20 Best Science Fiction Movies Released Since 2000

Given Hollywood’s propensity for snapping up killer international films, passing them down the assembly line, and regurgitating something far inferior (but without those pesky subtitles), it’s some surprise that Nacho Vigalondo’s Timecrimes has escaped the process.  

Set in the Spanish countryside, the film follows middle-aged, average man Héctor (Karra Elejalde) in the process of renovating his home. After spotting a naked woman in the forest near with his binoculars, Héctor heads out to investigate, and is attacked by a man wrapped in bloody bandages. But this is only the first in a string of strange and confounding happenings tied to a mysterious time machine, happenings which become more and more inevitable as the film hurtles towards its conclusion.

Vigalondo uses brief time travel (minutes and hours, rather than years and centuries) as the pivotal device for Timecrimes, giving us a story whose strands’ simultaneity keeps us glued to the screen, but which – unlike some comparable time loop films (looking at you, Primer) – offers us everything needed to understand it when viewed from the end. And, like many of the other big Spanish directors (especially Pedro Almodóvar), Vigalondo imbues his film with some of the tone and sensibilities his country’s melodrama is known for, which keeps even the heavy parts feeling fun and not too dismal.