Where we're going, we don't need roads!

Where We’re Going, We Don’t Need Roads! 15 fascinating and fun time travel movies.

1. BACK TO THE FUTURE TRILOGY (1985 – 1990)

Thirty-three years since its final instalment in 1990, the Back to the Future trilogy remains the best time travel trilogy ever to grace our cinema screens. Directed by Robert Zemeckis and produced by Steven Spielberg, Back to the Future (1985), Back to the Future Part II (1989), and Back to the Future Part III (1990) have left an indelible mark on popular culture and filmmaking.

Mixing classic coming-of-age themes with a thrilling time-travel adventure, Back to the Future would seamlessly blend humour, nostalgia, and science fiction into a new format, creating something timeless for all ages. Through the adventures of Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) and Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd), themes of friendship, family and love dovetail with the classic Grandfather paradox of time travel. But far from confusing its audience with general relativity and quantum physics, each Back to the Future film bathes the audience in the spirit of adventure and the power of friendship and love, creating a trilogy that is accessible, fun and joyous. The result is three movies, unlike anything that came before or after. The Back to the Future trilogy is timeless, magical and an ode to the power of 80s Hollywood storytelling and imagination.

2. TERMINATOR 2: JUDGEMENT DAY (1991)

The summer of 1991 was far from boring in cinemas up and down the UK; in fact, it was the kind of summer cinemas can only dream of now, as Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Point Break, Boyz n the Hood, The Rocketeer, Backdraft and City Slickers hit big in box office sales. However, one film was to reign supreme above all the others and change the very landscape of filmmaking in the process. That film was Terminator 2: Judgement Day, the incredibly expensive sequel to James Cameron’s lower-budget science fiction cult classic The Terminator in 1984.

With its groundbreaking visual effects, compelling characters, and thought-provoking exploration of the Grandfather Paradox, Terminator 2 was a film that genuinely shook the ground under its cinematic feet. Here, Cameron’s direction and the engaging performances of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Edward Furlong, Linda Hamilton, and Robert Patrick created an unforgettable cinematic experience that, for better or worse, depending on your viewpoint, reshaped Hollywood and the summer blockbuster forever. While, ultimately, simplistic in its exploration of time travel, Terminator 2: Judgment Day remains a defining classic of 1990s cinema, building upon the groundbreaking effects of Cameron’s Abyss (1989) while opening many new doors to the emerging world of CGI.

Where We’re Going, We Don’t Need Roads!

3. THE ADAM PROJECT (2022)

There is more than a hint of 1980s nostalgia in Shawn Levy’s family time travel adventure, The Adam Project. However, unlike many recent films that thrive purely on nostalgia as a narrative plot device, Levy’s movie combines the energy and visual charm of films such as D.A.R.Y.L and Flight of the Navigator with a modern, decidedly fresh time travel adventure. Ryan Reynolds swaggers with his usual tongue-in-cheek charm as Adam, a renegade pilot who crash-lands in 2022 after trying to save the world from irreparable damage due to the discovery of time travel. As Reynolds attempts to change history for the better, he is forced to team up with his 12-year-old self (Walker Scobell) in a time-jumping adventure rich in heart, action and humour.

There is much to love in this tale of a boy and man haunted by the death of their father. However, the real standout has to be the young Walker Scobell, who announces his arrival with a performance that matches and often upstages Reynolds’ energy and charisma. Levy clearly understands the lack of science fiction movies currently aimed at a family audience. The Adam Project seeks to fix that with a fun, engaging rollercoaster of time-travelling action that leaves you with a big 80s-size smile.

