Back to the Future

Released: July 3, 1985

Studio: Universal

Genre: sci-fi

Box Office (numbers in millions):

Domestic: 210.60 Worldwide: 170.50

Adjusted for Inflation:

Domestic: 581.21 Worldwide: 960.40

Directing: Robert Zemeckis

Screenwriting: Bob Gale, Robert Zemeckis

Starring: Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover

Review:

Director Robert Zemeckis “shows not only a fine comic touch but also some of the lighthearted humanism of a Frank Capra. The movie, in fact, resembles Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life more than other, conventional time-travel movies. It’s about a character who begins with one view of his life and reality, and is allowed, through magical intervention, to discover another.” ^RE

Back to the Future “manages to be timeless despite being so rooted in, well, time.” ^EM’18 It “blends equal parts hilarity, nostalgia, …screwball comedy, and white-knuckle suspense in a complex storyline wound tighter than a yo-yo in a centrifuge.” ^DF It is “part science-fiction caper, part generational culture-clash movie, [and] part weirdo family drama.” ^EM’18 The latter owes itself to complications that ensue when the movie’s star, Marty McFly (Fox), has to fend off the advances of his own mother when he travels back in time.

As Marty, Fox gives a “physical and comedically deft performance.” ^DF He is aided by “crazy scientist Doc Brown,” ^AFI07 played hilariously by Christopher Lloyd “in an Einstein-esque fright wig.” ^DF Marty accidentally travels back in time from 1985 to 1955 in Doc Brown’s time machine which he made out of a DeLorean. Marty has to set things right after accidentally mangling the moment when his parents fell in love.