Excellent Adventures: The Time Travel Movie Podcast

Excellent Adventures: The Time Travel Movie Podcast

Three friends, Ellen, James and Paul, explore the hows and whens of time travel in the movies.

Episodes

April 3, 2026 80 mins
Field of Dreams is a landmark fantasy / sports movie that was released in spring of 1989 across the US. It arrived in the UK late that same year. An adaptation of W.P.Kinsella’s novel Shoeless Joe, the movie proved to be very popular in America and found an appreciative audience overseas.  Amidst the story’s richly expressed Americana, and its strain of fantasy and whimsy, the overarching character stories are convincingly explored...
Listen
Mark as Played

Paul invites longest-serving chum & model builder extraordinare Matt Peerless to chat about the time machine of Back to the Future: the DMC DeLorean sports car.

They discuss its history as a collectible, the versions across the trilogy & what makes the car the Star!

Listen
Mark as Played

A somewhat forgotten, lavishly produced science fiction road trip movie, Tomorrowland (2015) owes much to the folklore around Walt Disney and Disneyland. An adventure story about a trek to reach Tomorrowland, the movie has its time travel / time warping element to it as protagonists Frank, Casey and Athena embark on a journey that explores the value of pursuing dreams, the dynamic between humans and technology, past / present and f...

Listen
Mark as Played

In this mini excellent adventure, Ellen and her mum Joy dive into Samurai in Time, a film that blends some of their favourite cinematic flavours: slick swordplay, time-travel twists, and a peek behind the curtain of the film industry. Recorded on the drive home from Chichester Cinema at New Park, after a screening presented by the Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme in 2025.

Links: https://www.jpf-film.org.uk/  https://chichest...

Listen
Mark as Played

Join Ellen, Paul and James in a wide-ranging discussion that begins with Makoto Shinkai’s Your Name.

 

What starts as an exploration of the film’s narrative - two strangers connected across time and space - expands into a ...

Listen
Mark as Played

Celebrating a whopping 50 episodes of Excellence. Ellen, James & Paul reflect on highlights of 2 years Podcasting together, lessons learned & what the Future still holds. Tune in & celebrate along with them!

Listen
Mark as Played

This episode, Paul Hosts & invites Ellen & James to a mini quiz on the cinema of the Summer of 1989. With the picture painted, it’s a race against Time to stop a devil of a scheme to undo creation itself.

 

Read more

Listen
Mark as Played
Robert Zemeckis, co-writer  and director of Back to the Future (1985), returns to the world of the time travel movie with this lively and very faithful adaptation of the Charles Dickens story.  Produced as a performance capture movie, and released in 2009, the film has a visual dynamism and invention to it that makes it an especially effective version of the source material.  Jim Carrey’s performance across several roles is fascina...
Listen
Mark as Played

Our Christmas special two-parter takes a festive leap through time (and film history) as we each pick our favourite Christmas Carol adaptation. Obviously, the correct choice is The Muppet Christmas Carol - which I selected, of course! Michael Caine delivers a perfectly straight-faced Scrooge performance amid singing frogs and bantering ghosts, but it’s Gonzo (as Charles Dickens) who truly steals the show. Narrating the story with u...

Listen
Mark as Played

This week, Ellen is joined by Jen Francis - a freelance TV producer and writer whose work spans original scripts, television development and sharp-eyed film criticism. Jen is also the author of Steve McQueen: In The Scene (2025), a new non-fiction study of the director’s craft.

https://www.aurorametro.com/product/steve-mcqueen-book/

...

Listen
Mark as Played

A visually arresting adaptation of the poem ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’ , David Lowery’s film is fascinating. It’s a Christmas movie , for sure, and it includes a time travel thread in the tapestry of its tale. What more could you ask for? Inventive, and imbued with a tangible sense of magic, the film prompts an enthusiastic conversation between James and Ellen for this episode.

Listen
Mark as Played

James and Paul are MIA, but Ellen is forging ahead solo into the wonderfully absurd world of Hallmark Time Travel Movies. From pocket watches that open wormholes to Victorian men horrified by toasters, she breaks down the rules, the romance, and the time-bending tropes that make this subgenre so irresistibly unhinged.

Buckle up—time travel waits for no one!

