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Somewhere in Time

1980, Sci-fi, 1h 43m

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In 1972, playwright Richard Collier (Christopher Reeve) becomes fascinated by a photo of Elise McKenna (Jane Seymour), a turn-of-the-century stage actress, while staying at the Grand Hotel in Mackinac Island, Michigan. As Richard's obsession grows, he learns from a friend that time travel may actually be possible through hypnosis. Richard travels in time to meet Elise, and the two appear destined to be together. However, Elise's jealous manager (Christopher Plummer) attempts to keep them apart.

Genre: Sci-fi

Original Language: English

Director: Jeannot Szwarc

Producer: Stephen Deutsch

Writer: Richard Matheson

Release Date (Theaters): May 6, 1981  original

Release Date (Streaming): Apr 19, 2016

Runtime: 1h 43m

Distributor: Universal Pictures, MCA

Production Co: Universal Pictures, Rastar Pictures

Cast & Crew

Christopher Reeve

Richard Collier

Jane Seymour

Elise McKenna

Christopher Plummer

William Fawcett Robinson

Teresa Wright

Laura Roberts

Arthur Biehl

George Voskovec

Dr. Gerald Finney

Susan French

Older Elise

Arthur's Father

Sean Hayden

Young Arthur

Audrey Bennett

Richard's Date

Richard Matheson

Astonished Man

Jeannot Szwarc

Screenwriter

Stephen Deutsch

Isidore Mankofsky

Cinematographer

News & Interviews for Somewhere in Time

Miranda July’s Five Favorite Films

Doug Jones’ Five Favorite Films

Critic Reviews for Somewhere in Time

Audience reviews for somewhere in time.

The reason many people herald this film as a cult classic is due largely to it starring two relative stars of the 1970s in it. Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour had both made well-received big-screen debuts in successful films prior to Somewhere in Time with Seymour starring as one of the most memorable Bond girls of all time, Solitaire, in Live and Let Die and Reeve becoming a household name as Superman in the original motion picture franchise. Somewhere In Time is one of those Hollywood what-if's in regards to what would have happened if it had been widely released with their being no actor's strike occurring to limit the marketing of the film. Would it still be such a cult favourite if Mr. Reeve hadn't been tragically paralyzed by a horse riding accident and was still alive and well today? Would the film have further made Jane Seymour an 80s icon without her having to appear in dozens more films and mini-series' in order to establish herself as such if the film had blossomed at the box office? We can never really know, but amidst the what-ifs and the theories, I can say that despite it being a romance film, -- a genre of which I am not a fan of -- Somewhere In Time is a decent enough film which does have noticeable flaws, however. Reeve and Seymour as Richard Collier and Elyse McKenna have considerable chemistry despite them being together on screen for less time in the film than you'd think. Collier is the time-travelling playwright from the late 1970s who has fallen in love with McKenna's photograph in the Grand Hotel, determined to woo her by any means necessary, and McKenna is the detached stage starlet who is - albeit fictional - possibly one of the few people who is more introverted than Morrissey. The film has the typical tragedy-in-disguise structure. Collier is enthralled by McKenna and learns that she was also the old lady he met at the start of the film, he spends a good amount of screen time researching her and learning how to apparently time travel back to 1912 where he meets Elyse, gets rebuffed by her, convinces her to spend a day with him in which she falls head over heels for him, for the two to finally be together for a day of two of happiness before Richard makes a mistake and is thrown back into the future where he dies from the supposed heartbreak and is reunited with Elyse's spirit in the afterlife. Both Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour give at least decent performances with the latter's being far more genuine than the former's somewhat rehashing of the Clark Kent side of Superman into a more romanticized individual who seems to have a lot he wants to say. Jane Seymour's portrayal of Elyse McKenna is far more versatile although her character always appears restrained emotionally except for her last scene set in 1912. I found it strange while watching her portrayal of Elyse McKenna, thinking that this was also the same actress who (25 years later, mind you), portrayed characters in both Wedding Crashers and an especially hilarious episode of How I Met Your Mother which can both be classified as cougars to the point where in the How I Met Your Mother episode, Barney Stinson gets so obsessed with her that he ends up dislocating or breaking a hip while in Wedding Crashers, she makes Owen Wilson utter one of his infamous "wows" in a situation which stemmed from an unhappy marriage to Christopher Walken. Seymour throughout her entire career has shown remarkable versatility that few actors are capable of, with her performance as Elyse McKenna being one of the most intentionally-restrained of them all in true fashion of the early 20th century stage actresses. The production design is also one of the major points where this film shines. The late seventies in which this film begins have a very modernistic feel whereas the portions of the film set in 1912 radiate with an idyllic and warm vibrancy which helps the film's overtly romantic mood. It further enhances the storyline in the scenes that Richard and Elyse are together and make it so when they finally are at the point of professing to each other that it's a fuller experience for the viewers, one that flows with a vibrance which takes the entire film higher and higher before it all comes crashing down with the tragic ending. Somewhere In Time is very much a cult classic at the end of the day, not known by a ton of casual moviegoers, or even the typical Blu-Ray savant, but those who are fans of the film are fiercely devoted to keeping it's legacy alive, and that right there is what proves it a cult film truly worthy of the term.

