Richard Kelly

writer, director, creator
Feature Film

Darko Family I

Donnie Darko

  • written and directed by Richard Kelly
  • (Sundance Film Festival, Park City, Utah, 19 January 2001)

For me, this cultish movie about a schizophrenic teenager presented a shallow understanding of both schizophrenia and time travel. —Michael Main
I have reached the end of your book and there are so many things that I need to ask you. Sometimes I’m afraid of what you might tell me. Sometimes I’m afraid that you’ll tell me that this is not a work of fiction. I can only hope that the answers will come to me in my sleep. I hope that when the world comes to an end, I can breathe a sigh of relief, because there will be so much to look forward to.
The characters from Donnie Darko are hidden in a creepy blue x-ray of a
                jackrabbit skull.
  • Science Fiction
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

Southland Tales

  • written and directed by Richard Kelly
  • (Cannes Film Festival, 21 May 2006)

After terrorists destroy Abilene and El Paso with nuclear bombs, the Patriot Act dominates the U.S. and the world is engulfed in World War III. Unfortunately, the U.S. seems to be more engulfed in the next presidential election and finding an alternative to oil, which somehow (don’t ask me how) combine to create a rift in space-time that doesn’t really play much of a role in the self-important plot, but does serve to send two monkeys (or maybe two of the movie’s characters) back in time 69 minutes.

You’d think by now that I would have learned not to rent movies where the director and writer are one and the same, but I keep holding out hope. —Michael Main
And what did we do when we discovered a rift in the fourth dimension? We launched monkeys into it.
Horizontal strips containing headshots of Dwayne Johnson (as Boxer Santaros),
                Seann William Scott (as Roland and Ronald), and Sarah Michelle Gellar (as Krysta).
  • Science Fiction
  • Comedy
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

Darko Family II

S. Darko


Seven years after Donnie Darko’s death, his sister has new adventures in death and time travel, even more artsy than Donnie’s. —Michael Main
It’s like everybody knows everything about me, but I’m invisible at the same time.
A half-shadowed mask of the Darko series
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel