A warmly sentimental romantic fantasy with real emotional payoff, especially if you like love stories that eventually reveal themselves as family stories. Its time-travel hook is gentle rather than puzzle-box clever, but the film uses it effectively to build toward grief, gratitude, and everyday tenderness.
About Time
Where to watch: Buy
Movie · Drama · Romance
Wed · 2h 3m
Director: Richard Curtis
Starring: Domhnall Gleeson, Rachel McAdams, Bill Nighy
Overview
The night after another unsatisfactory New Year's party, Tim's father reveals to him that the men in their family have the ability to travel through time. They can't change history, but they can change what happens and has happened in their own lives. Thus begins the start of a lesson in learning to appreciate life itself as it is, as it comes, and most importantly, the people living alongside us.
Director
Richard Curtis
Cast
Domhnall Gleeson, Rachel McAdams, Bill Nighy
Curator Review
Verdict
A warmly sentimental romantic fantasy with real emotional payoff, especially if you like love stories that eventually reveal themselves as family stories. Its time-travel hook is gentle rather than puzzle-box clever, but the film uses it effectively to build toward grief, gratitude, and everyday tenderness.
Best for
viewers who want a feel-good romance with tears
fans of Richard Curtis-style sentiment and wit
audiences who like time-travel stories used for emotional reflection
people looking for a date-night movie with heart
viewers who respond to father-son stories as much as romance
Skip if
you want hard sci-fi rules and airtight time-travel logic
you dislike overt sentimentality or tearjerker endings
you prefer romance that stays grounded and realistic
you’re tired of British upper-middle-class charm and cozy humor
Overview
About Time is one of those rare mainstream romances that earns its sentiment by widening the frame. It starts as a quirky time-travel premise, but the real subject is how we spend ordinary days, how we love people while they’re here, and how quickly those days become memory.
Worth noting
The movie is at its best when it leans into small domestic details, awkward charm, and the father-son bond at its center. Domhnall Gleeson gives the story a shy, open-hearted sweetness, while Bill Nighy supplies the film’s most durable emotional anchor.
Bottom line
It is also unabashedly manipulative in places, and some viewers will feel the script’s gender politics or wish-fulfillment plotting more sharply than the film intends. But if you’re in the mood for a romantic dramedy that wants to leave you grateful for your own life, it lands with unusual force.
Top Letterboxd reviews
mulaney (5★) · 21593 likes
this is the film equivalent of a warm hug
cathy (4.5★) · 17927 likes
scientist: richard have u even heard of the butterfly effect? richard curtis (with tears in his eyes): have you heard of love?
bre (4.5★) · 15283 likes
they went for a “quick little walk” and i have not stopped crying ever since
Ellie ✨ (4★) · 10403 likes
i'm not going to say that poor tina the lesbian was in the friendzone but imagine being friends with margot robbie as a lesbian. it'd be like staring into the sun, day after day, but not being able to tear your eyes away. you'd self-combust. how would you even focus, knowing that margot robbie was your friend? because you just know margot robbie would be the kind of friend who'd kiss you on the cheek and hold your hand in
Anna Johansson (3.5★) · 7716 likes
goal in life: find a man who has an amélie poster in his room and who is domhnall gleeson
Themes
time travel, romance, family bonds, grief and loss, appreciation of ordinary life, coming of age, sentimentality, fate vs free will
Topics
romantic fantasy, tearjerker, British comedy-drama, time travel, family drama, sentimental, coming-of-age, grief, cozy, 2010s