A Glean movie guide
Temporal Loops & Paradoxes
Don't let the timelines cross.
Mind-bending films that challenge logic and rewrite the rules of cause and effect.
Handpicked for this guide
The movie list
- 01
Primer
A low-budget masterpiece that demands a whiteboard to track its dense, 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 identity built entirely around a single, massive ontological 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 masterclass in suspense where every attempt to fix the past only cements a disastrous future.
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
Triangle
A haunting, recursive nightmare that traps its protagonist in an inescapable cycle of her own making.
When Jess sets sail on a yacht with a group of friends, she cannot shake the feeling that there is something wrong.
- 05
12 Monkeys
A gritty thriller where the hero’s journey into the past is the very thing that destroys the future.
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.
- 06
Looper
A stylish noir that uses the grandfather paradox to force a confrontation between past and 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.
- 07
Tenet
A massive spectacle that redefines time travel through the lens of entropy and inverted physics.
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.
- 08
Donnie Darko
A surreal cult classic that weaves tangent universes and predestination into a moody teenage dream.
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
Arrival
A profound drama exploring how perceiving time non-linearly changes the very nature of free will.
Taking place after alien crafts land around the world, an expert linguist is recruited by the military to determine whether they come in peace or are a threat.
- 10
The Infinite Man
A clever, recursive comedy about the absurdity of trying to engineer the perfect romantic moment.
A man's attempts to construct the ultimate romantic weekend backfire when his quest for perfection traps his lover in an infinite loop.
- 11
Source Code
A high-stakes thriller exploring the ethics of altering the past within a collapsing eight-minute window.
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.
- 12
Interstellar
A visually stunning epic that grounds its temporal paradoxes in the physical reality of relativity.
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.