The Butterfly Effect

2004
15
1h 53m

IMDb RATING

7.6/10

538K

YOUR RATING

POPULARITY

Play trailer2:10

Time Travel Tragedy Drama Sci-Fi Thriller

Evan Treborn suffers blackouts during significant events of his life. As he grows up, he finds a way to remember these lost memories and a supernatural way to alter his life by reading his j... Read allEvan Treborn suffers blackouts during significant events of his life. As he grows up, he finds a way to remember these lost memories and a supernatural way to alter his life by reading his journal.Evan Treborn suffers blackouts during significant events of his life. As he grows up, he finds a way to remember these lost memories and a supernatural way to alter his life by reading his journal.

Directors
- Eric Bress
- J. Mackye Gruber
Writers
- J. Mackye Gruber
- Eric Bress
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

7.6/10

538K

YOUR RATING

POPULARITY

1,285

567

Directors
- Eric Bress
- J. Mackye Gruber
Writers
- J. Mackye Gruber
- Eric Bress
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 1 win & 8 nominations total

Videos2

Photos254

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7.5

Source Code

8.0

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4.5

The Butterfly Effect 2

7.4

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7.4

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8.0

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7.8

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

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The Machinist

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The Butterfly Effect 3: Revelations

7.7

The Game

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I Am Legend

Storyline

Edit

Did you know

Edit

Trivia
All of the prison scenes were filmed in a real prison (Washington State) with real prisoners.

Goofs
In the credits at the end, there is a name next to a character for "Evan at 3". Nowhere in either of the two cuts is an actor portraying Evan at three years old.

Quotes
Jason Treborn: You can't change who people are without destroying who they were.

Crazy credits
The title, "The Butterfly Effect," is superimposed over a depiction of a butterfly beating its wings, which is itself superimposed upon an X-ray profile of a human brain.

Alternate versions
The director's cut contains a few new scenes:
Evan discovering that his grandfather had the same gift, and also was considered crazy, like his father
Evan and Andrea go to a palm reader that tells Evan he has no lifeline
Andrea telling Evan she was pregnant twice before he was born.
A scene in the prison where the prisoners publicly read Evan's journals.
A scene in the prison where the other prisoners come to rape Evan one night.
An extended hospital scene where Evan is visiting sick Andrea.
An alternate ending.

Connections
Edited into The Butterfly Effect: Deleted and Alternate Scenes (2004)

Soundtracks
When Animals Attack
Written by Chris King, Dave Wadsworth, Ric Roccapriore, Keith Kaplan and Howard Karp
Performed by Even Rude
Courtesy of PWNETD Music

User reviews1.3K

Featured review

9/10

Wow. What a film

Okay, so after years of just hearing about this film and not seeing it (I have no excuses) I finally put it on. And wow, it's an absolutely fantastic film.

Ill start by giving my reason why I haven't watched for so long and that's because I was told it was really complicated and confusing. And I'll be honest, 10 minutes into this film I was completely out of whack. I had absolutely no idea what's happening. But after around half an hour or so it becomes really apparent what's happening and the story just becomes more and more interesting. So if you're worried about complexity of the plot. Don't, you'll be fine.

The ending as well I liked. You honestly don't know how this film will end, I was 10 minutes from the film ending and I still didn't know what was going to go down. But it's done really nicely and closes off any unanswered questions. Watching films like Donny Darko you end up confused by the end and have several questions whereas this doesn't have this and I prefer that. (Donny Darko is great by the way, I was just giving an example).

Beyond that I thought the acting was really good, the managed to pull off good character development and the changes of memory were quite obvious so there wasn't any overlapping or confusion on what you were watching.

It's just overall an absolutely fantastic film and I highly recommend watching this if you haven't done so already.