Definites:
13 12 Monkeys.
Leading contenders:
Bill And Ted’s Excellent Adventure
Time Bandits
The “Future Echos” episode of Red Dwarf.
Groundhog Day
The “Time and Punishment” segment from Treehouse of Horror V
“Blink” from Dr. Who
Maybes:
Primer
Time Crimes
Peggy Sue Got Married
The Terminator (or maybe T2)
Back To The Future
The Prisoner of Azkiban
I’m interested in more suggestions. Eventually, I’ll whittle it down to 4-6 items.
Also, if you’re in Portland and interested in attending, let me know. :-)
Primer was excellent. 12 Monkeys was very good. I actually saw its French predecessor, La Jetee, before I saw 12 Monkeys … it was a very different movie, very affecting, but probably suffers some if you already know the basic puzzle 12 Monkeys is built on. Still might be worth checking out, though.
I think it’s 12 monkeys… but good selections!
I’m down for 12 monkeys followed by groundhog day!
If you’re going to watch 12 Monkeys, you should also watch La Jetee, the short film it’s based on. The plots are nearly identical, but La Jetee is more philosophical and stylistically experimental.
If TV episodes are included, then my favorite is the Star Trek:DS9 episode “Trials and Tribble-ations”
Yes to Bill and Ted, Red Dwarf, Blink.
I just saw a brillian time travel bollywood film!! Love Story 2050. (http://www.lovestory2050.com/) it was amazing!! one of my new favorite films.
it’s a bit over the top and ridiculus, but in a brilliant way. 3hrs long but I was on the edge of my seat for most of it! (though it was a bit slow in the beginning). And most people on IMDB seem to disagree with m assesment… :(
Why whittle? Just build a time machine, and you’ll have plenty of time for all of these. :D
Seriously, 12 Monkeys should definitely be on the list, even if Terry Gilliam is a Polanski apologist.
Ooh! Ooh! Time Bandits!
Ooh! Ooh! Pirate it!
—Myca
Good idea, Myca! Time Bandits is the less conventional Gilliam time travel film (because, you know, 12 Monkeys is so staid). And pirating it would be incredibly appropriate.
(Gilliam is big with the time travel. He’s long been working on an adaptation of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. Also, as a Minnesotan, I am legally required to mention that Gilliam is One Of Us, born in Medicine Lake, although he officially became a Brit in 1968.
Unfortunately, he also had to become a damn Polanski apologist; this is why I have the longstanding policy of separating art from artists.)
Red Dwarf and any Gilliam movie = good times, and I’ve long been a Terminator fan. I’m terrible at thinking up lists so the only other time travel movie I’m thinking up now is Donnie Darko and several Futurama episodes. Would totally be up for joining.
And Jeff, I think there’s miles to be said for being able to look at art as simultaneously seperate from and the product of the artist :)
Well, if Groundhog Day meets the criteria . . . then Run Lola Run should also. And I’ll second ballgame’s vote for Primer.
And of course the new Star Trek will be out on DVD next month – that was a great ride! It should get top prize in the category of “Use of Time Travel Plot Device to Resuscitate a Dying Franchise.”
(you will be giving prizes, right?)
Since you’ve got a Simpsons episode on there, I’d strongly recommend “Time Keeps On Slippin'” or “Roswell That Ends Well,” from season 3 of Futurama. (Futurama also had a number of episodes that dealt with the theme of one-way travel to the future – “Jurassic Bark” and “The Luck of the Fryrish” end up being absolute tearjerkers, as well as totally hilarious – but those don’t quite seem to fit with the other titles in the list.)
The 1960 George Pal Time Machine, worth it alone for the glorious time travel contraption.
The Navigator: A Mediaeval Odyssey, exquisitely beautiful
Army of Darkness, exquisitely silly
The Star Trek movie with the whale, dammit! Re. Futurama, I’m tossing in my vote for the feature-length “Bender’s Big Score,” a time-travel episode that manages to drop references to every Futurama episode in the preceding four seasons (including all the time travel ones, of course).
The weird thing is, I love time travel stories, and yet I’m having real trouble thinking of movies I’d recommend. The truly great ones seem to be on the printed page – Crowley’s Great Work of Time, Willis’s Doomsday Book, etc. (Doomsday Book would make a great film, if someone serious took it up and didn’t screw it up. On the other hand, a Doomsday Book film geared for the ubiquitous adolescent boy market is not something I even want to contemplate. ::Shudder::)
Isn’t the Back to the Future series pretty much a film marathon in its own right?
As a side note, I am by no means recommending the film Black Knight. However, the inevitable scene where the African-American from the future teaches the people of the Middle Ages to loosen up – which involves training a group of court musicians to play Sly Stone on medieval instruments – is pretty awesome.
Back to the Future (the first one) has some of the best continuity in any film of the last 30 years. I would include it for that alone. I second Phil’s suggestion of Bender’s Big Score. In addition, I’m all for Time Bandits and/or 12 Monkeys.
I’ll add one suggestion here. The Butterfly Effect
What happened to the granddaddy of the genre, “The Time Machine”?
Too old to be cool? (Aye, a familiar feeling.)
