Best Time Travel Movies – Methodology
I searched far and wide for lists of best time travel movies of all time. Criteria included the movies being ranked, not just listed, and covering all time, not just a decade. The lists were generally created by groups, whether teams or committees or based on general public voting (like Ranker.com).
I was able to find 50 lists. I took the 50 lists and added all their content into a spreadsheet, noting the rank of every film. The total number was over 1,400 including all the repeats. I experimented with different formulas, trying to balance the value of being ranked high on any list and being included on the most lists. I ended up averaging the rankings each movie got (there were 132 that were on at least 2 lists) and dividing that average by the number of lists that movie was on. The lowest score meant a high ranking average on many lists. The complete spreadsheet is attached at the bottom of this page.
The movies that were on the most lists (out of 50) were:
- Back to the Future (1985) – 48 lists
- Looper (2012) – 43 lists
- 12 Monkeys (1995) – 42 lists
- Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989) – 37 lists
- Groundhog Day (1993) – 35 lists
- Donnie Darko (2001) – 34 lists
- The Terminator (1984) – 33 lists
- Edge of Tomorrow (2014) – 33 lists
- Primer (2004) – 31 lists
- Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) – 30 lists
- Interstellar (2014) – 30 lists
Here are links to the lists I used along with dates the lists were created:
- Entoin – 26 Oct 2022
- YardBarker – 23 Oct 2022
- Buzzfeed – 2 Oct 2022
- IGN – 12 Aug 2022
- WhatNerd – 6 Aug 2022
- This Is Barry – 2 Aug 2022
- Bounding Into Comics – 21 Jul 2022
- Mashable – 22 Jun 2022
- ScrollDroll – 3 May 2022
- Ranker.com – 26 Apr 2022
- Looper – 25 Apr 2022
- CBR – 20 Apr 2022
- SyFy.com – 20 Apr 2022
- InspirationFeed – 8 Mar 2022
- Second Angle – 8 Mar 2022
- Vulture – 22 Feb 2022
- CEOtudent – 31 Jan 2022
- Collider – 28 Jan 2022
- Paste Magazine – 4 Nov 2021
- Space.com – 19 Oct 2021
- TopTens – 1 Sep 2021
- SlashFilm – 24 Aug 2021
- High On Films – 18 Jun 2021
- BestToppers – 11 Jun 2021
- Chicago Tribune – 3 Jun 2021
- Country Living – 29 May 2021
- Daily Dot – 25 May 2021
- USA Today – 9 Apr 2021
- Medium.com – 3 Jan 2021
- Screenage Wasteland – 23 Nov 2020
- Popular Mechanics – 9 Nov 2020
- Hollywood Tribune – 24 Jul 2020
- MadRock 102.5 – 30 Jun 2020
- Rolling Stone – 29 Jun 2020
- ScreenCrush – 15 Jun 2020
- List Monster – 15 May 2020
- 24/7 Wall St. – 14 Apr 2020
- Cineworld – 30 Mar 2020
- Town & Country – 11 Feb 2020
- MovieFone – 23 Jan 2019
- Ultimate Movie Rankings – 13 Oct 2017
- RapidLeaks – 25 Aug 2017
- Total Film – 24 Apr 2017
- ScreenRant – 17 Oct 2016
- ScoopWhoop – 23 May 2016
- Gizmodo – 29 Mar 2016
- Audiences Everywhere – 30 Jun 2015
- Taste of Cinema – 29 Dec 2014
- AZ Central – 21 May 2014
- FlavorWire – 19 Feb 2014