The multiverse of movie madness!
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00:00 As we've most recently seen mainly looking at Marvel movies, we know that everyone loves
00:04 a bit of the multiverse.
00:06 It's a very cool concept, the idea of there being so many infinite universes where there
00:10 could be another us, maybe an even cooler us, in fact, most likely a much cooler us.
00:15 But the point is that the multiverse doesn't start and end with Marvel, there's much more
00:18 out there, and to that point, there's much better out there.
00:21 So if Doctor Strange just isn't hitting the mark for you, then we've got you covered.
00:25 I'm Amy from WhatCulture, and here are the 10 best multiverse movies ever.
00:29 10.
00:30 Spider-Man No Way Home
00:31 It is impossible to discuss multiverse movies without bringing up by far the most commercially
00:36 successful and zeitgeist-grabbing of them all, the MCU's Spider-Man No Way Home.
00:41 Whilst certainly not a perfect movie, No Way Home proved how the multiverse could be harnessed
00:45 to deliver massively crowd-pleasing fan service by colliding three cinematic eras of Spider-Man
00:50 into one single movie.
00:52 The presences of Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield's Peter Parker's of course stole
00:56 the show, though seeing the likes of Willem Dafoe's Green Goblin and Alfred Molina's Doc
01:00 Ock in the mix was also a ton of fun.
01:02 If introducing the multiverse to the MCU does feel a bit like opening Pandora's box, something
01:06 the very messy Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness seemed to prove, at least No Way
01:10 Home made good on its fan-serving promises.
01:13 Beyond the obvious nostalgic appeal of seeing Maguire and Garfield back in these roles alongside
01:17 Tom Holland's Spider-Man, it also gave the two former Spider-Men a chance to say goodbye
01:21 to these characters after their respective runs ended, and we've got to be happy for
01:25 them there at least.
01:26 9.
01:27 Donnie Darko
01:28 Multiverse movies don't get much weirder than Donnie Darko, one of the definitive cult
01:32 classics of the early 2000s, starring Jake Gyllenhaal as the titular teenager who narrowly
01:37 avoids calamitous death before learning of a grim prophecy that the world will end in
01:41 28 days.
01:42 Unlike most movies on the list, Donnie Darko doesn't hold your hand through its multiversal
01:46 hooey.
01:47 In fact, it kind of takes this a step further, enough that you really need to read an extra
01:50 feature on the Director's Cut DVD - an excerpt from The Philosophy of Time Travel, a book
01:55 featured in the film itself - to truly fathom what's going on.
01:58 Even if you don't understand it entirely, though, you'll probably feel Donnie Darko
02:01 and appreciate its spectacularly weird, inventive take on both time travel and parallel universes.
02:08 Armed with a small budget of just $4.5 million, debuting director Richard Kelly, who made
02:12 the film at a mere 25 years of age, proved the possibilities of the multiverse movies
02:16 on a smaller scale with no less intelligence or intrigue.
02:20 8.
02:21 Star Trek 2009
02:22 J.J. Abrams made extremely clever use of the multiverse in his 2009 Star Trek reboot.
02:27 Whilst most fans, pre-release, expected Abrams to give the flagging IP a full reboot, he
02:32 ingeniously decided to set the movie in a parallel universe to the prime Star Trek universe,
02:37 meaning that the adventures of the Enterprise's original crew still happened within this continuity.
02:41 Better still, Abrams managed to have his cake and eat it too by having Spock end up in the
02:45 alternate universe and help the alternate Captain Kirk vanquish the villainous Nero
02:49 by getting Spock to interact with the new Enterprise cast and even Spock's own younger
02:54 self.
02:55 Trek 2009 delivered giddy fanservice in a clever and, at the time, wildly original way.
02:59 That the multiverse aspect felt like an organic part of the story, the Kelvin timeline having
03:04 been created by Nero after he travelled through a black hole and destroyed the USS Kelvin
03:08 - thereby changing history - was just the icing on the cake.