As an aside, it is also excellent vegetarian propaganda, as HG Wells was vegetarian. :)
May I suggest some criteria you might use for whittling?
1. Uses time travel for more that just getting the protagonists and/or antagonists to the time-and-place of the adventure.
2. The use satisfying criterion 1 is more than merely peripheral to the plot.
Most Doctor Who stories would fail these criteria. In addition to the superlative ‘Blink’, two others that don’t are ‘Silence in the Library’/’Forests of the Dead’ and ‘the Girl in the Fireplace’. In the former, as well as the Doctor’s past/future relationship with River Song, there is also the role played by jump cuts in Dr Moon’s virtual reality. In the latter, the Doctor flits back and forth between two timelines that proceed at different rates.
Also this. And the episode of Star Trek TNG (I don’t recall its name) which has the Enterprise stuck in a time loop which resets each time to a game of poker.
If cartoons are permitted, there’s also the Family Guy two-parter in which Stewie meets his Thirty-something future self.
Only one rec for Donnie Darko? That is one of the most exquisite movies I have ever seen in my life…er, despite much of the dialogue being pretty mysoginistic.
The final episode of Star Trek: Voyager, while kind of corny, has some interesting moments and defines the category: Use of time travel to end a series such that there is no need for a sequel because they all live happily ever after.
It’s called “Cause and Effect” and I know that b/c I have the DVD with time travel episodes from all the Star Trek series. Others include “City on the Edge of Forever” on the original and “Yesterday’s Enterprise” on the TNG.
My guilty pleasure was Sliders though that was more alternate universe. They managed to turn the trademark hotel in my city to a futuristic penitentiary, no mean feat.
A good cheesy romantic movie? Time after Time. Cheesy Van Damme? Time Cop.
Everything I would mention has been mentioned, so I’ll just second La Jetee and “Bender’s Big Score.”
Deja Vu, starring Denzel Washington, was really good. Has anyone else here ever seen it? If you haven’t, definitely add it to your list – I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.
Also, Frequency.
I would add Primer in place of pretty much any of the items in the “leading contender” category; along with 12 Monkeys, an absolute first-rate time-travel film.
Groundhog Day is terrific, and would make a good third film.
I love Red Dwarf, but I don’t think “Time Echoes” is all that good an episode. (My favorites, alas, don’t involve time travel).
Donnie Darko is a fabulous movie, but frankly the time travel element there is pretty secondary (I mean, sure, structurally central, but it’s not what the movie really spends time on). I’d save it for another festival. But then, people *have* doubted my commitment to Sparkle Motion…
I saw La Jette in high school, and thought it was basically recycled Heinlein with some silly aliens; the only interesting thing about it was the use of still photographs (which was, admittedly, interesting). After seeing 12 Monkeys multiple times, and reading lots of people saying La Jette was deeper, more philosophical, or whatnot, I watched it again… and thought it was basically recycled Heinlein with some silly aliens, and the only interesting thing about it was the use of still photographs (still interesting). Unlike 12 Monkeys, it didn’t *add* much to the basic time paradox loop. Now, maybe I’m still missing something… but I’m going to need a lot of convincing before I watch it a third time.
If you us is really we us….what number are we thinking of?
How can Bill and Ted not be a definite!?
I do not think anyone mentioned this.
As for Star Trek episodes, the final episode (All’s well that end’s well(?)) was good. It jumped back and forth between the very first episode and 20 or so years in the future.
-Jut
As for Star Trek episodes, the final episode (All’s well that end’s well(?)) was good. It jumped back and forth between the very first episode and 20 or so years in the future.
It was called, “All Good Things…”
Someone mentioned the fourth Star Trek movie “The Voyage Home” (the one about the whales).
Personally I would say Star Trek First Contact.
Here is a small list of time travel related tv episodes on wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_loop
If you want some funny time travel then I have to say the Xena episode, “Been There, Done That”. Xena, Gabrielle, and Joxer come into a small village that stuck in a time loop that always ends with two lovers from two feuding families (definite RomeoxJuliet nod) committing sucide. The only way to end the loop is for Xena (the only person that is aware of the loop) to prevent their deaths. Oh and the two lovers commit suicide on opposite ends of the village. Lots of hilarious trial and error ensues. It is probably one of the funniest time loop episodes I’ve ever seen on tv.
The best Red Dwarf episode on the subject is “Stasis Leak,” in my opinion. Probably because it involves multiple versions of the characters running around, getting in each other’s way.
I am a particular fan of the idea that future you would be an asshole to present you, as in this exchange:
Lister: So, listen, man. You’ve lived my life for the last five years. So, what’s the single most important piece of advice that you can give me?
Lister of the future: Er.. Oh, yeah. Three years from now, you’ll go through a cosmic storm and end up in a parallel universe. You’ll materialise on an exact replica of Earth in the year 1989.
Lister: (listening eagerly)
Lister of the future: You’ll want to go to the theatre. Whatever you do, don’t go and see “Run For Your Wife.”
That Red Dwarf description reminds me of this hilarious episode of Sealab 2021, “Lost In Time.” It takes duplicate-character-time-loop to a whole new level.