Film

About Time

Name: About Time
Genre: Drama, Romance, Fantasy
Released: 2013
Cast: Domhnall Gleeson, Rachel McAdams, Bill Nighy, Tom Hollander, Margot Robbie

Other titles called About Time: the 2018 series (tvN).

About Time is Richard Curtis's rom-com wearing a time-travel plot, but really it's a film about attention — about noticing your own life while you're living it. Domhnall Gleeson's Tim uses his gift to fix romance, then discovers what actually matters. It's soft, unfashionable, shamelessly sentimental, and works on almost everyone anyway. For anyone who's ever wished they'd paid closer attention to an ordinary Tuesday.

TMDb rating

4.0

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you enjoy stories where a fantasy device is a pretext for noticing everyday life, and a sentimental streak doesn't bother you when it's earned by small, observed moments.

Skip it if you want the time-travel premise to drive a tight plot; this one is more of a reflective ramble, and its middle stretches can feel loose and talky.

What it asks of you: Just over two hours, it moves slowly and softly, keeping the comedy gentle and letting emotion build quietly rather than in sharp bursts.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Groundhog Day1993

The original time-loop lesson in learning to actually live, decades before About Time softened the trick into romance — funnier, sharper, and just as moving by the end.

But Bill Murray's early sardonic gags feel dated to some, and the comedy-first tone is less openly weepy than Curtis's film.

Love Actually2003

Same director, same warm chaotic ensemble instinct, same belief that ordinary people deserve grand romantic gestures — this is where Curtis first perfected the formula About Time later refined.

But Some of its subplots have aged badly, and the sheer volume of storylines can feel more scattershot than satisfying.

The Time Traveler's Wife2009

Another love story built entirely around a man who can't control when he disappears through time, with the same ache about presence, loss and what you can't get back.

But It leans harder into melodrama and less into comedy, so the tears come without much lightness to cut them.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from About Time

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Ikiru1952

Both films exist to answer the same question — what makes a life worth living once you actually pay attention to it — but Ikiru gets there through a terminal diagnosis instead of a magic power, no fantasy device required.

Kurosawa's quietly devastating story of a bureaucrat who learns he's dying and finally starts living in his last months — the same urgent appreciation of ordinary life, stripped of any time-travel comfort.

But It's a black-and-white 1952 Japanese drama with a slow, patient pace and no romantic payoff — this will test viewers used to warmth and quick catharsis.

Sliding Doors1998

A sliver of British time-fantasy from the same era, splitting one woman's life into two parallel versions to ask how much of happiness is just timing.

But The central gimmick is thinner than About Time's, and the tone stays glossier, less interested in mortality or family.

Notting Hill1999

Curtis again, minus the time travel — just two people, London, and the same conviction that ordinary decency is romantic. Hugh Grant at his most winningly hapless.

But It's a straighter, more conventional rom-com with none of the melancholy undertow that gives About Time its weight.

Four Weddings and a Funeral1994

The film that basically invented the register About Time lives in — bumbling English romance shot through with sudden, real grief.

But Its structure is looser and its politics feel very of-their-decade; some jokes have not aged gracefully.

The Family Man2000

Nicolas Cage gets shown the life he gave up, Christmas-Carol style — same question as About Time about which version of a life is the one worth choosing.

But It's broader and more Hollywood-sentimental, with none of the specific, dry Britishness that makes Curtis's film distinctive.

Beginners2011

A quieter American cousin — a son processing his father's life and death while stumbling through a new relationship, with the same tender, funny-sad tone.

But It's more fragmented and indie in structure, without the crowd-pleasing shape or the fantasy hook to pull you through.

Life Itself2018

If you want the emotional dial turned up even further — generations of family, coincidence, and grief tied together with the same faith that ordinary lives are epic.

But It's more shamelessly manipulative and structurally gimmicky, and reviews were split on whether the sentiment earns its tears.

La Jetée1962

The original film about a man revisiting a single fixed moment of his own past to find peace with it — the ancestor of every time-travel-as-memory story, including this one, told in still photographs instead of motion.

A 28-minute French science-fiction film told almost entirely in still photographs, about a man obsessively drawn back to one image from his childhood — hypnotic, strange, and the blueprint for a hundred later time-travel romances.

But It's short, deliberately artificial, and closer to a photo-essay than a movie — audiences wanting narrative comfort will find it cold and unfamiliar.

Russian Doll2019

Same time-loop machinery Tim uses to fix his life, run through a foul-mouthed, dying-repeatedly downtown-New-York lens — comedy about mortality instead of comedy about romance, using repetition to force self-knowledge rather than escape.

Natasha Lyonne dies over and over on her birthday until she figures out what's actually wrong with her life — the same rinse-and-repeat structure as Groundhog Day, but darker, funnier, and stranger.

But The tone is abrasive and profane where About Time is gentle, and the show demands patience through some genuinely bleak stretches before it turns tender.