THE BEST OF TIME TRAVEL MOVIES AND TELEVISION SERIES OF ALL TIME
Now, it is 2014 and my web site TST Interactive is 15 years old. To celebrate 15 years of my web site www.tst.gen.tr , I’ve created a new movie list. As you remember to celebrate my web site’s 10th year in 2009, I created a photoshop work as a new cover for my home page. I was with my favourite celebrities and heroes. I also showed my favourite movies and TV series such as “13 Going On 30”, “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”, “Butterfly Effect”, “Back To The Future”, “Lost”, “Heroes”and “Moonwalker”s star Michael Jackson… All of them had got common point: Time travel… Because my favourite movie type is time travel. As you remember in 2009 I made “All Time Greatest 100 Movies” to celebrate 10th year of my web site. The list contained best movies which entered my movie lists between 1999 and 2009. This time, in 2014, to celebrate 15th year of TST Interactive, I wanted to make a different movie list. “All Time Greatest Movies and TV Series About Time Travel”… The movies entered my movie lists between 1999 and 2014. However, I didn’t want to forget the TV series about time travel. Normally TV series can’t enter TST Interactive Cinema Lists, but for this special list, I wanted to do an exception. Characters make time travel with different ways: time machines, teleporting, changing bodies or dimension, magic, curse, frequency, etc. When I watched “Back To The Future” when I was 4 or 5 years old, I was very affected. After the movie, my favourite movie subject became time travel. Even I made time travels in my dreams while I was sleeping. Maybe I forgot some films about time travel which I have watched but I know that I still didn’t watch some of them. All of the movies and TV series below are watched by me. If you want to recommend more movies about time travel to me, please contact me at http://www.tst.gen.tr/iletisim/profile.htm …
1- BUTTERFLY EFFECT 1-2 (Ashton Kutcher, Melora Walters): Evan Treborn grows up in a small town with his single, working mother and his friends. He suffers from memory blackouts where he suddenly finds himself somewhere else, confused. Evan’s friends and mother hardly believe him, thinking he makes it up just to get out of trouble. As Evan grows up he has fewer of these blackouts until he seems to have recovered. Since the age of seven he has written a diary of his blackout moments so he can remember what happens. One day at college he starts to read one of his old diaries, and suddenly a flashback hits him like a brick!
2- BACK TO THE FUTURE 1-2-3 (Michael J.Fox, Christopher Lloyd) : The films follow the adventures of time-travelling high-school student Marty McFly and inventor Doctor Emmett Brown, as they travel throughout several time periods in the past (1885 and 1955), present (1985), and future (2015). The first film was the highest grossing film of 1985and became an international phenomenon, leading to two sequels which were filmed back-to-back and released in1989 and 1990 respectively. The trilogy is widely noted for its irreverent comedy, eccentric characters, and ability to incorporate complex theories of time-travel without confusing the audience.
3- TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES 3: (Paige Turco, Mark Caso, Corey Feldman, Matt Hill, Jim Raposa, David Fraser, James Murray): Turtles In Time! The four turtles travel back in time to the days of the legendary and deadly samurai in ancient Japan, where they train to perfect the art of becoming one. The turtles also assist a small village in an uprising. When a magic scepter accidentally transports April back through time to 17th Century Japan, the boys take-off in hot pursuit, cowabungling their way out of the sewers right into Samurai-O-Rama! Now they must battle the evil Lord Norinaga to reclaim the magic scepter that will bring them back below the subways of New York City.
4- MOONWALKER (Michael Jackson, Sean Lennon, Joe Pesci): Mr. Big discovers Jackson and the children, but they escape; Jackson tells the children to meet him at Club 30’s, which turns out to be a haunted nightclub abandoned since the 1930s. The story goes back to the mobsters attack on Jackson, and here it is revealed that Jackson is actually a magical gangster, who draws his power from shooting stars. As one passes by the club, Jackson transforms into a sports car and mows down several of Mr. Big’s henchmen. The story picks up on the children at Club 30’s, and at first the children are afraid, but when Jackson appears the scary atmosphere of the club transforms and the children find themselves back in the 1930s. The club is now filled with zoot suiters and swing dancers. Jackson participates in a dance-off with the other club members, which serves as the music video for “Smooth Criminal”.
