dc time travel movies

The 25 Best Time Travel Movies to Whisk You Away from Reality

Who wouldn't love a time machine right about now?

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Meet Cute (2022)

Kaley Cuoco and Pete Davidson co-star in Peacock's Meet Cute , a delightful and often dark rom-com based around time travel. Feeling suicidal, Sheila (Cuoco) finds a time machine in a nail salon and decides to go back in time 24 hours. While re-living her first date with Gary (Davidson) again and again, Sheila loses touch with reality and might have destroyed any chance she had with him.

A Wrinkle in Time (2018)

High schooler Meg Murry travels through time and space in search of her missing astrophysicist father (Chris Pine). On her journey, Meg meets Mrs. Which (Oprah Winfrey), Mrs. Whatsit (Reese Witherspoon), and Mrs. Who (Mindy Kaling), as well as a whole host of dangerous beings.

The Time Traveler's Wife (2009)

Based on Audrey Niffenegger's 2003 novel of the same name, The Time Traveler's Wife tells the story of Henry (Eric Bana), a librarian who is able to randomly travel through time. After meeting Clare (Rachel McAdams) as a child, Henry later develops a romantic relationship with her. HBO's recent adaptation starring Theo James and Rose Leslie has reignited the debate regarding whether or not the story promotes grooming , or if it's a timeless romance.

Back to the Future (1985)

'80s classic Back to the Future has stood the test of time, and spawned two equally entertaining sequels. In the first film, Marty McFly is sent to the 1950s in his friend Doc Brown's time machine, a super cool DeLorean. Marty meets his parents as teenagers, and his presence risks changing history forever.

See You Yesterday (2019)

Netflix's See You Yesterday follows science prodigy C.J. (Eden Duncan-Smith), who invents time traveling backpacks. Along with her best friend Sebastian, C.J. uses her invention to go back in time to stop her brother from being murdered by a racist police officer. However, she's also forced to face up to the limitations and consequences of time travel.

About Time (2013)

Tim (Domhnall Gleeson) inherits the ability to time travel from his father, and decides to use the gift to find love. After a failed attempt at romance, Tim meets Mary (Rachel McAdams), but due to several time travel-related mishaps, romance isn't instantaneous for the pair. Written and directed by rom-com aficionado Richard Curtis.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

James Cameron's follow-up to 1984's The Terminator was a smash-hit that cemented the franchise's popularity. In the sequel, a killer T-1000 Terminator is sent back in time by Skynet to kill the future leader of the resistance, the son of Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), John (Edward Furlong). At the same time, the resistance sends a reprogrammed T-800 Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) back to protect Connor.

Hot Tub Time Machine (2010)

Four miserable friends reunite after one of them nearly dies. To cheer themselves up, they decide to spend some time together at a ski resort. Unfortunately, the resort's hot tub isn't what it seems, and they accidentally end up traveling back to 1986. The four friends scramble to find a way back to present day. Starring John Cusack and Craig Robinson.

12 Monkeys (1995)

After a deadly virus destroys humanity in 1996, survivors are forced underground. Decades later, prisoner James (Bruce Willis) agrees to go back in time to find the original virus, so that scientists can work on a cure. However, he arrives too early in 1990, and is promptly institutionalized, where he meets Jeffrey (Brad Pitt), an anti-corporate environmentalist. From there, the mystery only gets more intriguing.

Looper (2012)

In the future, time travel is used by the mob to assassinate people, who are sent back in time and killed by assassins known as "loopers." Joe's (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) older self (Bruce Willis) is sent back to be eliminated, but manages to escape before he is killed. Thus begins a twisty time travel epic, that also stars Emily Blunt.

Tenet (2020)

The Protagonist ( John David Washington ), a former CIA agent, is tasked with stopping World War III. Learning to bend time, he attempts to prevent the destruction of the world. Robert Pattinson and Elizabeth Debicki co-star.

Last Night in Soho (2021)

Aspiring fashion designer Eloise (Thomasin McKenzie) manages to travel back to the 1960s, where she meets singer "Sandie" ( Anya Taylor-Joy ). What starts as a glamorous encounter with the past soon becomings a horrifying nightmare. Co-starring Matt Smith.

Déjà Vu (2006)

A top secret organization has developed the ability to see four days into the past, in order to catch criminals. While hunting a terrorist, ATF agent Doug (Denzel Washington) realizes that this new technology might allow him to stop crimes from happening altogether.

Source Code (2011)

An unusual riff on the time travel movie, Source Code stars Jake Gyllenhaal as Army Captain Colter, who is trying to identify the person responsible for bombing a commuter train. Re-living an eight minute re-creation of the moments leading up to the explosion, Colter is stuck in a terrifying loop, until he can solve the mystery.

Mirai (2018)

A young boy called Kun runs away from home, as he feels neglected by his family after the arrival of his little sister, Mirai. Kun accidentally discovers a time travel portal in a magic garden, and is transported into the past, where he meets his mother as a child. Later, he travels to the future, where he finds his sister as an adult, and completely changes his outlook in the process.

Safety Not Guaranteed (2012)

Aubrey Plaza stars as an aspiring journalist whose latest assignment involves a mysterious classified ad about time travel. "You'll get paid after we get back. Must bring your own weapons. I have only done this once before. SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED," the ad reads. Mark Duplass co-stars.

Groundhog Day (1993)

Although Groundhog Day is technically a "time loop" movie, it wouldn't feel right to leave it off the list. Phil (Bill Murray) is a disgruntled weatherman sent to cover the annual Groundhog Day event in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. When he wakes up the next day, he realizes that he's re-living February 2, which happens again and again, until he figures out how to stop it.

Needle in a Timestack (2021)

The wonderful Cynthia Erivo stars alongside Orlando Bloom, Leslie Odom Jr., and Freida Pinto in this romantic sci-fi flick. In the future, the wealthy are able to partake in "time jaunting," but the ripples from these changes often cause timelines to warp and change. Needle in a Timestack focuses on a happily married couple whose relationship is jeopardized by an ex intent on changing history.

The Lake House (2006)

Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves star in this completely cheesy but endlessly loveable rom-com that defies time. Architect Alex (Reeves) and doctor Kate (Bullock) write letters to one another via a mailbox at a lake house where they both live at separate times. Despite the time difference, they're able to communicate with one another and forge a relationship via this magical postal system that transcends time.

Predestination (2015)

Ethan Hawke stars as an agent tasked with stopping a deadly attack before it happens, via time travel. Traveling back to 1975, he attempts to find and stop a bomber in New York, but his mission is far from simple. When he returns to the future, his life only gets more complicated.

Amy Mackelden is a freelance writer, editor, and disability activist. Her bylines include Harper's BAZAAR, Nicki Swift, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, ELLE, The Independent, Bustle, Healthline, and HelloGiggles. She co-edited The Emma Press Anthology of Illness , and previously spent all of her money on Kylie Cosmetics.

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A History Of Time Travel In The DC Universe

As Convergence gets ready to turn the world of DC Comics upside down and The Flash begins experimenting with travelling back and forth in time on TV, it feels like a big time for DC's take on time travel. But really, time travel has been a crucial part of the way DC has structured its comics for decades.

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Essentially, so your brain doesn't leak out of your ears trying to grasp all the vagaries of various time travel arcs across the history of DC, it's easier to understand the way DC creators have used time travel over the years not as simply sliding back and forth across a single timeline. That kind of time travel is relatively simple in the DC Universe. Advanced time travel ,however, is essentially the crux at which the various states of the DC Multiverse over the years hangs itself: alternate worlds are born of alternate timelines, and travel between the various numbered Earths over the years. It's less about reality hopping and more about bending the fabric of time to transpose yourself into another timeline. To understand time travel as a concept in DC's history is essentially to understand how the Multiverse has expanded and contracted over the years.

Simply put, from a metatextual level, time travel is an excuse often an excuse for alternate stories featuring familiar DC heroes, and over the years, the chance to reboot continuity. The DC Multiverse, and thus the role of time travel in DC comics, has waxed and waned over the years of the companies' existence — the more prominent the existence of alternate worlds, the more likely time travel stories are going on. Here's a brief recap of how time travelling shenanigans have torn down and reshaped the DC Comics universe over the years.

