Signals from every timeline
One story.
Every version of it.
Reviews and a growing catalogue of films and series about time travel, loops, parallel universes and alternate timelines. Every fact on the page is traced to a source.
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Day Break
Day Break (2006) is a one-season ABC thriller that rewards anyone willing to track it down. I rate it 7/10: Taye Diggs anchors a tight 13-episode story that has a real ending, even though ABC pulled it after six episodes had aired.
Arrival
Arrival (2016) is for anyone who wants an alien-contact story built on patience instead of explosions, and it gets a 9/10 from me. Amy Adams plays a linguist learning an alien language from nothing, and the film makes that slow, nerdy work the tensest thing on screen.
The One
Come to The One (2001) for Jet Li fighting Jet Li, and set your expectations there. I'd rate it 4/10 as a film, because a premise with room for a dozen stories gets spent on a chase and a few brawls.
The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause
The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause (2006) belongs on a family's December list only if the kids already love the first two films and the adults don't mind an hour and a half of gentle slapstick. It's a 4/10 for me: Martin Short's Jack Frost is a real pleasure, and almost everything around him is on autopilot.
Everything Everywhere All at Once
Put Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) on when you want a multiverse movie that turns out to be about a mother, a marriage, and a tax return. I'd score it 9/10, mostly for Michelle Yeoh, who keeps one recognizable woman at the center of all the chaos.
Spider-Man: No Way Home
Watch Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) after the two earlier Tom Holland films, because it leans on both and rewards the time you put in. I'm scoring it 8/10.
Doctor Strange
Doctor Strange (2016) is for anyone who likes Marvel movies best when they look least like Marvel movies, and it gets a 7/10 from me. The story is the usual one about a proud man who loses everything and gets handed powers, but the trips into other dimensions, above all a chase through a Manhattan that folds in on itself, are worth seeing on their own.
Dark Matter
Dark Matter (2024), the Apple TV+ series Blake Crouch adapted from his own novel, suits a viewer who wants a multiverse story about a marriage rather than a cosmic war. I rate Season 1 a 7/10: the central idea is strong and the rules are clear, though nine episodes stretch a story that feels like it could move faster.
Avengers: Endgame
Avengers: Endgame (2019) pays off best if you've spent years with the Marvel films; a newcomer gets a long heist movie full of strangers. My score is 8/10, mostly for the middle hour, a "time heist" through earlier Marvel films that's funnier and tidier than it needed to be.
Dark
Give Dark (2017), Netflix's German series, two or three episodes before you judge it, and keep a notepad nearby. I'm giving it 9/10, because few shows map out a time-travel story this far ahead: it ran three seasons as planned, and the later seasons keep paying off clues the first one left.
The Girl Who Leapt Through Time
The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2006) is for anyone who wants time travel that starts with karaoke and late homework, then quietly turns the screws. I'm giving it 8/10: Mamoru Hosoda's Madhouse anime makes reverse "time-leaping" feel like a teenage superpower you'd actually abuse—until the bill arrives.
The Time Tunnel
The Time Tunnel (1966) is Irwin Allen's one-season ABC time-travel adventure: 30 episodes of two scientists bouncing from historical crisis to speculative future while a control room tries to reel them in. I give it 6/10.
Quantum Leap
Quantum Leap (1989) is the time-travel show to pick if you'd rather meet a new stranger every week than follow one giant puzzle, and it gets an 8/10 from me. Scott Bakula and Dean Stockwell play the only characters who appear in every one of the 97 episodes, and their friendship is the reason to keep watching.
Peggy Sue Got Married
Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) is for grown-ups who still replay one old decision in their heads, and it gets a 7/10 from me. Watch it for Kathleen Turner, who plays a 1985 mother stuck inside her own teenage life and never once winks at the camera.
Donnie Darko
Donnie Darko (2001) is for anyone who likes a movie that keeps them arguing on the way home, and it gets a 9/10 from me. Watch the 2001 theatrical cut first.
Back to the Future
If you've somehow never seen Back to the Future (1985), watch it before you read anything else about time travel on this site. It gets a 10/10 from me because it's the best-built comedy in the genre: small details from the opening scenes come back later with a job to do.
Coming up in time
Dates from our researchNo dated events in the next few weeks.