movielex
movie
L
ex

Movies like Retroactive

Key Features:
Time travel, Psychiatrist, Domestic abuse, Murder, Changing the past, Cause and effect, Paradox, Sci-fi thriller, Violence-moderate, Moral dilemma, Consequences
Tone:
serious, suspense-driven
Target Audience:
Sci-fi thriller fans, Time travel enthusiasts, Suspense lovers, Cerebral film viewers
Emotional Arc:
Intrigue → Desperation → Acceptance

Retroactive

1997-02-21
Retroactive Poster - Find Similar Movies

A psychiatrist makes multiple trips through time to save a woman that was murdered by her brutal husband.

Genres
Science Fiction, Thriller, Action, Crime, Drama
Cast
Jim Belushi, Kylie Travis, Shannon Whirry, Frank Whaley, Jesse Borrego, M. Emmet Walsh, Roger Clinton, Jr., Sherman Howard, Guy Boyd
Crew
Robert Strauss, Michael Hamilton-Wright, Louis Morneau, Phillip Badger
Rating
6.1(202 votes)
RetroactiveRetroactive
Select exactly what you are looking for


Timecop
Timecop(1994)
6

In 2004, an officer for a security agency that regulates time travel must fend for his life against a shady politician who has a tie to his past.



Déjà Vu
Déjà Vu(2006)
6.87

Called in to recover evidence in the aftermath of a horrific explosion on a New Orleans ferry, Federal agent Doug Carlin gets pulled away from the scene and taken to a top-secret government lab that uses a time-shifting surveillance device to help prevent crime.



The Butterfly Effect
7.571

A young man struggles to access sublimated childhood memories. He finds a technique that allows him to travel back into the past, to occupy his childhood body and change history. However, he soon finds that every change he makes has unexpected consequences.



Timecrimes
7

A man accidentally gets into a time machine and travels back in time nearly an hour. Finding himself will be the first of a series of disasters of unforeseeable consequences.



Curvature
Curvature(2017)
4.9

Helen tries to cope with the recent death of her husband, a scientist who killed himself right when he was on the verge of successfully completing the invention of a time machine. One day, she receives a phone call, and a voice suspiciously resembling her own voice warns her that she’s in danger. Is it possible Helen has time travelled? And what could have led her to do something like that?



Aporia
Aporia(2023)
6.135

Since losing her husband, Sophie has struggled to manage grief, a full-time job, and parenting her devastated daughter, but when a former physicist reveals a secret time-bending machine, Sophie will be faced with an impossible choice.



Volition
Volition(2019)
5.3

A man afflicted with clairvoyance tries to change his fate when a series of events leads to a vision of his own imminent murder.



The Time Shifters
5.77

Tom Merrick gets caught up in a time-traveling conspiracy and must set the timeline right before it is irrevocably altered.



Needle in a Timestack

Nick and Janine live in bliss until her ex warps time to try to tear them apart by using Nick's old girlfriend. As Nick's memories and reality disappear, he must decide what he's willing to sacrifice to save -- or let go of -- everything he loves.



Timecop 2: The Berlin Decision

20 years after a set of events, the Time Enforcement Commission (TEC), is still going strong. Now Brandon Miller a TEC operative, believes that they have a responsibility to change history hoping that the world will be better but Ryan Chan another Tec operative stops him but kills the woman he loves in the process.



The Time Travelers

Research scientists experimenting with time warps are accidentally propelled forward into an unbearable future.



The Jacket
6.9

A military veteran goes on a journey into the future, where he can foresee his death and is left with questions that could save his life and those he loves.



Paradox
Paradox(2016)
4.583

A group of scientists are experimenting with time travel, and they manage to send one of their group ahead in time one hour. But when he comes back, he tells them that they’ll all be dead within the next hour unless they shut the machine down.