The Time Travel Wilderness

In the earliest days of the comics, outside of crossover series like Justice League, DC's universe wasn't exactly cohesive and connected. You had the splits between the Golden Age and Silver Age versions of their stalwart characters already creating a continuity mess, but in reality writers and editors didn't really care - each standalone series essentially sat in its own bubble, adventures only effecting each other as and when required, rather than huge ramifications playing out across multiple series as you might expect with a comic event today.

Amid these various continuities and canonical disputes, there emerged perhaps the DC Universe's premiere time traveller (at least, in terms of the mainstream heroes): Barry Allen, a.k.a The Flash. Barry's connection to the speed force, and his ability to race around at almost seemingly infinite speeds, played naturally into the character's move into time travel. In 1961, the character's iconic 'Cosmic Treadmill' was introduced, and Barry began to use his speed to combat enemies not just in the present, but in the far future of the 30th Century.

In the early days of the '50s and '60s, time travel was a simple concept for writers: A single stream, and effects on the past changed things in the future. But as the DC Comics world expanded and expanded, and the desire to knit things together grew, these once standalone series and spinoffs and what ifs all slowly started to merge and link into what would become the first take on the Multiverse. But instead of worlds co-existing, DC's Multiverse essentially relied on disparate timelines to connect itself all together — different events throughout history formed alternate worlds and existences on separate timelines, and Time travel would be used to hop between those worlds, rather than any other sort of explanation. Eventually, it became too much for DC to handle: There needed to be a way to wipe the slate clean again, and despite time travel essentially being what created the problem in the first place, time travel would be used to solve it.

Crisis On Infinite Timelines

Crisis on Infinite Earths had a monumental impact on the DC universe in the mid-80's. We've already discussed how the event was used to revert Superman's power level to a more believable level , but its main impetus was to act as hard reboot of the DC timeline.

The plans of the Anti-Monitor ultimately slashed the number of remaining 'Earths' in DC canon down to five, before ultimately, through the heroes and villains uniting to stop the Anti-Monitor by travelling across the stretches of time to stop his plans from even happening — and Barry Allen perishing to stop Anti-Monitor from destroying the remaining Earths — saving the day at the cost of merging the remaining five Earths into a singular amalgam: a new earth, and a new reboot for the DC timeline.

Post-Crisis also put a soft limit on time travel for DC's writers - with the new universe largely free of alternate timelines with the reboot, DC were hesitant to let it things get out of hand again. There was an unspoken rule put in place to try and limit the amount of what-ifs and alternate realities that lead to Crisis in the first place: A character could only time travel a handful of times, before the stress of attempting to jump through time would destroy their bodies.

A Big Ball Of Wibbly-Wobbly, Hypertimey-Wimey Stuff

But as time passed after Crisis, and the DC Universe began to re-expand itself, writers began to find away to expand into the multiverse once more. The main example of this semi-aborted attempt to recreate the multiverse came in 1999, when writers Grant Morrison and Mark Waid coined the concept of 'Hypertime'.

Morrison and Waid subscribed to the belief that, as far as DC Canon was concerned, everything was true and everything mattered (not to dissimilar to Disney's current approach to the new Star Wars universe). Alternate realities and different interpretations of DC's characters could exist alongside the 'canon' heroes of Earth-1, designated the 'main' timeline, as different splintered branches from the source, which was collectively known as 'Hypertime', introduced in the comic book arc The Kingdom .

But outside of the fiction, Hypertime was essentially a handwavey way to approach telling alternate stories - only a few heroes of the central Timeline would ultimately be aware of Hypertime and its branching existence at the end of the events of The Kingdom - and the way Morrison and Waid intended for the concept to weave a single timeline and its branches in and out of each other was met with stark disapprovement from other DC writers. As the pair stepped away from DC for extended periods to work with other companies, Hypertime was essentially sidelined and ignored by DC, until they flat out disavowed its existence in 2005.

The Rise And Fall Of New Timelines

In short time though, time travel and the multiverse concept would come to a head again, Hypertime be damned. Infinite Crisis , a 2006 semi-sequel to the events of Crisis on Infinite Earths , saw the alternate Alexander Luthor - who had survived the events of the first Crisis - reattempt to create the original Multiverse timeline, and acted in a similar capacity as a reboot of the DC Timeline, but on a far less extensive scale. During the story, Luthor originally succeeds in re-expanding the single Post-Crisis Earth into several alternate realities once more, before being undone and re-slammed together as 'New Earth'. This impacted on the main timestream of the DC canon in various ways, but nothing as earth-shattering as the first Crisis - certain characters like Jason Todd were brought back to life (despite their deaths being remembered), and disparate origins for heroes were all merged into one existence.

The soft reboot would only last for 6 years though. Unbeknownst to the heroes of New Earth, Luthor's attempt to recreate the different timelines actually worked. Little by little, branches off the timeline started to bleed out, forming a new Multiverse of 52 Earths: each very similar to New Earth, but then ripples in Time diverging them into the alternate timelines they would come to be known as.

The Barred Gates Of The New 52

But once again, this all changed - and once again, it was down to the efforts of the Time Travelling Barry Allen. 2011's Flashpoint , set in an alternate timeline created by the Reverse-Flash, Eobard Thawne, saw Barry trapped in a reality he couldn't remember - a quasi-apocalyptic existence where war between the Atlanteans and the Amazonians was tearing the planet apart. Thawne eventually revealed this timeline was brought about by Barry himself, in an attempt to travel back in time and save his mother Nora from the Reverse-Flash (a story we're currently seeing play out on The Flash TV show, essentially). Barry once again has to use his speed to revert the timeline, but in the process, actually recreated the DC universe once more. Three disparate timelines, the DC Universe, the Vertigo Universe, and the Wildstorm Universe - a.k.a, the three imprints DC Comics were currently running - were merged into a single Universe: The New 52.

This new reality, at first met with great hostility by DC fans, created a new slate of 52 Earths, but unlike before, contact between them and the main, Prime Earth that much of DC's comics currently take place in was restricted - Time Travel between the earth's is currently much more strongly inhibited, with communication and travel between the worlds restricted (and, in a slightly bizarre metatextual manner, can only be conducted through comic books in each Earth retelling the adventures of other Earth timelines).

This though, will soon change, with DC's new Convergence Event setting the stage, 30 years after Crisis, to throw the current timeline asunder. Supervillain Braniac, outside of Space and Time, plans to pluck various worlds and timelines from throughout DC's entire history, including pre-crisis events, and throws them all together for fun.

Time Travel. It can never be simple, can it?

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‘Things Will Be Different’ Review: A Twisty, Dark Time Travel Movie That’ll Keep You Guessing | SXSW 2024

Starring Adam Thompson and Riley Dandy, Michael Felker's time travel story is an exciting new entry into the genre.

The Big Picture

• Things Will Be Different is a dark and complex time travel film that reveals more as the story unfolds.
• The movie follows siblings Joseph and Sidney as they navigate time shifts with disturbing messages and trapped in a sinister loop.
• The film's captivating performances by Dandy and Thompson and careful editing by Felker enhance the suspense and mystery.

For whatever reason, the best time travel films of the 21st century have had quite a few things in common : they’re often stories that need to be seen multiple times to truly grasp, they’re relatively bleak, and they play with the limitations and implications of being granted such power. Movies like Back to the Future or The Terminator made time travel seem relatively straightforward, but after 2001’s Donnie Darko , the 2000s became inundated with complex films like 2004’s Primer , the films of Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead , and, hell, pretty much the entire filmography of Christopher Nolan .

Executive produced by Benson and Moorhead and written and directed by their frequent editor Michael Felker , Things Will Be Different is a solid installment in this generation of time travel films, a dark, twisting tale that offers no easy answers and only comes into clearer view once the credits roll. Things Will Be Different is time travel on a small scale, but its limitations are a strength in this surprising story.

Things Will Be Different (2024)

In order to escape police after a robbery, two estranged siblings lay low in a farmhouse that hides them away in a different time. There they reckon with a mysterious force that pushes their familial bonds to unnatural breaking points.

What Is 'Things Will Be Different' About?