4. FLIGHT OF THE NAVIGATOR (1986)

Directed by Randal Kleiser, Flight of the Navigator carried us away on a wave of adventure, science fiction and wonder, becoming a cult classic of mid-80s cinema. However, the narrative is far more detailed than most of us remember. Twelve-year-old David (Joey Cramer) falls into a ravine and is knocked unconscious after a prank by his kid brother. When he wakes up and arrives home, he discovers that eight years have passed without him ageing a single day. After hospital checks involving NASA, it is revealed that David has subconscious memories of being taken to a planet called Phaelon, which may account for time passing on Earth while David was standing still. When David telepathically finds the ship that took him, he meets Max, the ship’s intelligent interface. There, he discovers he was a mere test to see if the human body could travel through time, a test that ultimately led to David being dropped off eight years after his accident. But all this is only the start of David’s adventure as Max needs the star charts held in David’s head to return home.

Flight of the Navigator was one of several family-orientated science fiction movies to hit our screens following the success of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial in 1982. However, like many mid-80s cult classics, Flight of the Navigator would earn its stripes years after its initial release through VHS and TV. Kleiser’s film would embrace three key themes: time displacement, self-discovery and the importance of family. Its narrative would take the inherent darkness of a story about a missing boy and flip it into a cosmic coming-of-age journey. While the science may be ropey, the result is a tender, warm, loving exploration of lightspeed theory, home, friendship, and adventure as childhood ends and teenage life begins.

Where We’re Going, We Don’t Need Roads!

5. STAR TREK IV: THE VOYAGE HOME (1987)

Following the continuing story of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn and Star Trek III: The Search for Spock was never going to be easy; after all, Star Trek III ended with the destruction of the USS Enterprise, the death of Kirk’s son and the resurrection of his closest friend Spock, leaving our motley crew in a Klingon Bird of Prey for transport. In his second stint in the director’s chair, Nimoy would embrace a new direction, taking a series of endings and creating something distinctly different. Star Trek IV was, in many ways, the birth of a new era for the Enterprise crew, but it was also an environmental film hidden under the cloak of a time-travelling space adventure.

By the early 1980s, the international ‘Save The Whale‘ campaign, alongside the activism of Greenpeace, had begun to make its voice heard in abolishing the hunting of whales, with the International Whaling Commission bringing forward a moratorium on the commercial practice. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home would take these environmental discussions into space in a time travel adventure that broadened the appeal of the Star Trek franchise and, in turn, gave the franchise its most significant box office success in 1986. Here, the enterprise crew would use a slingshot lightspeed method of travel, initially introduced in the TV series, to travel back to Earth and save the whales. A mix of light comedy and science fiction ensues that plays fast and loose with time travel theory. But despite this, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home remains one of the most entertaining additions to the franchise, and all those who watched it in cinemas will remember the short film about saving the whales that preceded the main feature. While its environmental impact is difficult to quantify, Star Trek IV should be celebrated as the moment environmental action, science fiction and time travel combined in the most unlikely of places.

6. GROUNDHOG DAY (1987)

The landscape of modern cinema is full of time-loop movies, from Happy Death Day to Souce Code and The Obituary of Tunde Johnson. However, the king of them all remains Harold Ramis‘ 1993 comedy, Groundhog Day. Groundhog Day is the benchmark in time-loop storytelling, whatever the film genre. Combining the classic romantic comedy with a discussion on humanity, purpose and kindness, the story of Phil Connors (Bill Murray), a self-centred weatherman trapped in a time loop, is nothing short of sublime.

At some time, we have all wondered what becoming trapped within the same day would be like. What would we do differently? How would we react to the same discussions and meetings on repeat? Would we slowly go mad as we searched for an escape door that wasn’t there? Groundhog Day covers all of these questions while asking us to reflect on the meaning of our existence. Is our life all work and no play? Do we genuinely treat others around us as we wish to be treated? How many opportunities do we simply ignore due to time pressures? Groundhog Day reminds us that true fulfilment can only be achieved when we opt to break free from the cycle of monotony and stagnation that surrounds us. As a result, it transcends the boundaries of a typical comedy as it explores themes of self-reflection, empathy, and the pursuit of meaning and purpose while always maintaining a comedic charm that is sadly absent from many modern comedies.

Where We’re Going, We Don’t Need Roads!