Well, it looks as though Superman is traveling back in time for the sake of love yet again, and he doesn't even have to something as stupid as fly around the Earth to do it. That resolving scene was actually was kind of cool to a certain degree, but if you aren't sold on the fact that Hollywood will pull any kind of dumb, gratingly impossible deus ex machina move to crowbar in a happy ending then, well, you might very well be right, because that bit in "Superman" was so stupid that I think Hollywood has since, or at least should have since deemed the time-traveling flyover their cutoff point. Of course, thinking really, really hard in some old-fashioned hotel room, on the other hand, is a completely logical way to travel back in time. Actually, sarcasm aside, that may very well be correct, because as Stephen King has taught us time (So to speak) and again, if you're a writer who stays in a hotel, or inn, or any other isolated area, something crazy like that is bound to happen, though I wouldn't recommend that you up-and-coming playwrights experiment with that theory, because as King has also taught us, that crazy event won't always have Jane Seymour on the other end of it. Well, it might, but it won't be the young and pretty Jane Seymour who falls in love with you, but rather the creepy looking older one we have now. It would make for the scariest Stephen King story in years. Still, as the story stands, while it may not satisfy the horror audience, it still makes for a pretty good romantic-drama film, though not at all a spotless one. The film has its quieter and steadier moments that may not dull it down too often, yet slow still slow it down in momentum quite a bit on more than a few occasions, or at least what momentum there is. The film's development segment is quite overlong, with repetition and padding forcing in more and more, well, time on the clock before we even go back in time. Once we get there, things aren't much better, with much padding and slowness really leaving the film to limp quite a bit on more than a few occasions, taking quite a while to really pick up. Still, what is just about as consistent and detrimental within the film is the simple fact that it is just so melodramatic, whether it be Chris Reeve's Richard Collier character's initial obsession with traveling through time just for some girl he had never heard of until recently, or just the romance between Collier and Jane Seymour's Elise McKenna character, in general, or, worst of all, that way too hard to buy resolution, ultimately somewhat touching in its final shot though, it may be. The film isn't close to the biggest ear of corn you can pluck from the romance film fields, yet it does get to be a bit hard to comfortably flow into, if not just plain cheesy, to an extent. It's hard to pull a film of this concept to a high point, let alone past fairness, yet it does still stands to be better than this. However, as it stands, the film is still one to watch - nay - simply enjoy, because for ever mistake made, it pulls the right moves to really keep you with it, or at least hold your eyes' attention. The production designs are eye-catchingly dashing, with an elaborate slickness that captures the prestige of the classy cultures within the 1910s. Another aspect that keeps you sticking with the film, and enjoyably at that, is simply its innocent charm. Sure, this film may be a touch too innocent for its own good, not having enough oomph for it to raise past average, yet it is ultimately good-spirited and well-intentioned, thus creating winning charm, augmented by some generally sharp and entertaining humor, thankfully just about none of which rely on a dreaded fish-out-of-water theme that I can't stand and feared this film boasting. What further enhances the charm are the performances, none of which are dramatically impressive, yet all of which are thoroughly charming, especially that of Christopher Reeve, who may not have been doing much more than playing Clark Kent, yet he still knew his way around that kind of charmingly good-natured role that helps in establishing some pretty undeniably fine chemistry between him and Jane Seymour. Yes, indeed, even with all of the damaging melodrama, the romance between the Richard Collier and Elise McKenna characters remains compelling, made so not just by the charismatic performers leading the way, but the man who helps in composing the path. Jeannot Szwarc's direction is anything but perfect, yet it is ultimately engaging, whether it be through the aforementioned charm or simply his ability to generally trasncend the sting of the melodrama. Granted, Szwarc is all but entirely blame for the melodrama being present in the first place, yet he manages to work around his mistakes just enough, decidedly not to where this film stands as genuinely impacting, yet still enough the romance, charm and overall experience of watching the final product to ultimately win you over, more than lose you. Bottom line, the film is lacking on overall oomph, thus creating an underwhelmingness that goes augmented by slow spots and overdrawn segments that all simply lead to melodrama, yet through dashing production designs that liven up the world, just as much as the decent humor and colorful cast - headed by the charismatic and sparking duo of Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour - that enhance the overall winning charm that ultimately leaves "Somewhere in Time" to stand as a consistently enjoyable journey, rather improvable though, it may be. 2.5/5 - Fair

I expected to enjoy this film quite a bit. Along with "When Harry Met Sally," which I highly enjoyed, this ranks up with my dad's favorite movies. My expectations ran right into a solid, hard brick wall. John Barry's fine score is the only shining point in this remarkably bad film. Christopher Reeve can't play a believable courter to save his life, the screenplay muddles everything from romance to time travel, and the result is an absurd film that takes itself far too seriously. As the film progressed, I was nearing the point of physically injuring myself. Seriously. This is about as perfect an example as there is of bad, bad filmmaking.

Okay, I can relate to women of 1980 who were looking for something romantic to cling to. Still, I cannot be remiss if I didn't also ask them why the hell they herald this as a classic. The plot is so diluted of any type of reality or at least common sense, it just ruins the movie. The chemistry between Seymour and Reeve is a crowd pleaser, but you can't stick two people together with little romantic license and pretend it's just love at first sight, especially not with such an involved subplot. Personally, this just tired me. I do give kudos to Christopher Reeve, who showed us he is a decent actor even among such a shitty plot and premise.

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"Somewhere in Time" wants us to share its sweeping romantic idealism, about a love so great that it spanned the decades and violated the sanctity of time itself. But we keep getting distracted by nagging doubts, like, isn't it a little futile to travel 68 years backward into time for a one-night stand? The movie surrounds its love story with such boring mumbo jumbo about time travel that we finally just don't care.

It didn't have to be that way. Last year's underrated and neglected movie "Time after Time," which had H.G. Wells and Jack the Ripper traveling forward into modern San Francisco, contained a love story that had a lot of sly fun with the notion of relationships between people of different eras. "Somewhere in Time" has a lot of qualities, but slyness and fun are not two of them.

This movie drips with solemnity. It enshrines its lovers in such excessive romantic nobility that Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody plays almost every time they're on the screen. This is the kind of romance so sacred, so serious, so awesome, that you have to lower your voice in the presence of it. Romances like those are boring even to the monstrous egos usually involved in them.

But back to the movie. "Somewhere in Time" stars Christopher Reeve as a Chicago playwright who visits the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island and sees a photograph there of an actress who appeared at the hotel in 1912. He is smitten; no, he is obsessed. He researches the career of the actress, falls in love with her, learns from a pseudoscientific psychology professor that time travel is possible, and hypnotizes himself to travel back to 1912.

The movie never makes it clear whether the playwright actually does travel through time, or only hypnotizes himself into thinking he does. It doesn't matter. Once he's back in 1912, or thinks he is, he meets the young actress, who is played by the preternaturally beautiful Jane Seymour . "Is it ... you?" she breathes. It is! It is! A little of this goes a long way, even with Rachmaninoff. Especially with Rachmaninoff.

There is, of course, a villain. He is the young actress's manager, played by Christopher Plummer . He has guided her career since she was 16, and now resents the intrusion of this stranger who has come from nowhere, is dressed oddly, and threatens to steal his protégé. There are some intrigues, as the three of them steal about the rooms and grounds of the magnificent Grand Hotel. But there are never any scenes that really deal with the romance between Reeve and Seymour -and, incredibly, the movie avoids the opportunity to exploit in their relationship the fact that Reeve is from the future. All of the delightful revelations and paradoxes that could have resulted from Reeve revealing that fact are simply ignored.

This is, of course, Reeve's first movie since " Superman ," and he is not particularly convincing in it. He seems a little stolid, a little ungainly; he's so desperately earnest in his love for this actress that he always seems to be squinting a little. The whole movie is so solemn, so worshipful toward its theme, that it's finally just silly.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Somewhere in Time (1980)

103 minutes

Christopher Plummer as W. F. Robinson

Bill Erwin as Arthur

Teresa Wright as Laura Roberts

Bo Clausen as Man in Elevator

Christopher Reeve as Richard Collier

Jane Seymour as Elise McKenna

Photographed by

• Isidore Mankofsky
• Jeff Gourson

Screenplay by

• Richard Matheson

Produced by

• Stephen Deutsch

Directed by

• Jeannot Szwarc

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Somewhere In Time

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Brief Synopsis

Cast & crew, jeannot szwarc, christopher reeve, christopher plummer, teresa wright, audrie neenan, technical specs.

A young playwright is captivated by the portrait of a lovely stage actress from the turn of the century. Using self-hypnosis, he travels back in time to find her. The two fall in love, but learn that they have differences other than the years of their birth that they need to overcome.

Patrick Billingsley

William p o'hagan, audrey bennett, ali matheson, sean hayden, tim kazurinsky, maud strand, george voskovec, barbara giovannini, laurence coven, susan french, jane seymour, michael woods, don melvoin, christy michaels.

George Wendt

Don franklin, steve boomer, hayden jones, jerry kaufherr.

