A 1995 science fiction film directed by Terry Gilliam, inspired by Chris Marker's 1962 short film La jetée, and starring Bruce Willis, Madeleine Stowe, and Brad Pitt, with Christopher Plummer and David Morse in supporting roles.

After Universal Studios acquired the rights to remake La Jetée as a full-length film, David and Janet Peoples were hired to write the script. Under Terry Gilliam's direction, Universal granted the filmmakers a $29.5 million budget, and filming lasted from February to May 1995. The film was shot mostly in Philadelphia and Baltimore, where the storey was set.

The film was released to critical praise and grossed approximately $168.4 million worldwide. Brad Pitt was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, and won a Golden Globe for his performance. The film also won and was nominated for various categories at the Saturn Awards.

James Cole (Willis) is a convicted criminal living in a grim post-apocalyptic future. In 1996–97, the Earth's surface was contaminated by a virus so deadly that it forced the surviving population to live underground. At some point in the years that followed, scientists have engineered an imprecise form of time travel. To earn a pardon, Cole allows scientists to send him on dangerous missions to the past to collect information on the virus, thought to be released by a terrorist organisation known as the Army of the Twelve Monkeys. If possible, he is to obtain a pure sample of the original virus so a cure can be made. Throughout the film, Cole is troubled with recurring dreams involving a chase and a shooting in an airport.

On Cole's first trip, he arrives in Baltimore in 1990, not 1996 as planned. He is arrested and hospitalised in a mental institution on the diagnosis of Dr. Kathryn Railly (Stowe). There, he encounters Jeffrey Goines (Pitt), a fellow mental patient with fanatical animal rights and anti-consumerist leanings. Cole tries unsuccessfully to leave a voicemail on a number monitored by the scientists in the future. After a failed escape attempt, Cole is restrained and locked in a cell, but then disappears, returning to the future. Back in his own time, Cole is interviewed by the scientists, who play a distorted voice mail message which gives the location of the Army of the Twelve Monkeys and states that they are responsible for the virus. He is also shown photos of numerous people suspected of being involved with the virus, including Goines. The scientists then send him back to 1996.