15 Best Movies Like ‘Predestination,’ Ranked by IMDb Score
Time-traveling and super-high technology have been movie tropes for as long as one can remember. However, not many movies do it right – in a way that not only works but boggles your mind in the process. Predestination is one of those movies and is widely considered one of the best movies of the genre.
With Ethan Hawke in the main role, we follow a time-traveling agent who’s left with one last assignment before retirement. What it turns into, however, is a temporal-traveling paradox that will absolutely blow your mind. If you’ve seen Predestination and want something similar to rack your brains, here are the 15 best movies like Predestination, ranked solely by their IMDb score.
15. Primer (2004)
IMDb score: 6.8/10
What it’s about: A couple of friends start experimenting with a high-tech project in their garage in their free time, trying to create a protein super-incubator. However, as one of them experiments on himself, they realize the machine works totally differently from what they anticipated. They created a time machine.
They all want intellectual property over the machine and wish to use it in different ways, but mostly to go back in time and invest in stocks, knowing how they’ll fare in the future. The entire conundrum starts falling into pieces after they break some crucial rules…
Why it’s like Predestination: Like Predestination, Primer is a movie about time traveling and about some of the most well-known time traveling paradoxes – like, never meeting with yourself in the past, etc. Primer is more of a thriller, and Predestination is more of an action movie, and I’d say Predestination takes that ‘meeting yourself’ paradox a step further.
14. Triangle (2009)
IMDb score: 6.9/10
What it’s about: A group of friends ventures onto a yacht for a nice, friendly cruise. However, an unexpected, brutal storm turns their yacht over, and they are left stranded in the middle of the sea. Suddenly, they stumble upon a big ship at sea, which turns into their only hope of survival. The only problem is – the ship seems completely abandoned.
What happens when they board the ship can’t really be explained until you’ve seen the movie. Let’s just say you’ll get absolutely terrified over and over again.
Why it’s like Predestination: While Predestination depicts deliberate, conscious time-traveling, the characters of Triangle end up in a time loop unwillingly. And it seems that, whatever they do, leads to the same results in the end. Both movies are mind-boggling, and you’ll likely need a rewatch to grasp everything you’ve just watched.
13. Deja Vu (2006)
IMDb score: 7.1/10
What it’s about: A terrorist attack destroys a New Orleans ferry. After the fact, a special agent named Doug Carlin is tasked with joining an experimental government program that has been kept a top secret for these kinds of situations exactly. The program allows Carlin to bend time and observe a detailed ‘replay’ of what happened a little over four days in the past.
He is tasked with following the suspected target to retrace his steps and try to figure out how to stop him. The problem is, whatever he does – he’s late four days. Is he simply a part of a detailed ‘representation’ of what happened, or can he really affect the past?
Why it’s like Predestination: Several things connect Predestination to Deja Vu. The first is the time-traveling trope. The second is a special agent as the main character. The third is a phenomenal performance from the lead actors, Ethan Hawke, and Denzel Washington, respectively. There’s more, but I’m trying not to spoil anything here. See for yourself.
12. Timecrimes (2007)
IMDb score: 7.1/10
What it’s about: A guy accidentally gets into a time machine that takes him back in time for about an hour. There, he meets himself from the past, which causes a chain reaction of catastrophic events.
Why it’s like Predestination: Timecrimes, originally titled Los Cronocrimenes, is the only non-English movie on this list. However, in some ways, it might be the most similar to Predestination out of all of them.
It’s also one of my favorites on this list, and if you ask me, the solid 7.1/10 IMDb score is an understatement for this film. It’s a mysterious time-traveling masterpiece.
11. Tenet (2020)
IMDb score: 7.3/10
What it’s about: The protagonist of the movie, known as The Protagonist, is a CIA operative that a mysterious organization recruited to participate in an international espionage assignment taking place beyond actual time.
The Protagonist needs to stop World War III from happening by using ‘time inversion’ as his only weapon to counter the imminent and looming threat.
Why it’s like Predestination: Christopher Nolan is known for his epic, mind-bending, non-linear plots, and Tenet is no different. Time traveling and mind-boggling mystery in Tenet is quite similar to Predestination, although the movie actually gets a bit too confusing at moments, in my opinion. It’s an awesome movie, nevertheless; you just have to watch it, like, four times to get it.
10. I Origins (2014)
IMDb score: 7.3/10
What it’s about: Ian Gray is a molecular biology student who, along with his lab partners, starts researching the evolution of human eyes, believing they came as an evolutionary advance instead of simply appearing, as creationist theories suggest. His obsession leads them to a discovery that could very well change society as a whole and everything we thought we knew.
Why it’s like Predestination: While I Origins perhaps isn’t that much about time-traveling, it certainly is about… coming back, I guess. Not to spoil the movie, but it’s absolutely brilliant – maybe even more mind-blowing than Predestination and actually quite a bit more romantic. It speaks of love, destiny, and everything in between – literally.
9. Looper (2012)
IMDb score: 7.4/10
What it’s about: The year is 2074, and technology advanced to include time traveling. When the mob wants someone ‘taken care of,’ they send that person back into the past, where a hired hitman awaits to assassinate them. Joe is one of those hitmen, but one day, the mob sends back someone he knows far too well. They send back – his future self.
Why it’s like Predestination: Time traveling and meeting yourself in the past or the future are focal points in both Predestination and Looper. The movies are quite similar in the sense that there’s a lot of action involved, but I’d say that the conclusion of the films is much more different. I definitely recommend it, though.