William H. Macy

James p dunnigan, bruce jarchow, anne k irish, noreen walker, richard b. matheson, francis x keefe, erin tomcheff, evans ghiselli, victoria michaels, taylor williams, charlie ajar jr., tom bartholomew, tom battaglia, susan bender, steve bickel, mary ann biddle, burt bluestein, ulla bourne, valerie j bresee, russ buckens, alfred budniak, christopher burian-mohr, sal camacho, daniel c chichester, joe collins, rocky d'amico, donald e. dahlquist, jean-pierre dorleac, martin emert, jack faggard, bert fancher, richard fields, ed fitzgerald, jeff gourson, james haboush, greg a hall, kenneth hall, john hammond, susan j harris, andy hawkes, steve hellerstein, roger heman, sandra henderson, jake jarrell, douglas keenan, charles l king, seymour klate, willy kupahu, james leckelt, britt lomond, earl madery, mike mandel, isidore mankofsky, william masten, richard mazzotti, lawren mcdonald, vince melandri, gregg r mitchell, gerald moss, chris o'neil, michael orefice, donald j piel, donnie puga, sergei rachmaninoff, paul sanchez, lorraine senna, robert shaw, jennifer shull, virginia siman, stephen simon, rex slinkard, phil sloane, brian smith, dwight solander, emidgio sosa-chavez, john stewart, roger sword, john unsinn, melinda wickman, roger williams, jack page wilson, woody woodworth, award nominations, best costume design, teresa wright (1918-2005).

Somewhere in Time

Miscellaneous notes.

Released in United States September 1980

Released in United States Fall October 3, 1980

Released in United States on Video April 7, 1988

Re-released in United States on Video April 30, 1996

Formerly distributed by MCA Home Video.

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Somewhere in Time (1980)

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Christopher Reeve’s Swooniest Role Was in This Time-Traveling Romance

The Man of Steel melted for Jane Seymour in this classic 1980 love story.

The Big Picture

• Somewhere in Time is a romantic film with a science-fiction angle, directed by Jeannot Szwarc and starring Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour.
• The film takes a unique approach to time travel, focusing more on the story and characters rather than explaining the mechanics.
• Reeve and Seymour deliver captivating performances, creating a courtship that is both heartfelt and lasting.

In 1978, Richard Donner made audiences believe that a man could fly when he directed Christopher Reeve as Superman . The film was a precursor to the current big-screen superhero craze and made Reeve an overnight sensation -- an actor plucked from relative obscurity to become one of the most sought-after commodities in the throngs of Hollywood. The six-foot-four star with Clark Gable ’s face and Dean Martin ’s charm was the perfect choice for a romantic leading man, and he filled those shoes most admirably in 1980’s Somewhere in Time .

Somewhere in Time is something of an anomaly of movie-making, existing as both a romance and a science-fiction film. (It almost could be considered a gender-swapped precursor to Outlander .) The film is written by Richard Matheson , whom many may recall as the author of such seminal classics as I Am Legend , What Dreams May Come , and The Incredible Shrinking Man , and was adapted from his own novel. It's directed by Jeannot Szwarc , coincidentally the same man who would go on to direct Supergirl in 1984 . And while Somewhere in Time features a heavy science-fiction angle (unsurprising considering its creators), it is regarded as one of the most romantic films of its era, chiefly due to the performance of Reeve and his co-star, Jane Seymour .

RELATED: 15 Must-Watch 80s Romantic Comedies That Are, Like, Totally Rad

The Sweeping Romance of 'Somewhere in Time'

Reeve stars as Richard Collier, a playwright in Chicago who has his first major production staged in 1972. As the cast celebrates a successful show, an old woman approaches him and places an ornate pocket watch in his hand, bidding him to “come back to me.” Baffled, he shrugs off the exchange. Cut to eight years later, and though he’s an in-demand success, he seems to have hit a roadblock of sorts in his writing. He takes the opportunity to have a brief holiday, finding himself at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island in Michigan (now a popular tourist destination for fans of the film). Hungry and waiting for the restaurant to open, he saunters into the Hall of History. There’s no suspension of disbelief in asserting that most playwrights are also historians. To expound upon the human experience is to study it in its entirety, and often the writer finds themself shedding the contemporary for a clearer view of humanity. He ganders at the memorabilia, bemused, until the camera pulls in on him slowly as he turns to glimpse a portrait. Mouth agape, eyes shining, he walks dumbfounded towards a photo of an actress from a time forgotten, passing through a ray of sunshine as a being ascending Heaven’s heights. A wry smile crosses his lips as he recognizes something familiar in her eyes, and he notes that her nameplate is missing.

He launches an investigation, once again flexing the particular muscles of the playwright, which leads him to an old philosophy professor who extols the possibility of time travel through self-hypnosis. As he finds that his life and the woman's life are intrinsically linked, he endeavors to time-travel to 1912 to meet the mysterious actress, whom he has identified as Elise McKenna and confirmed that she was the old woman he’d met briefly eight years prior. He purchases an old suit, old coins, and cuts his own hair to match the preferred style of the early 1900s, and then begins the arduous task of willing himself backward through time.

'Somewhere in Time' Takes the Science Out of Science Fiction

Somewhere in Time pulls off a brilliant trick with its time-travel conceit -- it doesn’t justify it all. Like Ashton Kutcher ’s journal scribblings in The Butterfly Effect , it dares you to question how a person can travel through time, essentially asking, “Do you have a better idea?” Less concerned with hackneyed theories than propelling the story forward, the film quickly moves to Reeve’s Collier waking up in 1912. The proceeding scenes find him bumbling his way through history, a clever juxtaposition of his imposing frame and flair for physical comedy. Much as he did with Clark Kent in Superman or his later work in Noises Off , the brilliant actor makes use of his physicality for the delight of the viewer. As in Superman , the act humanizes him and builds empathy, allowing the viewer to fall further into infatuation with the character. When he finally meets the younger version of Elise, the attraction is instant. She is inexplicably drawn to him, despite the interference from her domineering manager, William Fawcett Robinson ( Christopher Plummer ), who also appears to be a man outside of time.

Being adapted by Matheson, himself, Somewhere in Time succeeds by stripping both the science and the fiction from its science-fiction backbone. Though it takes a full 35 minutes of the film’s runtime to cast our principal back in time, it means little to the story or the viewer how the feat was achieved. It’s a strange paradox: The amount of time spent on the time travel is immense, and the film comes from a master of genre fiction as well as a director of particular genre conceits ( Jaws II , The Murders in the Rue Morgue ). So Somewhere in Time seems designed to draw the interest of fans of the genre. However, the film endures today not as a fantasy but as a romance, and it’s not hard to see why.

Reeve and Seymour Take Part in a Courtship for the Ages

Collier’s courtship of McKenna is wrought with despair, as he stumbles through a comedy of errors to find her, only to be rebuffed by her and her overbearing manager. Still, she senses in him some mercurial connection that she cannot deny. As he wears down her defenses, through sheer determination alone, the viewer finally begins to see him through her eyes. A prolonged romantic montage takes place, largely silent, and McKenna appears smitten by the sincerity of this tall man who claims to know her implicitly and desires to acquaint himself with her intimately. Through stolen moments, the two fall madly in love. It’s a particularly masculine depiction of love in the 80s -- he fell in love with a photograph, she fell in love with soul -- but the camerawork and score gloss over the cracks enough to keep the viewer invested in their happiness. Short-lived, though it may be.

