A Glean movie guide
Mind-Bending Time Travel Paradoxes
Don't meet your past self.
Master the logic of causal loops and bootstrap paradoxes with these cerebral hits.
Handpicked for this guide
The movie list
- 01
Primer
A notoriously complex look at the technical and ethical breakdown of overlapping timelines.
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.
- 02
Predestination
A shocking exploration of the Ouroboros concept where a character’s entire life is a single bootstrap paradox.
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.
- 03
Timecrimes
A man’s desperate attempts to fix a minor mistake spiral into a tight, escalating nightmare of causal loops.
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.
- 04
12 Monkeys
A haunting depiction of a fixed timeline where every attempt to change the past only serves to fulfill it.
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.
- 05
Looper
A gritty thriller where assassins must eventually 'close the loop' by executing their own future selves.
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.
- 06
Tenet
A high-stakes spectacle using 'entropy inversion' to create intricate temporal pincer movements and paradoxes.
Armed with only one word - Tenet - and fighting for the survival of the entire world, the Protagonist journeys through a twilight world of international espionage on a mission that will unfold in something beyond real time.
- 07
Triangle
A relentless and inescapable loop that explores the psychological toll of being trapped in a recurring nightmare.
When Jess sets sail on a yacht with a group of friends, she cannot shake the feeling that there is something wrong.
- 08
Donnie Darko
A cult classic involving tangent universes and the cosmic necessity of resolving a temporal paradox.
After narrowly escaping a bizarre accident, a troubled teenager is plagued by visions of a large bunny rabbit that manipulates him to commit a series of crimes.
- 09
Interstellar
An epic journey that culminates in a massive bootstrap paradox spanning across dimensions and time.
The adventures of a group of explorers who make use of a newly discovered wormhole to surpass the limitations on human space travel and conquer the vast distances involved in an interstellar voyage.
- 10
The Terminator
The definitive example of a predestination loop where the future is built on the remains of its own past.
In the post-apocalyptic future, reigning tyrannical supercomputers teleport a cyborg assassin known as the "Terminator" back to 1984 to kill Sarah Connor, whose unborn son is destined to lead insurgents against 21st century mechanical hegemony. Meanwhile, the human-resistance movement dispatches a lone warrior to safeguard Sarah. Can he stop the virtually indestructible killing machine?
- 11
Edge of Tomorrow
A high-octane action film where death triggers a temporal reset, forcing the hero to master a single day.
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.
- 12
Back to the Future
The quintessential visualization of the Grandfather Paradox and the fragile nature of personal history.
Eighties teenager Marty McFly is accidentally sent back in time to 1955, inadvertently disrupting his parents' first meeting and attracting his mother's romantic interest. Marty must repair the damage to history by rekindling his parents' romance and - with the help of his eccentric inventor friend Doc Brown - return to 1985.