(1) The Time Machine (1960)

The popularity of time travel dates back at least as far as the publication of The Time Machine by H.G. Wells in 1895, so by the time I discovered George Pal's 1960 movie version (on television, sometime in the late 60s), many writers had bludgeoned the concept into routine stereotype. I didn't know that, of course, so I was enthralled as only a kid can be enthralled by the very idea of traveling forward in time -- how cool! I could be an adult ahead of time! -- and Rod Taylor remains a personal icon because of this sentimental, entirely obvious, favorite.

(2) Outer Limits: Demon With a Glass Hand (1964)

I may have actually watched this episode of the landmark TV series before seeing The Time Machine, but it wasn't until I started voraciously reading every science fiction story and book I could get my hands on in the early 70s that I realized that the Demon With a Glass Hand episode was written by Harlan Ellison. (Season 2 of the series, this one starred Robert Culp.) Time travel tales were already a favorite, and Ellison's wicked twist caused sparks to run through my young body. I still get goosepimples. Ellison's Soldier episode, also from the second season, was also very good -- both episodes provided inspiration for The Terminator -- and Ellison also provided the script for an episode for Star Trek, The City on the Edge of Forever (rewritten by others), that played around quite effectively with Captain Kirk and time.

(3) Slaughterhouse-Five (1972)

Kurt Vonnegut Jr. aimed too high to make any sense to my early adolescent mind, so I never read the novel (I know! I know!). What especially blew my mind was that my first viewings were of the chopped-up, nearly incomprehensible edited-for-TV version. I had no freakin' idea what was going on, the concept of becoming "unstuck in time" was still too much for me to handle, and I was constantly distracted and frustrated by not being able to see Valerie Perrine's naked body (too hot for TV). When I eventually saw it, I was still majorly distracted, but it opened me up to the more cerebral possibilities of time travel -- dealing with your own past, your own pains and fears and miseries and failures and pleasures. I still don't fully understand the movie. I gotta get that book now and try again ...

(4) Time After Time (1979)

I'm afraid to watch this again, so perfect was my first experience with this film in a theater nearly 30 years ago (Good night, I'm getting old!). Loved the concept: H.G. Wells (Malcolm McDowell) pursues Jack the Ripper (David Warner) across time and into the 20th century, eventually putting the life of uber-sweet Mary Steenbergen in peril. It was gorgeous and exactly the movie I wanted to see on that night and at that point of my life -- dangerous without being explicit, romantic without being icky, imaginative without being stupid. Bless you, Nicholas Meyer (his directorial debut).

(5) Back to the Future Part II (1989)

The first one is still pretty snazzy and fun, but I can't quite put out of my mind the incredibly distasteful idea that Marty's mother is lusting after her own son. It's simply too powerfully Oedipal to ignore, which always blights my view of the movie. Four years later, I was terribly dismayed by the first sequel, and, of course, groaned loudly at the ending, yet in hindsight it's the one that plays the most with all the dizzying paradoxes presented by time travel. It follows through on the idea that you can really screw things up, and takes some unpleasant ideas to logical, unhappy extremes. I won't argue that it's the best of the three, but for my money it's the hard that wrestles the hardest with the concepts that I first encountered with The Time Machine.

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So that's my highly subjective list of favorites. What are yours?