5- GROUNDHOG DAY (Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell): A weather man is reluctantly sent to cover a story about a weather forecasting “rat” (as he calls it). This is his fourth year on the story, and he makes no effort to hide his frustration. On awaking the ‘following’ day he discovers that it’s Groundhog Day again, and again, and again. First he uses this to his advantage, then comes the realisation that he is doomed to spend the rest of eternity in the same place, seeing the same people do the same thing EVERY day.
6- 13 GOING ON 30 (Jennifer Garner, Mark Ruffalo): Jenna Rink is a typical preteen girl who wants more than anything to grow up. On her 13th birthday, Jenna’s only wish is to get older and fast. When she wakes up the next morning, she’s 30 years old, a sucessful magazine editor with a live-in boyfriend! Jenna tracks down Matt(her best friend when she was younger) to try and figure out what has happened.
7- BILL & TED’S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE (Keanu Reeves, Alex Winter): Ted “Theodore” Logan and Bill S. Preston esquire won’t graduate if they don’t do well in their history presentation. This would be both bogus and uncool! A dude called Rufus comes from the future in a telephone box to help them, as their lives are apparently rather important to the future of mankind! They travel through time doing some interesting research for their history presentation, and generally being excellent to each other!
8- THE TIME MACHINE (Guy Pearce, Samantha Mumba): Based on the classic sci-fi novel by H.G. Wells, scientist and inventor, Alexander Hartdegen, is determined to prove that time travel is possible. His determination is turned to desperation by a personal tragedy that now drives him to want to change the past. Testing his theories with a time machine of his own invention, Hartdegen is hurtled 800,000 years into the future, where he discovers that mankind has divided into the hunter – and the hunted.
9- HEROES (Masi Oka, Santiago Cabrera): Hiro Nakamura is a fictional character on the NBC fantasy drama Heroes who possesses the ability of space-time manipulation. This means that Hiro is able to alter the flow of time. In the show, he was played by Japanese-American actor Masi Oka. Hiro’s trips have given Hiro his own unique time line, which is reflected in some of Isaac Mendez’s paintings of Hiro. Along with the existence of an alternate future version of himself, Hiro has come across or induced a few time paradoxes or alterations in the series.
10- THE JACKET (Adrien Broody, Keira Knightley): The film centers on a wounded Gulf war veteran who returns to his native Vermont suffering from bouts of amnesia. He is hitching and gets picked up by a stranger, things go pear shaped when a cop pulls them over and is murdered by the stranger. The vet. is wrongly accused of killing the cop and lands up in an asylum. A quack doctor prescribes a course of experimental therapy, restraining him in a heavy duty straight jacket-like device, and locks him away in a body drawer of the basement morgue. During course of his treatment he gets flashbacks and visions of his future , where he can foresee he is to die in four days time. The catch is he doesn’t know how. Thus commences the classic race against time.
11- LOST (Jorge Garcia, Matthew Fox, Evangeline Lilly): Time travel is a recurring theme and part of the mythology on Lost. First hinted in the season 2 episode, “The Long Con”, the Island constantly moves, and by using an ancient wheel underneath the Orchid, the electromagnetic power on the Island allows the inhabitants to travel through time. Other cases feature the risks of time travel, which often end with death, due to the inability to find a constant. By the way, I must add that I saw Lost’s actress Bai Ling and Lost’s actor Josh Holloway when they came to Istanbul to be in Beyaz Show. I was working in Doğan TV, those days.