Reeve is magnetic in the role, truly embodying a man smitten with his crush. The word carries much weight, as he is almost literally immobilized by the enormity of his infatuation with the star, ready to forego the life he abandoned in his future past just to be near her for as long as possible. His mouth is perpetually agape, a sieve for his steaming affections as he trails after her from scene to scene like a cartoon cat on the wafting scent of a cooling pie. Seymour, to her credit, does the best she can with the thinly developed character of McKenna, a woman resigned to react to those who would love her and those who would exploit her. When the film offers a very stylistic lead-in to a steamy sex scene, the audience is on board. Whether they believe that McKenna loves Collier or just wants one moment of agency, the scene works, regardless.

The aftermath finds the lovers engaged in the smallest of talk, and it is in this asinine exchange that Collier’s illusion is shattered. The scene that finds Collier hurtling forward through time is one of the most gut-wrenching sequences put to film , largely due to the fact that the audience has become invested in the romance between the leads. As each falls into despair, the film ends tragically, though with a glimmer of hope in the imagination of its leads. Once again, it is the will power of the lovers and their disassociation with time, their situation, or indeed the tragedy of reality that allows the film its being. The viewer is again asked to believe because the principals believe.

While audiences cheered at Reeve flying, bending steel, turning back time, pratfalling, or pontificating in his other works, Somewhere in Time gave them something to truly cheer for: love, in its most bare and embarrassing form. It’s Christopher Reeve in his most swoon-worthy role, a man who willed himself through time for a date with a photograph, creating a treasured classic that has lasted beyond the man himself.

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SOMEWHERE IN TIME: Christopher Reeve’s Greatest Role Beyond SUPERMAN

Posted By Dan Greenfield on Sep 25, 2023 | 10 comments

A birthday tribute to one of Hollywood’s most beloved actors…

By PETER BOSCH

“O, call back yesterday, bid time return.” Richard II , Act III, Scene 2. — William Shakespeare.

A recent magazine about Superman through the ages titled the article on Christopher Reeve as “The Greatest of All Time.” No greater truth was ever spoken. Notice how that even though it has been 36 years since the last time Reeve was Superman (in Superman IV: The Quest for Peace , 1987), he still gets the predominant cover spot (plus another spot as Clark Kent.)

The Ultimate Guide to Superman. Published by Hollywood Spotlight, 2023.

Reeve, who was born 71 years ago, on Sept. 25, 1952, left behind too short a list of appearances on the big and small screens. His death at the age of 52 on Oct. 10, 2004, from cardiac arrest, following lengthy paralysis from the neck down brought on by a horse-riding accident in 1995, is a great tragedy.

Reeve had come from Broadway to define Superman onscreen (and proved to be a Superman in his personal life after the accident). His four appearances as Superman are a legacy but he also branched out to do a variety of other films, including Deathtrap (1982), Noises Off (1992), and The Remains of the Day (1993). He also acted in two episodes of TV’s Smallville after his accident and in a TV remake of Rear Window (1998).

To me, however, my favorite Christopher Reeve performance, second only to that of Superman, was as Richard Collier, a modern day playwright who travels back to 1912 to meet the greatest love of his life in Somewhere in Time (1980), a film I consider the most romantic movie of all.

The origin of the film actually begins with famed author and screenwriter Richard Matheson during a trip when he was in the ghost town of Virginia City. To pass the time, he visited the Piper’s Opera House. He glanced through historical displays and stopped when he saw a photo of Maude Adams, a beloved stage actress from the turn of the century (her most famous role was being the first stage Peter Pan).

The photograph of Maude Adams at Piper’s Opera House that inspired Matheson.

Looking at the picture of the young actress, Matheson had the germ of an idea about a man who sees the photo and wants to go back in time to meet her. It got put on the backburner of Matheson’s imagination but was revived when he visited the majestic Hotel del Coronado in San Diego. This is where he wanted to set the story. (The hotel is familiar to anyone who has seen the Marilyn Monroe movie, Some Like It Hot .)

The atmosphere of the hotel was one set in the past. In the history of great hotels, she was a grand duchess. Matheson returned to his idea and got himself into the character of Richard Collier by carrying around a tape recorder and speaking into it the preamble of the story prior to the trip back in time. At the Del, Matheson worked with staff to research the atmosphere of the hotel circa 1896 and the story grew and grew.  While he was tempted to have the female actress actually be Maude Adams, he wanted the character to have certain attributes of her own and so he created Elise McKenna.

Producer Stephen Deutsch read the book, titled Bid Time Return , and asked Matheson for the rights. Deutsch approached director Jeannot Szwarc, who had saved Universal’s bacon by agreeing to direct their Jaws 2 after the original director was fired. He agreed if they would give the greenlight to whatever project he wanted to do afterward. It was Somewhere in Time , the new title for Bid Time Return .  Christopher Reeve had his choice of roles after Superman: The Movie , but what he was being offered were action pictures. He didn’t want that and decided to do Somewhere in Time . Jane Seymour was signed to play Elise McKenna with Christopher Plummer as Elise’s manager, William Robinson.

The Grand Hotel, Mackinac Island, Michigan

It was the first screen role Reeve took after Superman: The Movie and most of the filming was done on Mackinac (pronounced “Macinaw”) Island in Michigan, in and around the Grand Hotel there. The island is a special getaway where cars are not allowed and people travel by foot or by horse-drawn carriages. An exception was allowed for equipment trucks and for the scenes with Collier driving his car on the island.

“We began filming in late May 1979 and the location quickly cast a spell on the entire company,” Reeve said in his 1998 autobiography Still Me. “The real world fell away as the story and the setting took hold of us. I’ve rarely worked on a production that was so relaxed and harmonious.”

Various signatures of the Somewhere in Time cast and crew, most acquired during a 20th anniversary event held at Universal Studios.

Any synopsis of the screen story needs to express the deeply emotional performances of Reeve and Seymour (the love on screen between them also extended into their private lives), the sweeping music of John Barry (including Sergei Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini”), and the living recreation of 1912 at the hotel. The only way to do all that is through these 13 clips from the movie (all copyright Universal Studios):

Richard Collier at the opening night party of his college play in 1972:

Eight years later, while staying at the Grand Hotel, Richard sees Elise McKenna’s portrait for the first time:

Richard’s research into Elise McKenna’s history reveals a personal shock:

Using his will to transport himself to 1912:

“Is it you?”

Overcoming Elise’s worries about getting to know him:

Richard and Elise spend the afternoon together:

Elise goes off script to confess her feelings to Richard:

Director Jeannot Szwarc comments on the photo session scene, with Richard realizing the smile of Elise in the portrait was meant for him:

While Elise was still performing the play, Robinson had Richard kidnapped. Getting free from the ropes the next morning, Richard rushes back to the hotel only to find the stage company has gone:

SPOILER WARNING – The next three scenes reveal the dramatic ending of the film:

Richard and Elise have a playful meal together but it ends suddenly:

In the present, Richard rushes back to his room and tries vainly to will himself back to Elise in 1912:

Nothing can separate them again:

— 13 QUICK THOUGHTS: Why CHRISTOPHER REEVE Was the Greatest SUPERMAN Ever. Click here .