Twelve Monkeys
7.601

In the year 2035, convict James Cole reluctantly volunteers to be sent back in time to discover the origin of a deadly virus that wiped out nearly all of the earth's population and forced the survivors into underground communities. But when Cole is mistakenly sent to 1990 instead of 1996, he's arrested and locked up in a mental hospital. There he meets psychiatrist Dr. Kathryn Railly and the son of a famous virus expert who may hold the key to the Army of the 12 Monkeys; thought to be responsible for unleashing the killer disease.



The Butterfly Effect 2

After his girlfriend, Julie, and two best friends are killed in a tragic auto accident, Nick struggles to cope with his loss and grief. Suffering from migraine-like seizures, Nick soon discovers that he has the power to change the past via his memories. However, his time-traveling attempts to alter the past and save his one true love have unexpected and dire consequences.



Synchronicity
5.728

A daring physicist travels into the past to stop a mysterious woman from stealing his invention. But once there, he uncovers a surprising truth about the machine, the woman, and his own fractured reality.



The Time Traveler's Wife

Due to a genetic disorder, handsome librarian Henry DeTamble involuntarily zips through time, appearing at various moments in the life of his true love, the beautiful artist Clare Abshire.



The Butterfly Effect 3: Revelations

The story revolves around a man trying to uncover the mysterious death of his girlfriend and save an innocent man from the death chamber in the process, by using his unique power to time travel. However in attempting to do this, he also frees a spiteful serial-killer.



Looper
Looper(2012)
6.9

In the year 2044, time travel has not yet been invented but in 30 years it will have been. When the mob wants to get rid of someone, they will send their target into the past where a looper, a hired gun, like Joe is waiting to mop up. Joe is getting rich and life is good until the day the mob decides to close the loop, sending back Joe's future self for assassination.



The Man from the Future

Zero is a brilliant scientist. However, 20 years ago, he was publicly humiliated when he lost Helena, the love of his life. One day, an accidental experience with one of his inventions causes him to travel back in time to 1991. Having taken the opportunity to change history, Zero returns to own time to find totally changed.



57 Seconds
6.132

When a tech blogger lands an interview with a tech guru and stops an attack on him, he finds a mysterious ring that takes him back 57 seconds into the past.



Time Cut
Time Cut(2024)
5.631

A teen in 2024 accidentally time-travels to 2003, days before a masked killer murders her sister. Can she change the past without destroying the future?



Time Lapse
6.5

Three friends discover a mysterious machine that takes pictures 24 hours into the future and conspire to use it for personal gain, until disturbing and dangerous images begin to develop.



Millennium
5.3

An investigator seeking the cause of an airline disaster discovers the involvement of an organisation of time travellers from a future Earth irreparably polluted who seek to rejuvenate the human race from those about to die in the past. Based on a novel by John Varley.



12:01
12:01(1993)
6.2

Office employee Barry Thomas is caught in a "time bounce" caused by a glitch in the company's secret project. Now the same day occurs again and again - and Barry's the only one who can do anything about it, including saving the life of beautiful research assistant Lisa Fredericks.



24
24(2016)
7.3

Scientist turned Entrepreneur Dr. Sethuraman tries to safeguard his newly invented time travel device from falling into the hands of his Evil Twin Brother Aathreya.



Haunter
Haunter(2013)
6.12

A teenager is stuck in a time loop that is not quite the same each time. She must uncover the truth but her actions have consequences for herself and others.



Flashback
Flashback(2021)
5.9

A female lawyer travels back in time and crosses paths with other women in history who fought for women's rights.



Assassin 33 A.D.
5.248

When a billionaire gives a group of young scientists unlimited resources to study the science of matter transfer, the scientists unlock the secrets of time travel. But they soon find out that the project is backed by a militant extremist group, and the billionaire plans to go back in time and prove that Jesus never rose from the dead.



Omni Loop
Omni Loop(2024)
5.829

Diagnosed with a black hole growing inside her chest and stuck in a loop reliving the last five days of her life, a 55-year-old wife and mother from Miami, Florida decides to solve time travel in order to go back and be the person she always intended to be.



