Nerds around the globe just celebrated “Back to the Future” day earlier this week, and while other filmmakers have tried to clear the admittedly very high bar that Robert Zemeckis and company set, it is in the opinion of this writer that the standard set by the first ‘Future’ film has yet to be matched in this genre. Clearly, it’s not for lack of effort: time travel films are still a dime a dozen, as popular and lucrative as ever. This is due, I would guess, in no small part to the malleability of the genre’s central gimmick: it’s hard to think of any common ground shared by films like “The Terminator” and “Clockstoppers,” save for the fact that they both feature protagonists who hop madly across the space-time continuum.
READ MORE: Time Travel With Siskel And Ebert’s Reviews Of The ‘Back To The Future’ Trilogy
In a new Cineplex supercut entitled “We Don’t Need Roads,” the viewer is invited to look at a hand-picked selection of films that employ time travel as a central narrative device. Among the selected highlights are Rian Johnson’s gritty, ingenious “Looper,” this year’s critically savaged “Terminator: Genysis,” and, of course, the totally tubular time-travel movie to end them all, “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure.” “Back to the Future” also gets its proper due, and there’s even a tip of the hat to some of the weirder films in the genre, particularly Richard Kelly’s fever-dream/cult smash “Donnie Darko.” So, for the nostalgia junkies amongst you, come take what Neil Young would call a journey through the past (sorry, had to do it) and check out this cool supercut.
Tell us what your favorite time travel movie is in the comments section below.