12- THE DEVIL’S ARITHMETIC (Kirsten Dunst, Brittany Murphy): This is another telling of the holocaust, but this time from the perspective of a modern teenage girl who only grudgingly accepts the Jewish traditions, but when she is asked to “open the front door” as part of the Seder feast finds herself, not unlike Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, to have entered the 1940’s and has stepped into the life of a prisoner in one of the German death camps where she experiences all of its horrors firsthand.
13- LOOPER (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis): In the year 2044, a man working for a group of killers called “Loopers” (they work for the mob and kill people who are sent blindfolded back in time from the year 2074 by their bosses) recognizes a victim as himself. He hesitates resulting in the escape of his older self.
14- MEN IN BLACK 3 (Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones): After breaking out of a moon-based maximum security prison, Boris the Animal decides to go back in time and eliminate the person who arrested him – Agent K. When he does so, Agent J realizes that the time line has been changed and he too travels back to July 15, 1969, the day before Agent K is killed. After overcoming some disbelief, J manages to convince K and others of just who he is and why he’s there. With the help of a being who can see all time lines, they track Boris down. J also learns a secret, something K had never told him.
15- THE TIME TRAVELER’S WIFE (Eric Bana, Michelle Nolden): When Henry DeTamble meets Clare Abshire in a Chicago library they both understand that he is a time traveler, but she knows much more about him as he has not yet been to the times and places where they have already met. He falls in love with her, as she has already with him, but his continuing unavoidable absences while time traveling – and then returning with increasing knowledge of their future – makes things ever more difficult for Clare.
16- FREQUENCY (Dennis Quaid, Jim Caviezel): A rare atmospheric phenomenon allows a New York City firefighter to communicate with his son 30 years in the future via short-wave radio. The son uses this opportunity to warn the father of his impending death in a warehouse fire, and manages to save his life. However, what he does not realize is that changing history has triggered a new set of tragic events, including the murder of his mother. The two men must now work together, 30 years apart, to find the murderer before he strikes so that they can change history–again.
17- THE KID (Bruce Willis, Spencer Breslin): Russ Duritz is a wealthy L.A. image consultant, but as he nears 40, he’s cynical, dogless, chickless, estranged from his father, and he has no memories of his childhood. One night he surprises an intruder, who turns out to be a kid, almost 8 years old. There’s something oddly familiar about the chubby lad, whose name is Rusty. The boy’s identity sparks a journey into Russ’s past that the two of them take – to find the key moment that has defined who Russ is. Two long-suffering women look on with disbelief: Russ’s secretary, Janet, and his assistant, the lovely Amy, to whom Rusty takes a shine. What, and who, is at the end of this journey?
18- TIMELINE (Paul Walker, Frances O’Connor, Gerard Butler): In this case, a group of archaeologists and combat experts led by Paul Walker and Frances O’Connor use a “3-D fax machine” (so much for technobabble!) to time-travel back to France in 1357, in hopes of retrieving Walker’s father and returning safely to the present. No such luck! Fending for themselves against marauding hordes of medieval French warriors at war with the invading British, these semi-intrepid travelers find their body count rising, and the deadline for their return home is rapidly approaching.
19- PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SANDS OF TIME (Jake Gyllenhaal, Gemma Arterton): Set in the mystical lands of Persia, a rogue prince and a mysterious princess race against dark forces to safeguard an ancient dagger capable of releasing the Sands of Time — a gift from the gods that can reverse time and allow its possessor to rule the world.
