Monnitoff gives Donnie The Philosophy of Time Travel, a book written by Roberta Sparrow, a former science teacher at the school who is now a seemingly senile old woman living outside of town, known to the local teenagers as Grandma Death.

Cunningham is arrested, and Kitty, who wishes to testify in his defense, asks Rose to chaperone their daughters' dance troupe on its trip to Los Angeles.

There, he watches as the plane carrying Rose and the dance troupe home from Los Angeles gets caught in the vortex's wake, violently ripping off one of its engines and sending it back in time.

[14][11] The New York Times homed in on the 1980s coming-of-age story aspect by observing the influence of John Hughes, noting the "ineffectual" adults and the fact that Donnie's "suffering is a way to make him more sensitive".

[16] He recalled a news story that he had read as a child, which he later called an urban legend,[17] about a large piece of ice falling from the wing of a plane and crashing through a boy's bedroom, who was not there at the time and thus escaped death.

He then built the rest of the script with the aim of resolving the mystery at the end while taking a "most interesting voyage" to get there, although at this point he knew the plane was to be one that Donnie's mother was on and was from a different dimension.

Kelly grew up in Midlothian, Virginia, also a suburban town, where a local woman called Grandma Death would stand by the road and constantly open and close her mailbox.

[26] The novel was to be taught in Karen's English class after the school had censored Graham Greene from her curriculum; it was a subplot that was abandoned in the theatrical version but included in the director's cut.

[11] A turning point arrived when agents John Campisi and Rob Paris at the Creative Artists Agency took an interest in the script and signed Kelly on.

Around this time Pandora Cinema offered a $2.5 million production budget, and Schwartzman's agent sent the script to Nancy Juvonen, who co-owned Flower Films with actress Drew Barrymore.

[12] The long shots at the school with "Head Over Heels" playing angered the production and line managers at first, who thought it was "an indulgent music video" that lacked dialogue and did nothing to advance the story.

[16] Sparkle Motion's performance scene was one of the more difficult shots for Poster, who used smoke to give the appearance that light is there and to achieve silhouettes of the girls on stage.

[37] Early on Kelly made a promise to Sam Bauer that he would edit his first feature film when he had the opportunity, but Pandora Cinema disagreed with the choice initially.

[46] The film's end sequence features a piano-driven cover of "Mad World" by English new wave group Tears for Fears, sung by American musician Gary Jules, a schoolfriend of Andrews.

[48] Donnie firing a gun became one of Kelly's biggest problems while finding a distributor, as the Columbine High School massacre from 1999 raised concerns of the film promoting teenage suicide.

[19] Kelly credits Christopher Nolan and his wife Emma Thomas in securing the deal, after Memento producer Aaron Ryder arranged a private screening of Donnie Darko for Newmarket executives Chris Ball and Will Tyrer and encouraged the pair to distribute it.

[19] This involved an additional day of shooting to clarify some plot holes, such as Ryder's suggestion of including shots of Frank in the "Mad World" sequence.

[50] The film was released six weeks after the September 11 attacks and its trailer featured an accident involving an aircraft, which affected its chances of box office success.

Following its release on home video in March 2002, the Pioneer Theatre in New York City began midnight screenings of Donnie Darko that ran for 28 consecutive months.

[47] Its UK distributor Metrodome Distribution organised They Made Me Do It, an art exhibition that ran for 28 days at cafe bar Dream Bags Jaguar Shoes in Shoreditch, London.

The full shooting script of the film is included, plus several pages from The Philosophy of Time Travel and photographs and concept sketches such as Frank's mask and slides from Cunningham's school presentation.

In December 2016, Arrow Films released a limited edition Blu-ray and DVD set in the UK, taken from a new 4K scan of the original print, and supervised and approved by Kelly.

In April 2021, Arrow Films released a two-disc Ultra HD Blu-ray box set containing both cuts in 4K resolution restorations from the original negatives, supervised by Kelly and Poster.

[57][58] The idea to produce a director's cut of the film originated in late 2003, when Kelly and Berney attended the first-anniversary screening at the Pioneer Theatre in New York City.

[47] Donnie Darko: The Director's Cut premiered on May 29, 2004, at the Seattle International Film Festival, followed by screenings in New York City and Los Angeles on July 23.

The DVD of the Director's Cut includes text of the in-universe book, The Philosophy of Time Travel, written by Roberta Sparrow, which Donnie is given and reads in the film.

[67] Jean Oppenheimer of New Times (LA) praised the film, saying, "Like gathering storm clouds, Donnie Darko creates an atmosphere of eerie calm and mounting menace—[and] stands as one of the most exceptional movies of 2001.

"[68] Writing for ABC Australia, Megan Spencer called the movie "menacing, dreamy and exciting" and noted "it could take you to a deeply emotional place lying dormant in your soul".

[71] Another review from the San Antonio Current lauds the build-up, citing vast build of mysteries with compelling characters, but claims the movie's ending "leaves much to be desired", calling it cheap and anti-climactic.

"[87] Marcus Stern, associate director of the American Repertory Theater, directed a stage adaptation of Donnie Darko at the Zero Arrow Theatre, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the fall of 2007.