— CHRISTOPHER REEVE’s TOP 13 Non-SUPERMAN MOVIES. Click here

13th Dimension  contributor-at-large  PETER BOSCH’s  first book,  American TV Comic Books: 1940s-1980s – From the Small Screen to the Printed Page ,  was published by TwoMorrows. He is currently at work on a sequel, about movie comics. Peter has written articles and conducted celebrity interviews for various magazines and newspapers. He lives in Hollywood.

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Author: Dan Greenfield

10 Comments

September 25, 2023

Good movie…shocking ending.

I loved this movie when it came out, I loved it when it played on cable fifteen years ago when my future husband was still out in California and hadn’t moved to me yet (we both watched it on cable that day!) and now that he is deceased the ending of the film holds a special poignance for me and I cannot bear to watch that scene.

Irony that his character winds up in a wheelchair.

Richard Collier doesn’t end up in a wheelchair.

If you have never been, the island is beautiful.

September 26, 2023

Ironic that his character’s last name is similar to that of Bud Collyer who did the voice of Superman on radio.

This is a wonderful film, and it was my late mother’s all-time favorite movie. She was a big fan of Reeve, which worked out for me, as I could always count on her to take me to see the Superman films. But what a great, heartfelt movie. Everyone is giving it their all. Thank you for spotlighting it.

September 27, 2023

Nice piece and a really great film.

December 10, 2023

I watched this film on cable when I was a 12 year old boy back in 1981 or so. I watched it solely because Reeve was in it and because my mom was watching it. I could barely tolerate dramas at that age much less a romance, but I watched the whole thing – the time travel aspect hooked me – and the ending blew me away. I loved it. I watched it again as an adult and was more aware of how swooningly romantically over the top it is, but I loved it just the same. That score!! That score! And the performances are fantastic. They commit to the romance and it just works. I read Matheson’s book also and loved that too. Thanks for this post.

March 19, 2024

I love this movie. It was penned mercilessly by the critics and was only in the theaters for a short time. But that was vindicated by the fans who watched it on cable and it became a cult classic. There’s a fan network, INSITE, which is dedicated to this film. They meet annually at the Grand Hotel in period garb to celebrate it. Reeve attended in 1994 before his accident.

INSITE got a star for Reeve on the walk of fame as well as pushed for a 20th anniversary DVD for the movie, which also culminated in a belated premiere for the movie in 2000, 20 years after it came out.

Reeve will always be Superman for me, and a super hero for all that he had done in his life, before and after his accident.

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Movie Review

Somewhere in time.

US Release Date: 01-01-1980

Directed by: Jeannot Szwarc

Starring ▸ ▾

• Christopher Reeve ,  as
• Richard Collier
• Jane Seymour ,  as
• Elise McKenna
• Christopher Plummer ,  as
• William Fawcett Robinson
• Teresa Wright ,  as
• Laura Roberts
• Bill Erwin ,  as
• Arthur Biehl
• George Voskovec ,  as
• Dr. Gerald Finney
• Susan French as
• Older Elise

Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour in Somewhere in Time .

When it comes to love stories, most are made for women. Look at Gone With The Wind , The Way We Were , The Sound Of Music or Titanic , all have strong female leads. The leading men have less screen time and with the exception of Rhett Butler are indecisive and weak like Hubbell Gardner and Captain Von Trapp or slightly feminine like Jack Dawson. They are little more than a fantasy for the female lead.

Somewhere In Time is a love story where the tables are turned. It is told from the mans point of view. The woman is the fantasy. However, it maintains the romantic feel and pace of a "woman's" love story. That is to say, there is no nudity.

Somewhere In Time tells the story of a man who falls in love with a dead woman via a photograph he comes upon. He wills himself to travel back in time to meet her. The reason this movie has such a guy angle is in how he first discovers his feeling for her; through the photo. I cannot count the many photos of beautiful woman I have seen and imagined what they were like. Everything from Playboy magazines to photo's of movie stars like Rita Hayworth, Raquel Welch or Marilyn Monroe have sparked my imagination. Yes, guys are mostly visually stimulated and all of us at one time or another have been distracted by a photo of a beautiful woman. This movie simply takes the distraction to the nth degree.

Time travel movies are almost always entertaining. The costumes and mannerisms are always interesting to watch. In this movie, Richard (Reeves) wears an outfit he believes matches the Victorian time he takes himself to. However, everyone else keeps wondering why he is in such outdated clothes.

The performances by Christopher Reeves and Jane Seymour are wonderfully sincere. It is in their performances that this movie is saved from being over the top. Reeves hugging a photo or Seymour yelling "Richard!" could have easily been came off as hokey. Their chemistry, and particularly Reeves emotional scenes of loss, and frustration, make this a wonderfully romantic film.

This movie also boasts a few great lines: "Come back to me." being its most famous. I personally like Seymour's, "...I am not a rug you can wipe your boots on." line.

Most of the movie was shot in or around The Grand Hotel on Mackinac island, MI. The hotel and the surrounding island is as much a character in this movie as the Alps were in The Sound Of Music . The hotel gets more screen time than most of the actors. Its a looming force that gives the movie much of its period look.

This is a love story with a dash of science fiction. The whole time travel issue is discussed, but don't look for any special effects. Subtlety is the theme to this movie. Now can someone explain to me just where that watch first came from?

Jane Seymour and Christopher Reeve in Somewhere in Time .

Webster's Thesaurus provides these alternatives to the word slow: sluggish, laggard, deliberate, gradual, loitering, leaden, creeping, inactive, slow moving, crawling, slow-paced, leisurely, dilatory, procrastinating, delaying, postponing, idle, indolent, heavy, quiet, drowsy, inert, sleepy, lethargic, stagnant, negligent, listless, dormant, latent.

Any one of those words could be used to describe the abysmal Somewhere in Time . Am I supposed to care what happened to those people? Should I feel some emotion at some point during this movie? Should I have enjoyed myself at some point? Because I didn't experience any of those feelings.

Normally, I enjoy time travel stories. Normally, I enjoy love stories. I did not enjoy this movie, just in case you couldn't tell.

Eric mentioned that the performances are sincere. Yes, they are. Sincerely boring.

Somewhere in time, I lost one hour and forty-five minutes of my life by watching this film. If only I could will myself backwards in time to stop myself from pushing play on the DVD player. "It is Jan. 15th, 2001. It is Jan. 15th, 2001. I didn't watch this movie. I didn't watch this movie."

The premise of Somewhere In Time is quite intriguing, the performances are all sufficiently sincere, the atmosphere and look of the flashback scenes are well done and yet this movie at no time rises above the level of a television movie of the week. I think the script is at fault here. I understood Richard's attraction to the photograph of the beautiful actress, however once they actually come face to face there is very little chemistry between them and the supposedly intense love they share is never evident. Also the character Christopher Plummer plays seems rather one-dimensional and contrived.

I liked the mystery of the opening scene and the character of Arthur who links the past and present together. I didn't care for the abruptly tragic ending. And as for Eric's question of the watch's origin, I would chalk that up as one of those inevitable plot holes intrinsic of all time travel movies.

Though Scott's review is funny, it is also given to hyperbole. Somewhere In Time is paced rather well for the story it tells and at less than two hours is fairly easy to sit through. I would, in fact have enjoyed it more with a different male and female lead. While Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour are both quite easy on the eyes as well as being competent actors, neither one has that indefinable star quality so essential in making a classic piece of cinema.