8. Source Code (2011)
IMDb score: 7.5/10
What it’s about: A soldier named Colter Stevens wakes up on a train only to realize he’s in someone else’s body. As it turns out, Colter is part of a government program that recreates the last 8 minutes of someone’s life, allowing Stevens to get inside their mind and find out who bombed the train he is now on to prevent the same thing from happening again.
Why it’s like Predestination: Even the synopsis of the movie sounds mind-bending, but trust me, Source Code is very neatly packed and absolutely brilliant once you get the full story. It’s sort of like time travel, but unlike Predestination, it actually plays into a different paradox regarding time traveling and altering the past – the paradox of parallel universes.
I can’t tell you much else without spoiling the movie, but if you’re looking for something similar to Predestination, this is the way to go.
7. The Butterfly Effect (2004)
IMDb score: 7.6/10
What it’s about: Evan Treborn is a guy who’s had major blackouts and lapses in memory his entire life. One day, he gets to read his old journal and realizes he can return to those ‘blackout’ moments in his life and alter them as he sees fit. His decisions in those moments change not only his life but the lives of everyone around him.
Why it’s like Predestination: This has to be Ashton Kutcher’s best role he has ever played, but the movie itself is even better. It plays on the notion of going back in time to change a certain decision and then watching how that decision can alter your entire life. Sometimes, something as simple as going right instead of left can lead to a world of change…
6. Mr. Nobody (2009)
IMDb score: 7.8/10
What it’s about: A boy is at a train station as his parents are splitting up. What would happen to him and his life if he chose to stay here with his father? How would his life shape up if he chose to board the train and follow his mother? Finally, what if he just doesn’t make a choice? That’s when real possibility opens up.
Why it’s like Predestination: I feel like a broken record because I keep saying this, but the lead in this movie, Jared Leto, absolutely killed it, just like Ethan Hawke did in Predestination. Mr. Nobody is an amazing movie that doesn’t really include time-traveling directly but plays with the trope of different possibilities and outcomes based on one’s decisions – or non-decisions.
It’s mind-bending and, therefore, hard to explain without actually watching the film, but that’s what this list is all about, right?
5. Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)
IMDb score: 7.9/10
What it’s about: A Chinese immigrant couple is struggling to get things straightened out with the IRS about their laundry business. Suddenly, the woman is dragged into this wild, multiversal journey where she has to save all of existence in all the infinite universes.
She jumps from between universes, seeing all the lives she could have had, and could’ve led, but everything leads back to that final moment where she has to accept reality.
Why it’s like Predestination: Everything Everywhere All at Once is an awesome movie, but I was genuinely surprised that it had taken this year’s Academy Awards by storm. Not because it’s not good enough, but because the genre doesn’t really bode well at the Awards, generally.
There’s no time traveling, per se, like in Predestination, but the trope of multiversal traveling and jumping from universe to universe is more than enough to bend your mind. It’s a cool movie that plays with more than just plain sci-fi action, so I urge everyone to watch it, even if they aren’t big fans of the genre.
4. 12 Monkeys (1995)
IMDb score: 8.0/10
What it’s about: In the future, humanity will be devastated by a virus that wiped out most of the population. Now, a convict earns a chance of pardon – if he agrees to travel back in time and try to figure out more information about the artificial virus that caused such destruction.
However, when sent back in time, he’s considered a lunatic, making his quest for the truth that much harder. Will he manage to find out how the virus was created?
Why it’s like Predestination: Again, we have a mystery thriller revolving heavily around time-traveling and the concept of coming back to the future to cause events that made the future happen the way it did in the first place. It’s totally crazy and one of the best time-traveling movies I’ve ever seen.
3. Donnie Darko (2001)
IMDb score: 8.0/10
What it’s about: An accident strikes the small town and home of Donnie Darko, a troubled teenager who struggles to fit in. After the accident, however, things become even more difficult for Donnie. He starts having visions of a man in a big, creepy bunny suit, manipulating him to commit all kinds of crimes, escalating from harmless to all-out deadly.
Why it’s like Predestination: I’m not spoiling anything because the biggest wow factor of Donnie Darko is the ending, when you figure out the entire mystery and everything that’s been going on throughout the movie. For now, all you need to know is that it’s just as mind-bending as Predestination and that it has some other similarities that aren’t apparent at first sight.
2. Interstellar (2014)
IMDb score: 8.6/10
What it’s about: Earth is on the brink of collapse, as famines, droughts, wars, and other disasters brought humanity to its knees. The only chance of survival is interstellar travel and finding another home. A wormhole at the far ends of the solar system was discovered, and now, a team of astronauts is sent to explore and potentially save humanity.
Why it’s like Predestination: I love when movies are smart and play into real-life scientific principles instead of just going, ‘It’s possible because it’s sci-fi.’ Sure, we don’t have the technology to do what was depicted in the movie, but the scientific principles are there – just like in Predestination.
Interstellar is an absolute masterpiece and a must-watch for every movie fan ever. And, when it comes to mind-benders, you know Christopher Nolan is the best in the business.
1. Inception (2010)
IMDb score: 8.8/10
What it’s about: A thief uses dream-sharing technology to steal corporate secrets from the minds of executives. Now, he’s given a different task – a task going the other way. Instead of extracting a secret, he needs to implant an idea into a CEO’s mind. However, his tragic past life might hinder the entire mission and cause even more tragedy…
Why it’s like Predestination: Perhaps Inception isn’t exactly about time traveling, but it certainly is about the advanced technology that has world-altering capabilities. And, when it comes to mind-benders, there’s no better movie ever created than Inception.
I’ve seen Inception about six or seven times now, and still, I get to discover and pick up on something I haven’t picked up on before. Christopher Nolan is a genius, Leonardo DiCaprio deserved an Oscar, and I’m going to watch Inception again right now. Bye.