03:11 7.
03:12 The Last Action Hero
03:13 You won't often hear it referred to as a multiverse movie, but Arnold Schwarzenegger's
03:17 bonzo cult classic action satire The Last Hero is totally a multiverse film.
03:22 The movie revolves around a teenage boy called Danny Madigan who, courtesy of a magic cinema
03:27 ticket, is inadvertently transported into the world of his favourite action hero, Jack
03:31 Slater.
03:32 What follows is one of the most riotous, adventurous, and downright clever action films of the 90s,
03:37 albeit one that was apparently too forward-thinking to be appreciated at its time.
03:41 Beyond the fun conceit of Danny hanging out with Slater in Slater's own over-the-top
03:45 action movie world, Last Action Hero indulges in some outrageous snake-swallowing-its-own-tale
03:50 metaness - such as revealing that in Slater's world, Sylvester Stallone played the lead
03:54 role in Terminator 2.
03:55 To squeeze the most references out of this meta-concept, the film's villain Benedict
03:59 also suggests he's going to use this magic ticket to bring the likes of Dracula, King
04:03 Kong, Freddy Krueger, Hannibal Lecter, and Satan out of various movies - though luckily
04:08 he's stopped before he's able to go through with it.
04:10 As a film where every movie ever made is effectively its own universe, Last Action Hero was a truly
04:15 original and ahead-of-its-time take on the multiverse.
04:18 6.
04:19 The One
04:20 Look, nobody's going to say that Jet Li's The One is a work of high art, but it is a
04:24 ludicrously entertaining take on the multiverse concept, and one which feels rather prescient
04:29 in retrospect.
04:30 Back in 2001, long before cinema audiences were used to hearing the word "multiverse",
04:34 The One spoke it aloud.
04:36 The film follows rogue multiverse authority agent Gabriel Eulor, who attempts to kill
04:40 all 124 versions of himself across the multiverse in order to absorb their energies and become
04:45 the titular unstoppable god-like entity.
04:48 The final variant, Gabe Lor, consequently vows to stop him, and so the obvious appeal
04:53 of the movie lies in watching Jet Li face off against himself.
04:56 It's a stupid good premise that the movie largely delivers on, even if this certainly
05:00 isn't one of the more nuanced takes on the multiverse.
05:03 It is simply a kick-ass action movie with a brilliant gimmick and a ridiculous nu-metal
05:08 soundtrack.
05:09 Yeah, sure, the soundtrack does date the film very obviously, but today it's kind of charming.
05:14 5.
05:15 Source Code
05:16 Duncan Jones' Source Code is one of the most original sci-fi movies of the 2010s, a thrilling,
05:21 secret multiverse movie in which US Army Captain Coulter Stevens is tasked with repeatedly
05:25 entering a digital simulation of a train bombing in order to discover the bomber's identity.
05:29 Now, for the bulk of Source Code's runtime, we don't actually know that we're watching
05:33 a multiverse movie, because it's only later revealed that the simulations are, in fact,
05:37 parallel universes created by their experimental titular machine.
05:41 Source Code is at once a fast-paced time-loop movie, a rip-roaring Hitchcockian suspense
05:45 picture and a provocative existential sci-fi flick, all of them being superbly executed.
05:50 While the universes we see throughout the film aren't particularly adventurous as far
05:53 as multiverses go, much of the fun lies in the tiny variations between Stevens' different
05:58 runs through the bombing scenario.
06:00 It's incredibly different from Marvel in that aspect, but it's nice to note that multiverses
06:03 don't need to be flashy in order to be entertaining.
06:06 4.
06:07 Run Lola Run
06:08 Somehow making Donnie Darko seem comparatively well-budgeted, 1998's German experimental thriller
06:13 Run Lola Run was made for just $1.75 million, yet offers up a brilliantly energetic take
06:19 on the notion of the parallel universe.
06:21 The story follows Lola, who has just 20 minutes to come up with 100,000 Deutschmarks or her
06:26 low-level criminal boyfriend, Manny, will be killed.
