Time travel movies have carved a very specific, very beloved niche out of sci-fi cinema. As much as time travel conveniences are often criticized as Hail Mary narrative deceptions (as with Harry Potter’s time turner), there’s something deeply irresistible about the idea of either going back to the past to change something, or going forward to see a vision of the world that won’t include us.
Both of those instincts are tied to the idea of conquering death of course: the future beyond our own lives is an unknowable realm to us, and the access to changing our mistakes, or applying hindsight to change our fortunes defies the unstoppable, linear march of progress. And in the spirit of a slightly lighter tone, time travel also allows you to hop back in time 30 years and try not to seduce your own surprisingly promiscuous mother.
The best thing about time travel as a storytelling device is that it comes with incredibly visible complexities that are either embraced or ignored gleefully with equal relish. Avengers: Endgame was, of course, hoisted by the petard of its own commitment to time travel rules that the MCU subsequently abandoned, but Back to the Future spent three movies saying you can’t mess with time, and then just doing it anyway. The Terminator movies positively reveled in the idea of messing with the timeline, with either sexy or devastating consequences. And sometimes both.
For anyone seeking a great time travel movie, the main players are well known and often talked about: there are, of course, the two masterpieces already mentioned, and then there’s a whole spectrum of sci-fi delicacies from time loops like Groundhog Day and Looper, to comedies like Hot Tub Time Machine, dark thrillers like Timecrimes, and dense, occasionally unfathomable psychological dramas like Primer. And as the calendar turns to November, one of the best overlooked time travel thrillers just got a lot easier to watch, because Predestination is now free to stream on Tubi.
Predestination Is An Overlooked Time Travel Gem
Released in 2014, Predestination arrived with pretty minimal noise: it was based on sci-fi writer Robert A. Heinlein’s acclaimed 1959 short story “—All You Zombies—” and Ethan Hawke toplined the cast along with a very-early-career Sarah Snook, but the directors – the Australian Spierig brothers – were very green. They were just one movie on from their self-funded zombie flick, Undead, and had made Daybreakers with Hawke to reasonable success, but they weren’t exactly household names even for zombie fans.
But then when Predestination was released, it was lauded by both critics and sci-fi fans as a trump of hard-concept sci-fi storytelling that positively reveled in its own complexity. Like the short story it was based on, the movie offers an intricate knot of paradoxes but manages to avoid losing any legibility and delivers on its emotional core.
The writing is excellent, and Hawke is on great but subtle form as an agent of the Temporal Bureau on his final mission from retirement chasing the unfortunately named Fizzle Bomber through time. Snook is exceptional as the vengeful intersex writer, John, who Hawke recruits to join him on his mission, offering him the chance to kill the man who impregnated John (then known as Jane) and abandoned him. It only gets weirder from there as Predestination plays with conventional ideas of paradoxes with delightful abandon to spin a story full of increasingly sizeable twists.
Remarkably, despite the story’s color, the cult sci-fi doesn’t at all fall apart either under close scrutiny or after multiple viewings. In fact, Predestination actually rewards repeat viewings with subtle hints and details hidden on the way to its shocking ending. The craft of the story only makes it relative obscurity and box office performance of just over $5m from a $5m budget all the more tragic.
Predestination Is Perfect For Fans Of Looper & Time Crimes
<<img src="https://static0.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/ethan-hawke-in-predestination.jpg?q=49&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=2" />
</figure>
Predestination is very much for you if you’re a fan of R-rated sci-fi thrillers like Rian Johnson’s Looper, catering to the same sort of dense, hard sci-fi. Both treat time travel with grave seriousness – a sort of grim industrial tool used by shady organizations and with severe consequences not just of misuse, but of any use. It’s like a realization of the terrible consequences Doc Brown promised would be likely in Back to the Future, but which never materialized when Marty rewrote multiple timelines.
Like Looper, Predestination also plays with multiple versions of the same characters across the timeline – not to wade too far into spoiler territory. There’s also a spiritual connection to the fellow cult favorites of Nacho Vigalondo’s excellent Timecrimes and Christopher Smith’s Triangle. There’s a more gentle approach than something like 12 Monkeys, but fans of Terry Gilliam’s classic should also check in, and anyone who loved either Dark City or Coherence will also get a kick out of Predestination.
If you missed out on it back in 2014, or haven’t watched it multiple times, you need to take the opportunity to enjoy the Spierigs’ intense mind-bender on streaming.
Predestination is available to stream for free on Tubi now.
Your Rating
Discover more from NAIRAVOICE.COM.NG
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