Two Distant Strangers
7.057

A man trying to get home to his dog becomes stuck in a time loop that forces him to relive a deadly run-in with a cop.



Boss Level
6.863

A former special forces agent is trapped in a time loop and relives his death over and over again. To escape the terrible situation, he must track down those responsible and stop them.



Final Analysis
5.713

A psychiatrist becomes romantically involved with the sister of one of his patients, but the influence of her controlling gangster husband threatens to destroy them both.



Synchronic
6.3

Two New Orleans paramedics' lives are ripped apart after encountering a series of horrific deaths linked to a designer drug with bizarre, otherworldly effects.



Returner
Returner(2002)
6.506

A young woman from the future forces a local gunman to help her stop an impending alien invasion which will wipe out the human race.



Rememory
Rememory(2017)
6.1

The widow of a wise professor stumbles upon one of his inventions that's able to record and play a person's memory.



Premonition
6.3

A depressed housewife who learns her husband was killed in a car accident the day previously, awakens the next morning to find him alive and well at home, and then awakens the day after to a world in which he is still dead.



The Time Machine
7.354

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



Dementia
Dementia(2015)
4.669

After being diagnosed with dementia, an elderly war veteran is forced by his estranged family to hire a live-in nurse, only to find she harbors a sinister secret.



The One
The One(2001)
6.1

A sheriff's deputy fights an alternate universe version of himself who grows stronger with each alternate self he kills.



Hypersleep
6

The old and overcrowded penitentiaries are just a memory. Inmates now serve their sentence in a state of deep sleep that renders them harmless, and has drastically reduced recidivism. Until one day, a psychologist in charge of monitoring the mental state of inmates finds himself confronted with a prisoner over whom he's lost all control.



La Jetée
La Jetée(1962)
7.872

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.



Back to the Future
8.3

Eighties teenager Marty McFly is accidentally sent back in time to 1955, inadvertently disrupting his parents' first meeting and attracting his mother's romantic interest. Marty must repair the damage to history by rekindling his parents' romance and - with the help of his eccentric inventor friend Doc Brown - return to 1985.



Mr. Destiny
6.2

Larry Burrows is unhappy and feels powerless over his life. He believes his entire life could have turned out differently had he not missed that shot in a baseball game when was a kid. One night he meets this mysterious man, who could change his fate by offering him that alternative life he always dreamed of. But as Burrows embarks on this journey of self discovery he realises that even this new life has its problems and drawbacks..



Safety Not Guaranteed
6.777

Three magazine employees head out on an assignment to interview a guy who placed a classified ad seeking a companion for time travel.



From Beyond
6.5

The Resonator, a powerful machine that can control the sixth sense, has killed its creator and sent his associate into an insane asylum. When a psychiatrist becomes determined to continue the experiment, she unwittingly opens the door to a hostile parallel universe.



Donovan's Echo
6.007

A series of uncanny déjà vu events force a man to re-examine his tragic past, memory, instinct, and future.



Flashback
Flashback(2020)
6

Frederick Fitzell is living his best life—until he starts having horrific visions of Cindy, a girl who vanished in high school. After reaching out to old friends with whom he used to take a mystery drug called Mercury, Fredrick realizes the only way to stop the visions lies deep within his own memories, so he embarks on a terrifying mental odyssey to learn the truth.



Paradox Effect
5.515

An innocent woman is forced to confront a dangerous kingpin who has kidnapped her young daughter and is holding her for ransom. She teams up with a corrupt Interpol agent, whose son is also being held hostage, to rip off various criminals to raise the ransom to save their offspring. Together they have one hour to save their families from the wrath of bigwig.



Body Parts
5.8

A criminal psychologist loses his arm in a car crash, and becomes one of three patients to have their missing limbs replaced by those belonging to an executed serial killer. One of them dies violently, and disturbing occurrences start happening to the surviving two.



Trancers 3: Deth Lives

A time traveling cop, Jack Deth, from the future is taken back to the past to be given the task of destroying the Trancer program before it has a chance to get out of control, sending the world into a state of chaos and war.



