"Back to the Future" 40th Anniversary Retrospective: The World's Most Beloved Movie - For Good Reason

Where we're going, we absolutely need this '80s sci-fi classic.

December 3, 2025

In 1979, Steven Spielberg, hot off the success of Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, tried comedy. The screenplay, written by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale, was criticized as a “nonstop series of climaxes” with “characters who aren’t immediately comic.” Commercially, the film floundered—Spielberg’s first failure and the start of Zemeckis and Gale's struggles.

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The duo, who met at the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts, felt like kindred spirits who defied their classmates’ intellectualism and aspired to make big Hollywood productions. The pair began writing screenplays but found little success in pitching them.

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After Zemeckis’ A Field of Honor won a Student Academy Award, Spielberg learned of the young filmmaker. He produced Zemeckis’ first two films, I Wanna Hold Your Hand and Used Cars, which flopped. Zemeckis and Gale quickly developed a reputation for great screenplays and unsuccessful movies; even with the support of Hollywood’s most bankable director, they were going nowhere fast.

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Then, in 1980, they conceived of a movie about time travel, but struggled to think of a compelling narrative. When Gale visited his parents, he discovered his father’s old school yearbooks and pondered whether they would’ve been friends. He concluded no, but realized time travel would let him know for sure. He shared the idea with Zemeckis, and the pair wrote the first draft. During the development of it and subsequent revisions, they shopped it around.

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No one bought it.

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There were valid reasons for this: in early drafts, Marty’s actions altered the future so much that it became more futuristic. Additionally, the successful comedies of the era were debauched, and Back to the Future’s old-fashionedness seemed commercially unfriendly. Alas, the more pressing issue was Gale and Zemeckis’ lack of commercial viability. The pair needed a hit, or their movie would never get made.

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Then, in 1984, Michael Douglas needed a director for Romancing the Stone, a rom-com adventure he and 20th Century Fox hoped would replicate the success of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Douglas was reluctant to star, having not had a box office hit since The China Syndrome in 1979. The screenplay was written by a waitress from Malibu. It was not to be a collection of reliable stars and revered writers, but a project capitalizing on another film’s success and bringing hit-or-miss characters, whether in practice or principle, along for the ride. It was the perfect chance for Zemeckis to get back behind the lens and make the blockbuster movie he’d dreamed of directing since his days at USC.

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It was a hit, and Hollywood warmed to Zemeckis overnight. He went from box office poison to box office titan. Suddenly, Back to the Future went from a whisper in the wind to an inevitability. It was merely a matter of which studio would make it.

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Embittered by the incessant rejections before Romancing the Stone’s success, Zemeckis turned to Spielberg and his production company, Amblin Entertainment. Spielberg was on board; it was game on.

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Executive Sidney Sheinberg was a hit-or-miss adviser; some of his suggestions, such as changing Marty’s mother’s name from Meg to Lorraine and Professor Brown to Doc Brown, and insisting on making Brown’s pet a dog named Einstein instead of a chimpanzee named Shemp, were gold. Others, like naming the movie Space Man From Pluto, were not. His worst suggestion was casting Eric Stolz due to his performance in Mask. Family Ties star Michael J. Fox was the first choice, the perfect actor to bring Marty’s screwball charisma to life, but NBC was worried about jeopardizing one of their most popular shows, and Fox was not even shown the script.

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The film was getting shot on a tight schedule, so editing ran concurrently with filming. Zemeckis was reluctant to view completed footage, but he knew Stolz's dramatic approach wasn’t working. Stolz insisted on method acting, stayed in character even when not filming, and frequently clashed with cast and crew. Zemeckis implored Sheinberg to do whatever was necessary to secure Fox. Thankfully, Meredith Baxter, who played the mother on Family Ties, had returned from maternity leave, opening the door for NBC to allow Fox to participate. Pulling this off meant Fox worked days on Family Ties and nights for Back to the Future, oftentimes not returning home until very early in the morning. Fox later said that although the demanding schedule was “exhausting,” it was “worth the effort.”

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Every movie requires rewrites, many require recasts, and none of them are linear developments, but Back to the Future is a testament to what can happen in Hollywood when devoted artists, concerned only for the integrity of their work, refuse to compromise or surrender to the hopelessness that wears down so many Hollywood dreamers. The result? A box office megahit and timeless classic that, on its 40th anniversary, feels more important than ever.

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Can you remember the last time the world felt like it was getting brighter by the day, that things were looking up, and everything was destined for a collective good?

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Neither can anyone else. As Frodo Baggins once said, “the days are growing darker,” which is astonishing considering that each day sets a new standard for how grim things can get. The margin between mildly ignorant and unabashed nutjob is razor thin, and as the world plunges deeper into hyperconservatism, it doesn’t appear like there’s much hope. We can’t agree on anything, and oftentimes it feels like people are disagreeing merely for the sake of disagreeing, as though educating oneself might bring about the biblical rapture. Thankfully, there remain a few things on which we can all agree, and thank heavens for that, and by “that,” I mean Back to the Future.

