10 Time Travel Movies To See Before You Die

7. Source Code

Donnie Darko
Summit Entertainment

A heavyweight when it comes to science-fiction, Duncan Jones (director of sci-fi modern classic Moon) turned what could have been quite a pedestrian star vehicle for Jake Gyllenhaal (Donnie Darko himself) into a tight, intelligent, pacy time travel thriller with style and suspense to spare.

Afghanistan Captain Colter Stevens (Gyllenhaal) wakes up in a different time and place: a commuter train in Chicago, as a different person: a school teacher named Sean Fentress.

Building on the Groundhog Day ethos, he is destined to live the same eight minutes over and over again until he discovers who planted a bomb on the train. Meanwhile, time passes in the external world and the pressure and stakes mount.

Self-evidently influenced by Inception and a host of clever, big-budget sci-fi thrillers, Source Code nonetheless carves its own path and manages convincing and nuanced spectacle on a surprisingly lean budget (the paltry sum of ~$30 million).

Without giving too much away, the film itself is open-ended (and a curious parallel of 2019's Spider-Man: Far From Home) and lays track for a sequel. However, as it has been stuck in the rumours stage for many years now, whether we will ever see it is another matter altogether.

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