As film fans have discovered time and time again, stories that explore time travel can be overly complex to navigate. At the same time, the possibilities for play have a lot of room for experimentation, which is why they continue to be popular plot devices in sci-fi and horror. Some of the greatest and most beloved films in history revolve around time travel and alternate timelines, like The Terminator and Back to the Future. Even It’s a Wonderful Life and Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol have elements of time travel, which isn’t something you always expect at the holidays. Most recently, time travel and the Multiverse have been major plot points in DC Comics and Marvel’s offerings on the big screen and streaming platforms.
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Recent films have also exposed the issues with time travel in fiction over the years. Once you get too deep or too involved in how the time travel operates, you’ve already gone too far. Looper dealt with this by generally ignoring it and explaining why they ignore it. Other films try to remain more grounded, sticking to existing scientific standards and theories on how it could operate in the future. All of it comes with the warning—”mileage may vary.”
Several films over the years have created worlds where time travel exists, leaving the door open for sequels despite none ever materializing. While some might clamor for a new chapter in the Back to the Future franchise, it’s closer to the back of this line compared to other franchises. Many of these movies are begging for another look, especially with modern eyes.
With that said, scroll down to take in 10 time travel movies that are begging for a sequel to open the time stream again. We’ll try to provide some vision along the way.
12 Monkeys
Inspired by another fun time travel short, La Jetee, the story for 12 Monkeys from Terry Gilliam takes the time travel concept from the French short and drops it in a post-apocalyptic world ravaged by a man-made virus. Bruce Willis stars as James Cole, a prisoner and survivor living underground after the spread of the virus in 1996. Now in 2035, Cole treks out into the world and is later selected to travel back in time to assist scientists in developing a cure in his time.
While the movie was later re-imagined as a TV series on SyFy, Gilliam’s film leaves a world where Cole dies in the past and witnesses his own death. A sequel from that point could follow someone else who is sent back to another point in time for the scientist’s next goals. Or there could be a side story following Cole from his childhood, to meet up with the start of the first movie and create a loop. Finding out what happens next in the future world would be the main goal for any sequel, so that earns it a spot on the list.
Edge of Tomorrow
While the film seems to end with a bright, happy ending where Tom Cruise wins the day by stopping the alien threat and ending the time loops. He makes his way to meet Emily Blunt after waking up on a helicopter back on the day before the Invasion of France. After a moment replicating their initial meeting, the film ends with Cruise smiling.
A sequel to Edge of Tomorrow has been in the works since at least 2015, though Cruise’s schedule has wreaked havoc on any rumored plans. Blunt and Cruise are both up to return, which the Top Gun star has made a reality after signing an exclusive deal with Warner Bros. in January 2024, putting an Edge of Tomorrow sequel back into play after years in flux.
Primer
Shane Carruth’s 2004 film Primer might be the most technical-jargon heavy film on the list. The low-budget cult film follows two engineers who stumble on a scientific explanation for time travel. After building a small box to experiment with eletromagnetic reductions of an object’s weight, creating an A-to-B causal loop. Some of these concepts would return in Tenet with flashier action, but neither film contends that they are real evidence of it working.
But while Primer seems like a one-and-done film that wraps up neatly in the end, the actions of Aaron (Carruth) and his construction of a warehouse-sized time travel box plant seeds that could grow if given time. Where does it stop by that point? Has time travel become a known possibility? Is it still legal or is it a crime? That would be a way to bridge from the creation of the time travel box and the eventual societal implications of people being able to time travel.
Palm Springs
Adam Samberg and Cristin Milloti are an adorable pairing in this fun time loop comedy that seems like a it could breed a sequel or two from its concept alone. While the Hulu comedy stands as a fine film on its own, leaving no real threads until the post-credit sequence where J.K. Simmons’ Roy finds Samberg’s Nyles has escaped the time loop. This leaves the viewer to assume Roy is still trapped in the time loop.
Roy could be a bridge character to a sequel, explaining the situation to a new cast that find themselves trapped in the time loop. Groundhog Day and Palm Springs both prove this is a winning plot device. Not only is it fun, it offers new directions to take within the time loop. They both are delightful movies, though, which is the main draw and selling point.
