Back to the Future recap: the story so far

No. 01 · 1985 · Film

Back to the Future recap

In 1985 in Hill Valley, California, seventeen-year-old Marty McFly is friends with the eccentric scientist Doc Brown. His father George is a pushover still bullied by his old classmate Biff Tannen, and his mother Lorraine drinks. Doc shows Marty his time machine, a DeLorean car that travels through time at 88 miles an hour, powered by plutonium he stole from Libyan terrorists. The terrorists find them and shoot Doc, and Marty escapes in the car to November 5, 1955. There, he saves the teenage George from being hit by a car and is hit instead, so Lorraine falls for Marty rather than George. Marty finds the young Doc, who works out that a lightning strike due to hit the town's clock tower on November 12 can power the trip home. Meanwhile, Marty's brother and sister start fading from a family photo, and Marty must get his parents together at the school dance.

How Back to the Future ends

At the dance, Biff attacks Lorraine, and George knocks him out, winning her heart; they kiss, and Marty's family is safe. Marty rides the lightning strike back to 1985, where Doc survives the shooting thanks to a bulletproof vest, having read Marty's warning letter. Marty wakes to find his family transformed: George is a confident author and Biff waxes their cars. Doc then returns from 2015 and urges Marty and Jennifer to come with him to fix a problem with their kids.

Post-credits scenes

No. There is no post-credits scene.

No. 02 · 1989 · Film

Back to the Future Part II recap

Picking up where the first film ends, Doc takes Marty and his girlfriend Jennifer to October 21, 2015, to stop Marty's future son from being arrested after getting mixed up with Biff's grandson Griff. Marty succeeds, escaping Griff on a hoverboard, and buys a sports almanac listing fifty years of results, planning to bet on them, but Doc throws it away. The old Biff overhears, takes the almanac, and borrows the DeLorean to give it to his younger self in 1955. Back in 1985, Marty and Doc find a nightmare version of Hill Valley: Biff became rich by gambling, murdered George, and married Lorraine. Marty and Doc travel to November 12, 1955, the day of the dance from the first film, to take the almanac from the young Biff, while avoiding the earlier Marty and Doc who are also there.

How Back to the Future Part II ends

Marty gets the almanac after a chase and burns it, putting history right. But lightning strikes the DeLorean with Doc inside, and it vanishes. Minutes later, a courier hands Marty a letter that has been waiting seventy years: Doc is alive in 1885. Marty runs to the 1955 Doc, who has just sent the other Marty back to the future, and Doc faints at the sight of him.

Post-credits scenes

No. There is no post-credits scene; before the credits, a preview of Part III plays under the words To be concluded.

No. 03 · 1990 · Film

Back to the Future Part III recap

Picking up straight after Part II, the 1955 Doc reads his own letter from 1885, saying he is happy as a blacksmith and has hidden the DeLorean in a mine for Marty to take home. But Marty finds Doc's gravestone: he was shot in the back by Buford Tannen, an outlaw known as Mad Dog, a few days after the letter was written. Marty travels to 1885 to bring him back, tearing the car's fuel line on arrival. Using the name Clint Eastwood, Marty finds Doc, and they plan to push the DeLorean to 88 miles an hour with a steam locomotive. Doc saves the new schoolteacher, Clara Clayton, from falling into a ravine, and they fall in love. Buford challenges Marty to a gunfight, and Marty has to learn to ignore being called a coward.

How Back to the Future Part III ends

Marty refuses to be goaded into the fight, then beats Buford using a stove plate as armour, and Buford is arrested. Clara reaches the speeding train, Doc rescues her using Marty's hoverboard, and Doc stays in 1885 with her while Marty returns to 1985 and the DeLorean is destroyed by a train. Marty then avoids a car crash that would have ruined his future, and Doc arrives in a flying steam train with Clara and their sons, Jules and Verne, before flying off into time.

Post-credits scenes

No. There is no post-credits scene.

No. 04 · 1991 · Series · optional

Back to the Future: The Animated Series recap

This cartoon picks up after Part III, in its own timeline, in 1991. Doc Brown lives on a farm in Hill Valley with his wife Clara, now a teacher, their sons Jules, a bookish boy who uses big words, and Verne, a popular, adventurous kid in a raccoon-skin cap, and their dog Einstein. Doc has a rebuilt DeLorean that folds into a suitcase and the time-travelling steam train. Marty McFly, now living in the present with his girlfriend Jennifer, joins the family on trips through history. In season 1, the Browns visit eras across the past and the future, usually meeting a Tannen ancestor or descendant who causes trouble, and a McFly relative. Biff Tannen and his son Biff Jr. remain the present-day bullies. Season 2 keeps the same formula of time-travel adventures. Christopher Lloyd appears in live-action scenes at the start and end of each episode as Doc, and Bill Nye performs a science experiment linked to the story.

How Back to the Future: The Animated Series ends

The show ends with the episode Verne Hatches an Egg, in which Verne brings home a dinosaur egg and the family hides the baby brontosaurus that hatches. When Biff and his son capture it and sell it to a scientist, the Browns rescue it and take it back to its mother in prehistoric times. There is no series finale; the show was cancelled after its second season in 1992.