3. Back To The Future (1985)
When viewed through a modern lens, there are few things as quintessentially ’80s as Back to the Future. Ironically, most of the film is actually set in 1955, but we’ll overlook that. Marty McFly in a time-travelling DeLorean has appropriately immortalized the decade in a single visual.
Back to the Future follows Marty McFly as he accidentally travels back 30 years and prevents his parents from meeting. With his very existence hanging in the balance, Marty must play matchmaker to his own parents. It’s such a well-written film that it helped popularize several ideas about time travel, and managed to be relatively free of plot holes. Not bad for a lighthearted sci-fi romp, that’s for sure.
There’s hardly a single aspect of Back to the Future that hasn’t become a part of the fabric of movie folklore. There’s just so much to love: the way its complicated plot feels organically simple, the subtle edge of comedy, the nostalgia-based humor which is now at least second-hand. Everything about Back to the Future is iconic, and it remains one of the best-loved movies of the ’80s.