8 Best Movies Like About Time: Time Travelling Thrillers You Must Watch

Who wouldn't want to travel back in time? Who wouldn’t love to go back and fix their mistakes of past? Or travel forward in time to see what future has in store for us? Of course, everyone does. It’s for these reasons time travel has remained one of the hot genres for the entertainment industry over the last couple of decades.

About Time is the story about Tim, who discovers that he can travel in time and change his fate. The first thing he tries is to travel in time and get a girlfriend. It doesn’t, however, turn out to be as easy as he'd imagined

Since you are on this page, I would presume that you have already watched this movie and are looking for movies like About Time. I would get right down to business. Listed below are some of the movies I found quite similar to About Time.

Edge of Tomorrow is one of those rare sci-fi films that have much more to it than some big-budget action sequences. It takes place during a time when there is a war going on between the humans and aliens. The plot revolves around Major Willams (Tom Cruise), who has never seen a day of combat before being dropped into battlefield. Having no prior battle experience whatsoever, he is killed within minutes. But wait, he has an advantage over the aliens. He can relive the moments of combat as many time as he wants, thus giving himself a chance to come out victorious against all the odds.

You know what’s going to happen in the end, hut it’s still a fun to see Willams getting stronger and wiser with each time he fails. You can say that it’s a dizzying combination of Source Code, The Butterfly Effect and Groundhog Day. While the idea behind this movie is not groundbreaking, the way director Doug Liman has put this movie together is commendable.

I don’t know why I have not included this movie in any of my previous lists. Maybe it’s because it’s pretty difficult to place 12 Monkeys in any particular category of movies. There is sci-fi, a bit of drama, some action and a lot of twists and turns that will keep you hooked throughout the whole movie.

It’s 2035, a time when only 1% of the population of 1996 has managed to make it through after a lethal virus nearly wiped out the whole human race, forcing survivors to live underground. Nobody knows what caused this epidemic back in 1996. Thankfully, there is a way to go back in time and find out the truth behind the origin of the virus. A convict agrees to volunteer for the cause and packs his bags to travel back in time, but things don’t quite go the desired way as he travels back to 1990 erroneously. Will he be able to accomplish is mission?

Groundhog Day is one of those classics that a lot of people, including me, have watched over a dozen times. Phil Connors, played by, is an arrogant weather man who has distain for all his co-workers and his viewers. He hates his job, but more than that, he hates the Groundhog Day held in a small town in Pennsylvania - an event is going to cover for the fourth time in a row. He just wants to get his job done and get it over with as quickly as possible. Things soon take a drastic turn when he finds out that he is stuck in a time loop where every day is Groundhog Day again. Unable to get out of that loop, he decides to make the best out of his misery when he learns that his actions have no long term consequences. It doesn’t matter what he does, he gets another chance to get it right.

A clever direction and some very convincing performances cements Groundhog Day’s place as one of the best light comedy movies like About Time.

Primer is not an easy movie to comprehend. It’s perhaps one of the most perplexing movies I have ever watched. The productions values are far from perfect, and so is the cast. But is this movie worth your time? Hell yeah.

Don’t worry too much if you fail to get the hang of anything in the beginning. You are not supposed to. Everything becomes clearer as by the time credits roll. There would still be a few lingering questions, for which you’ll have to give it another shot. There is so much packed into this that you’ll certainly want to watch it twice, perhaps more than that.

I won’t go much into plot details since it’s too complicated to summarize. Just know that it’s about a couple of friends creating something capable of travelling back and forth in time. As they obsess over the machine, they discover that there is much more to it than what appears on surface.

Primer is often compared to ‘2001’ because of the sci-fi angle. While primer has a lot of sci-fi elements, it’s much more than a time-travel genre movie. It’s about two guys, and how the success affects them, and how it ultimately brings distrust and confusion between them.

For those who don’t know, Army Of Darkness is a sequel to Evil Dead 2, nearly taking up from where the Evil Dead 2 left off. Bruce Campbell, the only surviving member of first two movies returns as Ash – a man who is stuck in mediaeval ages. He must battle with the dark forces to destroy the evil once and for all.

Army of Darkness is not for everyone. A lot of people have lashed on to it, citing how this movie doesn’t take itself seriously. But that’s the point. It’s not trying to take itself seriously. Yes, it’s a tad weird and almost unbelievable at times, but that’s what makes this movie fun to watch. Suspend your judgment for an hour, check your brain at the door and have some fun watching Army Of Darkness.

Repeaters is a fun movie if you watch it without too expecting too much from it. The plot revolves around three twenty-something who find themselves in one-day loop scenario. They have to relive the same horrifying day when they wake up the very next day. Their actions have no ling term consequences as the next day is going to be the same day all over again. Horrified initially, they soon realize that the loop has its own advantages. But there is so much more they don’t know yet.

Yes, it could have been a bit deeper, and glossier, but it is a good enough film all in all. Watch it if you are looking for some movies similar to About Time.

I watched this movie when I was only seven. It’s such an amazing pieces of moviemaking that it’s hard not to talk about it when you are talking about sci-fi movies. For me, it’s one of those rarest movies I can never get sick of.

Everything from casting to storyline is perfect. One of the best things about this movie is that it compels you to think. While the storyline can’t be compared to movies like Memento, it still has enough depth to make you want to discuss the plausibility of storyline with your friends.

Is this movie perfect in every sense? No. Is this movie worth your time? Hell yeah. The whole movie is so fun to watch that you’d forgive it for whatever number for time-travel discrepancies you’ll find in the plot.

You are either going to love it or going to hate it with passion. This movie already has the critics divided. I for one love how cleverly this movie was put together. It’s almost impossible to interpret this movie without some help from someone who has already seen this movie. Don’t worry, even if you can’t make much of what’s going on, it’s so beautiful that you’ll watch it anyway, and then re-watch it.

It’s not one of those movies that you can get over with after watching. You’ll be thinking about all the possible interpretations of the way it ended for a long time. It’s one of those movies that make perfect sense at one level, and no sense whatsoever on another level. Again, you’ll either love it or loathe it. If you love movies like About Time, though, it’s going to end up as one of the most memorable movies you have ever watched.

The best thing I loved about this movie is how easily it managed to invoke hope, dread, laughter and tears within couple of minutes, and that too without ever contradicting itself.

While you may not find all the movies to be of similar taste, you'd certainly love them all. Alost all the movies have some kind of time-travelling or time loop scenarios, which makes them more intriguing.

Are there other movies like About Time that should feature in this list? Let me know in the comments section below and help me build a good list of similar movies.