Things Will Be Different introduces us to brother and sister Joseph ( Adam David Thompson ) and Sidney ( Riley Dandy ), right after they commit a robbery. With bags full of cash in hand, they meet back up at a diner, then hit the road once they hear sirens. Joseph knows someplace they can hide out for a while—a house a regular at the bar he owns has lent him—and the secluded home seems like a perfect getaway. But as soon as they hear sirens closing in on them again, Joseph brings out a mysterious book, starts shifting the hands on nearby clocks, jiggling a closet’s doorknob with specificity, and both he and his sister jump in to find themselves in a completely different time, but within the same house.

At first, this seems even better. No matter how hard the police look, they’re not going to find them in a completely different time. But after two weeks, as they try to leave, Joseph and Sidney come to find out they are trapped in this time, with their door back home blocked, and mysterious messages implying sinister things are afoot. An attempt to run away leaves Sidney vomiting blood, and it seems as though all they can do is follow the orders left behind on a time-bending voice recorder left in a safe. Joseph and Sidney are trapped, left with only questions to be answered and the fear of what they don’t know.

Without even knowing Felker’s history with the duo, the influence of Benson and Moorhead’s films can be felt in Things Will Be Different , as the pair are known for their mind and time-bending mysteries on a low budget. But Felker pares down the time travel story, keeping this film simple, giving us only the barest of hints as to what’s happening, and allowing us to simply enjoy the ride of where he’s taking us. The tone of the voice on the other end of the mysterious recorder is really the only key that Joseph and Sidney have about their situation, as they bide their time for some semblance of understanding.

Michael Felker Creates an Exciting New Time Travel Story with 'Things Will Be Different'

Despite the answers coming slowly, Felker’s script is still captivating, as there’s a foreboding tone underneath every step of this scenario. Felker hides the truth from his audience as well, putting us in the shoes of Joseph and Sidney. At one point, Sidney reveals that she’s been spending much of her time trying to figure out what the hell is going on at this house, which has led her down all sorts of paths that have gone nowhere. Yet to hear the possibilities that probably aren’t happening—theories that include everything from their dead parents doing this to them or Joseph’s theory of “coincidental torture porn”—we also get mixed up in this mystery that for us and them lacks sufficient clues to come up with a satisfactory conclusion.

What makes this all work though is the equally perplexed performances by Dandy and Thompson. We only get small glimpses of their past—they both had a difficult childhood, Joseph runs a bar, Sidney left her six-year-old back home—but these roles are played with such a depth of history between the two. We sort of are told everything we need to know about these two in their first interaction with the aforementioned recorder. Joseph seems accepting of their fate, whereas Sidney wants to cut to the chase, finding out what the people on the other end want from them. As we watch these two, Joseph is defeated by the mess they’re in, while Sidney keeps pressing forward, dedicated to get to the bottom of things. Things Will Be Different lives or dies by this dynamic of estranged brother and sister coming together, and like the mystery at hand, we crave more details about their past and what led them to this unusual house. Dandy and Thompson play these characters with just the right amount of ambiguity and uncertainty, so they become just as compelling as the questions we have about this situation.

And for a movie that was clearly shot on a budget, Felker knows how to make the most of what he has. Naturally, Felker knows the importance of editing (in addition to writing and directing, Felker also edits his own film, along with Rebeca Marques ), and utilizes the tension that cutting at just the right moment can provide. When the pressure is building, the edits are quick and exciting, as the score by Jimmy LaValle (aka The Album Leaf) increases the fear and anticipation. In some of the film’s most harrowing scenes, Felker places the camera far away, so we can only see these pivotal moments from a distance, which somehow makes them even more intense. For example, when Sidney attempts to run away, Felker films this moment so that she's an almost insignificant figure moving at high-speed, until she falls over in pain—to which Felker cuts back and forth to an extreme close-up, again, showcasing just how the right editing can make these moments feel grand.

Things Will Be Different is a strong feature debut from Felker that certainly won't be for everyone . Its version of time travel leaves much to the audience's imagination, and almost requires a second viewing to truly comprehend everything Felker is playing at. And very much in the Benson and Moorhead way of storytelling, the more something is explained, the more convoluted this actually makes things. While there's still plenty to figure out, one reveal near the end presents a strange new wrinkle in time, and what is going on probably makes things more confusing overall than actually solving the questions at hand. But this is a promising entry in the time travel canon from Felker, and his use of excellent editing, stunning cinematography by Carissa Dorson , and the two lead performances by Thompson and Dandy, makes this a film you'll want to rewatch as soon as it ends.

Things Will Be Different by Michael Felker is a strong entry into the time travel canon, which turns its limitations into strengths.

• Michael Felker makes a compelling time travel story by paring down this genre.
• The lead performances by Adam Thompson and Riley Dandy are almost as interesting as the mysteries at hand.
• Things Will Be Different will make you want to rewatch it to catch everything that's really going on.
• The answers given can often lead to more questions than solutions.

Things Will Be Different premiered at the 2024 SXSW Festival.

Screen Rant

The 10 best time travel movies, ranked.

The greatest time travel movies have complex plots and interweaving storylines, making them fun to watch and rewarding to unravel the many threads.

• Time travel movies often explore the concept of changing the past or glimpsing into the future, but they typically conclude that meddling with time is not advisable.
• The rules of time travel in movies play a crucial role in determining the validity and success of the film, and scientific accuracy is just one factor in making the audience believe in the concept.
• Not every time travel movie is popular, but that doesn't diminish the value of portraying the triumphs and dangers of time travel, and sometimes incorporating comedy into the genre can be highly entertaining.

Time travel is a frequently explored topic in movies, and the films that stand the test of time use intricate plots to their advantage. Movies and TV shows have been exploring the ways that time travel could be possible since their inception. Humanity has long dreamed of what would happen if they could change the past or get insight into the future. The movies that explore this often conclude that time is not something to be meddled with.

The time travel movie rules are a vital element of these stories; their logic can make or break the validity of the film. Additionally, while not every time travel film is the most popular, that doesn't take away from how successfully it portrays the triumphs and dangers of time travel. Making the movie scientifically accurate is only one way for the filmmakers to get the audience to believe in the concept. The point of watching a science fiction film, or one that deals with the fluidity of time, is to suspend one's disbelief and enjoy the ride.

10 Common Errors That Time Travel Movies Surprisingly Still Make Today

10 bill & ted’s excellent adventure (1989), directed by stephen herek, bill and ted's excellent adventure.

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Starring a young Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves as Bill and Ted, there's no need for logic in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure because the protagonists aren't interested in any. The titular characters are two high schoolers looking for a good time. They use time travel as a way to make sure they pass and get to be in a band. There isn't much danger that Bill and Ted won't learn their lesson and achieve their goal, but the movie is a great example of how not all time travel has to be life or death.

In recent years, the film has reached cult classic status, and though the sequel films weren't as beloved, they prove that there's a place for comedy within the genre. Referencing traditional time travel stories, as well as real people and events from the past, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure makes history fun, and the two lovable goofballs at the center of the story are easy to relate to. It's a reminder that time travel doesn't always have to be complex and heady to be worth watching.

9 Time After Time (1979)

Directed by nicholas meyer.

Time After Time takes the real author H.G. Wells (Malcolm McDowell), known for his novel The Time Machine , and portrays a fictionalized version of him. However, his invention accidentally set Jack The Ripper (David Warner) loose in 1979. Wells pursues him, and both men discover that the future isn't exactly what they imagined it to be. It's an effective conceit that delivers social commentary effectively without feeling like the film is preaching to the audience. Though the premise is a little unconventional, it's notable because it deals directly with such an important figure in time travel storytelling.

Watch Time After Time on Prime Video.

8 The Time Machine (1960)

Directed by george pal.

The Time Machine is also a great sci-fi movie based on a story by H.G. Wells . Wells (Rod Taylor) is the protagonist, but in this adaptation, the story is told as it is in the novel. The frame narrative shows Wells describing his travels with his friends. He goes forward in time continuously until he witnesses the apocalypse and its aftermath. No discussion on time travel films would be complete without bringing up The Time Machine . While it can feel a bit dated upon rewatch, its influence is far-reaching and sets the standard for what the genre should be.

