Back to the Future Opens

Setting the scene

Mid-1980s Hollywood was dominated by youth-oriented adventure after Indiana Jones and Ghostbusters, and time-travel comedies had mostly flopped or stayed niche. Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale had shopped their script for years; Disney rejected it as too incestuous when Marty McFly's mother falls for him in 1955. Steven Spielberg's Amblin finally backed the project after Zemeckis's success on Romancing the Stone.

What happened

Back to the Future opened nationwide on July 3, 1985, starring Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly and Christopher Lloyd as eccentric inventor Doc Brown. The DeLorean DMC-12, flux capacitor, and 1.21 gigawatts sent Marty from 1985 Hill Valley to a greaser-era town where he must reunite his parents or vanish from existence. Alan Silvestri's score and Huey Lewis's The Power of Love anchored a tightly paced 116-minute ride.

Why it still matters

The film grossed nearly $390 million worldwide, spawned two sequels, a cartoon, and a theme-park ride, and made the DeLorean an icon despite the car company's bankruptcy. Its clock-tower climax became shorthand for perfect third-act structure in screenwriting classes. Memorable detail: Eric Stoltz was originally cast as Marty and filmed for weeks before Fox, still working Family Ties, replaced him and reshaped the comedy's rhythm.

Background

Zemeckis and Gale's comedy launched a trilogy and endless flux-capacitor jokes.