Photos © Copyright Universal Pictures (1980)

© 2000 - 2017 Three Movie Buffs. All Rights Reserved.

Somewhere in Time (United States, 1980)

It’s hard to imagine any version of Richard Matheson’s 1975 novel Bid Time Return working. The level of suspension of disbelief is so high that, although can be achieved in a written work, where the imagination is engaged, the same is not true in the more concrete realm of cinema. Although some critics have honed in on Somewhere in Time ’s overt sentimentality as its chief failing, I could never get past its hokey means of time travel. In fact, if one considers it with any degree of logic, the movie isn’t about time travel at all. Instead, it’s about a delusion that evolves out of an obsession.

Somewhere in Time opens in the early 1970s at an after-party where newly-minted playwright Richard Collier (Christopher Reeve) is being feted for the success of his debut property. During the celebration, he is approached by an old woman – probably in her eighties – who gives him a pocket watch and encourages his to “Come back to me.” Eight years later, now an established figure, Richard opts to take a break and clear his mind at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, Michigan. While there, he becomes obsessed with a photograph of actress Elise McKenna (Jane Seymour), taken in 1912. He soon discovers that the woman who approached him in 1972 was Elise (on the day of her death). Richard is improbably convinced that he played some part in Elise’s life nearly seventy years prior to the present day and that causes him to look into the viability of time travel.

Somewhere in Time is murky and underwritten. The basic premise would be thin even for a Harlequin romance. None of the characters are sufficiently developed to warrant audience investment and the ultimate resolution – a metaphysical glimpse of the afterlife – is more insulting than satisfying. Plus, it’s hard to imagine such undying passion resulting from what is, distilled to its essence, a one-night stand. The film defies any kind of thoughtful examination.

The self-hypnosis method of time travel is idiotic. It’s less plausible than an H.G. Welles time machine or a Doctor Who TARDIS. It leaves open the possibility (perhaps “probability” would be a better term) that the entire 1912 episode (which consumes approximately 2/3 of the running time) is a delusion. After all, self-hypnosis is about training the mind not transmuting a physical mass across a span of nearly seven decades. (In the source material, Richard is terminally ill with brain cancer, which enhances the ambiguity of whether any time travel actually happens.) Even if one was to accept that Richard does physically shift from 1980 to 1912, the methodology of how this happens is difficult (at best) to swallow.

The best thing about Somewhere in Time is the score. Composed by John Barry, who took a significant pay cut because of his friendship with Seymour, this represents one of Barry’s all-time best works, alongside the likes of 1976’s King Kong , Dances with Wolves , and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service . He incorporates the 18 th variation of Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini with his own compositions to create a soundtrack that became more successful than the movie.

Despite all the narrative problems and the limitations associated with Reeve’s performance, director Jeannot Szwarc should be given credit for keeping the movie marginally watchable. The pacing is brisk and the cinematography is lush and interesting. There are times when the romance seems to work largely because of Barry’s score and the way Szwarc has framed the scenes, focusing on the attractiveness of the leads and/or the scenery. Overall, however, Somewhere in Time is frustrating as a series of missed opportunities and the passage of more than forty years hasn’t softened the view.

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• Sliding Doors (1998)
• Shape of Water, The (2017)
• Cinderella (2015)
• Fallen (2017)
• Beautiful Creatures (2013)
• Remains of the Day, The (1993)
• Superman (1978)
• Superman II (1981)
• Superman III (1983)
• Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987)
• (There are no more worst movies of Christopher Reeve)
• (There are no more better movies of Jane Seymour)
• War with Grandpa, The (2020)
• Quest for Camelot, The (1998)
• Wedding Crashers (2005)
• Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The (2011) (2011)
• Beautiful Mind, A (2001)
• Syriana (2005)
• Dracula 2000 (2000)
• National Treasure (2004)
• Alexander (2004)

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Somewhere In Time: How A Time Travel Romance Starring Superman Found Its Fans

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Saturday, Oct. 3 marks the 40th anniversary of Somewhere in Time , a film that took one of the longest, weirdest journeys to popularity. It was savaged at the box office for being stodgy, overly romantic, and out of touch. But today, it's a cult favorite, beloved for the very qualities it was panned for. Its fan base includes retired 4-star General Colin Powell, a couple of FilmWeek critics, and me.

Here's the thumbnail: An elderly actress shows up at the premiere of a young playwright's new production. The playwright becomes obsessed with her and wills himself back in time 67 years to meet her as a young woman. They're kept apart by her manager, but get one perfect day and night together -- before he gets cruelly pulled back to the present and dies of a broken heart. They reunite in Heaven.

Christopher Reeve, fresh from Superman , is the playwright. Jane Seymour, then of Battlestar Galactica , is the actress. And Christopher Plummer, who had just killed as Sherlock Holmes in Murder by Decree , is her controlling manager. The bestselling score was by John Barry, and it was directed by Jeannot Szwarc -- who had just saved Universal's butt by taking over Jaws 2 .

The TV and movie veteran -- whose directing credits range from a 1968 episode of Ironside to a 2019 episode of Grey's Anatomy -- is almost 81, and retired last year to France.

When I reached him there this summer, he said, "What I loved about Somewhere in Time was that there was very little sex, but there was a lot of love. It was really what the French call l'amour fou , a crazy love. You know, they don't make pictures like that anymore." When I responded, "They weren't making pictures like that in 1980," he laughed and said, "I know."

The screenplay is by Richard Matheson, adapted from his novel Bid Time Return , which he set at the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego. It would have been convenient to Hollywood -- but because of the power lines, traffic noise, and modern buildings, Szwarc would have needed a time machine to shoot the 1912 scenes at the Hotel del.

Enter an actual time machine: Mackinac Island, off Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Once the center of the fur trade, they had buried their power lines, preserved their Victorian architecture, and banned cars. People get around by horse carriage and bike.

My dad was doing PR for the Island back then, so I grew up spending much of the summer there. But unlike pretty much everyone else on the Island, I didn't get to be an extra in the film.

Mackinac also has a giant Victorian hotel -- Grand Hotel, built in 1887. Back in the day, wealthy Chicagoans went there in the summer to escape the heat. But of course, the Somewhere in Time team had to do their site visit in February. During one of the coldest winters on record. With the Great Lakes frozen from shore to shore.

Szwarc and producer Stephen Deutsch (now Stephen Simon) were being towed around the Island by islander Dan Dewey, who went on to become location manager for the film. At one point, he drove 100 yards out onto the ice so the two men -- who he said looked like they were wearing the entire stock of an Eddie Bauer store -- could get a good look at the Grand

Szwarc turned to Dewey and Simon and asked innocently, "Where is the water?" Both of them say nothing, but point down to the ice. "Oh," says the director, realizing he's standing over 100 feet of 32.1-degree water. "Can we go now?"

Even under a blanket of snow, they can see that the Island is the perfect location for the movie -- but they're still 2,400 miles from Hollywood.

"We were about to leave and Jeannot and I were talking," Simon said. "We can't shoot the rooms in the hotel," because they will be occupied by guests. "That needs to be a set. There's no place to build a set here!"

"Well you might be wrong about that," Dewey said.

