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The Time Machine poster

Movies that feel likeThe Time Machine (1960)

A Victorian Englishman travels to the far future and finds that humanity has divided into two hostile species.

If you loved The Time Machine, the closest films we have are 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), La Jetée (1962) and The Thief of Bagdad (1940). Most of the picks below share The Time Machine's cerebral and bleak feel, which is what we rank on before quality.

Seen the big three already? The under-the-radar pick below is The Quiet Earth (1985).

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If The Time Machine hit the spot, these will too

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea poster
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
1954 · dir. Richard Fleischer
🍅 91%★ 7.2adventure · science fiction · fantasyDisney+

Common ground: steampunk

The difference: Easier on the tension than The Time Machine

A ship sent to investigate a wave of mysterious sinkings encounters the advanced submarine, the Nautilus, commanded by Captain Nemo.

La Jetée poster
La Jetée
1962 · dir. Chris Marker
🍅 90%★ 8.2drama · romance · science fiction

Both are built on the same subject: time travel

The difference: Takes it somewhere less tense than The Time Machine does

A man confronts his past during an experiment that attempts to find a solution to the problems of a post-apocalyptic world caused by a world war.

The Thief of Bagdad poster
The Thief of Bagdad
1940 · dir. Michael Powell
🍅 100%★ 7.4adventure · fantasy · romanceMax

Both land scale and dream logic at once

The difference: 20 years apart, and the 1940s show

When Prince Ahmad is blinded and cast out of Bagdad by the nefarious Jaffar, he joins forces with the scrappy thief Abu to win back his royal place, as well as the heart of a beautiful princess.

The Omega Man poster
The Omega Man
1971 · dir. Boris Sagal
🍅 65%★ 6.4science fiction · action · drama

One thread runs through both: dystopia

The difference: Sits closer to action than The Time Machine does

Due to an experimental vaccine, Dr. Robert Neville is the only human survivor of an apocalyptic war waged with biological weapons. Besides him, only a few hundred deformed, nocturnal people remain; sensitive to light, and homicidally psychotic.

Fahrenheit 451 poster
Fahrenheit 451
1966 · dir. François Truffaut
🍅 82%★ 7.2drama · science fiction

The same preoccupation in both: dystopia

In the future, the government maintains control of public opinion by outlawing literature and maintaining a group of enforcers, known as “firemen,” to perform the necessary book burnings. Fireman Montag begins to question the morality of his vocation…

The Quiet Earth poster
The Quiet Earth
1985 · dir. Geoff Murphy
🍅 75%★ 6.7drama · science fiction · thriller

Tense where it counts, cerebral underneath

After a top-secret experiment misfires, a scientist may be the only man left alive in the world.

Zardoz poster
Zardoz
1974 · dir. John Boorman
🍅 49%★ 5.8fantasy · action · thrillerPrime Video

Both keep coming back to the same thing: the future

The difference: The critics' underdog of the pair

In the far future, a savage trained only to kill finds a way into the community of bored immortals that alone preserves humanity's achievements.

Chaos Walking poster
Chaos Walking
2021 · dir. Doug Liman
🍅 21%★ 5.7fantasy · science fiction · adventureRent or buy

Bleak adventure in both cases

Two unlikely companions embark on a perilous adventure through the badlands of an unexplored planet as they try to escape a dangerous and disorienting reality, where all inner thoughts are seen and heard by everyone.

Rollerball poster
Rollerball
1975 · dir. Norman Jewison
🍅 55%★ 6.5science fiction

The same preoccupation in both: the future

In a corporate-controlled future, an ultra-violent sport known as Rollerball represents the world, and one of its powerful athletes is out to defy those who want him out of the game.

Code 46 poster
Code 46
2003 · dir. Michael Winterbottom
🍅 52%★ 6.1drama · science fiction · thriller

Thriller built on tension, twice over

In a dystopian future, insurance fraud investigator William Gold arrives in Shanghai to investigate a forgery ring for "papelles", futuristic passports that record people's identities and genetics. Gold falls for Maria Gonzalez, the woman in charge of the forgeries. After a passionate affair, Gold returns home, having named a coworker as the culprit. But when one of Gonzalez's customers is found dead, Gold is sent back to Shanghai to complete the investigation.

THX 1138 poster
THX 1138
1971 · dir. George Lucas
🍅 72%★ 6.6science fiction · drama

Science fiction with a pulse of ideas, in both cases

People in the future live in a totalitarian society. A technician named THX 1138 lives a mundane life between work and taking a controlled consumption of drugs that the government uses to make puppets out of people. As THX is without drugs for the first time he has feelings for a woman and they start a secret relationship.

The War of the Worlds poster
The War of the Worlds
1953 · dir. Byron Haskin
★ 7science fiction · action

Bleak fantasy, and it commits to that

The residents of a small town are excited when a flaming meteor lands in the hills, until they discover it is the first of many transport devices from Mars bringing an army of invaders invincible to any man-made weapon, even the atomic bomb.

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The best-reviewed films that share The Time Machine’s defining feeling.