Watch The Time Machine on Prime Video.

7 12 Monkeys (1995)

Directed by terry gilliam.

Bruce Willis cuts a tragic figure in 12 Monkeys as the dystopian film blends elements of sci-fi, a post-apocalyptic future, and relevant social issues of the time. James (Willis) is plagued by recurring nightmares of a man being shot in an airport, and after he is sent back in time to prevent the decimation of humanity, he realizes in the final moments of the film it's his own death that he is remembering. 12 Monkeys does an excellent job of leaving the audience feeling as if they're not sure what is real and what James is imagining.

A dark take on the genre, the movie doesn't shy away from proposing that time travel can destroy a mind. The biggest pitfall of 12 Monkeys is that it can sometimes get caught up in its own intricacies, making the plot more confusing than necessary. However, this does add to the overall atmosphere of intensity and shows James' perspective of losing his grip on reality. The performances anchor the film, but the premise itself is timeless, which led to the spin-off series of the same name.

10 Confusing But Brilliant Movies Everyone Should See, According To Reddit

6 groundhog day (1993), directed by harold ramis, groundhog day.

More of a time loop than time travel, Groundhog Day is the preeminent example of how to incorporate sci-fi and fantasy plot devices into a romantic comedy seamlessly. Often, time travel films can be inaccessible because of the scientific language and contradicting storylines, but Groundhog Day doesn't have this problem. Though Phil (Bill Murray) is forced to relive the same day over and over, something that couldn't happen in real life, his struggles and character development remain grounded and relatable. By effectively crossing genres, the film has achieved a permanent place in the cultural memory.

Often, time travel films can be inaccessible because of the scientific language and contradicting storylines, but Groundhog Day doesn't have this problem.

5 Looper (2012)

Directed by rian johnson.

Though much of the film's complex plot has been unraveled, Looper 's biggest mystery still hasn't been explained . It's one of Rian Johnson's earlier movies before his career took off with Knives Out. Looper combines many sci-fi premises to flesh out its intricate world-building, including the interaction of the same person at different points in their lifetime. Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) conflicts with Old Joe (Bruce Willis) as different potential futures are changed by his actions in the past. The film received great critical acclaim for its attention to character motivations instead of relying on the flashy aspects of time travel.

4 Run Lola Run (1998)

Directed by tom tykwer.

The German film Run Lola Run doesn't worry about explaining how its time travel works but uses it as a tool to put Lola (Franka Potente) through a high-adrenaline chase. In trying to deliver a huge sum of money to her boyfriend with only twenty minutes to get to him, Lola relives her journey over and over with different results each time. These differences in the timelines affect her and the people around her more than she could guess.

Few films directly interrogate the balance between fate and chance that is at the heart of all narratives that interact with time. Run Lola Run is as stress-inducing to watch as it is for Lola to live through, but the ability of the film to raise the stakes with each loop makes it unforgettable. Some critics felt that the message of the film was only surface level and cashed in on the high-energy pacing without thoughtful plotting. However, this isn't the case at all. Run Lola Run uses its action film gimmicks to sneak in a larger message.

Watch Run Lola Run on Prime Video.

3 The Terminator (1984)

Directed by james cameron.

One of the most successful sci-fi franchises of all time, The Terminator got that way by being a fantastic action movie as well. The premise is simple: a cyborg (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is sent back in time to kill Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) before she can give birth to the man who will one day save the world from AI and robotic beings. However, sometimes the most straightforward plots can have the best results. The relatively easy-to-understand story makes room for fantastic visual and thematic choices.

At the time of its release, it was enormously popular, and though some of its depictions of masculinity and traditional gender roles are critiqued today, the sequels attempted to fix these problems while staying true to the neo-noir and technological themes that make it so iconic. It's important not to discard older films for their flaws but to acknowledge them and appreciate them for the aspects that changed movie history forever.

Watch The Terminator on Apple TV.

10 Forgotten Terminator Rip-Offs You Need To See

2 primer (2004), directed by shane carruth.

Due to its low budget and independent production, Primer wasn't on the audience's radar in 2004 when it was released. However, it's gained significant prominence since then and is considered one of the most scientifically accurate time travel movies ever made. Primer is the classic example of a film that refused to par down complex ideas and dialogue, choosing to let the viewer decipher the plot as best they could. Shockingly, this doesn’t alienate the audience but draws them in.

It's impossible to fully capture the multiple intersecting timelines and interactions future versions of the protagonists have with their past selves. Primer is better watched than explained, and though it might take a few watches to understand it, but the result is worth the initial confusion. The film is so important because it subverts all the classic hallmarks of a time travel film and manages to tell a character-driven story in a highly technical way.

Watch Primer on Prime Video.

1 Back To The Future (1985)

Directed by robert zemeckis, back to the future.

There are many different timelines across the Back to the Future movies , but the first and best film, the original Back to the Future, only deals with a few. It revolves around Marty (Michael J. Fox) traveling from 1985 to 1955, where he has to correct the events he disrupted and make sure his parents fall in love. Many time travel films and shows have followed the movie's example of having the time traveler correct the accidental meddling in their own timeline.

The story is tight, the characters are charismatic and engaging, and the film perfectly hits upon nostalgia for the 1950s, as well as present-day nostalgia that people have for the 1980s. It's the quintessential time travel film that cleverly uses tropes like the eccentric scientist to its advantage and is a massive critical and commercial success to this day. It was the highest-grossing film of 1985 and has only grown in acclaim since then (via Box Office Mojo ).

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All DC Comics Movies Ranked

Superman. Batman. Wonder Woman. These are some of the staple titans of DC Comics the world has come to adore over the past 80 years, especially as they made the leap from page panel to silver screen and TV in the ’50s and ’60s. (And well before those upstart punks Marvel Comics to boot!) You’ll find them all in in our guide to every DC Comics movie ranked by Tomatometer, along with other significant greats like Swamp Thing, Green Lantern, and Shazam.

But the world of comic book publishing is nothing if not vast, a constellation of multiverses, retcons, annuals, and imprints. Moving beyond the strictly superhero element of DC Comics, this guide will also feature the adapted works from DC imprints Vertigo ( V for Vendetta , The Losers ), Paradox Press ( Road to Perdition , A History of Violence ), and WildStorm ( Red , Red 2 ).

We’ve limited the movies to theatrical releases only, which does keep out the home animated fare that’s been giving DC adaptations a good name whenever the DCEU stumbled. But to that end, you will find The Killing Joke and Return of the Caped Crusaders here, both of which got a one-day theatrical release.

In 2023, amidst a changing of the guard that included James Gunn now running the show with a rebooted Superman: Legacy , the company began wrapping up the DCEU with Shazam! Fury of the Gods , The Flash and Blue Beetle .

Great leaping catfish! This introduction is now over! Hurry, to Rotten Tomatoes and the list of every DC movie ranked by Tomatometer! — Alex Vo

The Dark Knight (2008) 94%

Superman: The Movie (1978) 94%

Wonder Woman (2017) 93%

Teen Titans GO! to the Movies (2018) 91%

Shazam! (2019) 90%

The Suicide Squad (2021) 90%

The LEGO Batman Movie (2017) 90%

The Dark Knight Rises (2012) 87%

A History of Violence (2005) 88%

The Batman (2022) 85%

Batman Begins (2005) 85%

Superman II (1980) 83%

Road to Perdition (2002) 81%

Batman Returns (1992) 82%

Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993) 83%

Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020) 79%

Blue Beetle (2023) 78%

Superman Returns (2006) 74%

V for Vendetta (2006) 73%

Red (2010) 72%

Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders (2016) 94%

Batman (1966) 81%

Batman (1989) 76%

DC League of Super-Pets (2022) 72%

Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021) 71%

Joker (2019) 69%

The Flash (2023) 63%

Aquaman (2018) 65%

Watchmen (2009) 65%

Swamp Thing (1982) 60%

Wonder Woman 1984 (2020) 58%

Man of Steel (2013) 56%

Batman and Harley Quinn (2017) 50%

Shazam! Fury of the Gods (2023) 49%

The Losers (2010) 48%

Constantine (2005) 46%

Red 2 (2013) 45%

The Return of Swamp Thing (1989) 44%

Justice League (2017) 40%

Batman Forever (1995) 41%

Black Adam (2022) 38%

Batman: The Killing Joke (2016) 35%

Superman III (1983) 29%

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) 29%

Suicide Squad (2016) 26%

Green Lantern (2011) 25%

The Kitchen (2019) 24%

Jonah Hex (2010) 12%

Batman & Robin (1997) 12%

Steel (1997) 8%

Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987) 10%

Supergirl (1984) 8%

Catwoman (2004) 8%

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DC: 10 Best Time Travel Stories

Barry Allen may be the most famous DC hero to screw up the timeline, but he's far from the only characters doing it.