06:29 Director Tom Taekwa chronicles three separate attempts by Lola to save Manny, each distinguished
06:33 by minor variations which end up causing wildly different, and often fatal, outcomes.
06:38 Taekwa doesn't linger much on the metaphysical machinations of the situation, but rather
06:43 revels in the beauty of the butterfly effect, demonstrating it perfectly in each high-tension,
06:48 fast-paced 20-minute sprint.
06:50 It begs audiences to consider how their lives could branch off in aggressively divergent
06:54 directions with just a minor change, and that you never know which moment in your life might
06:58 be a major nexus point for the future.
07:01 3.
07:02 Coherence
07:03 And now we get to outdo both Donnie Darko and Run Lola Run on the budgetary front by
07:08 bringing you Coherence, which was made on a budget of just $50,000.
07:12 Coherence follows a woman, M, who begins to encounter strange occurrences whilst attending
07:16 a dinner party with friends on the night that a comet passes overhead.
07:20 It's best going into the film whilst knowing very little about it, but basically the film's
07:24 conceit revolves around the notion of duelling universes and the utter chaos it causes for
07:28 a group of unsuspecting people.
07:30 It may not be the most visually remarkable film you've ever seen, but the brain-melting
07:34 ideas it prevents about the multiverse more than compensate for the lo-fi production.
07:38 As surreal as it is ultimately terrifying, this is a singular take on the cosmically
07:42 horrific potential of an actual multiverse scenario.
07:46 2.
07:47 Everything Everywhere All at Once
07:49 Multiverse movies are all the rage at the moment, and whilst the Marvel Cinematic Universe
07:53 has inarguably cornered the market on mega-budget, universe-hopping fare, they've been categorically
07:58 outdone on a quality standpoint by a new movie made on a fraction of the budget.
08:03 It follows Chinese-American laundromat owner Evelyn Wang, who's suddenly charged with saving
08:07 the multiverse from a malevolent threat by slingshotting her consciousness into other
08:12 universes, acquiring her alternate self's skills and then using said skills to battle
08:16 her enemies.
08:17 Everything Everywhere All at Once is a frantically paced, hilarious, and totally insane film
08:22 that somehow manages to balance out its surreal, absurdist action with genuinely heartfelt
08:27 character-driven drama.
08:28 At once shamelessly silly and totally earnest, this mesmerizing film tackles the multiverse
08:33 with peerless levels of imagination, and hopefully the Academy won't forget about it next year.
08:38 1.
08:39 Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse
08:41 Spider-Man Into the Spider-Verse was the movie that pre-empted the MCU in introducing mainstream
08:46 audiences to the multiverse, and it basically proved to Marvel Studios just how lucrative
08:51 that could be.
08:52 Refreshingly led by Miles Morales's version of Spider-Man, this Oscar-winning film was
08:55 one of the most visually stunning and dynamic animated films of all time, seamlessly blending
09:00 disparate styles into an exciting and impressively coherent whole.
09:04 Though, for most, of course, the true joy lies in witnessing a bevy of diverse Spider-Man
09:09 iterations team up, including more traditional Peter Parkers, voiced by Jake Johnson and
09:14 Chris Pine, Gwen Stacy's Spider-Woman, the fantastic Spider-Ham, Penny Parker, and Spider-Man
09:20 Noir.
09:21 The result is a film that acutely understands the playful potential of multiversal stories,
09:25 and manages to fold its surrealist style into an emotionally engaging whole.
09:29 Truly, it's an all-timer as animated movies, superheroes, and indeed, multiverse movies
09:35 go.
09:36 And on that note, we've reached the end of this list of the 10 best multiverse movies
09:39 ever.
09:40 Were there any others that you would have put on this list instead?
09:42 Let us know in the comments below.
09:44 And check out WhatCulture.com for more lists and articles like this every single day.
09:48 As always, I've been Amy from WhatCulture, and I'll catch you next time.