The Butterfly Effect

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2:25

The Butterfly Effect

R

2004

1h 53m

Mystery & Thriller

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Tomatometer

Popcornmeter

34%

Tomatometer

169 Reviews

81%

Popcornmeter

250,000+ Ratings

College student Evan Treborn (Ashton Kutcher) is afflicted with headaches so painful that he frequently blacks out. While unconscious, Evan is able to travel back in time to difficult moments in his childhood. He can also alter the past for friends, like Kayleigh (Amy Smart), who was molested by her father (Eric Stoltz). But changing the past can drastically alter the present, and Evan finds himself in nightmarish alternate realities, including one where he's locked away in prison.

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Critics Consensus

The premise is intriguing, but it's placed in the service of an overwrought and tasteless thriller.

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Nell Minow

Common Sense Media

12/28/2010

1/5

Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. So very bad.

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Jonathan Crocker

BBC.com

04/13/2004

2/5

Lobotomised entertainment that's dark, violent, and hilariously dumb.

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Peter Travers

Rolling Stone

01/29/2004

1/4

Nothing can save this repetitive bore. Dude, where's your memory?

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Luke Buckmaster

Flicks (AU, NZ, UK)

05/21/2024

This film is so gut-wrenchingly dark and twisted I’d also call it a horror movie, with virtually no respite once its core premise swings into gear.

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James Croot

The Post NZ

01/12/2022

3/5

Wildly uneven and not exactly high-quality entertainment, The Butterfly Effect has, nonetheless, weirdly turned out to be strangely memorable, especially for certain generation of moviegoers.

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C.H. Newell

Father Son Holy Gore

05/05/2019

3.5/5

The Butterfly Effect looks at the power of memory, the repercussions of events from our past that bleed into the present.

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Pedro C

@RT92172610 4d

Watching this movie 15 years later made me realize the poor acting and the isolated scenes with a lack proper connection [tease/suspense, intro, idea, closing] for each mini "back in time" memory. Maybe back in the days when I was younger I was thrilled by the idea of time travel based on decisions how they affect the future. But now in 2026 it's a movie with very low quality on the script and acting. I I have a 10 movie list of my all-time favorite movies, and this one was top five, but now it's out of the list.

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Reuben T

@ReubenReviews May 14

This is possibly one of the worst movies I've ever watched, so I'm flabbergasted by the high audience score. Yes, the premise is good, but everything else is awful. It feels like a parody of a better movie that had better execution. No hate to Ashton Kutcher, but truly awful acting.

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Steven F.

@SteveGotScored Feb 19

My favorite Ashton Kutcher movie ever made!

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Igor S

@Igor_Sena Oct 30

I watched this movie again, after about 15-20 years, and maybe i'm older, more demanding/critical with the movies i watch, but it wasn't as good as i remembered it to be. It is full of forced, incredibly poorly acted scenes, that i almost turned it off. It is also very dark and depressing. Having said that, it it gets better as it goes, and the concept, as well as some of the elements are really good, making it still worth watching in my opinion. It became a classic with audiences for a reason. Plus, one thing i didn't notice when i was younger and this was of my favourite movies, is that, although slammed with a hammer throughout the movie, the overall theme of the movie is more about trauma, the negative chain that it can cause in people's lives, and how 1 small decision can bring a completely different outcome. Maybe back then, the much younger me was so focused on the cool sci-fi/time travel aspects of the movie that i ignored its main theme.

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Miguel S.

@Michelangelo Oct 29

Like every year I see this movie since it came out, I love it, it's my all-time favorite.

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Matthew L.

@Moviefanatic02 Oct 28

Great movie all around. Don’t care what the haters say!

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Eric Bress

Director

J. Mackye Gruber

Director

Ashton Kutcher

Evan Treborn

Amy Smart

Kayleigh Miller

Eric Stoltz

George Miller

William Lee Scott

Tommy Miller

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77%

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25%

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The Butterfly Effect: Trailer 1

2:25

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Synopsis

College student Evan Treborn (Ashton Kutcher) is afflicted with headaches so painful that he frequently blacks out. While unconscious, Evan is able to travel back in time to difficult moments in his childhood. He can also alter the past for friends, like Kayleigh (Amy Smart), who was molested by her father (Eric Stoltz). But changing the past can drastically alter the present, and Evan finds himself in nightmarish alternate realities, including one where he's locked away in prison.

Director: Eric Bress, J. Mackye Gruber
Producer: Chris Bender, A.J. Dix, J.C. Spink, Anthony Rhulen
Screenwriter: Eric Bress, J. Mackye Gruber
Distributor: New Line Cinema
Production Co: Blackout Entertainment, Benderspink, Katalyst Films, Film Engine
Rating: R (Language|Brief Drug Use|Sexual Content|Violence)
Genre: Mystery & Thriller
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Jan 23, 2004, Wide
Release Date (Streaming): Jul 1, 2008
Box Office (Gross USA): $57.7M
Runtime: 1h 53m
Sound Mix: Surround, DTS, Dolby SRD, SDDS
Aspect Ratio: Flat (1.85:1)