What’s Your Favorite “Back to the Future” Movie?

On each evening this past weekend, we watched one of the Back to the Future movies. I’ve seen them several times, of course, but never the entire trilogy over such a short period of time. I’d highly recommend the experience, though, as there are so many callbacks between the three films.

Watching 6 hours of Marty McFly also made me realize that there’s one big callback that doesn’t appear at all in the first movie (unless I missed it): The whole bit about Marty not backing down from being called “chicken” doesn’t start until the second film even though it’s referred to as such a core aspect of his character. I didn’t mind it, as it’s consistent with who Marty is from the beginning, but I’ve never noticed it before.

I was also more impressed than ever by the acting in the films, particularly Marty and Biff. They have to play so many different roles, sometimes the same character at different ages, and sometimes completely different characters in different time periods.

It was fun as always to see how the movie completely misses on its many 2015 predictions. In hindsight, it probably should have skipped ahead another 30 years, but it wouldn’t have worked as well for the other plot points. My favorite miss was the fax machine informing Marty that he’s fired. A fax machine! In 2015!

My favorite moment in all three films is the “Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads” moment/scene at the very end of the first movie. If I had been in the theater in 1985 to see the car lifted off the ground, I think my mind may have literally exploded.

Finally, my favorite film of the three is…the first movie. I think they retain their quality across the trilogy, and I love the future stuff in part 2, but the script hits every beat in the first movie. Though I will say that all three form such a complete package that if I ever rewatch them, I’ll rewatch the entire trilogy, not just one film.

Do you have a favorite film in the series? What’s your favorite moment?