Time Travel Movies Ranked

I’ve seen and read a lot of time travel fiction. Here are my ratings for all the time travel movies I can remember. I don’t think it’s smart to compare dramatic time travel with comedic, so I split them up.

Dramatic

Dramatic Good

• Primer
  Entrepreneur engineers accidentally discover closed time loops.
• Looper
  Hitmen kill people from the future, including themselves, until Bruce Willis decides something different.
• Los Cronocrimenes (aka Timecrimes)
  Everything about this is a spoiler.
• ARQ
  When you die you go back to the beginning.
• Star Trek (2009)
  Spock accidentally resets time and causes a lot of lens flares.
• Terminator
  Robot wrapped in skin has to kill a lady but fails.
• Terminator 2
  Robot wrapped in skin has to save a kid.
• The Butterfly Effect
  Ashton Kusher finds out he has congenital time travel disease and it causes blackouts.
• The Caller
  Young lady gets horrified by old lady’s phone calls from the past.

Dramatic Bad

• Planet of the Apes (2001)
  Marky Mark chases a monkey through space, but time is backwards so things go all wrong.
• The Time Machine (2002)
  Fate is a jerk, so scientist Guy Pierce just goes to the future instead.
• The Time Traveler’s Wife
  A genetic mutation makes Eric Bana travel through time naked, but it doesn’t make up for bad acting by both him and Rachel McAdams.
• The Lake House
  It’s like Speed but slower and there’s a magic mailbox.
• Escape from the Planet of the Apes
  People in ape masks look less realistic when they visit the 70’s.

Dramatic Ugly

• Premonition
  Sandra Bullock can’t make anything coherent happen.
• Sound of Thunder
  They kill a butterfly or something.
• Freejack
  Emelio Estevez should have died in a race car accident.

Comedy

Comedy Good

• Back to the Future, II, III
  A wild-eyed scientist and a kid make life hard for the town bully and his ancestors.
• Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure
  Future society makes sure that their idols pass their history exam.
• Groundhog Day
  Bill Murray hates a little Pennsylvania town so fate makes him stay there for maybe eternity.
• Hot Tub Time Machine
  Time travel antics in a hot tub.
• FAQ About Time Travel
  Time travel antics, but now it’s in a British pub.
• Flight of the Navigator
  Florida boy abducted by aliens, confused by 80’s culture.
• Safety Not Guaranteed
  Aubrey Plaza answers a newspaper ad seeking a time travel companion.
• Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey
  Bill and Ted again, but this time they die and go to hell.
• Fetching Cody
  Guy tries to fix the crappy childhood of his girlfriend but generally mucks it up.
• Men in Black 3
  When Agent K was younger, he was that guy from Goonies.

Comedy Bad

• Midnight in Paris
  Owen Wilson through time and there’s a moral to be learned.
• Meet the Robinsons
  It’s like Dreamworks, but it’s made by Disney.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III
  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles get magicked to ancient China.

Comedy Ugly

None

Some of these are based on books. My ratings do not reflect on the books.

I made most of this list in 2013 and got some good feedback on the following Facebook post. I haven’t seen a lot of time travel movies in the last four years, pitifully. On the other hand, there are no new time travel ideas. Just new executions of the same ideas. So I haven’t missed much.