A Glean movie guide
The Logic of the Loop
No plot holes, just paradoxes.
Time travel movies that actually follow their own rules.
Handpicked for this guide
The movie list
- 01
Primer
A rigorous, ultra-realistic look at the technical and ethical fallout of a discovery.
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
Timecrimes
A masterfully constructed thriller where every action in the past is already written.
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.
- 03
Predestination
A mind-bending exploration of the bootstrap paradox where the timeline is a perfect circle.
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.
- 04
Twelve Monkeys
A gritty, deterministic vision of a future that cannot be changed, only fulfilled.
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
Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes
A clever, real-time comedy that pushes a simple two-minute delay to its logical extreme.
A cafe owner discovers that the TV in his cafe suddenly shows images from the future, but only two minutes into the future.
- 06
Tenet
A high-stakes action epic built on the complex physical concept of entropy reversal.
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
Edge of Tomorrow
A relentless sci-fi blockbuster that treats time loops with the clear logic of a video game.
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.
- 08
The Infinite Man
An inventive puzzle that tracks multiple versions of the same person with surgical precision.
A man's attempts to construct the ultimate romantic weekend backfire when his quest for perfection traps his lover in an infinite loop.
- 09
Time Lapse
A tense thriller where characters are trapped by a camera that captures the future with certainty.
Three friends discover a mysterious machine that takes pictures 24 hours into the future and conspire to use it for personal gain, until disturbing and dangerous images begin to develop.
- 10
Coherence
A dinner party mystery that uses strict physical markers to navigate a collapsing reality.
Four couples gather for dinner the night a mysterious and powerful comet passes overhead.
- 11
Source Code
A high-concept mystery that distinguishes between physical travel and digital reconstruction.
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
Triangle
A haunting, multi-layered loop where the protagonist’s struggle is the engine of the cycle.
When Jess sets sail on a yacht with a group of friends, she cannot shake the feeling that there is something wrong.