Predestination
7.4

Predestination chronicles the life of a Temporal Agent sent on an intricate series of time-travel journeys designed to prevent future killers from committing their crimes. Now, on his final assignment, the Agent must stop the one criminal that has eluded him throughout time and prevent a devastating attack in which thousands of lives will be lost.



Nefarious
Nefarious(2023)
6.757

On the day of his scheduled execution, a convicted serial killer gets a psychiatric evaluation during which he claims he is a demon, and further claims that before their time is over, the psychiatrist will commit three murders of his own.



Timebomb
Timebomb(1991)
5.123

When someone tries to murder watchmaker Eddy Kay, the incident triggers a barrage of nightmares and flashbacks into a past that isn't his own. Fearing for his sanity, Eddy contacts psychiatrist Dr. Anna Nolmar for help. Anna thinks he's hallucinating until another attack proves the dangers are all too real. The two of them go on the run, trying to discover the truth about Eddie's past and true identity before it kills them.



Unforgettable
5.598

Seattle medical examiner David Krane is obsessed with solving his wife's murder. A possible solution presents itself in an experimental "memory" serum designed by a neurobiology professor, which has the ability to transfer memories from one person to another, but with potentially fatal consequences.



Jagged Mind
5.44

When Billie finds herself reliving different versions of the same first date, she must break out of a series of loops created by her manipulative ex-girlfriend.



Twilight Zone: The Movie

An anthology film presenting remakes of three episodes from the "Twilight Zone" TV series—"Kick the Can", "It's a Good Life" and "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet"—and one original story, "Time Out."



Time Trap
Time Trap(2018)
6.3

A group of students become trapped inside a mysterious cave where they discover time passes differently underground than on the surface.



Things Will Be Different

In order to escape the police after a robbery, two estranged siblings lay low in a metaphysical farmhouse that hides them away in a different time. There they reckon with a mysterious force that pushes their familial bonds to unnatural breaking points.



Stay
Stay(2005)
6.6

Psychiatrist Sam Foster has a new patient, Henry Letham, who claims to be suicidal. In trying to diagnose him, Sam visits Henry's prior therapist and also finds Henry's mother -- even though Henry has said that he murdered both of his parents. As reality starts to contradict fact, Sam spirals into an unstable mental state. Then he finds a clue as to how and when Henry may try to kill himself, and races to try to stop him.



The Time Machine
6.306

Hoping to alter the events of the past, a 19th century inventor instead travels 800,000 years into the future, where he finds mankind divided into two warring races.



Frequency
Frequency(2000)
7.26

When a rare phenomenon gives police officer John Sullivan the chance to speak to his father, 30 years in the past, he takes the opportunity to prevent his dad's tragic death. After his actions inadvertently give rise to a series of brutal murders he and his father must find a way to fix the consequences of altering time.



Next
Next(2007)
6.116

Las Vegas showroom magician Cris Johnson has a secret which torments him: he can see a few minutes into the future. Sick of the examinations he underwent as a child and the interest of the government and medical establishment in his power, he lies low under an assumed name in Vegas, performing cheap tricks and living off small-time gambling "winnings." But when a terrorist group threatens to detonate a nuclear device in Los Angeles, government agent Callie Ferris must use all her wiles to capture Cris and convince him to help her stop the cataclysm.



Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel

Follows three social outcasts -- two geeks and a cynic -- as they attempt to navigate a time-travel conundrum in the middle of a British pub.



Backtrack
Backtrack(2015)
5.771

Troubled psychotherapist Peter Bowers is suffering from nightmares and eerie visions. When he uncovers a horrifying secret that all of his patients share, he is put on a course that takes him back to the small hometown he fled years ago. There he confronts his demons and unravels a mystery 20 years in the making.



Higher Power
5.1

When the Universe decides what it wants, it's pointless to resist. With his family's life at stake, Joseph Steadman finds himself the unwilling test subject of a maniacal scientist in a battle that could save the world – or destroy it.