Time   travel stories have been part of DC Comics since the Golden Age. While there have been imaginary stories set in the future, it's the stories directly involving traveling through time that is truly special. Sometimes it's a hero directly traveling to the past or future. Sometimes it's a threat that has traveled to the present.

RELATED:  10 Of The Best Time Travel Movies Of All Time, Ranked

What's not included in this list are stories set in another period, but not involving time travel. "Possible future" stories like those with Superman and Lois raising two boys won't find their way on this list. These are all stories that involve good old-fashioned traveling through time.

10 Legion of Super-Heroes #19

When Roxxas attacked the reforming Legion on Winath, Jo Nah, the former Ultra Boy was his fiercest target. The murderer was forced to use a Dominator weapon that sent Jo thousands of years into the past. Ultimately, the story led to Jo arriving in ancient Egypt and becoming a pawn of a Lord of Chaos. The resident Lord of Order is Nabu, known by DC fans as the force behind Doctor Fate .

The real emotional impact of this story is about a hero that has been refusing to mourn. The Lord of Chaos uses that to manipulate Jo Nah. His reaction when Nabu kills the "woman" Jo has loved for months is genuine. When Nabu returns Jo to the 30th century, it comes with beautiful closure.

9 Seven Soldiers of Victory vs. Doctor Doome

From the Golden Age, this story has a scientific genius called Doctor Doome to use a time machine to use historical characters to commit crimes. He's thwarted by a loose-knit group of heroes calling themselves the Seven Soldiers of Victory . He eventually flees from the Seven Soldiers through time to Ancient Greece.

Revisited in  All-Star Squadron #29,  it's revealed that Doome tempted the Shining Knight to turn on his teammates by dangling a return to Camelot. It's a great addition to a story that was already solid for a Golden Age super-hero story.

8 Flashpoint

Flashpoint might be the most influential DC story of the past decade. When Barry Allen goes back in time to stop his mother from being killed, he manipulates the timestream one time too many . All of the history changes, sending the world headlong into destruction.

With help, Barry goes back to undo his mistake, what results is not the same world that he left, but altered. It would be known as the New 52 . For five years, the effects of  Flashpoint would be felt across all DC Comics. It could even be argued that all of the effects of it aren't gone yet.

7 Titans Tomorrow

After the Teen Titans help the Legion of Super-Heroes stop the Fatal Five Hundred, they're not returned to their own time. They arrive ten years into the future where their future selves have begun a reign of terror. They find a Titans East team opposing them.

It could have simply ended, but it became influential in the series immediate future. The Titans of Tomorrow travel back to the present to ensure their future. The future Tim Drake even survived into the world after DC Rebirth . All the while, it was a nice little detour with a team that doesn't usually get thought of when it comes to time travel.

6 Time and Time Again

Superman sought to stop the Linear Man from returning Booster Gold to the future. In doing so, he found himself bouncing around in time, using the energy from massive explosions to power each trip. Many times he went into an era of the past, and a few times, he met the Legion of Super-Heroes.

As the trip ends in the 30th century, the Linear Man reveals he manipulated Superman's trips to ensure the moon explodes as it was destined to do. When he returns home, it's an uncharacteristically pyrrhic victory for the Man of Steel.

5 Legion of Super-Heroes #100

When several Legionnaires find themselves stranded in the 20th century, it's a trying time. They help defeat a Sun-Eater, pick up a new member, and find their leader injured and in a coma. The entire time, they're trying to get home. To that measure, Brainiac 5 builds a super-computer, Computo.

RELATED:  DC: 10 Things Everyone Forgets About the Legion of Super-Heroes

In the midst of battling Computo, who has possessed one of Triad's bodies and Cosmic Boy, the Legion has to keep a portal to the future open. Eventually, the secret to defeating Computo comes when Cosmic Boy uses the portal to bring help from the 31st century, the rest of the Legion. It's a simple solution using this form of time travel, but it shows a level of strategy that doesn't depend on hitting something until it breaks.

4 All-Star Squadron and Infinity, Inc vs. the Ultra-Humanite

Prior to the debut of Infinity, Inc . the heroes of Earth-2 were represented in the Golden Age era All-Star Squadron . One of their first big storylines was a battle against the Ultra-Humanite. Since the present era version of that villain was trapped by the Justice League and Justice Society in Limbo, writer Roy Thomas had both versions work together. This led to a plot twist that saw a new team consisting of the children of the JSA coming to the 1940s.

Those heroes led to a massive force of heroes facing off against the Ultra-Humanite and her forces. It was a great moment for the All-Star Squadron that had seemed not to live up to its promise of enlisting every costumed hero of World War II. It was also a very high-profile debut for a new team of heroes.

3 The Greatest Hero of Them All

When Crisis On Infinite Earths resulted in a DC Universe where Superman was never Superboy , it had to affect the Legion of Super-Heroes in some way. The solution came in a crossover with Superman and Action Comics. It culminated in Superboy and the Legion in battle with the Time Trapper, who had manipulated every trip the heroes ever made to the past.

Superboy died protecting the Earth that the Time Trapper put in a pocket timeline, and it was a devastating loss for the team. Superboy was their inspiration and he died as he lived, being a hero. It would eventually lead to a final showdown that would seemingly kill the Trapper, but can a force of entropy ever truly die?

2 Crisis On Infinite Earths

Crisis On Infinite Earths is the DC event that sparked all DC events. It begins with the Monitor sending teams to various periods in time. We got to see the Great Disaster, ancient Atlantis, World War II, and the Old West. It ends with almost every hero going to stop the Anti-Monitor .

RELATED:  Crisis On Infinite Earths: 10 Undeniable Ways That This Crossover Comic Changed DC Forever

The time travel serves the purpose of bringing in the entire DC Universe, past, present and future. The characters that the teams meet broaden the scope of the story and the threat. The use of the Dawn of Time helps shape the end of the story in a way that was revolutionary for comics at the time.

1 Adventure Comics #247

This is the time travel story that launched a team that lasted for over 60 years. The Legion of Super-Heroes travels through time to recruit Superboy. They take him to the future where he gets a hazing before being accepted into their super-hero club.

This also helps define the legacy of the DC Universe, especially the legacy of Superboy. This is also such an important story that it's been referenced many times. The Legion remains so popular that even though numerous reboots , some version of this story remains.

NEXT:    DC: 10 Things Everyone Forgets About the Seven Soldiers of Victory

Time Travel

• View history

Time Travel can be achieved by many means, one more weird than the other .

The first Time Travel story in a comic book by DC Comics or its predecessors was Magic Crystal of History: "Ancient Egypt, Part 1" , by Adolphe Barreaux , in New Fun Comics #1 , Feb 1935.

The second Time Travel story in a DC comic was Strange Adventures of Mr. Weed: "The Time Machine, Part 1" , by Sheldon Mayer , in New Comics #1 , Dec 1935.

Since that time, hundreds of stories have featured characters and vehicles and devices and potions for accomplishing various forms of time travel.

