Time travel films

Time travel is a phenomenon known to all films. It is in the very nature of the cinematographic apparatus to challenge the notions of what has historically, and, perhaps, inaccurately, been named “real time”.

However, time travel as an explicit narrative device is more commonly associated with a group of science fiction films, which deal with willful or explainable excursions out of the linear space-time continuum. Arguably, time travel can also be understood as a powerful tool to explore our collective unconscious.

Most time travel films discussed here were made in Hollywood; time travel in those films has been used as a narrative device for multiple purposes: to enact the primal scene, signal strong wish-fulfillment fantasies linked to the preservation of nuclear heterosexual family, provide the ultimate battleground between good and evil and thus speak about the ultimate survival of humanity, explore the paradoxes of science and provide cultural commentary.

True to the nature of mass culture, which, as a rule, affirms the dominant social structure but has elements that could also lead to readings against the grain, the exploration of these films aims to acknowledge their reactionary politics, while, at the same time, uncovering their utopian potential and elements embedded in the narratives which could be appropriated by progressive forces.

Finally, time travel films produced by independent and experimental filmmakers are also mentioned. They lead the path in uncovering alternative discursive and reading strategies, thereby realizing the full potential that cinema has as the most powerful time machine invented so far.