Alienoid: Return to the Future

Ean has a critical mission to return to the future to save everyone. However, she becomes trapped in the distant past while trying to prevent the escape of alien prisoners who are locked up in the bodies of humans. Meanwhile, Muruk, who helps Ean escape various predicaments, is unnerved when he begins sensing the presence of a strange being in his body. Traveling through the centuries, they are trying to prevent the explosion of the haava.



The Gateway
5.528

A particle physicist grieving over the loss of her husband in a car crash uses a revolutionary machine to bring him back, with dire consequences for her family.



In Time
In Time(2011)
7

In the not-too-distant future, the aging gene has been switched off. To avoid overpopulation, time has become the currency and the way people pay for luxuries and necessities. The rich can live forever, while the rest struggle to negotiate for their immortality. A poor young man who suddenly comes into a fortune of time finds himself on the run from a corrupt police force known as the "time keepers".



Peggy Sue Got Married
6.117

At her 25th high school reunion, Peggy Sue faints and awakens in 1960—back in her senior year, before her marriage and all her regrets. Given a second chance to relive her youth, she must decide whether to change the choices that shaped her life or embrace the past that made her who she is.



Timescape
Timescape(1992)
6.5

Before they can complete renovations on their new inn, a father and daughter are visited by a woman seeking immediate lodging for her strange group of travelers.



Project Almanac
6.787

A group of teens discover secret plans of a time machine, and construct one. However, things start to get out of control.



Clinical
Clinical(2017)
5.304

A psychiatrist tries to put her life back together after a violent attack by seeking to repair the life of a new patient, but he has his own terrifying history.



Doppelgänger
6.228

A planet is discovered in the same orbit as Earth's but is located on the exact opposite side of the sun, making it not visible from Earth. The European Space Exploration Council decide to send American astronaut Glenn Ross and British scientist John Kane via spaceship to explore the other planet.



Repeaters
Repeaters(2011)
5.816

A gritty mind-bending thriller about three twenty-somethings who find themselves in an impossible time labyrinth, where each day they awaken to the same terrifying day as the preceding one.



Je T'Aime, Je T'Aime

Recovering from an attempted suicide, a man is selected to participate in a time travel experiment that has only been tested on mice. A malfunction in the experiment causes the man to experience moments from his past in a random order.



Borrowed Time
7.337

A weathered Sheriff returns to the remains of an accident he has spent a lifetime trying to forget. With each step forward, the memories come flooding back. Faced with his mistake once again, he must find the strength to carry on.



Back in Time
6.532

Cast, crew and fans explore the 'Back to the Future' time-travel trilogy's resonance throughout our culture—30 years after Marty McFly went back in time.



Parallel
Parallel(2024)
6.384

Grief-stricken after the loss of her child, Vanessa takes refuge at a lake house only to be met with an aberration of herself from a parallel universe and realizes the multiverse gates hold the key to releasing her grief or trapping her forever.



Bad Timing
6.5

Alex Linden is a psychiatrist living in Vienna who meets Milena Flaherty though a mutual friend. Though Alex is quite a bit older than Milena, he's attracted to her young, carefree spirit. Despite the fact that Milena is already married, their friendship quickly turns into a deeply passionate love affair that threatens to overtake them both. When Milena ends up in the hospital from an overdose, Alex is taken into custody by Inspector Netusil.



Anesthesia
5.712

Multiple lives intersect in the aftermath of the violent mugging of a Columbia University philosophy professor.



Marjorie Prime
6.12

A service which creates holographic projections of late family members allows an elderly woman to spend time with a younger version of her deceased husband.



Primer
Primer(2004)
6.8

A group of fledgling inventors discover a complex method to manipulate reality. At first, they successfully game the stock market with it, but the consequences of the invention start to catch up with them.



Fantastic Voyage
6.7

In order to save an assassinated scientist, a submarine and its crew are shrunk to microscopic size and injected into his bloodstream.



