National Film Vault

FILM NOTES

Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment released Back to the Future Part II in November 1989, arriving with enormous anticipation as the direct continuation of Robert Zemeckis's 1985 original. The film expanded the franchise's temporal scope dramatically, sending its characters into a then-distant 2015 before pivoting to an alternate 1985. Shot on 35mm by Dean Cundey, it remains a landmark of practical and optical effects work from Hollywood's pre-digital era.

This three-frame sequence, titled DeLorean, captures the iconic time machine in a low-angle night composition, its headlight and wheel hub filling the foreground against a wet surface. The progression across frames suggests either motion or a rapid editorial cut, and the circular light trail visible in the third frame points to one of the film's signature time-travel optical effects rendered in-camera on original 35mm stock.