7. BILL AND TED’S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE (1988)

Directed by Stephen Herek, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure was a sleeper hit in 1989 as we met the loveable slacker Bill S. Preston Esq. (Alex Winter) and Ted “Theodore” Logan (Keanu Reeves). What started as a series of skits from writers Chris Matheson and Ed Soloman soon transformed into a time-travelling adventure exploring friendship, history and absurdist anarchy. Our dynamic duo would travel through time, meeting the likes of Socrates, Napoleon Bonaparte, Billy the Kid and even Joan of Arc. Sounds nuts, right? It is!

But for all Bill & Ted’s goofy humour and late 80s slacker vibes, it managed to brilliantly balance its comedy with a far more tender exploration of friendship, love and diversity. Bill and Ted’s bond is unbreakable, and their unyielding support for one another is truly inspiring. Here, their journey through time only strengthens their bond and brotherhood no matter the challenges they face. Equally, the film’s commentary on diversity and inclusion is impressive, even if the wacky humour occasionally obscures its power. Through the historical characters they meet, Bill and Ted learn to believe in themselves and reject the label of “losers” given to them by their peers and teachers. Here, Bill and Ted’s time-travelling opens up a new world back home, where they can fully embrace their potential, skills and knowledge. Maybe it is for this reason that Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure continues to speak to new audiences today as it proudly encourages us all to “Be Excellent To Each Other” and not judge a book by its cover.

8. THE FLASH (2023)

The Flash would suffer several major hurdles before it even got to the screen, leading to a car crash at the box office and a series of toxic fan reactions; in fact, many DC fans appeared to want The Flash to catastrophically fail while superhero fatigue grew in mainstream audiences. But for all the nativity and digs, Muschietti’s movie, loosely based on “Flashpoint”, is lightning in a bottle, and that’s largely down to it never taking itself too seriously as it weaves its way through a bowl of wibbly wobbly, timey wimey spaghetti.

At its core, The Flash is a movie about trauma and what we choose to do with the deep wounds that make us who we are. Do we accept these wounds may never heal and learn from them or attempt to change them? Within these discussions, The Flash finds its emotional centre as Miller’s Barry attempts to rewrite the childhood trauma that made him who he is, allowing Keaton’s ageing Batman to offer a simple but striking piece of advice: “The scars we have make us who we are. We’re not meant to go back and fix them. Don’t let your tragedy define you.” In many ways, Keaton’s Batman offers Barry something that Afflecks never could: a fatherly figure who trusts and believes in Barry despite the madness around them.

Where We’re Going, We Don’t Need Roads!

9. BEYOND THE INFINITE TWO MINUTES

Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes marks a feature debut for the theatre troupe EUROPE KIKAKU, who were already cooking up a storm in Japan. On the face of it, the plot of their first movie appeared deceptively simple; we have a cafe owner discovering a temporal link between the cafe downstairs and his flat upstairs, both linked by two monitors. However, he quickly realises there’s a strange two-minute delay between these monitors, one held in the past and one in the future.

The deceptively simple premise becomes a temporal mind-twister once the gears begin to move, and Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes layers past and future on top of one another like a deliciously dangerous cake. But even more impressive are the practicalities of engaging with both your past and future selves in one singular take. It shouldn’t work so effortlessly, but Junta Yamaguchi makes it look like child’s play. This creatively ambitious direction is supported by Makoto Ueda’s brilliantly clever script, which probes its own questions: do any of these people have free will or is everything in the film genuinely self-determined?

Equally impressive is the ease with which Ueda’s script shifts from a time-travelling sci-fi romp to a crime thriller and comedy rom-com while maintaining its creatively complex construction. So many time-travel features take long periods to explain their elaborate rules and problems, but Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes streamlines this by trusting audience knowledge. The only new detail it brings to the table is the Droste Effect, which I, for one, hadn’t heard of until this! Trust me, it is worth a Google if you’re unfamiliar, but even if you’re completely unaware, the film gets the idea across succinctly.

