10 Time Travel Movies To See Before You Die

Not only a mind-bendingly good time travel feature, but one of the very best independent films of all time, Donnie Darko kick-started Jake Gyllenhaal's career and put a glowing, self-referential stamp on the latter days of Patrick Swayze's.

Gyllenhaal's 'superhero-named' Darko is a melancholic teenager spun by the forces of time and fate in a sleepy and drab suburban US town.

He sleepwalks and escapes a grisly death from a jet engine through his bedroom ceiling and has to unravel a surprisingly grounded mystery built around parallel universes, giant demonic bunnies and mental illness, to the beat of an apocalyptic countdown timer.

Sinister hallucinatory elements - visions of Frank the bunny, in particular - lend the film a deep sense of dread, while time travel itself is played out in Donnie's personal struggles and the complex overarching plot, wrestling with themes of predetermination, foresight and objective meaning.

The existential anxiety at the heart of Donnie Darko is symptomatic and reflective of the time and place in which it is set, but also extends to generations before and after, retaining a timeless (wah-wah) relevancy.

Though Richard Kelly's directorial follow up, Southland Tales, didn't make this list, it nonetheless deserves an honourable mention for dealing with similar subject matter - and though it originally received a cold welcome, is a film that (like Darko) deserves several watches to fully appreciate.

In both films, there is something new to notice and understand on each subsequent viewing, helping us assemble another part of the multi-dimensional puzzle.