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Back to the Future backdrop
Back to the Future poster

Back to the Future

“He was never in time for his classes... He wasn't in time for his dinner... Then one day... he wasn't in his time at all.”

8.3
1985
1h 56m
AdventureComedyScience Fiction
Director: Robert Zemeckis

Overview

Eighties teenager Marty McFly is accidentally sent back in time to 1955, inadvertently disrupting his parents' first meeting and attracting his mother's romantic interest. Marty must repair the damage to history by rekindling his parents' romance and - with the help of his eccentric inventor friend Doc Brown - return to 1985.

Trailer

40th Anniversary Trailer Official

Cast

Reviews

AI-generated review
TheClockwork Heart of Nostalgia

Time travel in cinema is rarely about physics; it is almost always about regret. We visit the past to fix the unfixable, to say the words left unspoken, or to kill the dictator in the crib. But in Robert Zemeckis’s *Back to the Future* (1985), time travel serves a far more domestic, yet strangely more complex purpose: the reconstruction of the American nuclear family. Beneath its popcorn-blockbuster veneer and the stainless-steel skin of its DeLorean, the film operates as a sophisticated, if occasionally troubling, negotiation between the cynical materialism of the 1980s and the dreamlike, manufactured innocence of the 1950s.

Marty McFly looking at the DeLorean

Zemeckis, a director often unfairly pigeonholed as a mere technician, displays here a visual discipline that rivals Hitchcock. Consider the opening sequence: a long, uninterrupted pan across a clutter of ticking clocks in Doc Brown’s lab. It is a masterclass in visual exposition, establishing the film’s obsession with time not just as a mechanic, but as a predator. The absence of a human presence in this opening, coupled with the Rube Goldberg machinery making breakfast for a ghost, suggests a world where technology has outpaced humanity—a fitting prologue for a film that ultimately argues we must go backward to move forward. Zemeckis frames his shots with a dense, kinetic energy; the camera is rarely still, mirroring the frantic, skateboard-fueled momentum of Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox).

The film’s central tension—and its most enduring controversy—lies in its Oedipal entanglements. It is a narrative tightrope walk that few other directors could survive. When Marty arrives in 1955, he doesn’t just disrupt the space-time continuum; he disrupts the sexual trajectory of his own lineage. The film’s "meet-cute" is a meet-mother, where Lorraine (Lea Thompson) transfers her romantic fixation from her future husband to her future son.

Marty playing guitar at the enchantment under the sea dance

While often played for laughs, this dynamic underscores the film’s deeper anxiety about the fragility of identity. Marty is fighting for his right to exist, yes, but he is also acting as the architect of his parents' better selves. He is the child raising the parent, a fantasy that resonates deeply with anyone who has ever looked at their mother or father and wondered, "Who were you before the weight of the world settled on your shoulders?"

However, the film’s resolution betrays a distinctly Reagan-era ethos. The "happy ending" isn't just that Marty’s family is intact; it’s that they are wealthy, thin, and socially dominant. The father, George (Crispin Glover), transforms from a sensitive, bullied writer into a confident yuppie author. The message is subtly corrosive: the value of self-actualization is measured in material success and the ability to bully the bully. The "better" 1985 is one where the McFlys have simply ascended the capitalist ladder.

Doc Brown and Marty with the DeLorean

Yet, *Back to the Future* transcends its own political confusedness through the sheer charm of its performances and the tightness of its script. It remains a perfect narrative machine, a Swiss watch of setups and payoffs where every line of dialogue in the first act becomes a plot point in the third. It captures a specific moment in American culture where we desperately wanted to believe that the past was a fixable thing, that mistakes could be erased, and that if we just hit 88 miles per hour, we could outrun our own mediocrity.

Clips (5)

Meet Marty McFly - Extended Preview

See You in 30 Years!

Opening Scene in 4K Ultra HD | Marty McFly Is Just Too Darn Loud

The Very First DeLorean Time Travel Scene

Marty McFly Plays "Johnny B. Goode" and "Earth Angel"

Featurettes (25)

Back to Hill Valley - Bonus Feature

Bob Gale, Dean Cundey & Charlie Croughwell Reflect on BACK TO THE FUTURE | TCMFF 2025

Breaking Down the First Scene | Bonus Feature Spotlight

Back In Time - Eric Stoltz Was Marty McFly

Dolt in Style

Universal Characters

Johnny B. Goode

Michael J. Fox

The Score

Special Effects

Who's the President

The Delorean

Back to the Future Wins Sound Effects Editing: 1986 Oscars

Press Conference - Michael J. Fox

Press Conference - Challenges

Press Conference - Huey Lewis

Press Conference - Cast Favorite Quotes

Press Conference - Michael & Lea

Press Conference - Michael & Lea II

Press Conference - Robert Zemeckis

Press Conference - Cast Props

Press Conference- Fondest Memories

Back to the Future | TCM Trivia

Cuba Gooding, Jr. On BACK TO THE FUTURE

Michael J. Fox On BACK TO THE FUTURE

Behind the Scenes (8)

BTS: Casting Crispin

BTS: Casting Lea

BTS: Test Screenings

BTS: A Huge Hit

BTS: Casting Tom Wilson

BTS: Christopher Lloyd

BTS: Michael as Marty

BTS: "Germ Of The Idea"

Bloopers (1)

BTS: Gag Reel

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