love story and more than a few moments that tug at the heart-strings, but the sci-fi fans out ...

  13. Top 100 Time Travel Movies

    1. Back to the Future (1985) PG | 116 min | Adventure, Comedy, Sci-Fi. 8.5. Rate. 87 Metascore. Marty McFly, a 17-year-old high school student, is accidentally sent 30 years into the past in a time-traveling DeLorean invented by his close friend, the maverick scientist Doc Brown.

  14. The 25 Greatest Time-Travel Movies Ever Made

    24. Happy Death Day (2017) Pick away at the surface of a time-loop movie and you find a horror movie. Most of the entries on this list are covered in enough feel-good spin to land as comedies, but ...

  15. The Best Time-Travel Movies of … All Time

    The most famous art house film about time travel, La Jetée follows a man sent back from a post-WW III dystopia to save the future, and to find the truth behind a traumatic memory of his past ...

  16. 9 Time-Travel Movies to Stream in Your Past, Present and Future

    Captain Nova. The world is on the verge of environmental collapse, so a woman must travel back in time to save it. The only problem is, the time travel process causes her to age backwards to her teenage self. This 2021 Dutch sci-fi film is also family friendly — and was even selected as the opening film for the 35th Cinekid Festival in the ...

  17. 30 Best Time-Travel Movies to Watch If You're Ready to ...

    Palm Springs (2020) So Palm Springs is not technically a time-travel movie, but it's definitely time-travel adjacent. The film follows Sarah (Cristin Milioti) and Nyles (Andy Samberg), two ...

  18. Category:British time travel television series

    G. Garth and Bev. The Georgian House. Ghostwriter (1992 TV series) Goodnight Sweetheart (TV series)

  19. The 50 All-Time Best Time-Travel Films

    A man's vision for a utopian society is disillusioned when travelling forward into time reveals a dark and dangerous society. Director: George Pal | Stars: Rod Taylor, Alan Young, Yvette Mimieux, Sebastian Cabot. Votes: 44,511. 2. Back to the Future (1985) PG | 116 min | Adventure, Comedy, Sci-Fi.

  20. The 32 Best TV Shows About Time Travel

    Doctor Who, BBC One (1963 - 1989, 2005 - present) When it comes to time traveling and TV, probably the most notable name in this niche is Doctor Who because this time travel series has been around for 39 seasons and is still going strong. Hailing from British television channel BBC One, Doctor Who tells the tale of the Time Lord aka The ...

  21. 10 Best Time Travel Movies on Netflix

    In Netflix time travel movie The Adam Project, Ryan Reynolds plays a fighter pilot from the future, who crash lands in the present and meets his 12-year-old self. Together they must save the world ...

  22. Time Travel Movies

    87 Metascore. Marty McFly, a 17-year-old high school student, is accidentally sent 30 years into the past in a time-traveling DeLorean invented by his close friend, the maverick scientist Doc Brown. Director: Robert Zemeckis | Stars: Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover.

  23. Best British Movies

    Read more. 5. The Red Shoes (1948) Film. Drama. Directors Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. Cast Moira Shearer, Anton Walbrook, Marius Goring. The rise of The Archers, Michael Powell and ...

  24. Time Travel Movies

    Daring British WWI fighter pilot James "Biggles" Bigglesworth and 1980s low-level business executive Jim Ferguson discover that they can time travel to each other's eras. They try to stop the Germans from changing the outcome of WWI. Director: John Hough | Stars: Neil Dickson, Alex Hyde-White, Fiona Hutchison, Peter Cushing. Votes: 3,246 ...