Time Travel Theory

Three distinct, and irreconcilable, theories regarding time travel have long co-existed, in the DC Universes:

Fixed Time: The past cannot be changed. Events will conspire to prevent any meaningful changes to history. [1] [2] In some cases a time traveler is forced to be part of the very event they were to observe and make sure it happens as recorded. [3] [4] In others a person will become a phantom unable to interact with events. [5] [6]

Plastic Time: History can be changed, but there can be consequences from doing so. [7]

• The concept of hypertime can be viewed as a strange version of the Plastic Time theory.
• An extreme version of Plastic Time is Chaotic Time where the smallest of changes can have mammoth effects on the timeline. [8]

Parallel Universes: Time travel to your own actual past or future is impossible, and all time travel does is either shift you into a parallel universe, [7] or into an alternate timeline. In some cases travel to "the" future was actually travel to an parallel Earth with a similar but also different history. [9]

• Appearances of Time Travel
• Catalogued images related to Time Travel
• ↑ Superboy #85
• ↑ Superman #141
• ↑ DC Comics Presents Annual #2
• ↑ Captain Marvel Adventures #80
• ↑ Superman #61
• ↑ Superman Family #202
• ↑ 7.0 7.1 Superman #146
• ↑ Flash: Flashpoint
• ↑ Action Comics #399
• 1 Batman (Bruce Wayne)
• 2 Bruce Wayne (Earth -22)
• 3 Superman (Clark Kent)

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The Best Time Travel Movies Ever

• Movies or TV
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• In Theaters
• Release Year

1. Predestination (I) (2014)

R | 97 min | Action, Drama, Sci-Fi

As his last assignment, a temporal agent is tasked to travel back in time and prevent a bomb attack in New York in 1975. The hunt, however, turns out to be beyond the bounds of possibility.

Directors: Michael Spierig , Peter Spierig | Stars: Ethan Hawke , Sarah Snook , Noah Taylor , Madeleine West

Votes: 304,676 | Gross: $0.07M

2. Interstellar (2014)

PG-13 | 169 min | Adventure, Drama, Sci-Fi

When Earth becomes uninhabitable in the future, a farmer and ex-NASA pilot, Joseph Cooper, is tasked to pilot a spacecraft, along with a team of researchers, to find a new planet for humans.

Director: Christopher Nolan | Stars: Matthew McConaughey , Anne Hathaway , Jessica Chastain , Mackenzie Foy

Votes: 2,099,422 | Gross: $188.02M

3. Fringe (2008–2013)

TV-14 | 46 min | Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi

An F.B.I. agent is forced to work with an institutionalized scientist and his son in order to rationalize a brewing storm of unexplained phenomena.

Stars: Anna Torv , Joshua Jackson , John Noble , Jasika Nicole

Votes: 257,466

4. Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel (2009)

PG-13 | 83 min | Comedy, Sci-Fi

While drinking at their local pub, three social outcasts attempt to navigate a time-travel conundrum.

Director: Gareth Carrivick | Stars: Chris O'Dowd , Marc Wootton , Dean Lennox Kelly , Anna Faris

Votes: 36,565

5. 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: 115,738 | Gross: $45.01M

6. About Time (I) (2013)

R | 123 min | Comedy, Drama, Fantasy

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.

Director: Richard Curtis | Stars: Domhnall Gleeson , Rachel McAdams , Bill Nighy , Lydia Wilson

Votes: 385,800 | Gross: $15.32M

7. 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: 602,928 | Gross: $66.49M

8. 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: 646,638 | Gross: $57.14M

9. The Butterfly Effect (2004)

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

Evan Treborn suffers blackouts during significant events of his life. As he grows up, he finds a way to remember these lost memories and a supernatural way to alter his life by reading his journal.

Directors: Eric Bress , J. Mackye Gruber | Stars: Ashton Kutcher , Amy Smart , Melora Walters , Elden Henson

Votes: 521,100 | Gross: $57.94M

10. 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: 736,757 | Gross: $100.21M

11. 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: 549,720 | Gross: $54.71M

12. Men in Black³ (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: 386,975 | Gross: $179.02M

13. 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: 114,146 | Gross: $0.42M

14. The Time Traveler's Wife (2009)

PG-13 | 107 min | Comedy, Drama, Fantasy

Henry DeTamble, a librarian, possesses a unique gene that lets him involuntarily travel through time. His wife, Claire Abshire, finds it difficult to cope with it.

Director: Robert Schwentke | Stars: Eric Bana , Rachel McAdams , Ron Livingston , Michelle Nolden

Votes: 157,904 | Gross: $63.41M

15. 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: 130,395 | Gross: $56.68M

16. Arrival (II) (2016)

PG-13 | 116 min | Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi

A linguist works with the military to communicate with alien lifeforms after twelve mysterious spacecraft appear around the world.

Director: Denis Villeneuve | Stars: Amy Adams , Jeremy Renner , Forest Whitaker , Michael Stuhlbarg

Votes: 770,925 | Gross: $100.55M

17. 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: 1,306,608 | Gross: $210.61M

18. Next (2007)

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

A Las Vegas magician who can see into the future is pursued by FBI agents seeking to use his abilities to prevent a nuclear terrorist attack.

Director: Lee Tamahori | Stars: Nicolas Cage , Julianne Moore , Jessica Biel , Thomas Kretschmann

Votes: 166,394 | Gross: $18.21M

19. Travelers (2016–2018)

TV-MA | 45 min | Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi

Hundreds of years from now, surviving humans discover how to send consciousness back through time, into people of the 21st century, while attempting to change the path of humanity.

Stars: Eric McCormack , MacKenzie Porter , Nesta Cooper , Jared Abrahamson

Votes: 64,391

20. Continuum (I) (2012–2015)

TV-14 | 45 min | Action, Sci-Fi, Thriller

A detective from the year 2077 finds herself trapped in present-day Vancouver and searching for ruthless criminals from the future.

Stars: Rachel Nichols , Victor Webster , Erik Knudsen , Stephen Lobo

Votes: 63,531

21. Heroes (II) (2006–2010)

TV-14 | 45 min | Drama, Fantasy, Sci-Fi

Common people discover that they have super powers. Their lives intertwine as a devastating event must be prevented.

Stars: Jack Coleman , Hayden Panettiere , Milo Ventimiglia , Masi Oka

Votes: 251,602

22. Paradox (III) (2016)

TV-MA | 90 min | Action, Drama, Sci-Fi

A time machine's tested first time by a man in the team traveling 1 hour into the future. He returns to warn them against killings in the next hour. Is it possible to change things in the "past"? Twist after twist follow.

Director: Michael Hurst | Stars: Zoë Bell , Malik Yoba , Adam Huss , Bjørn Alexander

Votes: 3,333

23. ARQ (2016)

TV-MA | 88 min | Action, Sci-Fi, Thriller

Trapped in a lab and stuck in a time loop, a disoriented couple fends off masked raiders while harboring a new energy source that could save humanity.

Director: Tony Elliott | Stars: Robbie Amell , Rachael Taylor , Shaun Benson , Gray Powell

Votes: 41,861

24. Time Lapse (2014)

Not Rated | 104 min | Mystery, Sci-Fi, Thriller

Three friends discover a mysterious machine that takes pictures twenty-four hours into the future, and conspire to use it for personal gain, until disturbing and dangerous images begin to develop.

Director: Bradley King | Stars: Danielle Panabaker , Matt O'Leary , George Finn , John Rhys-Davies

Votes: 49,133

25. 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: 44,836

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The 25 Greatest Time-Travel Movies Ever Made

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

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

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

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

25. Galaxy Quest (1999)

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

Galaxy Quest is available to rent on Amazon .

24. Happy Death Day (2017)

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

Happy Death Day is available to rent on Amazon .

23. Back to the Future Part II (1989)

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

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

22. See You Yesterday (2019)

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

See You Yesterday is streaming on Netflix .

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

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

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

20. Source Code (2011)

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

Source Code is available to rent on Amazon .

19. 12 Monkeys (1995)

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

12 Monkeys is available to rent on Amazon .

18. Run Lola Run (1998)

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

Run Lola Run is available to rent on Amazon .

17. Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

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

Edge of Tomorrow is streaming on Fubo TV .

16. Star Trek (2009)

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

Star Trek is available to rent on Amazon .

15. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2006)

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

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

14. Safety Not Guaranteed (2012)

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

Safety Not Guaranteed is streaming on Tubi .

13. La Jetée (1962)

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

La Jetée is streaming on the Criterion Channel .

12. Planet of the Apes (1968)

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

Planet of the Apes is available to rent on Amazon .

11. Groundhog Day (1993)

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

Groundhog Day is streaming on Starz .

