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 blockbuster. Shooting on 35mm, the production pushed practical and optical effects to their limits to realize a vision of 2015 that became one of cinema's most referenced futures. The film grossed over $330 million worldwide and remains a touchstone of late-eighties Hollywood filmmaking.

This cell captures Marty McFly in close-up, his gaze directed upward, face illuminated from above against a background of blue and yellow display screens consistent with the film's futuristic interior environments. The frame repeats across three identical exposures, a natural artifact of 35mm printing that gives collectors multiple views of this single held moment.