Islander Trish Martin picks up the story:

"There was an organization that had its world headquarters on Mackinac Island known as Moral Re-Armament. You may not have heard of them, but you might've heard of some of their offshoots, including Alcoholics Anonymous and Up with People. They made a lot of films, along with doing roadshows and so on, and they had a full film studio: editing rooms, a big soundstage, and the whole bit."

Trish was actually in a crowd scene in Decision at Midnight , an MRA production with Martin Landau that was shot on the island in 1963.

The complex also had enough rooms for the cast and crew, solving another of the headaches from when you make a movie on a remote resort island in the middle of high season. It was kismet, and with the exception of a few early shots in Chicago, where the movie starts, the rest was shot on Mackinac from late May to late July of 1979.

They wrapped the production only 9 days over schedule, and went back to California. Everything had gone so well; nobody anticipated the cruel fate awaiting the little romantic picture they put so much love into.

But before we go there... let's talk about how the movie handles time travel. As he's obsessing about the actress, Reeve is told by a professor -- played by George Voskovec, who was one of the jurors in Twelve Angry Men , -- that you can will yourself back in time.

In the realm of time travel movies, self-hypnosis must be one of the simplest methods. The polar opposite Avengers: Endgame, which improbably namechecked Somewhere in Time during the Hulk's big explanation of how time travel works.

Getting namechecked in the biggest movie of the millennium was such a big moment for us Somewhere in Time fans, I had to call up Avengers screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely.

Were they big fans? No -- McFeely says it was just a list of time travel movies they included in a reshoot.

"We found that we really needed to just spend something like two minutes having the Hulk tell people that's not how it works in this movie. We just called out the elephant in the room: other time travel movies, which were sort of getting in the audience's way."

"We got all tangled up in whether there were consequences or no consequences. If it's all in your head there's no consequences, you can do what you want," Markus said.

The two -- the most successful screenwriters in history -- actually sounded a little jealous that Somewhere in Time 's time travel method could be sketched out on a cocktail napkin, while you need a spreadsheet for Endgame .

Let's time travel ourselves, back to 1980. When last we left our heroes, they had just wrapped what was by all accounts a very happy shoot, and it seemed like the stars were aligned for a success for Somewhere in Time . On the strength of two rapturous previews, Universal gave it wide release.

But because of a strike, the stars couldn't support the film they made. And then came the reviews.

Leonard Maltin: Stilted dialogue, corny situations, pretty scenery. Roger Ebert: The movie surrounds its love story with such boring mumbo jumbo about time travel that we finally just don't care. Vincent Canby: Somewhere in Time ... does for time-travel what the Hindenburg did for dirigibles.

"Jerry was in love with Somewhere in Time . Not only did he run it, sometimes he ran it twice in the same night. That started the ball. And then, HBO in their early early days were not buying blockbusters because they couldn't afford it. So , what did HBO program? Movies that hadn't worked out well at the box office."

The second man was Bill Shepard, whom producer Simon says did more for Somewhere in Time 's eventual success than any other person. Bill told me how he discovered the movie that would change his life.

"I was going with a very nice lady from Saint Paul," Shepard said. "She was actually the one who suggested going to the movies. I sat there for 103 minutes literally enchanted. I'd never seen a movie like that before that affected me like that. And as the two of us were walking out of the theater, she turned to me and said, 'Well, that didn't do that much for me. How about you?'"

The lady soon left Shepard's life, but the movie stayed in his heart. In 1990, he started INSITE: the International Network of Somewhere In Time Enthusiasts . And the next year, realizing the huge number of people who wanted a deeper experience, he organized the first Somewhere in Time weekend on Mackinac.

In a story filled with time travel, this weekend gathering is yet another time machine. Think of it as a Comic-Con, but where cosplayers get to actually be in Hyrule on the hunt for Ganon , or ride in a real Totoro cat bus . At the end of October each year, Somewhere in Time fans take the ferry to Mackinac, dress in period-correct clothes, act out scenes from the movie, and see the shooting locations -- led by our old friend the snowmobile driver, Dan Dewey.

This is not like a con where a grumpy Lou Ferrigno charges for autographs . The cast and crew love the weekends at the Grand just as much as the fans. As Steve Hellerstein, the movie's transportation captain, told me, "this has made my film career complete. I finally did a film that is recognized... and I'm recognized." Just like the stars, he's invited to and feted at the Somewhere in Time weekends. (Steve Hellerstein died Aug. 8 at the age of 73.)

Jane Seymour attended last year, for the third time -- and her co-star, Christopher Reeve, came in 1994. There's video of the event , and you can see him practically bouncing on the stage taking questions from the audience.

And when someone asks him where "Somewhere in Time" ranks among all the movies he made, he delivers an off-the-cuff monologue that sums up an actor's life.

"This holds the prime place by the fireside in my heart. This is the one that I have the greatest gratitude for. It's very hard to perform and do your work, where you put your emotions forward for the camera, for people to see... and then have it greeted officially by the sound of one hand clapping. And that people found this move and said, 'Wait a minute! It didn't deserve the fate that it got. It didn't deserve to be treated that way.' It moves me more than you can know."

"I romanticize this movie ridiculously," he said. "My wife and I saw the movie for the first time in 1981 [the year they got married]. We loved it because we looked at it and I think we saw ourselves in it. Just married and bananas in love, and passionate about each other the way they are in the film. So that colored what I felt and thought about the film my entire life. I watched it again recently and it made me tear up in all the same places, and it made me long for my wife, who I lost in 2013 to cancer."

Justin Chang, critic for Fresh Air and the L.A. Times , told me, "One of the reasons Somewhere in Time has endured is because it has the courage of its absurd convictions." As he wrote in Variety in 2013:

Ludicrous and irresistible, Somewhere in Time belongs to a long and glorious tradition of love stories ... in which time travel serves as a crucial narrative element and structuring device. It is a genre whose charms I've found myself unusually susceptible to in recent years. ... Wildly romantic, brazenly paradoxical and stubbornly resistant to the rules of logic, these films rely for their effect on a blissful surrender of reason. To dismiss them as ridiculous or implausible is to miss both the point and the pleasure.

As Shakespeare wrote in Richard II , "O call back yesterday. Bid time return," because all the "life" stuff eventually happened to me -- some of it quite brutally. And as the years passed, more and more I appreciated the corny themes of Somewhere in Time . And more and more I understood why older people tell and retell the stories from their past.

In his memoir Hand to Mouth , the novelist Paul Auster wrote, "Reach a certain moment in your life, and you discover that your days are spent as much with the dead as they are with the living." To that, I would only add, "And I'm OK with that."

KPCC's John Rabe is the host of the new podcast Call Back Yesterday , which explores how the themes of Somewhere in Time intersect with the lives of his guests and him. The first episode features FilmWeek's Tim Cogshell.

Correction: An earlier version of this story inaccurately stated Jeannot Szwarc's age. LAist regrets the error.

25 of the Best Time Travel Movies Ever Made

These films will have you flying through the years, decades and dimensions—and ready to do it over and over again.

Every item on this page was chosen by a Town & Country editor. We may earn commission on some of the items you choose to buy.

From star-crossed lovers to harrowing action sequences, the plots to these films didn't stay in one dimension.