10. Predestination (2014)

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

Predestination is streaming on Tubi .

9. Looper (2012)

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

Looper is streaming on Netflix .

8. Donnie Darko (2001)

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

Donnie Darko is streaming on HBO Max .

7. Back to the Future (1984)

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

Back to the Future is available to rent on Amazon .

6. Palm Springs (2020)

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

Palm Springs is streaming on Hulu .

5. Tenet (2020)

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

Tenet is streaming on HBO Max .

4. The Terminator (1984)

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

The Terminator is streaming on Amazon Prime Video .

3. Interstellar (2014)

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

Interstellar is streaming on Paramount+ .

2. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

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

Terminator 2: Judgment Day is streaming on Netflix .

1. Arrival (2016)

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

Arrival is streaming on Hulu and Paramount+ .

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The 32 Best TV Shows About Time Travel

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Where to watch Doctor Who:

Timeless, nbc (2016 – 2018).

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

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

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

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

Where to watch Timeless:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Where to watch Legends of Tomorrow:

12 monkeys, syfy (2015 – 2018).

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

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

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

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

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

Where to watch 12 Monkeys:

Outlander, starz (2014 – present).

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

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

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

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

Where to watch Outlander:

Travelers, showcase (2016 – 2018).

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

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

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

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

Where to watch Travelers:

Dark, netflix (2017 – 2020).

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

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

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

Where to watch Dark:

The umbrella academy, netflix (2019 – present).

Netflix brings another to the list with The Umbrella Academy .

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

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

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

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

Where to watch The Umbrella Academy:

Seven days, upn (1998 – 2001).

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

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

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

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

Where to watch Seven Days:

Loki, disney+ (2021 – present).

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

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

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

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

Where to watch Loki:

Making history, fox (2017).

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

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

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

Where to watch Making History:

Quantum leap, nbc (1989 – 1993).

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

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

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

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

Where to watch Quantum Leap:

Quantum leap, nbc (2022 – present).

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

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

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

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

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

Where to watch Quantum Leap reboot:

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

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

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

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

Where to watch The Way Home:

Russian doll, netflix (2019 – 2022).

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

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

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

Where to watch Russian Doll:

Undone, prime video (2019 – present).

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

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

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

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

Where to watch Undone:

Voyagers, nbc (1982 – 1983).

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

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

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

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

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

Where to watch Voyagers!:

Fringe, fox (2008 – 2013).

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

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

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

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

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

Where to watch Fringe:

Time after time, abc (2017).

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

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

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

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

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

Where to watch Time After Time:

11.22.63, hulu (2016).

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

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

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

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

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

Where to watch 11.22.63:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Where to watch The 4400:

Somewhere between, abc (2017).

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

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

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

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

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

Where to watch Somewhere Between:

Terra nova, fox (2011).

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

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

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

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

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

Where to watch Terra Nova:

Frequency, the cw (2016 – 2017).

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

Frequency demonstrates this concept perfectly.

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

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

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

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

Where to watch Frequency:

Life on mars, bbc one (2006).

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

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

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

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

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

Where to watch Life on Mars:

Always a witch, netflix (2019 – 2020).

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

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

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

Where to watch Always a Witch:

Beforeigners, hbo (2019 – present).

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

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

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

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

Where to watch Beforeigners:

Alice, sbs tv (2020).

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

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

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

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

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

Where to watch Alice:

Live up to your name, tvn (2017).

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

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

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

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

Where to watch Live Up to Your Name:

My only love song, netflix (2017).

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

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

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

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

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

Where to watch My Only Love Song:

Signal, tvn (2016).

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

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

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

Where to watch Signal:

Rooftop prince, sbs (2012).

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

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

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

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

Where to watch Rooftop Prince:

11 comments.

Tomorrow people cw

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

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

Fantastic acting and interesting characters.

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

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

Where is The Time Tunnel?????

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

i was looking for this comment. such an underrated show

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

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

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

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DC Studios Announces Its Next Major Movie Releasing In 2024

DC Studios just announced its next 2024 film, which is not what many fans expected.

Currently, DC Studios President James Gunn is in production for the first proper installment of the DCU , Superman , starring David Corenswet . Joining the titular hero will be Rachel Brosnahan's Lois Lane , Nicholas Hoult's Lex Luthor , and maybe even a villainous Superman clone .

Many thought this next chapter in Clark Kent's story—which will also establish Supergirl , Green Lantern , and Mr. Terrific—would be the first movie under the proper DCU banner.

[ Henry Cavill's Superman Replacement Explained: Why Did DC Recast Him? ]

Super/Man is the Next Live-Action DC Studios Film

At CinemaCon 2024, during the Warner Bros . presentation, DC Studios co-lead Peter Safran revealed DC's next theatrical release: Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story .

Before Safran came on stage, his fellow DC Studios co-lead James Gunn presented a special video message from the set of his Superman film, where he introduced how special Super/Man is and how important it is to them.

The project follows the inspiring and tragic real-life story of the late Christopher Reeve, the man who played the iconic Superman in the original 1978 film. Following his on-screen career as Clark Kent, a life-altering tragedy occurred in 1995 when a horse-riding accident left him quadriplegic and dependent on a ventilator.

The project, which is directed by both Ian Bonhote and Peter Ettedgui, was given a theatrical release window of September 2024 in partnership with Fathom Events. The documentary will feature never-before-seen home movies and archival footage chronicling Reeves’ monumental life.

The emotional footage screened for attendees revealed glimpses of interviews with Reeve's children and his close friend Glenn Close, a focus on his connection to Robin Williams, his time as Superman, and how the actor kept going after the accident.

As reported by Variety earlier in 2024, the documentary was first purchased by Warner Bros. for $15 million after its Sundance premiere.

Focusing on Superman's Legacy Ahead of the New DCU

While James Gunn's Superman movie no longer has Legacy in its title, the emphasis on Super/Man will fittingly put the character’s legacy in the spotlight ahead of 2025’s Superman . What better way to introduce the world to a new Man of Steel than to remind everyone of the story of the legendary Christopher Reeves?

Hopefully, that documentary will leave a better taste in the mouths of fans than his controversial posthumous cameo in The Flash did.

As for what is next on DC Studios' theatrical slate, at some point following Superman , it will be Supergirl . The movie will star House of the Dragon 's Milly Alcock, and it just got its director in Craig Gillespie—though it still does not have an estimated release day.

There are also some television projects expected next year from DC Studios, including the animated Creature Commandos project and Peacemaker Season 2, which just started production.

The future for DC Comics fans looks bright, so, hopefully, DC Studios leads James Gunn and Peter Safran can pull it all off.

Superman releases in theaters on July 25, 2025.

Keep up with other Superman news:

New Superman 2025 Movie Cast: Every Actor & Characters Set to Appear (Confirmed & Reported)

First Look at James Gunn's Superman Movie Villain Revealed on Set (Photo)

2025 Superman Movie: First Look at Logo Possibly Revealed (Photo)

LATEST NEWS

All 9 2024 DCU Movies and TV Shows Releasing This Year

DC has an exciting lineup for 2024. Here are 9 titles releasing this year!

The DC lineup for film and TV series releases carries a few notable names that have kindled the excitement of fans. Owing mostly to the 'DCU Chapter One' masterplan of DC Studio CEOs James Gunn and Peter Safran, viewers will see a whole line-up of DC projects take to screens. The CEOs kick-started their schedule early this year, with the release of Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths - Part One on January 9, 2024.

Other major projects are currently in development, with Part Two of Crisis on Infinite Earths scheduled for release in a matter of days. The lineup of DC works carries both good news and bad, with a few much-loved series coming to their ends, including CW's Superman and Lois, while other highly anticipated works are being brought to life, such as Joker: Folie à Deux. While exciting titles are peppered across the years 2025 and 2026 as well, here is a list of nine DC TV series and films that are slated to make their way to screens in 2024 .

Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths - Part Two

Releasing april 23, 2024, justice league: crisis on infinite earths.