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It begins with Marty McFly, Hollywood’s all-time charisma machine, entering the quirky abode of irreverent scientist Dr. Emmett Brown, one filled with hair-brained inventions of questionable utility and effectiveness, like an automatic dog feeder that’s left a heaping pile of stinking wet food overflowing the bowl of Einstein, Doc’s beloved dog, and an oversized amplifier. After kicking his skateboard and unknowingly hitting a radioactive container beneath a bed, Marty turns his attention to the amp, plugs it in, dials everything up to 11, and accidentally sends himself flying backwards. He gets a call from Doc, realizes he is late for school (again), and takes off to the tune of Huey Lewis and the News’ “The Power of Love.”

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They say a movie needs to get you in the first five minutes. If you’re not instantly sold on these two characters and whatever adventure they plan to take you on, well, that’s on you.

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Of course, the “yous” are few and far between, so what is it that’s collectively captured and held our imagination for the last 40 years? Is it the brilliant tight-rope walk of having Marty’s mother be infatuated with him and his snug Calvin Klein underwear? Is it the irresistible charm of Michael J. Fox and his chemistry with a delightfully zany Christopher Lloyd? Is it the joy of watching a theatrically wimpy Crispin Glover learn to stand up to the big bully? Is it Alan Silvestri’s electrifying score that crescendos the film’s faultlessly constructed action sequences? Is it Marvin Berry and the Starlighters’ rousing rendition of “Earth Angel” that sets the stage for true love’s kiss? Is it the kooky town gatekeeper bellowing “Save the clock tower!” with amateurish flyers in hand?

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Yes. It’s everything. Rare are the things in life that seem to present themselves without fault. People, for example, are deeply flawed and cause immeasurable pain and suffering. Sure, they can also be virtuous and kind and bring great joy and fulfillment, but finding a diamond among the stones can be difficult, especially since so many stones fancy themselves diamonds. Look around: for lack of a more eloquent phrase, the world has gone nucking futs. We’ve plummeted into global political conservatism, and people are baying for blood: the lunatics have truly taken over the asylum.

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It’s become more important than ever that we have something nice. A good thing that no one can take away, not autocratic regimes or intellectually defective bigots or vigilante warriors gunning down admittedly horrible people on city streets or at political rallies. Truthfully, we can’t even count on friends and family; anyone who’s watched their loved ones fall down the MAGA rabbit hole can tell you that.

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But Back to the Future? It’s always been there, and it always will.

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Technically, it’s nearly impossible to criticize. It doesn’t rely on the charisma of its players to carry a middling screenplay; its story is compact and entertaining, each development simply yet perfectly aligned with all that came before. It’s a lightning strike that stopped the clock in 1955, and nearly half an hour later, the payoff comes as Marty and the younger Doc realize that bolt that will power the former’s trip back to the future. Is it the most complex storytelling? No, but it doesn’t need to be.

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Arguably, that’s the film’s most incredible feat. From those who hate movies to blockbuster diehards to arthouse aficionados and everywhere else on the cinematic spectrum, everyone loves Back to the Future. They love its enduring humor, no matter how elementary, like the simple rearranging of letters as George awkwardly attempts to woo Lorraine in the diner. They love it for its nostalgic effects, like when Doc lifts the DeLorean over Marty’s street to fly into the future. Somehow, something has defied even the most cynical observers and become perhaps the one truly universally beloved movie.

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People will always say something they don’t like or understand lacks social utility. Art of any form will be pretentious, sports will be shallow, and let’s not even get into reality TV. But the one thing no one can take away is Back to the Future, a movie that’s as irresistibly fun as it is technically proficient, as of its time as it is timeless, and above all, necessary. If ever there was an argument for the value of art, it’s the movie that takes away all the anguish inflicted by this troubled world we live in, long enough to escape and believe it can be great one day. Perhaps that sounds melodramatic, but much like it’s impossible not to be romantic about baseball, how can you not be melodramatic about movies?

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Is it ironic to speak of Back to the Future like this, considering it came out during the height of rampant conservatism, punctuated by our Republican president’s dismissal of the AIDS crisis? Perhaps. As such, it’s not so much that the movie reminds us of simpler times so much as providing that cinematically timeless quality that speaks to the heart of a person regardless of age, background, or political affiliation. But the fact remains that Marty McFly remains Hollywood’s most lovable movie hero. Christopher Lloyd’s earnestness in embodying all of Doc Brown’s zaniness has made him perhaps the only old man to befriend a teenager and not seem like a creep. The music still sends 1.21 giggawatts of nostalgic glee coursing through our collective veins. We still crave the power of love. We still want to save the clock tower, and who doesn’t wish they had their own DeLorean?

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Back to the Future is, in many ways, more than a movie, and perhaps the only film that can claim itself to have transcended its medium to mean more than what it is in on paper, not just to one individual, to whom any movie, TV show, song, album, book, or painting can accomplish that, but to all of us. We should be grateful for it and reflect on its 40 years fondly, and as a sign that we need 40 more and likely 40 more after that, so that it may provide us a brief escape from the hardships of our individual and collective lives before sending us back to an uncertain future.