How to watch Back to the Future: Complete watch order guide

Back to the Future is among the biggest hit films of the 1980s, and unlike many of the movies from its era, the time-traveling adventures of Dr. Emmett Brown (played by Christopher Lloyd) and Marty McFly (played by Michael J. Fox) are still popular today.

The story kicked off in 1985 with the teenage boy Marty accidentally traveling back in time at the hands of his mad scientist friend Doc Brown. With the "highest-grossing film in 1985" success of the first movie came its sequel in 1989, then 1990, an animated series, and more.

As with any time-traveling movie, the trilogy's timeline is all around the place. But because of each movie's connected plot, for anyone planning to binge-watch the sci-fi comedy classic, watching Back to the Future in order of release is the most logical way to do it.

Disclaimer: Spoilers ahead for Back to the Future. Reader's discretion is advised.

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How to watch Back to the Future in order?

Back to the Future movies are full of alternate timelines since much of its plot focuses on time travel. While the changing timelines may be quite a mess at first glance, the movies follow the same general storyline that begins with the plot just where the previous film ended. Hence, the best way to watch the franchise is in order of its release.

1) Back to the Future (1985)

The saga began with Marty McFly, a teenage boy, and his good friend, Dr. Brown, who was well-considered a mad scientist inventing the DeLorean car-shaped plutonium-powered time machine. Marty got sent 30 years into the past accidentally and his adventure in time starts.

Stuck in the past trying to deal with the misfortunes of running into his younger parents and trying to play matchmaker so they would fall in love, get married, and so he could be born, he was also tracking down the younger Doc. He needs to find the scientist and somehow help him make the DeLorean work so he can go back to the present time.

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2) Back to the Future II (1989)

Part 2 follows the continued adventures of Marty and Doc as they use the DeLorean to travel to different timelines. The film starts with Doc coming back from 30 years in the future (2015) and trying to persuade Marty and his girlfriend Jennifer to travel back with him to fix a problem with his kids.

While in 2015 dealing with family issues, Marty bought a Grays Sports Almanac to take back to 1985, which later played a central role in the second installment of Back to the Future. However, it fell into the wrong hands of Old Biff Tannen, who changed the course of history by sending the Almanac to his younger self using the time machine and telling the young Biff to bet on sports events written in it.

To prevent it from happening, Doc and Marty had to travel way back to 1955 and prevent the young Biff from using the Almanac.

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3) Back to the Future III (1990)

In the third and final movie of the franchise, Marty is stranded in 1955 and while there, he receives word from Doc saying that he's in 1885 and has settled down in a small town in the Old West. But when Marty later found out that Doc died shortly after sending him the letter, he bounced back in time to save his friend.

While he is in 1885, Marty finds out that Doc is happy with his life in the past, with the love of his life, Clara, and doesn't want to come back with him in the future. However, incidents forced the two to make the time machine go fast enough so they could go back to the then-present time (1985) as both their lives were being threatened.

It was only Marty who could travel back to 1985, although he reunited with Doc who arrived aboard a giant time-traveling steam train.

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Back to the Future trilogy is available for viewers to watch on streaming platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime in select countries and for sale or rent on YouTube Movies, Google Play, Redbox (US), and more.