36 Years Later, No Sci-Fi Movie Has Topped This Near-Perfect 3-Part Time Travel Series

In 1985, Michael J. Fox was already a household name as the star of the hit TV series Family Ties. Then along came a little movie called Back to the Future. Teamed up with another TV star in Taxi‘s Christopher Lloyd, the duo created magic as cool high schooler Marty McFly and eccentric scientist Emmett “Doc” Brown. Their time travel adventure back to 1955, filled with plenty of action, comedy, and that badass DeLorean, made Back to the Future the highest-grossing movie of the year.

They could have stopped right there with a film passed down over generations, but Fox and Lloyd reunited with director Robert Zemeckis and writer Bob Gale for two sequels, which may not have surpassed what the original created (how could they?!), but became fun classics in their own right. The Back to the Future trilogy is timeless.

Michael J. Fox Wasn’t Supposed To Star in ‘Back to the Future’

Back to the Future had a difficult time getting from page to screen. Initially, studios like Disney were scared of the story of Marty McFly, stuck three decades in the past, where he meets his parents, and his mother, Lorraine (Lea Thompson), falls in love with him. Thankfully, Steven Spielberg stepped in and gave Back to the Future a home with his Amblin Entertainment. Zemeckis and Gale also tightened up their script, with one major change in particular altering everything. In the first draft, the time travel device was going to be stationary and the size of a refrigerator, before they decided to change it to a car. This made Back to the Future come to life. Now, in the form of a sporty DeLorean, the film was movable and had more energy. This wasn’t another hokey, 50s sci-fi type time travel flick. Back to the Future was an action movie!

As great as the script was, the film still nearly fell apart during filming. Eric Stoltz was initially cast as Marty, but his darker, more dramatic take on the role led to a tone that didn’t feel right. Enter Michael J. Fox, the cool but down-to-earth kid. Fox played Marty with a lightness that switched up the entire tone of Back to the Future. Now, despite the high stakes, it was fun. And it was just the beginning.

‘Back to the Future Part II’ Showed a Complex Vision of 2015

After trying to figure out how to approach a sequel, Zemeckis and Gale settled on the obvious: if Back to the Future went 30 years into the past, Back to the Future Part II had to go 30 years into the future. Rather than seeing where we’d been, the film showed the audience where we could be going. The plot itself, of Marty going to the future, on purpose this time, to stop his son from going to prison, is arguably not as exciting, but Back to the Future Part II makes up for this with its intricate layers.

The 2015 setting is filled with futuristic scenes that seemed a bit out there in 1989. As the world closed in on the real 2015, though, we got to see just how many things the sequel got right, from flat-screen TVs, video calls, and drones, to a baseball team existing in Miami and pop culture being obsessed with the 80s.

Instead of staying there, Back to the Future II pushed it by also going back to the alternate 1955, which meant not only a complex plot, but a complex style of shooting that had characters from different eras running into themselves. The sequel made history with this through the invention of the Vista Glide, allowing an actor to be on the screen in multiple roles at the same time. The new technology even earned Back to the Future Part II an Academy Award nomination for Best Visual Effects.

‘Back to the Future Part III’ Was a Fun Western With a Fitting Ending

Back to the Future Part II was filmed back-to-back with 1990’s Back to the Future Part III. For the finale, the stakes are raised as high as they can go. With Doc Brown accidentally sent back to 1885, Marty learns that Doc will be murdered. Now he must go back to the 19th century, rescue his friend, and get back home in time. To make matters worse, the DeLorean is damaged and has no way to get back up to 88 miles per hour on its own.

Back to the Future Part III is a fun Western, a loving tribute to the past, which includes Marty calling himself Clint Eastwood. As popular as the franchise was, the third film could have let the new setting be enough for originality and simply repeated itself. Zemeckis and Gale weren’t interested in that. Yes, familiar beats are there and need to be. Thomas F. Wilson is one of the all-time great movie villains as both the young Biff Tannen in 1955 and the Donald Trump-like casino owner in the alternate 2015. He had to be the bad guy again, and kills it in Back to the Future III as Buford “Mad Dog” Tannen. But the last film also adds a romance subplot for Doc in the form of school teacher Clara Clayton (Mary Steenburgen), which creates more drama: will Doc go back home or stay in another century for love?

Back to the Future Part III brings it all home with a perfectly fitting ending. Marty is home, and his life has improved. Doc Brown has found love and a family. And the DeLorean is destroyed, ending any chance of a fourth movie. Zemeckis and Gale knew to end the adventure on a high note. Audiences didn’t need more sequels. We’d be more than happy enough to watch the Back to the Future trilogy over and over again for decades to come.

The Back to the Future trilogy is available to rent or buy on VOD services.