20- FLASHFORWARD (Dominic Monaghan, John Cho, Joseph Fiennes): After the entire world’s population blacks out for approximately 2 minutes and 17 seconds, which in effect causes the entire world to see a glimpse of life 6 months into the future, an elite FBI task force is formed to investigate who/what caused the global blackout, whether the events foreseen were simply flashes or true events of what’s to come, and whether or not it could possibly happen again…
21- TIMECRIMES / LOS CRONOCRÍMENES (Karra Elejalde, Candela Fernández): An ordinary guy takes an extraordinary step through time in this science fiction thriller. Hector (Karra Elejalde) is spending a few days in the countryside with his girlfriend, Clara (Candela Fernández), when he sees something that catches his attention while playing with his binoculars. Looking at a nearby house near a wooded area, Hector spies a beautiful woman taking her clothes off, and decides to take a stroll and give her a closer look. However, when he arrives at the house several minutes later, the woman is lying in the grass and appears to either be dead or passed out. As Hector examines her, he’s attacked by a strange man and flees on foot. Hector seeks refuge in a building that turns out to be a research facility owned by a mysterious scientist (Nacho Vigalondo), who gives him a place to hide inside a futuristic closet. However, Hector realizes it was actually a time-travel machine when he emerges a few minutes later and looks out the window to see himself standing over the unconscious woman in the distance.
22- DEJA VU (Val Kilmer, Danzel Washington): A ferry filled with crewmen from the USS Nimitz and their families was blown up in New Orleans on Mardi Gras. BATF Doug Carlin is brought in to assist in the massive investigation, and gets attached to an experimental FBI surveillance unit, one that uses spacefolding technology to directly look back a little over four days into the past. While tracking down the bomber, Carlin gets an idea in his head: could they use the device to actually travel back in time and not only prevent the bombing but also the murder of a local woman whose truck was used in the bombing?
23- THE LAKE HOUSE (Keanu Reeves, Sandra Bullock): In Chicago, the lonely architect Alex Wyler has a troubled relationship with his father Simon Wyler. In 2004, he buys an old glass house in a lake, designed and built by his father, and he finds a message in his mailbox from the former tenant, the also lonely Dr. Kate Forster, asking to deliver her correspondence in an address downtown. Alex meets his brother Henry in Chicago and when they go to the address with Dr. Forster’s correspondence, they find a building of luxury apartments under construction to be delivered eighteen months later. After some messages, Alex and Kate disclose that she is living in 2006 and Alex in 2004, they fall in love for each other and they try to find means to meet each other.
24- PLANET OF THE APES (Mark Wahlberg, Tim Roth, Helena Bonham Carter): It is the year 2029: Astronaut Leo Davidson boards a pod cruiser on a Space Station for a “routine” reconnaissance mission. But an abrupt detour through a space time wormhole lands him on a strange planet where talking apes rule over the human race. With the help of a sympathetic chimpanzee activist named Ari and a small band of human rebels, Leo leads the effort to evade the advancing Gorilla Army led by General Thade and his most trusted warrior Attar. Now the race is on to reach a sacred temple within the planet’s Forbidden Zone to discover the shocking secrets of mankind’s past – and the key to its future.
25- SOURCE CODE (Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan): Army Captain Colter Stevens finds himself working on a special program where his consciousness can be inserted into another human being. The only catch is can only be there for 8 minutes at any given time. That morning, a bomb exploded on a commuter train just outside Chicago. He occupies the body of teacher going to work on that train and is confused as to what he is doing or why he is there as his last memory is of flying his helicopter on a combat mission in Afghanistan. Those in charge of the program explain to him that there is a bomb on the train that must locate it. More importantly, he must identify the bomber as another bombing is expected later that day. He is also told however that he cannot change the past and can only gather information. As he develops a liking for his traveling companion Christina, he sets out to test that theory.
26- PRIMER (David Sullivan, Shane Carruth): Four friends/fledgling entrepreneurs, knowing that there’s something bigger and more innovative than the different error-checking devices they’ve built, wrestle over their new invention.
27- TERMINATOR (Arnold Schwarzeneger, Christian Bale, Linda Hamilton, Nick Stahl, Lena Headey, Thomas Dekker, Shirley Manson): Schwarzenegger plays the Terminator, a cyborg assassin sent back in time from the year 2029 to 1984 to kill Sarah Connor, played by Hamilton. Biehn plays Kyle Reese, a soldier from the future sent back in time to protect Sarah. Though not expected to be either a commercial or critical success, The Terminator topped the American box office for two weeks and helped launch the film career of Cameron and solidify that of Schwarzenegger. Three sequels have been produced: Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003), and Terminator Salvation (2009), as well as a television series,Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (2008–2009).
