Summary
- Time travel has been a great vehicle for comedy in movies, allowing stories to take audiences to alternate realities and fantastical settings.
- Movies like About Time, Men in Black 3, and Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me use time travel as a trope for comedic effect.
- Back to the Future is considered the greatest time travel comedy ever made, with its well-matched lead duo and cleverly crafted script.
From classics like Back to the Future and Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure to underrated gems like Midnight in Paris and Peggy Sue Got Married, time travel has been used as a great vehicle for comedy in movies. Based on the laws of physics as they are understood today, time travel is impossible, so a real-life time machine probably won’t get invented any time soon (and if it was going to be invented at all, they probably would’ve come back here by now). But on the big screen, anything is possible. The magic of the movies has taken audiences to alternate realities, galaxies far, far away, and lawless dystopian societies.
The magic of the movies has also taken audiences back to the distant past, forward into the distant future, and returned to a drastically altered present. Time travel stories have mixed in all kinds of genres. Totally Killer mixes a time travel movie with an ‘80s slasher movie. Time After Time uses the time travel device for a quirky cat-and-mouse thriller about H.G. Wells chasing Jack the Ripper across contemporary San Francisco. And in movies like About Time, Men in Black 3, and Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, the time travel trope has been played for laughs.
10 Army Of Darkness
Sam Raimi, 1992
At the end of the gonzo slapstick horror opus that is Evil Dead II, Sam Raimi left his deadite-slaying hero Ash Williams stranded in the Middle Ages. The delayed Evil Dead threequel, Army of Darkness, follows up on this zany cliffhanger as Ash attempts to get back to his own time. Some fans of this gleefully gory franchise were disappointed by the lighter tone of Army of Darkness, but the wacky humor, surreal visuals, and Bruce Campbell’s typically spectacular performance go a long way toward redeeming that lighter tone.
9 Deadpool 2
David Leitch, 2018
After his first solo movie got his origin story out of the way, the Merc with a Mouth took on time-traveling baddie Cable in Deadpool 2. Cable comes back from a post-apocalyptic future to kill the mutant who murdered his family. Meanwhile, Deadpool, in an attempt to be a better superhero, would rather prevent that dark fate by helping the kid become less toxic. When Deadpool gets his hands on Cable’s time-traveling wristwatch, he dives into some of the most fun time-traveling antics ever put on-screen: he rewrites the movie and kills his own actor, Ryan Reynolds, before he signs on to star in Green Lantern.
8 About Time
Richard Curtis, 2013
Richard Curtis added a time travel element to his usual romcom formula in About Time. Domhnall Gleeson plays Tim Lake, who discovers that the men in his family have the ability to travel through time. He initially uses this ability to win the heart of the love of his life, played by Rachel McAdams, but then he goes down the slippery slope of trying to alter his past to improve his future. Thanks to Curtis’ sincere direction and Gleeson and McAdams’ committed performances (not to mention the great Bill Nighy as Tim’s time-traveling dad), About Time is as heartbreaking as it is hilarious.
7 Men In Black 3
Barry Sonnenfeld, 2012
After the first Men in Black sequel was criticized for rehashing all the best jokes from the first movie, Men in Black 3 pushed the boat out with a brand-new story involving time travel. Agent J (Will Smith) is sent back to prevent the assassination of his partner Agent K – which, in turn, will save the Earth. Josh Brolin gives a pitch-perfect performance as a younger Agent K, beautifully capturing all of Tommy Lee Jones’ gruff mannerisms (and his beloved dynamic with Smith).
6 Midnight In Paris
Woody Allen, 2011
During a trip to the French capital, nostalgic writer Gil Pender (Owen Wilson) gets the chance to meet his literary idols when his late-night walks magically take him back to the 1920s in Midnight in Paris. He gets to rub shoulders with such icons as Ernest Hemingway (played by Corey Stoll in a spot-on impression), Salvador Dalí, and Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. Gertrude Stein gives him notes on his debut novel. The story of Midnight in Paris is a dream-come-true scenario for lovers of art and literature, and Wilson plays the starstruck fanboy role to perfection.
5 Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
Jay Roach, 1999
After being cryogenically frozen to pursue the quotable Dr. Evil into the ‘90s in the first Austin Powers movie, Austin followed Dr. Evil back to the ‘60s in the sequel, The Spy Who Shagged Me. This is one of the most hilariously self-aware time travel comedies as it excuses its own nonsensical plotting. When Austin questions the paradoxes of time travel, Basil Exposition tells him, “Don’t worry about those things and just enjoy yourself,” then turns to the camera and tells the audience, “That goes for you all, too!”
4 Peggy Sue Got Married
Francis Ford Coppola, 1986
A middle-aged woman on the verge of a messy divorce, played by Kathleen Turner, gets a chance at a redo when she attends her 25-year high school reunion and gets magically transported back to her senior year in Peggy Sue Got Married. She ends up falling in love with her husband Charlie, played by an early-career Nicolas Cage, all over again as she remembers why she married him in the first place. Whereas most time travel movies have a sci-fi bent, Francis Ford Coppola directs Peggy Sue Got Married with the sweet, sentimental magic of a Frank Capra fable.
3 Hot Tub Time Machine
Steve Pink, 2010
Hot Tub Time Machine is a million times better than a movie called Hot Tub Time Machine has any right to be. It revolves around a group of disillusioned middle-aged friends who go to the ski resort they used to frequent as youngsters, get drunk in a hot tub, and wake up to find that they’ve traveled back in time to the ‘80s. The script is jam-packed with self-aware humor and jokes about the characters’ knowledge of the future, and it’s also a surprisingly poignant exploration of aging and regrets and midlife crises and second chances.
2 Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure
Stephen Herek, 1989
Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter star as the titular high school slackers in Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure. Since their rock music will one day save the world, Bill and Ted are given a time machine to help with their history report, so Ted won’t be sent to military school. The movie has a ton of great gags involving historical figures like Genghis Khan and Joan of Arc adjusting to the modern world. Reeves and Winter’s effortless on-screen chemistry makes Bill and Ted endlessly lovable, and their philosophy of “Be excellent to each other” is refreshingly wholesome.
1 Back To The Future
Robert Zemeckis, 1985
By far the greatest time travel comedy ever made – the unbeatable masterpiece against which every time travel movie will forever be judged – is Back to the Future. When Marty McFly is accidentally sent back to 1955, he has to ensure his parents get together so he’s not erased from existence while teaming up with the younger version of his friend Doc Brown, the inventor of the time machine, so he’s not stranded in the past. With its well-matched lead duo of Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd and its airtight script full of clever setups and payoffs, Back to the Future is the go-to example of a perfect movie.
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