The Dead Zone
7.006

Johnny Smith is a schoolteacher with his whole life ahead of him but, after leaving his fiancee's home one night, is involved in a car crash which leaves him in a coma for 5 years. When he wakes, he discovers he has an ability to see into the past, present and future life of anyone with whom he comes into physical contact.



Compulsion
7.1

Two close friends' plan to execute a flawless crime is crushed when one of them inadvertently leaves his glasses at the crime scene.



In the Shadow of the Moon

In 1988, Philadelphia police officer Thomas "Locke" Lockhart, hungry to become a detective, begins tracking a serial killer whose crimes defy scientific explanation. When the killer mysteriously resurfaces nine years later, Locke's obsession with finding the truth threatens to destroy his career, his family, and possibly his sanity.



Men in Black 3
6.5

Agents J and K are back...in time. J has seen some inexplicable things in his 15 years with the Men in Black, but nothing, not even aliens, perplexes him as much as his wry, reticent partner. But when K's life and the fate of the planet are put at stake, Agent J will have to travel back in time to put things right. J discovers that there are secrets to the universe that K never told him - secrets that will reveal themselves as he teams up with the young Agent K to save his partner, the agency, and the future of humankind.



Trancers
Trancers(1984)
5.9

Angel City trooper Jack Deth is sent back in time from 2247 to 1985 L.A. to inhabit the body of his ancestor. Deth's assignment is to find his archenemy, Whistler, who turns people into zombies, before the fiend is able to kill all the ancestors of the future's governing council.



Polar Storm
4

When a piece of the massive comet "Copernicus" collides with the Earth, it knocks the planet off of its axis and unleashes a disaster never before witnessed. Dr. James Mayfield and his highly trained research team are the only ones who can re-align the axis. With his wife and teenage son in mortal danger, Dr. James Mayfield calls on his crack research team to help realign the planet's axis before the effects of the catastrophe are irreversible.



A Sound of Thunder
4.9

When a hunter sent back to the prehistoric era runs off the path he must not leave, he causes a chain reaction that alters history in disastrous ways.



The Philadelphia Experiment

Based on an "actual event" that took place in 1943. About a US Navy Destroyer Escort that disappeared from the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, and sent two men 40 years into the future to 1984.



Smile
Smile(2022)
6.666

After witnessing a bizarre, traumatic incident involving a patient, Dr. Rose Cotter starts experiencing frightening occurrences that she can't explain.



Flight World War II
4.57

International Flight 42 is on course, when all of a sudden a massive and weird storm crops up around the plane. This sends the plane back in time to the year 1940- smack dab in the middle of WWII! Now, the crew and passengers must not only find a way back to their time, but fight off the Axis powers.



Our Times
Our Times(2025)
6.621

Husband and wife Nora and Héctor's scientific breakthrough lets them time travel from 1966 to 2025. As Héctor struggles, Nora thrives—but at what cost?



Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox

The Flash finds himself in a war-torn alternate timeline and teams up with alternate versions of his fellow heroes to restore the timeline.



Slipstream
4.3

In the near future, where Earth has been devastated by man's pollution and giant winds rule the planet, bounty hunter Matt kidnaps a murderer out of the hands of two police officers, planning to get the bounty himself.



Torno indietro e cambio vita

Marco is married to a gorgeous woman, has a child and a great job. Everything seems perfect, at least until his wife of 25 years announces that she has another man and wants a separation. Marco is forced to leave home.



The Element of Crime
6.367

Fisher, an ex-detective, decides to take one final case when a mysterious serial killer claims the lives of several young girls. Fisher, unable to find the culprit, turns to Osbourne, a writer who was once respected for his contributions to the field of criminology. Fisher begins to use Osbourne's technique, which involves empathizing with serial killers; however, as the detective becomes increasingly engrossed in this method, things take a disturbing turn.

AboutPrivacy PolicyTerms of ServiceContact Us