One has to wonder how this devilishly complicated script came into being; maybe they started at the end? Or perhaps it was mapped out on a plethora of whiteboards? What’s clear is that EUROPE KIKAKU has created a masterful marriage of theatre and cinema that many others could only dream of, all in one take. What delights me most about Beyond The Infinite Two Minutes is its simplicity. Yamaguchi and Ueda make their final movie look impossibly easy, which is always the sign of an insane amount of hard work hidden away. Placing creative ambition at the fore while screaming, “To hell with a big budget!.” It shoots for the moon and ends up on Mars and is the kind of film that millions of aspiring filmmakers dream of creating.

10. LOLA (2022)

Since the dawn of radio and television, the human race has been transmitting its music, culture, and news into the deep reaches of space. These signals have travelled far beyond the reaches of humankind and may have been found by other civilisations – a theme explored in Joe Dante’s underrated Explorers (1985). But time is not linear. Therefore, it’s more than possible a BBC News bulletin broadcast today will be watched by an alien race long after the earth has ceased to exist. Many argue that our entire notion of time is a human construct, so imagine if our future television broadcasts and radio transmissions were out there waiting to be found by someone or something that knew how to capture them.

In a brisk 79 minutes, Legge offers us one of the best temporal paradox movies of the past five years by concentrating his story on one question: if you could see the horrors yet to come, would you not have a duty to try and change the course of history? In 2021, a mysterious celluloid film was discovered in the cellar of a Sussex house that once belonged to Martha and Thomasina Hanbury (Stefani Martini and Emma Appleton). Held in this dusty can was a first-person account of the lives of two sisters who invented a machine that captured radio waves from the future, LOLA.

11. ALL OF US STRANGERS (2023)

The older we get, the more we are surrounded by ghosts. These ghosts walk beside us, reminding us of the things we said and left unsaid, the friendships we embraced and the ones we let slip away, the people we loved unconditionally, and those we let down. But these ghosts are not physical manifestations or spectral beings; they are the memories we have forged through life, memories that surround our every interaction, our choices and our sense of self. Some of these memories are rooted in pain, others in joy and more than a few in regret. Often, the most powerful and challenging memories that linger an entire lifetime are those shaped by events and social attitudes outside our control, our emerging sense of self and our childhood experiences. Andrew Haigh’s All of Us Strangers, adapted from a 1987 novel by Taichi Yamada, is a film about the ghosts that walk by our side. It is a story about the eternal power of love, the darkest corners of loneliness, the fluidity of time, and the inter-generational gay experience; it is quite simply a masterpiece.

12. DONNIE DARKO (2001)

I do not intend to unpack Richard Kelly’s sublime slice of science fiction, horror, and drama entirely; after all, even a fair few dissertations have been unable to nail down all the themes held in Donnie Darko. Kelly’s movie is the cinematic equivalent of an earworm, as it consumes your thoughts for days, weeks and even months after viewing. It’s like being shrunk and injected into the confused and volatile mind of a teenager or a vivid dream that gnaws away at you long after you wake. In short, Donnie Darko is a cinematic masterpiece that came close to never making it into theatres. Like so many of the best films ever made, from Citizen Kane to 2001: A Space Odyssey, Kelly’s film means different things to different people and morphs into something new with every repeat journey down the cinematic rabbit hole, and to be Frank, that’s a damn rare and precious thing.

13. INCREDIBLE BUT TRUE (2022)

WORDS AGI SAJTI

Quentin Dupieux’s Incredible But True (Incroyable mais vrai) is a fascinating concept that promises an absurd sci-fi mixed with bittersweet comedy. Dupieux is probably best known for his experimental and nonsensical horror film Rubber (2010), in which a car tire with psychic powers (yes, you read that right) named Robert goes on a murderous rampage. While Incredible But True follows the footsteps of Rubber in its absurdity, the result is a highly contemporary story influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic.

