Timecop is a 1994 science-fiction thriller film directed by Peter Hyams and co-written by Mike Richardson and Mark Verheiden. Richardson was also executive producer. The film is based on Time Cop, a story written by Verheiden and drawn by Phil Hester and Chris Warner which appeared in the anthology comic Dark Horse Comics, published by Dark Horse Comics.

The film stars Jean-Claude Van Damme as a U.S. Federal agent in the late 1990s and early 2000s (decade), when time travel is possible. It also stars Ron Silver as a rogue politician and Mia Sara as the agent's wife. The story follows an interconnected web of episodes in the agent's life (or perhaps lives) as he fights time-travel crime and investigates the politician's unusually successful career.

Timecop remains Van Damme's highest grossing film (breaking the $100,000,000 barrier for a worldwide gross). It was also regarded as one of Van Damme's better films by critics who usually derided his acting ability.

In 1863, gold bullion is stolen from Confederate soldiers by a highwayman using machine pistols. Then, 131 years later, the U.S. government creates the Time Enforcement Commission (TEC) to combat misuse of the new discovery of time travel, after discovering that the same gold bullion was used in a recent arms purchase. Senator Aaron McComb (Silver) volunteers to oversee the commission, and shortly afterward, police officer Max Walker (Van Damme) is offered a job as a TEC agent. Later that evening, Max is attacked by intruders at his suburban home and his wife Melissa (Sara) is killed in an explosion.

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects. The process of filmmaking has developed into an art form and industry.

Films are cultural artifacts created by specific cultures, which reflect those cultures, and, in turn, affect them. Film is considered to be an important art form, a source of popular entertainment and a powerful method for educating – or indoctrinating – citizens. The visual elements of cinema give motion pictures a universal power of communication. Some films have become popular worldwide attractions by using dubbing or subtitles that translate the dialogue into the language of the viewer.

Films are made up of a series of individual images called frames. When these images are shown rapidly in succession, a viewer has the illusion that motion is occurring. The viewer cannot see the flickering between frames due to an effect known as persistence of vision, whereby the eye retains a visual image for a fraction of a second after the source has been removed. Viewers perceive motion due to a psychological effect called beta movement.

Ronald Arthur "Ron" Silver (July 2, 1946 – March 15, 2009) was an American actor, director, producer, radio host and political activist.

Silver was born in New York City, the son of May (née Zimelman), a substitute teacher, and Irving Roy Silver, a clothing sales executive. Silver was raised Jewish on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and attended The East Side Hebrew Institute ("ESHI") and then Stuyvesant High School.

He went on to graduate from SUNY at Buffalo with a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish and Chinese, and received a Master's Degree in Chinese History from St. John's University in New York and the College of Chinese Culture in Taiwan. He also attended Columbia University's Graduate School of International Affairs and studied acting at the Herbert Berghof Studio.^{[citation needed]}

Silver made his stage debut starring in El Grande de Coca Cola in 1974. Producers Richard Flanzer and Roy Silver (no relation) opened it at the famed Whiskey A Go Go on the Sunset Strip in L.A. The production ran for more than a year. Silver and his co-star, actor Jeff Goldblum, were discovered by Hollywood Film Agents during this show's historic run.