A Glean movie guide
Caught in the Loop
Relive the moment.
Mind-bending sci-fi films where time is the ultimate adversary.
Handpicked for this guide
The movie list
- 01
Edge of Tomorrow
A soldier fighting aliens must master the battlefield by reliving his own death repeatedly.
Major Bill Cage is an officer who has never seen a day of combat when he is unceremoniously demoted and dropped into combat. Cage is killed within minutes, managing to take an alpha alien down with him. He awakens back at the beginning of the same day and is forced to fight and die again... and again - as physical contact with the alien has thrown him into a time loop.
- 02
Source Code
A soldier has only eight minutes to identify a bomber within a high-tension digital simulation.
When decorated soldier Captain Colter Stevens wakes up in the body of an unknown man, he discovers he's part of a mission to find the bomber of a Chicago commuter train.
- 03
Looper
A hitman faces his own future self in a gritty, high-concept exploration of causality.
In the year 2044, time travel has not yet been invented but in 30 years it will have been. When the mob wants to get rid of someone, they will send their target into the past where a looper, a hired gun, like Joe is waiting to mop up. Joe is getting rich and life is good until the day the mob decides to close the loop, sending back Joe's future self for assassination.
- 04
Predestination
A temporal agent navigates a complex, paradox-filled mission that defies traditional logic.
Predestination chronicles the life of a Temporal Agent sent on an intricate series of time-travel journeys designed to prevent future killers from committing their crimes. Now, on his final assignment, the Agent must stop the one criminal that has eluded him throughout time and prevent a devastating attack in which thousands of lives will be lost.
- 05
Primer
Two engineers accidentally invent time travel, leading to a grounded and deeply complex narrative.
A group of fledgling inventors discover a complex method to manipulate reality. At first, they successfully game the stock market with it, but the consequences of the invention start to catch up with them.
- 06
Timecrimes
A man’s accidental journey into the past triggers a dangerous and inescapable chain of events.
A man accidentally gets into a time machine and travels back in time nearly an hour. Finding himself will be the first of a series of disasters of unforeseeable consequences.
- 07
Palm Springs
Two wedding guests find humor and existential dread while trapped in an infinite loop.
When carefree Nyles and reluctant maid of honor Sarah have a chance encounter at a Palm Springs wedding, things get complicated when they find themselves unable to escape the venue, themselves, or each other.
- 08
12 Monkeys
A convict travels back in time to prevent a global plague in this atmospheric, haunting classic.
In the year 2035, convict James Cole reluctantly volunteers to be sent back in time to discover the origin of a deadly virus that wiped out nearly all of the earth's population and forced the survivors into underground communities. But when Cole is mistakenly sent to 1990 instead of 1996, he's arrested and locked up in a mental hospital. There he meets psychiatrist Dr. Kathryn Railly and the son of a famous virus expert who may hold the key to the Army of the 12 Monkeys; thought to be responsible for unleashing the killer disease.
- 09
Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes
A cafe owner discovers his computer monitor shows the future two minutes ahead.
A cafe owner discovers that the TV in his cafe suddenly shows images from the future, but only two minutes into the future.
- 10
ARQ
A couple trapped in a laboratory must protect a new energy source while reliving the same day.
Two old friends living in a dystopic future become trapped in a mysterious time loop — one that may have something to do with an ongoing battle between an omnipotent corporation and a ragtag band of rebels.