Underappreciated Time Travel Movies You Have To See

If David Cronenberg ever had plans to remake your film, you’re doing something right, and Nacho Vigalondo’s (Open Windows) low-budget 2007 sci-fi feature Timecrimes is definitely strange enough that you understand why it caught the Canadian body horror specialist’s eye.

A fast-paced, twisting tale full of voyeurism and violence, the story follows a man named Hector as he becomes embroiled in an increasingly complicated pretzel of a mystery.

Part slasher, part thriller, there is some debate about whether or not the layers of Timecrimes hold up to closer examination. But Vigalondo, who also wrote the script, keeps things moving quickly enough so that you never have the chance to ask that question while you watch. The result is wicked time travel fun.

Shane Carruth’s no-budget mind-bender Primer falls into a similar category as many titles on this list: critically lauded, with a cult following, but underseen and largely unknown outside of certain small circles.

When four engineer friends stumble upon a method of time travel, they, of course, use it for their own gain, opening up a wormhole of ethical issues. The timeline of their various jumps to the past, together and in secret, is so intricate and layered that, more than ten years later, it is still the subject of debate and discussion and countless elaborate infographics.

Damn near homemade, but with every shot absolutely essential, Primer takes a standard central idea and uses it to lay these characters bare, forcing them through an ever-twisting, ever-changing philosophical and moral maze.

I’ve watched it multiple times, and I’m still not sure what the hell is going on.

The best time travel movies are all warnings about the potential hazards of tinkering with time and the 2014 indie Time Lapse is definitely a cautionary tale about taking shortcuts to an end goal. When three friends who share an apartment discover a camera that takes pictures 24 hours into the future, it gives them a window into what’s to come.

Initially, it’s great as they use their new toy to cash in, but as lust, greed, and ambition start to creep in and take over, they become obsessed and turn on each other, starting down a dark, dangerous path.

Director Bradley King channels Hitchcock, gradually cranking up the tension at every turn, until the wire in the apartment it drawn so tight that any move is hazardous. And the characters, all fantastic performances, try to figure out if they’ve been freed or trapped by the camera.

Odds are that you’re more than familiar with Terry Gilliam’s wingnut time travel jaunt 12 Monkeys, but what you might not know is that the concept is borrowed from Chris Marker‘s experimental 1962 French short La Jetée.

This influence actually led to the first “inspired by” credit on a film. Told through a series of still photos and voiceover narration, the story follows a prisoner in a post-World War III society that has been driven underground by nuclear fallout.

He is sent back in time to “rescue the future,” where he falls in love and finds himself trapped in a fixed loop of events. La Jetée is beautiful, strange, and wholly unique, and if you haven’t yet tracked it down, you can find it online and it is well worth 28-minutes of your time.

And if you don’t want to check this time travel movie out, you can always rewatch 12 Monkeys again.

Rian Johnson’s 2012 sci-fi thriller Looper may not exactly be underappreciated, as it is definitely a critical favorite.

Though it certainly performed better than many films on this list at the box office, it’s still definitely left of the mainstream. Looper weaves together multiple timelines, spanning futuristic eras, and even spins a single character into two distinct personalities.

In 2044, Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a specialized futuristic hitman, a looper, who assassinates targets sent back from 2074 via time travel. When his future self (Bruce Willis) materializes as his next victim, he balks, kicking off a taut, twisted, multi-layered story full of fast-paced action and fantastic performances all around. There’s even a telekinesis thread thrown in for good measure.