Listen
Mark as Played

Time travel, medieval mayhem, and a crooning Yankee - what more could you want? Ellen, Paul, and James dive into A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1949) and its literary origins in Mark Twain’s groundbreaking novel.

 

Join them as they explore the surprising legacy of this ...

Listen
Mark as Played

Recorded over a 13 month period - the Excellent Adventurers are proud to present a chat with possibly the only person left on the planet who had not seen the Back to the Future trilogy - Ellen's Mum!

Paul captures the initial & eventual reactions to Parts I & III, while Ellen gets the complicated one in the middle with II! 

Listen
Mark as Played

The Time Travelling Trio return to the third in the trilogy for the second time. Huh?

Episode 14 was a Mini Excellent Adventure with guest Nigel Smith, who pipped for this as a favourite to chat about.

James & Paul felt left out, so promised Ellen she could do an episode about Hallmark movies, & so this grand revisit came about. In so many ways, the romance with Christopher Lloyd & Mary Steenbergen is just a big tease f...

Listen
Mark as Played

Paul's been wanting to explore David Lynch's twisty Noir nightmare with a like-minded admirer for ages. Is it Time Travel or Not? Paul asked this at a screening of the movie in 2024 at the Worthing Connaught - & is here joined by Film Manager of the cinema James Tully, to definitively put to bed & answer all mysteries of the film. I mean, how hard can it be?

Find the Worthing Connaught here: https://wtm.uk/ 

And here on Ins...

Listen
Mark as Played

Ellen, James & Paul explore "the Feels" within this charming Time Loop Romedy.

Kyle Allen & Kathryn Newton are living the same day over & are actually pretty happy about it. Then they start to question if there is a reason, & what would happen if they made a map of their findings. 

Sweet. Uplifting. Great to look at.

But enough about us - you should see the movie too. 

Listen
Mark as Played

Join Ellen and special guest Jamie Dyer, founder of Old Time Review and host of The Quo-Cast and Vintage Animation Millennial, as they embark on a mini excellent adventure through the classic 1960 film The Time Machine, directed by George Pal.

In this episode, Ellen and Jamie delve into a broad discussion of the film’s enduring appeal, from its imaginative take on time travel to Pal’s pioneering stop-frame animation. They also take...

Listen
Mark as Played

This Czech comedy-drama by Director Jindřich Polák had Ellen & Paul in giggling fits, what with a parrot squawking "Heil Hitler," a funky score & a tight script that really knew how to play with the fun of looping over & over your own Timeline.  

Join them to find out what the Nazi plan involving a nuclear bomb was all about & how a circus family with a trampoline & skeleton-eating washing-up liquid get involved...

Listen
Mark as Played

Paul finally gets off his chest a decades-long theory about Kubrick's classic, & finds all new aspects of the film to (maybe) support it.

This kicks off a l'il sideline of episodes in which he poses the question: Is it Time Travel or Not? There will be more. As with all such things, it's just a matter of making the time!

Listen
Mark as Played

Popular Podcasts

    If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.

    Dateline NBC

    Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com

    The Girlfriends: Trust Me Babe

    When a group of women from all over the country realise they all dated the same prolific romance scammer they vow to bring him to justice. In this brand new season of global number 1 hit podcast, The Girlfriends, Anna Sinfield meets a group of funny, feisty, determined women who all had the misfortune of dating a mysterious man named Derek Alldred. Trust Me Babe is a story about the protective forces of gossip, gut instinct, and trusting your besties and the group of women who took matters into their own hands to take down a fraudster when no one else would listen. If you’re affected by any of the themes in this show, our charity partners NO MORE have available resources at https://www.nomore.org. To learn more about romance scams, and to access specialised support, visit https://fightcybercrime.org/ The Girlfriends: Trust Me Babe is produced by Novel for iHeartPodcasts. For more from Novel, visit https://novel.audio/. You can listen to new episodes of The Girlfriends: Trust Me Babe completely ad-free and 1 week early with an iHeart True Crime+ subscription, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Open your Apple Podcasts app, search for “iHeart True Crime+, and subscribe today!

    The Joe Rogan Experience

    The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.

    The Breakfast Club

    The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!

Advertise With Us
Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2026 iHeartMedia, Inc.

  • Help
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use
  • AdChoicesAd Choices