National Film Vault

FILM NOTES

Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment released Back to the Future Part II in November 1989, reuniting director Robert Zemeckis and writer Bob Gale with the cast of their 1985 phenomenon. The sequel expanded the franchise's scope dramatically, sending its characters into a then-distant 2015 and back to the events of the original film. It remains a cultural touchstone for its imaginative production design and its portrait of how audiences once envisioned the near future.

This cell, titled Marty McFly Jr. and Griff, captures the tense confrontation between Marty McFly and the menacing Griff Tannen against the backdrop of Hill Valley's imagined future. Across three nearly identical frames, the standoff holds — Griff looming in his futuristic biker attire as Marty faces him down. The repetition across frames preserves a single charged moment in rare physical form.