Part two of Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths will be the middle chapter of a three-part animated crossover film. The first part of the trilogy was released at the start of the year, depicting the heroes of multiple Earths witnessing the threat looming upon the multiverse. Speaking to IGN Fan Fest, Batman voice actor Jensen Ackles revealed that the much-awaited second part of the film will be made available on digital on April 23, 2024. The release date for Part 3, the final chapter of the trilogy, has not been confirmed at the time of writing.

The official trailer for Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths - Part Two , released in February, establishes that Super Girl will play a prominent role in the upcoming installment. With the team gearing up to take on the endless army of shadow demons who threaten to destroy the world and parallel Earths, Part Two will no doubt be exciting. The release of Part 3 of the trilogy, slated for sometime later this year, will bring the Tommorowverse story arc to a close. The arc began with Superman: Man of Tomorrow back in 2020.

Joker: Folie à Deux

Releasing october 4, 2024, joker: folie a deux.

2019's Joker was undoubtedly a success. The film, which told the origin story of the Joker, was a massive box office hit, accumulating over $1 billion worldwide on a mere $55 million budget. Joaquin Phoenix, who portrayed the titular character in the film, went on to win the Academy Award for Best Actor, while Hildur Guðnadóttir claimed the award for Best Original Score. Given this, it is not surprising that the film is now getting a musical sequel .

The sequel, Joker: Folie à Deux , has a star-studded cast. Phoenix will be reprising his role as the titular character, Arthur Fleck, with Lady Gaga starring alongside him as Harley Quinn. According to the official teaser trailer for the film, which was released on April 10, 2024, the sequel will pick up from where the first film concluded. Fleck, who is in custody, meets Quinn during his confinement. However, differing from the usual narrative where Quinn is Fleck's therapist, in Folie à Deux Quinn appears to be a fellow patient.

Superman & Lois Season Season 4

Releasing fall 2024, superman and lois.

Given that Season 3 ended on an exciting cliffhanger, viewers have been eagerly awaiting Season 4 of Superman & Lois . The fourth season was almost canceled in May 2023, shattering the hopes of fans, when Deadline reported that The CW was looking to do away with its remaining scripted dramas due to the higher prices of production. However, The CW appeared to have had a change of heart in regard to Superman & Lois, and in June 2023 announced that the series would be renewed for a fourth season. Season 4 will be the final season of Superman & Lois.

Despite being green-lit for production, the latest season of the series will only consist of ten episodes and also have a trimmed-down cast due to budget constraints. In addition to Tyler Hoechlin and Elizabeth Tulloch, viewers can only safely expect members of the Kent family and Lex Luthor to make a return. The WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes have also taken their toll on the release of the season, with it being reported that Superman & Lois Season 4 would only be released after April 2024, likely in September or October. The latest season will likely center on the rivalry between Superman and Doomsday, given the ending of the previous season. As readers of the comics are already aware, Season 4 will also depict the death of Superman at the hands of Doomsday.

Creature Commandos Season 1

Creature commandos.

As per DC Studios co-CEO James Gunn, Creature Commandos will be the first animated series of the new DC Universe. An adaptation of J. M. DeMatteis' comic series, the first season of the series is set to consist of seven episodes. As per the comics, the Creature Commandos is a military unit that is made up of supernatural beings. The animated series will likely chronicle Amanda Waller as she puts together a black ops team consisting of monstrous prisoners.

As the first project of the new DCU, the series will arrive ahead of Superman: Legacy, which is slated for release on July 11, 2025. Despite the delays that production has faced, Gunn has confirmed that Creature Commandos will be released in 2024. The talented cast of the series includes Viola Davis as Amanda Waller , Frank Grillo as Rick Flag Sr., Zoë Chao as Nina Mazursky, Maria Bakalova as Princess Ilana Rostovic, David Harbour as Eric Frankenstein, Indira Varma as the Bride of Frankenstein and Anya Chalotra as Circe.

The Penguin

Releasing late 2024.

Matt Reeves' The Penguin was confirmed soon after the success of The Batman . The series is expected to act as a bridge between The Batman and its sequel, The Batman: Part Two (scheduled to release on October 2, 2026). The narrative of The Penguin will center on Oswald Cobblepot, AKA the Penguin, depicting his origin story and his rise to power in Gotham's underworld. Taking on the titular role is Colin Farrell. The actor will be joined by those including Cristin Milioti, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Michael Kelly, Rhenzy Feliz, and Victor Aguilar.

Although production for The Penguin wrapped in February 2024 and the series was slated for a mid-2024 debut, the release of the series was pushed back due to the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. The Penguin is now expected to make its debut in the fall of 2024, with a possible October release date. The series will consist of a total of eight episodes and will be released on Max.

Aztec Batman: Clash of Empires

Also known as Batman Azteca: Choque de Imperios , the feature-length film was originally announced in June 2022 by HBO Max Latin America. The film was developed for HBO Max by Warner Bros. Animation, DC Comics, Anima, and Chatrone. The movie is slated to set the Dark Knight in a captivating Latin American setting, and, as per Warner Bros., will immerse fans in the exciting culture of Mesoamerica. Given its cultural significance, authenticity has been a key concern for the creative team. Warner Bros. has emphasized the importance afforded to appropriateness and relevancy, highlighting that specialists were brought in to ensure that indigenous representation in the film remains authentic.

The animated film, set at the end of the age of the Aztec Empire will follow a young Aztec boy, Yohualli Coatl (Horacio Garcia Rojas). The boy embarks on a revenge mission against Spanish Conquistadors for murdering his father, Toltecatzin. To achieve his objective, he engages in training under Acatzin, his friend and mentor, at the temple of the bat god Tzinacan. Aztec Batman: Clash of Empires also has its own versions of the supporting characters that viewers are accustomed to seeing. Accordingly, Aztec Batman 's Alfred will be Acatzin, while Two-Face is Hernán Cortés, Poison Ivy is Forest Ivy, Joker is Yoka, and Catwoman is Jaguar Woman.

Waller Season 1

Release date tbc, waller (dcu).

Waller , a Peacemaker spinoff series based on Amanda Waller, was confirmed last year as a part of the DCU's first chapter, Gods and Monsters. Waller is the head of the Advanced Research Group United and heads the members of the Suicide Squad. The character first appeared in 2016's Suicide Squad and has since then appeared in numerous DCEU projects.

Amanda Waller has been portrayed by actress Viola Davis since her first appearance as the character in Suicide Squad. The actress will once again reprise her role as the character in the spinoff. The series will be produced by Jeremy Carver ( Doom Patrol), with Danielle Brooks and Steve Agee slated to join Davis as cast members in Season One.

Peacemaker: Why It Has Been One of DC's Biggest Successes

Batman: caped crusader.

Batman: Caped Crusader was initially announced more than two years ago, in May 2021. The news unsurprisingly piqued the excitement of fans, given that the animated series is set to chronicle Batman's early exploits as a vigilante. The series will solely focus on the character himself, exploring his noir roots and the days in which the character had not yet formed a relationship with the Gotham City Police Department.

The series was initially set to be released by Max. However, Caped Crusader was dropped by the streamer as a part of its cost-cutting measures. It was then picked up for two seasons by Amazon Prime Video. The series has a talented team working behind the curtains, including Matt Reeves, Ed Brubaker, JJ Abrams, and Bruce Timm. Speaking in an interview, Brubaker claimed that Caped Crusader, in addition to its noir tone, would have a greater focus on visual violence, establishing that the series would not be PG-13.

10 Strongest DC Villains Who Haven't Shown Up in Movies Yet

Watchmen was one of the two animated projects from DC announced at the 2023 Comic-Con. The other, Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earth made its debut with Part One in January this year. As for Watchmen, an official release date has not been announced at the time of writing. However, the animation is expected to release sometime in 2024. With the graphic novel considered to be one of the best, fan expectations remain high for the adaptation.

This 2024 version is not the first time that the graphic novel has been adapted to screens. Zack Snyder helmed a live-action adaptation in 2009 and the comic also gave rise to a series on HBO ten years later in 2019. Details regarding the exact plot of the upcoming animation are not known at the time of writing. However, it is expected that the film will closely follow its source material, and even preserve its ending. Despite the lack of details, the animated film has already been categorized as having an R-rating. This is most likely owing to the dark themes that readers of the comics are familiar with and sexual content that will probably be included in the film.