28- LATE FOR DINNER (Peter Berg, Brian Wimmer): W.D. Richter directed this comedy-drama in the spirit of Back to the Future andPeggy Sue Got Married. The film opens in Santa Fe in 1962, where Willie (Brian Wimmer) and Joy Husband (Marcia Gay Harden) are a cute couple living in familial bliss with their five-year-old daughter. When evil land-developer Bob Freeman (Peter Gallagher) tries to turn their bliss into blight, a gun goes off and Willie flees to Los Angeles with his dim-witted brother-in-law Frank (Peter Berg), convinced he has committed murder. They run into crazed scientist Dr. Chilblains (Bo Brundin), who cryogenically freezes the fugitives. Twenty-nine years later they are defrosted, and Willie, who has only aged a day, goes back to Santa Fe with Frank to seek out his wife and daughter, discovering they have aged and gone on with their lives without him.
29- SLIPSTREAM (Sean Astin, Ivana Milicevic): A scientist plots a bank robbery based around his newest invention — a time travel gadget that will send its user 10 minutes into the past. Everything goes according to plan, until he encounters a group of thieves who’ve planned their heist for the same day.
30- OUT OF THIS WORLD (Maureen Flannigan, Donna Pescow): The series revolves around Evie Ethel Garland, who is the daughter of Troy and Donna Garland. However, Troy is an alien from the planet Antereus. As a benefit of her half-alien parentage, Evie develops three powers as the series progresses. She can pause and un-pause time, “gleep” objects into existence, and can transport herself from one place to another. Troy is living on Antereus and is never seen, but Evie talks to him via a crystal cube. Evie is thirteen at the beginning of the series and lives with her mother in Marlowe, California. Visitors to the Garland home include Donna’s brother Beano Froelich; the mayor Kyle Applegate, a former actor; Lindsey Selkirk, Evie’s best friend; Chris Fuller, Evie’s boyfriend; and Buzz, who tends to take things literally. Episodes usually revolve around Evie getting herself out of a situation that she has caused.
31- DOCTOR WHO (Christopher Eccleston, David Tennant, Matthew Robert “Matt” Smith): The Doctor is a renegade Time Lord: an eccentric, highly-intelligent scientist from a distant planet. He travels through time and space in the TARDIS, a curious device, larger on the inside than on the outside, which was designed to change its appearance to suit its surroundings. Unfortunately, the Doctor’s TARDIS seems to be broken, and always appears as a blue British police box. The Doctor has a soft spot for the planet Earth, and often visits there, either to save it from various alien threats or to whisk a choice few inhabitants away to the distant parts of the galaxy to help him fight evil there. The Doctor has many foes, including Daleks (led by Davros), and The Master, another renegade Time Lord. Time Lord biology enables them to regenerate their bodies, and so both the Doctor and the Master appear to evolve over the years…
32- TWELVE MONKEYS (Bruce Willis, Brad Pitt): An unknown and lethal virus has wiped out five billion people in 1996. Only 1% of the population has survived by the year 2035, and is forced to live underground. A convict (James Cole) reluctantly volunteers to be sent back in time to 1996 to gather information about the origin of the epidemic (who he’s told was spread by a mysterious “Army of the Twelve Monkeys”) and locate the virus before it mutates so that scientists can study it. Unfortunately Cole is mistakenly sent to 1990, six years earlier than expected, and is arrested and locked up in a mental institution, where he meets Dr. Kathryn Railly, a psychiatrist, and Jeffrey Goines, the insane son of a famous scientist and virus expert.
33- THE TOMORROW MAN (Corbin Bernsen, Jeanne Cooper , R.C. Ormond , Ken Merckx , Beth Kennedy): Larry Mackey (Corbin Bersen) is a blue-collar dad in the 1970’s determined to make a better future for his young son. A future that’s coming a lot faster that he thinks. When a depraved gang of time travelers from 2000 cross Larry’s path, he’s accidenta.