Back to the Future

What is a list of time travel classics a without a nod to Marty McFly and his friend Doc Brown from the 1980's classic, Back to the Future ? Although the second and third movie are equally as entertaining– it's hard to beat the original.

Somewhere in Time

Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour play the ultimate time-crossed lovers in this romantic drama that will have you rooting for time to be by their side.

The Lake House

Settle in for a mystifying romance and watch the relationship between the characters of Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves unfold — all while they are communicating with each other separated by two years of time.

The Time Traveler's Wife

Every marriage requires work, but when your husband has a condition that causes him to involuntarily time travel– your issues are outside the normal scope of relationship stressors. The romantic drama starring Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana follows a newlywed couple through the trials and tribulations of their unusual relationship.

Palm Springs

When carefree Nyles (Andy Samberg) and reluctant maid of honor Sarah (Cristin Milioti) have a chance encounter at a Palm Springs wedding, the two get stuck in a time loop that they can't escape.

Kate & Leopold

A 19th-century bachelor (Hugh Jackman) falls through time and meets a 21st-century woman (Meg Ryan). What more could you want in a time travel movie, honestly?!

Time After Time

No, not the Cyndi Lauper song: this is a time travel movie where H.G. Wells (Malcom McDowell) chases Jack the Ripper (David Warner) through time, and they end up in... 1979 San Francisco! When there, Wells falls for a bank clerk named Amy (Mary Steenburgen). There's a bit of everything: Romance, action, adventure, and obviously, time travel.

Source Code

When Jake Gyllenhaal finds himself inside the body of a man he doesn't know, he quickly figures out there's an important reason for why he's been sent back in time. The film's plot twists as well as the climax of his pressure-filled mission makes for incredible action and drama.

Donnie Darko

A cult classic ever since it's release in 2001, Donnie Darko takes a dark twist on teenage time travel.

Interstellar

Interstellar left audiences perplexed, bewildered, and all around baffled as it's characters journey through a wormhole in space.

Groundhog Day

Ever used the term groundhog day to describe a never-ending day? Well you can thank the 1993 film for that! Comedian Bill Murray stars as a weatherman who finds himself trapped reliving the same day over and over again.

In Loop , actors Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, and Emily Blunt star in the marvelous film that combines the the best traits of a mob drama with the intrigue of the space-time continuum.

13 Going on 30

As a thirteen-year old in the 1980's, all Jenna Rink wants is to skip over her teenage years and live as a sophisticated and self-assured 30 year old (who didn't want that?). But when she gets exactly what she's dreamed of, she realizes it's not everything she though it'd be. In a film which imbues the message "enjoy the journey not the destination" cliche, Jennifer Garner does an amazing job of keeping the role refreshing and sweet.

Predestination

The intertemporal plots of the film Predestination along with actor Ethan Hawke's marvelous performance will leave you wanting to view it over and over again.

The Family Man

Although the film Family Man is more about an alternate universe than actual time travel, watching Nicolas Cage portray an investment banking bachelor who gets thrust into the life of a suburban dad to teach him what really matters in life is just too good not to recommend it.

Doctor Strange

Marvel dips its toe into the world of time travel with the release of Doctor Strange, the story of a neurosurgeon who introduces the audiences to an entire world of alternate dimensions.

Edge of Tomorrow

Edge of Tomorrow takes the winning concept behind Groundhog Day and combines it with an action-fueled adventure starring Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt.

The film was met with mixed reviews from critics, however the plot's time travel complexities are extremely well done and will satisfy any sci-fi lover.

What would you do if you could go back in time and re-do any moment? We're sure you'd change a few corny pick-up lines, awkward conversations, and coulda-woulda-shoulda moments and that's exactly what you'll find in this romantic comedy meets fantasy drama.

The Adjustment Bureau

Matt Damon and Emily Blunt will captivate you as they protect their love from a mysterious group that is aiming to tear them apart.

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Christopher Nolan and Wife Emma Thomas to Receive Knighthood, Damehood in U.K. After Winning Oscars for Oppenheimer

Thomas has produced all of Nolan's feature films since 1998

Charlotte Phillipp is a Weekend Writer-Reporter at PEOPLE. She has been working at PEOPLE since 2024, and was previously an entertainment reporter at The Messenger.

Jesse Grant/Getty

Oppenheimer director Christopher Nolan and producer Emma Thomas are receiving a royal honor.

According to a statement on Thursday from the U.K. government to AP , the husband and wife directing and producing duo will be granted knighthood and damehood — which often goes to Brits who have made some contribution to arts, humanities or sports — for their work in the film industry.

The honors for Nolan, 53, and Thomas, 52, come just a few weeks after Oppenheimer — which tells the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer , the physicist who invented the nuclear bomb used in World War II — swept the Academy Awards , taking home prizes for  Best Actor for  Cillian Murphy ,  Best Director  for Nolan, Best Supporting Actor for  Robert Downey Jr. and Best Picture. The film also led with the most nominations of any film this year.

According to AP, the announcement came at an unusual time of year, once during New Year's Day and another on King Charles' birthday . However, the monarch will not confer the honors anytime soon, as he stepped away from public duties while he undergoes cancer treatments .

Nolan and Thomas tied the knot in 1997 after meeting while attending school at University College London, and the pair share four children : Flora, Oliver, Rory and Magnus.

Earlier this month when Oppenheimer took home the prize for Best Picture, Thomas said that she "dreamed" of winning an Oscar.

"I think any of us who make movies know that you kind of dream of this moment. You know you do, right? I could deny it, but I have been dreaming about this moment for so long, but it seemed so unlikely that it would ever actually happen, and now I am standing here and everything has kind of gone out of my head," Thomas said on stage after the win.

She continued, "The reason this movie was the movie it was was because of Chris Nolan. He’s singular. He’s brilliant and I am so grateful for you."

In January, Thomas also opened up to Variety about how she and her husband work together both as a family and as producing partners.

"For me, Oppenheimer was definitely the riskiest film we have made — with the possible exception of Inception , which felt risky at the time," she told the outlet. "Even with Chris being who he is at this point, I didn’t feel there was a guaranteed audience for this film. I hoped people would feel they needed to see it in theaters, but many people still weren’t back post-COVID. And there’s the fact we’ve heard nothing but 'theaters are over' for a while now."

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"It wasn’t a no-brainer," she added. "Not only did it feel like it was a risky film to make, it felt like the stakes had never been higher. So the fact we had such a good summer was more gratifying than anything."

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• Cast & crew

Time Travel

• Episode aired May 28, 2018

Christopher Nolan, Keanu Reeves, Christopher Lloyd and others take a look at how, in science fiction, time travel offers the chance to correct history's mistakes - while creating entirely ne... Read all Christopher Nolan, Keanu Reeves, Christopher Lloyd and others take a look at how, in science fiction, time travel offers the chance to correct history's mistakes - while creating entirely new ones. Christopher Nolan, Keanu Reeves, Christopher Lloyd and others take a look at how, in science fiction, time travel offers the chance to correct history's mistakes - while creating entirely new ones.

• James Cameron
• Michael Biehn
• Peter Capaldi
• 1 Critic review

• Self - Host

• (as Sylvester James Gates)

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• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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• Connections Features A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1949)

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• May 28, 2018 (United States)
• Earthship Productions
• AMC Studios
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• Runtime 42 minutes

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