Timecop
Some folks will say that the Jean-Claude Van Damme classic Timecop already has a sequel and a TV series under its franchise belt. So why would we say it is begging for a sequel decades after its release? Because there is too much real estate that could be covered with the movie’s time travel concepts. Like in Terminator, people from the future travel to the past and screw around with past events. While Sarah Conner winds up in a time paradox due to Kyle Reese and his connection to John Conner in the Terminator franchise, Timecop doesn’t waste too much time there until the end, when a time paradox ends Ron Silver’s evil plan.
If given the budget and care, a Timecop sequel with a JCVD cameo and a creative touch on the concepts of time travel could be well within our reach. If actions of the past change the future, any plot will have a ticking clock involved. So have some fun with it, travel to some exotic locales, and plop out a sequel that could stand with the original. We’re not asking for much.
Tenet
Christopher Nolan stressed that the time travel elements of Tenet are not based in realism, despite the way the film presents it in fashion similar to Primer. But once the protagonist enters the time travel machine and meets himself in reverse, realism gets stretched.
But unlike the other entries to this point, I wouldn’t want a Tenet sequel based on the plot leaving things unfinished. Instead, it would be the result of feeling confident in operating within Tenet’s time travel rules. The first movie has enough exposition for an entree release slate, while also growing in popularity with audiences. Give us another story in this world, not just a retread of the original. This could be James Bond with time travel.
Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes
A sequel to Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes could aim to expand it into a full-length film instead of a 71-minute long shot made on a 3 million Japanese yen budget. The budget would rise, the plot would expand beyond the main character’s cafe, and we’d get to explore the time paradoxes, the time cops, and how all of it came to be in grander fashion.
Still, there is just a lot to like about the initial film and how it handles time travel, making it a cult favorite for people on social media. It keeps its time travel fairly simple while touching on a few tough concepts like time paradoxes. A real place for expansion visually is in concepts introduced in the first film. The Droste effect is used to perfection in the film’s world, but you’d have to assume there is much more that could be done. It’s likely the toughest sequel to get off the ground in this list, but well worthy of the attention.
Army of Darkness
While Ash vs Evil Dead delivered a sequel to the Evil Dead trilogy, including Army of Darkness, despite legal issues stopping any mention of the film in season one. They did correct this in later episodes, but some fans still want to see an Army of Darkness sequel that follows the original ending in a post-apocalyptic London, where Ash awakens after ingesting too much potion and sleeps too long. Even with Bruce Campbell’s ridiculous fake beard, Universal Pictures said this ending was too bleak, opting to switch to the ending where Ash returns to S-Mart and fights a surviving Deadite with one of the store’s quality rifles.
There was a plan for a sequel to Army of Darkness before the choice to make Ash vs Evil Dead, initially mentioned after the release of Fede Alvarez’s bloody sequel/reboot in 2013. Was there a plan for a sequel to feature both Ash and Jane Levy’s Mia Allen? Would it have also been as gory and serious as the reboot? It seems we’ll never find out now, but a second Jane Levy film would be welcome after Evil Dead Rise hit theaters. Evil Dead Burn is up next will be released in the fall, though it seems to lack any returning cast from past entries. We will be on it like a puma, though.
Interstellar
Featuring a different type of time travel, Interstellar literally is just waiting for a sequel to head into production. After somehow succeeding in his mission and ending up placed back in our solar system by the mysterious forces that opened the wormhole, Coop and crew traveled through to the other galaxy with twelve potential new homes for humanity. Returning to our solar system after his time in the black hole Tesseract, Cooper is reunited with his daughter on the space station before she dies of old age. But she does plant the seeds for a sequel, where Coop heads back through the wormhole to find Anne Hathaway’s Brand on the habitable planet waiting for a human colony.
If fans of the film are wholly onboard with the Tesseract finale, they should be onboard for more action on the other planet and the difficulties of getting a new colony off the ground.
The Final Countdown
And finally, a little gem of a movie from 1980 that starred Kirk Douglas as the commanding officer of the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier that gets thrust back in time to before the Pearl Harbor attack. After the ship enters a strange electrical storm, its crew and pilots soon realize the date is now the day before the Pearl Harbor sneak attack.
A sequel could once again send a modern ship back through the past, maybe a nuclear submarine in the North Atlantic, or some equally challenging event from the past. Heck, you could have the fog land inland and envelope an entire base or secret place of operations.
Did your favorite make the list? Would add or remove a film to make room or heighten these choices? Let us know in the comments.
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