34- STAR TREK (Leonard Nimoy, Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, William Shatner): In “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home”, to save Earth from an alien probe, Admiral Kirk and his fugitive crew go back in time to 20th century Earth to retrieve the only beings who can communicate with it, humpback whales. And in “Star Trek Into Darkness”, old Mr. Spock comes from the future to warn young Mr. Spock. Also in TV series called “Star Trek: The Next Generation”, there were some time travel events.
35- THE I INSIDE (Ryan Phillippe, Sarah Polley): A man (Simon) awakens in a hospital not recalling the last two years. As he begins to find out things from his past, he discovers his ability to move from the year 2002 to the year 2000. By doing this he meets a link between the two time periods.
36- MINORITY REPORT (Tom Cruise, Steve Harris): In the year 2054 A.D. crime is virtually eliminated from Washington D.C. thanks to an elite law enforcing squad “Precrime”. They use three gifted humans (called “Pre-Cogs”) with special powers to see into the future and predict crimes beforehand. John Anderton heads Precrime and believes the system’s flawlessness steadfastly. However one day the Pre-Cogs predict that Anderton will commit a murder himself in the next 36 hours. Worse, Anderton doesn’t even know the victim. He decides to get to the mystery’s core by finding out the ‘minority report’ which means the prediction of the female Pre-Cog Agatha that “might” tell a different story and prove Anderton innocent.
37- HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN (Dariel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Kenneth Branagh): The point to remember in all of this is that Hermione, not Harry, is the primary time traveler. Harry is the tagalong. He goes with Hermione if he is there, but she is the one who must make the trip. She has the time turner. Acting on Dumbledore’s advice, Harry and Hermione travel back in time, watching themselves repeat the night’s events.
38- CLOCKSTOPPERS (Jesse Bradford, French Stewart): Until now, Zak Gibbs’ greatest challenge has been finding a way to buy a car. But when he discovers an odd wristwatch amidst his father’s various inventions and slips it on, something very strange happens. The world around him seemingly comes to a stop; giving the effect that everyone has come to a stop. Zak quickly learns how to manipulate the device, and he and his quick-witted, beautiful new friend, Francesca, have some real fun. What they soon realize, though, is they are not alone in hypertime.
39- A.R.O.G. (Cem Yılmaz, Nil Karaibrahimgil, Özkan Uğur, Ozan Güven): As the sequel to director Omer Faruk Sorak’s 2004 comedy G.O.R.A., the rollicking Turkish-language fantasy A.R.O.G. hones in on the same protagonist, carpet salesman hustler Arif (Cem Yilmaz), now faced with a startling turn of events. Whereas, in the previous installment, Arif fell prey to an alien abduction and was whisked off to the planet G.O.R.A, here he somehow slips through time and finds himself in the Paleolithic Age, surrounded by carnivorous dinosaurs.
40- AUSTIN POWERS IN GOLDMEMBER (Mike Myers, Beyoncé Knowles): He’s found his mojo, baby, and now Austin Powers is back again in this shagadelic comedy-adventure! The “sshhh!” hits the fan when Dr. Evil and Mini-Me escape from prison. Joining forces with the superfreaky Goldmember, they kidnap Austin’s father, master spy Nigel Powers, in a dastardly time-travel scheme to take over the world. Before you can say “Shake Your Booty,” Austin cruises to 1975 and teams up with sexy Foxxy Cleopatra to stop Dr. Evil and Goldmember from their mischievous mayhem.
41- MARCHING OUT OF TIME (Frederick Andersen, Matthew Henerson): Nazis, in an attempt to teleport themselves into England during World War II, are instead accidentally teleported forward in time into suburbia, United States, in the early 1990s.
SOURCES OF SUMMARIES: Wikipedia, MJYoung.Net, Imdb, Wikia, Rotten Tomatoes, Fandango, Amazon, www.tst.gen.tr
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