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10 Forgotten Time Travel Movies That Got Everything Right

The Sci-Fi Graveyard

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Everybody knows Back to the Future and 12 Monkeys. But time travel has always been one of those subgenres where the famous stuff is maybe ten percent of what's actually out there. For every film that broke through, there's a pile that nailed the concept, told a better story, and still disappeared.

In this video, I'm counting down 10 incredible time travel movies that critics loved, audiences missed, and Hollywood somehow forgot — from a $7,000 Sundance winner made by one guy doing every job, to a real U.S. Navy aircraft carrier used as a movie set, to the film that launched Colin Trevorrow straight into Jurassic World.

📌 Films featured in this video

Frequency (2000)
The Final Countdown (1980)
Synchronic (2019)
Somewhere in Time (1980)
Time After Time (1979)
Triangle (2009)
Coherence (2013)
Safety Not Guaranteed (2012)
Timecrimes (2007)
Primer (2004)

👇 Let me know in the comments: how many of these have you actually seen? And which one are you watching tonight?

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#TimeTravelMovies #SciFiMovies #IndieFilm

20 Comments

@SciFiGraveyard Creator 2 weeks ago Pinned

🕰️ Buried gems. Cult classics. Sci-fi you never knew existed. Explore 1,500+ movies waiting to be discovered 👉 https://scifigraveyard.com

@Dee-v9c5n 2 weeks ago

Who watched Time After Time🙋?

@FrancisSkodzinski 2 weeks ago

Primer is the most demanding movie I’ve ever seen, it feels like a documentary on Time Travel, Somehow this movie hypnotized me

@AlphaGeminorum1 3 days ago

I can't imagine how Somewhere in Time bombed. It was magnificent.

@robertaxel 3 days ago

Two other recommendations...

Donnie Darko - Released around the time of 9/11, it understandably rapidly disappeared from theaters, but developed a sizable cult following via home video and
later streaming. Though time travel plays a major role, it doesn't skimp at all on the characters and placing the film firmly in the era of the late 80s.

Palm Springs - This is one for fans of time loop movies. There is much humor and heart here, and what I also loved about it is how one of the characters tries to use physics to escape their entrapment; this was enthralling for a time travel nerd such as myself..

@TheLionsDen72 2 weeks ago

Coherence isnt a time travel movie. It is a multi-universe movie.

@rabidsamfan 2 days ago

Time After Time was excellent. I saw it in the theater.

@godfreygoodson6215 1 day ago

Time After Time and Somewhere In Time were on repeat on our TV, as kids, we may not have been supposed to watch them but I'm glad we did, fantastic Movies.

@snurfbee58 2 hours ago

Somewhere in Time was never forgotten. It's still one of my and my friends' favorite movies of all time.

@Happy_Jam5 3 days ago (edited)

Brain Scrambler: No one created the watch in Somewhere in Time. No one made it, but it exists. The old woman gives it to Christopher Reeves who tells him to come back to her. He takes the watch back in time, and gives it to the young Jane Seymore (the old woman) who carries it through time to the future to give to Christopher Reeves when she is old. Christopher Reeves brings it back to the young Jane Seymore etc etc etc.... The watch only exists in that loop of time. It's never created by anyone and it's never destroyed. It only exists in that little loop of time. Mind-blowing! (also great sound track)

@salvbri 2 weeks ago

Back in the day when I saw Primer, there was few people that understands that movie viewing it for the first time.

@morismateljan6458 2 weeks ago

Triangle is one of the best movies ever. I remember watching Arrival just a few days later and being dissappointed, because they cover similar themes (motherhood and hardship) and Triangle does it so much better.

@MichaelABurstein 3 days ago

Primer was based on a real time-travel theory, the Thorne bridge concept. Basically, if time travel is ever created, it will be impossible to travel back to before the time machine was invented.

@spacebender 1 day ago

Frequency defies categorization in that it seamlessly blends sci-fi, mystery, thriller, and drama. Artistically it is a masterpiece with its surprising plot twists, emotional connection, time travel intrigue, and use of the house itself as a kind of character expressed in subtle changes of shadow and color.

@GR-bn3xj 1 day ago

I heard a physicist say once in an interview that Bill And Ted's Bogus Adventure was actually the most accurate version on time travel. No kidding

@richieb7692 2 weeks ago

Triangle NEEDS to be watched twice, for the full effect to hit

@madb69a 2 days ago

Palm Springs (2020) is a fun time loop movie.

@Khaos768 2 weeks ago

Triangle is the best mystery movie I have ever seen and one of my top 5 movies of all time. Plus, it's the only one that does "the protagonist knows their future but cannot escape it" trope convincingly. It's not a time-travel movie though.

@walterrutherford8321 9 days ago (edited)

Time travel movies is my favorite (sub)genre of movies. And of the ones I’ve seen, About Time, is arguably the most perfect. A sci-fi, romcom, that doesn’t turn into a horror movie, with a wonderfully complex and even inspirational script. I highly recommend it.