The Next Reel Film Podcast
Predestination
We close out our Time Travel series with Predestination, tracing its single tightly wound causal loop and singling out Sarah Snook’s performance as a series highlight.
May 24, 2018
The Next Reel’s Time Travel series brings together four very different takes on bending time. Andy Nelson and Pete Wright work through overlapping timelines, romantic tangles, wormholes, and one tightly wound causal loop. It’s four movies, four flavors of time travel, and one very confused set of Flickchart rankings.
We close out our Time Travel series with Predestination, tracing its single tightly wound causal loop and singling out Sarah Snook’s performance as a series highlight.
We continue our Time Travel series with Interstellar, revisiting Christopher Nolan’s ambitious epic and debating whether its divisive climax earns the emotional payoff it’s reaching for.
We continue our Time Travel series with About Time, weighing Richard Curtis’s charm against time travel rules that loosen and bend more than they probably should.
We open our Time Travel series with Timecrimes, debating whether Vigalondo’s puzzle-box thriller doubles as an allegory for infidelity, or just a wild ride through free will and fate.
The Next Reel's Time Travel series takes on four films that each bend time in a different way. As a time travel podcast series, it spans four very different films. That includes a low-budget Spanish thriller, a British rom-com, a Hollywood space epic, and an Australian noir-tinged puzzle box. Hosts Andy Nelson and Pete Wright work through each film's internal logic. They weigh whether each story's own rules actually hold together by the time the credits roll.
The conversations across this Time Travel series move well past just tracking who went where and when. The hosts dig into performance, structure, and theme just as much as mechanics. That means questions of free will and fate, and the ways each film uses time travel to explore something bigger. Sometimes that's infidelity, sometimes it's family, grief, or identity. It's less a checklist of paradoxes and more an ongoing argument about what makes a good time travel movie.
Whether you're new to The Next Reel or a longtime listener, the Time Travel series is a good entry point. It's a chance to hear how Andy and Pete argue, agree, and occasionally settle things with a coin flip. As with any good time travel podcast binge, each episode stands on its own. There's no wrong place to start.
Frequently Asked Questions
What order should I watch the Time Travel series in?
The Time Travel series covers Timecrimes, About Time, Interstellar, and Predestination. Each episode stands on its own, so you can start anywhere.
Do the movies need to involve a literal time machine?
No. The Time Travel series takes a broad view of the premise. That includes literal time machines in Timecrimes and Predestination, Interstellar's relativity-driven time dilation, and About Time's simpler, closet-based rules.
Is this a kid-friendly series?
It varies by film. About Time and Interstellar are broadly family-friendly. Timecrimes and Predestination lean more toward mature audiences, given their thriller and noir elements.
Will there be more time travel episodes in the future?
The Next Reel covers new series regularly. Keep an eye on the show for future additions to this corner of the catalog.
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Related Listening
For more time travel viewing, check out The Next Reel's Back to the Future trilogy episodes. The Film Board's episode on Looper is also worth a listen. Interstellar fans should check out The Next Reel's Ellen Burstyn series too, featuring three films starring Ellen Burstyn. For more ambitious, structurally complex filmmaking, there's also the Film Board's episode on Cloud Atlas.