We are introduced to our main characters, Alain (Alain Chabat) and Marie (Léa Drucker), as they are shown around a house by a real estate agent, Franck (Stéphane Pezerat). What starts as a normal process soon ends up in the realm of science fiction as Franck shows them a hatch in the basement, promising it will change their lives. Following the estate agent down the ladder, all three emerge somewhere on the upper levels of the same house. Franck explains that whoever goes down the hatch will be sent twelve hours ahead in time while simultaneously coming out three days younger than when they went in.

The film is most enjoyable in portraying the situations these two surreal plot devices lead to. Being familiar with stories holding similar concepts, one would expect dramatic overtones and exaggerated side plotlines in which the media covers “the case of the time travelling hatch.” Instead, following a short, initial shock from both parties upon having learnt of each other’s “newly acquired tools”, the reaction is genuine uninterest and apathy. Once we think about it, this is probably the most accurate human depiction of what we all would do in a similarly surreal situation. The point, of course, stands in a broader context and shows how people tend to be obsessed with things that matter only to them while paying no attention to others.

14. FLASHBACK (2021)

Our life is full of choices, the fabric of our existence based on moments of random decision-making where we may turn right or left. These choices define our path, personality, and our opportunities. We often reflect on this journey with the ultimate philosophical question, “What If.” Of course, in truth, this question serves no useful purpose as the decisions we take or the roads we walk are irreversible. But what if that wasn’t the case?

Fifteen years after leaving school, Fred (Dylan O’Brien) appears to have it all: a successful career, a stylish apartment and a loving partner. However, when his mother is rushed into hospital following an aneurysm, Fred’s life unravels through a series of strange and terrifying flashbacks. As these flashbacks grow more powerful, they transport Fred back to his days at school and forward to a dystopian future that haunts his every waking minute. At the heart of these visions is a girl, and as Fred fixates on finding her, the past and present merge.

From the outset, Flashback creates a rabbit hole that may prove too deep and complex for some, but for those willing to enter this deep and dark warren of intrigue, mystery and science fiction, Flashback won’t disappoint. The stand out here is Dylan O’Brien’s performance as a mirror image of himself at different stages in his life. When this performance is coupled with MacBride’s directorial vision and Brendan Steacy’s cinematography, Flashback opens a Pandora’s Box of classic science fiction themes and relishes challenging its audience – the final thirty minutes a clear homage to Kubrick’s 2001 A Space Odyssey. Flashback fell through the cracks in a crowded online marketplace of movies due to the pandemic, but trust me, this one deserves your attention.

15. NIGHT DRIVE (2021)

The sun may be shining, but it’s Christmas in the City of Angels as we meet ride-share driver Russell (AJ Bowen), a man busily trying to earn a living on the streets of Los Angeles. Russell is a nice guy; his car journeys are always full of conversation as he strives to offer the best customer service. But ride-share drivers never quite know who their next customer will be, as Russell discovers when he picks up a young woman named Charlotte (Sophie Dalah). Charlotte is enigmatic, chatty and alive with energy but also mysterious and aloof; she’s fascinating! Her instructions are simple: she wants to be driven to her ex-boyfriend’s house, and Russell is to sit in the car while she collects her belongings. Simple, right?

Russell pulls up outside the house and patiently waits while Charlotte goes inside before she reappears carrying a small case, but rather than walking, she is running toward the car! As she climbs in, she orders Russell to STEP ON IT! Confused, Russell does as she asks. It is now clear to Russell that Charlotte may be far more complicated than he thought. But the night has only just begun, and it’s not long before Russell finds himself engulfed in murder, mystery and mayhem.

At its heart, Night Drive is a deliciously different take on the classic crime caper road movie. It resembles the tonal beats of shows like Breaking Bad and films like Detour; however, Night Drive has an ace up its sleeve that is as bonkers as it is brilliant. Directed by Brad Baruh and Meghan Leon, Night Drive is one hell of a creative Christmas road trip that never falls into lazy, tried and tested-tropes but instead offers us a killer twist that defies the roots of its initial set-up.