Christopher Nolan has taken on magic in The Prestige, a heist inside a person's mind in Inception, and now he has his sites set on the biggest concept of them all: time travel. After months of denying Tenet had any link to time travel, the truth (plus critical consensus) is finally out: Tenet is (unsurprisingly) a time travel movie at its core.
Tenet left Nolan's fans drooling and skeptics trying to understand if the film is a convoluted work of genius or if it even makes sense in the first place. As there are time travel movies that go to great lengths of making the idea plausible and others that are just outright preposterous, Tenet sits right in the middle.
MADE MORE SENSE: The Terminator (1984)
Though not the first time travel movie, The Terminator arguably laid the groundwork for mainstream blockbusters that tackled the plot device. As most previous sci-fi movies of the era were intent in going forward in time, The Terminator instead went backwards.
The plot was simple: a cyborg assassin from the future goes back to the present (i.e. the '80s) to murder Sarah Connor so that her son, the leader of the human resistance, never exists. Meanwhile, a rebel soldier has to save Sarah to safeguard humanity's last hope. This opened an infamous pop culture time paradox that Dark Fate only worsened, but the simplicity of the first Terminator is a marvel to behold.
MADE LESS SENSE: Donnie Darko (2001)
Donnie Darko is an amazing film for many reasons. It’s compelling, the '80s setting is nostalgic without being obnoxious, the characters have depth, and the spooky aesthetic is a way of filmmaking that just isn’t seen anymore. However, its time travel doesn’t make a lick of sense.
Though it avoids any kind of plot-shattering paradox, there is barely any explanation for what transpires. It’s so confusing that not even Jake Gyllenhaal understands it.
MADE MORE SENSE: X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)
In arguably the best instalment of the Fox X-Men series, the younger mutants from the First Class timeline join forces with their older versions from the original X-Men movies to save mutant and humankind.
The best thing about the time travel in Days of Future Past is that though it sounds complicated (i.e. Kitty Pryde can phase people through time now), it’s fairly sensible and digestible. Even better, the film shows how the characters have grown, why they are who they are, and what could be done to change a dark future.
MADE LESS SENSE: Avengers: Endgame (2019)
There’s nothing like time travel for writers to worm their way out of a hole -- especially for a cinematic universe 22 films deep with lots of loose ends to tie up. Not that the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) wrote itself in to a corner and time travel isn't the most outlandish concept in this world, but Tony Stark basically imagining the right way to time travel overnight was a tough pill to swallow.
For a movie where Ant-Man mocks Back To The Future, the Infinity Saga's finale spends a a lot of time borrowing ideas from it, like visiting a previous movie and avoiding a past self. It doesn't help that time travel is also used for shortsighted niceties with unfortunate implications, like Capt. America marrying Peggy Carter but choosing not to alter the events that led to Civil War or even major in-universe crises such as HYDRA's infiltration of SHIELD.
MADE MORE SENSE: Looper (2012)
Though Looper may embrace one of the most overused time travel plots (i.e. the time loop), it puts a lot of great spins on the age old narrative and it makes perfect sense. Here, a contract killer is forced to confront his older self in a fight for the future or what's left of it.
As it’s set in the future, time travel is no secret but is illegal, meaning that the only people who use it are organized criminals. Thinking about it, if time travel was a real thing, it totally would be illegal and criminals would exploit it.
MADE LESS SENSE: Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989)
The wacky Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure wasn’t built out of kids’ dreams; it built kids’ dreams. Here, teenage rockstars who use a telephone box to time travel was what '80s kids lived for -- even though it’s one of the silliest time travel movies to exist.
From the wormhole the two titular knuckleheads travel through to fixing the aerial with chewing gum to the caricatures of real historical figures they meet, Excellent Adventure is cartoonish in logic, to say the least. That being said, hard science is the last thing that should cross one's mind when watching any of the Bill & Ted films.
MADE MORE SENSE: Back To The Future (1985)
Back to the Future is the classic movie that every sci-fi film since has used as a point of reference. The movie makes as much sense as it possibly can and though the sequels’ explanation of time travel were more problematic, the original tells just enough information about time travel and the physics of it without going too far in to word salads.
Tenet, meanwhile, shot itself in the foot and treated time travel like a dirty word, choosing to over-explain everything instead of just admitting that it's a time travel movie at heart. In a way, Back to the Future could be blamed for Tenet’s convoluted dialogue, as Back to the Future embraced time travel shenanigans and changing the future in different ways, thus creating the paradoxes that Tenet had to tiptoe around.
MADE LESS SENSE: Evil Dead 2 (1987)
Though it’s one of the best horror movies of the '80s, it’s the shocking twist at the end of Evil Dead 2 that technically makes it one of the best sci-fi movies of the decade as well. After banishing the evil to a different realm, Ash is sucked in to a wormhole and is spat out of the other end, where he finds himself in medieval times. As Ash screams at his fate, the knights around him chant “Hail!” to the man with a chainsaw for a hand.
As fun, shocking, and mind blowing as the twist is, there was no basis or build up for it. Nolan’s movies are full of exhausting exposition but at least they explain something. Here, not so much of a line of dialogue explains anything. At best, audiences can blame the Necronomicon Ex Mortis but then again, it's the cause for literally anything slightly weird in the Evil Dead movies.
MADE MORE SENSE: Groundhog Day (1993)
With Bill Murray’s hilarious character Phil being stuck in a time loop as the same day repeats itself, his reactions to his fate are hilarious and naturally nihilistic. As each day passes, Phil gets more used to the idea of living the same day over and over again -- much to his disdain.
There aren’t any big set pieces that drastically alters world history here and the movie is really more of a character study about Phil. But the reactions of the supporting characters, the way the day unfolds, and how Phil escapes the loop all fit together perfectly, making Groundhog Day one of the best time travel movies that helped through quarantine.
MADE LESS SENSE: About Time (2013)
Some may argue that About Time is one of the best films about time travel, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Just about the only thing that makes sense here is the pun in the title. This is a romantic comedy about a man who can travel back in time by going in to dark room and clenching his fists. He could use this power for literally anything, but he uses it to keep changing things about himself until the woman he likes loves him back.
About Time focuses on upper-middle class families and it doesn’t feature a single minority, making it a rather insular and self-absorbed story. Notably, it teaches audiences that they should change who they are for other people's approval rather than simply being themselves. The film not only makes no sense, but it is earth-shatteringly out of touch.