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The Butterfly Effect poster

Movies that feel likeThe Butterfly Effect (2004)

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.

If you loved The Butterfly Effect, the closest films we have are Predestination (2014), Liquid Sky (1982) and Project Power (2020). All three share The Butterfly Effect's cerebral and tense feel, which is what we rank on before quality.

Seen the big three already? The under-the-radar pick below is Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970).

🍅 34% Rotten Tomatoes★ 7.6 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Eric Bresscerebraltensegritty
10 of 12 streaming nowNetflix · Amazon Prime Video · Night Flight Plus

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If The Butterfly Effect hit the spot, these will too

Predestination poster
Predestination
2014 · dir. Michael Spierig
🍅 84%★ 7.4science fiction · thriller

Every attempt to fix the timeline just tightens its own inescapable loop

The difference: A globe-trotting temporal agent thriller, colder than a personal reckoning

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.

Liquid Sky poster
Liquid Sky
1982 · dir. Slava Tsukerman
🍅 93%★ 6science fiction · thriller · drama

Both land ideas and tension at once

The difference: Reviewed even better

An alien creature invades New York's punk subculture in its search for an opiate released by the brain during an orgasm.

Project Power poster
Project Power
2020 · dir. Henry Joost
🍅 61%★ 6action · crime · science fictionNetflix

Gritty science fiction in both cases

The difference: Leans harder into action than The Butterfly Effect does

An ex-soldier, a teen and a cop collide in New Orleans as they hunt for the source behind a dangerous new pill that grants users temporary superpowers.

Primer poster
Primer
2004 · dir. Shane Carruth
🍅 72%★ 6.7science fiction · drama · thriller

Small tweaks to the past spiral into consequences nobody can control

The difference: A dense, stripped-down garage time machine, colder and more opaque

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.

Reservoir Dogs poster
Reservoir Dogs
1992 · dir. Quentin Tarantino
🍅 90%★ 8.3crime · thrillerPrime Video

Thriller with a pulse of ideas, in both cases

The difference: Sits closer to crime than The Butterfly Effect does

A botched robbery indicates a police informant, and the pressure mounts in the aftermath at a warehouse. Crime begets violence as the survivors -- veteran Mr. White, newcomer Mr. Orange, psychopathic parolee Mr. Blonde, bickering weasel Mr. Pink and Nice Guy Eddie -- unravel.

Phone Booth poster
Phone Booth
2003 · dir. Joel Schumacher
🍅 72%★ 7.1thriller · crimePrime Video

Thriller built on tension, twice over

The difference: Trades the ideas of The Butterfly Effect for an angle of its own

A slick New York publicist who picks up a ringing receiver in a phone booth is told that if he hangs up, he'll be killed... and the little red light from a laser rifle sight is proof that the caller isn't kidding.

Paradise poster
Paradise
2023 · dir. Boris Kunz
🍅 100%★ 6.3science fiction · thrillerNetflix

Time itself becomes a resource someone can lose or be stripped of

The difference: A corporate time-banking thriller about debt, not childhood memory

A man sees the dark side of the time-manipulating biotech company he works for when a crushing debt forces his wife to give up 40 years of her own life.

Brainstorm poster
Brainstorm
1983 · dir. Douglas Trumbull
🍅 57%★ 6.4science fiction · thriller

A device for reliving memory turns dangerous once it's misused

The difference: A 1980s scientist-invention thriller, not a personal time-travel journey

Two brilliant research scientists have invented a device capable of recording and playing back sensory experiences only to have devastating results when one of them records their own death.

Déjà Vu poster
Déjà Vu
2006 · dir. Tony Scott
🍅 55%★ 7.1action · thriller · science fiction

A device that reaches into the past reshapes the present in real time

The difference: An action-thriller built around solving a bombing, not private trauma

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 Unjust poster
The Unjust
2010 · dir. Ryoo Seung-wan
★ 6.5crime · thrillerNetflix

Gritty science fiction, and it commits to that

An honest cop has to compromise with his principles when he is told to find a scapegoat for a high-profile serial killer case in exchange for a big promotion.

Trance poster
Trance
2013 · dir. Danny Boyle
🍅 69%★ 6.9thriller · crime · mystery

One thread runs through both: amnesia

A violent gang enlists the help of a hypnotherapist in an attempt to locate a painting which somehow vanished in the middle of a heist.

Colossus: The Forbin Project poster
Colossus: The Forbin Project
1970 · dir. Joseph Sargent
🍅 90%★ 7.1science fiction · thriller

Both lean on ideas more than on science fiction

The difference: Made in the 1970s, in a different era of the craft

The U.S. has handed over control of its nuclear defense system to the Colossus supercomputer designed by scientist Dr. Charles Forbin. It soon becomes clear, that the now-sentient Colossus is far more intelligent than its creator realized—with the fate of the world hanging in the balance.

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The best-reviewed films that share The Butterfly Effect’s defining feeling.