The only movie so beloved that four streaming platforms are giving it away for Christmas isn't 'Home Alone': 'It couldn't even be made today'

The list of Christmas movies grows by dozens of titles every year, but most of them are weak productions that many will probably not remember in a year. As in other years, HotNews.ro brings to attention a film that is worth seeing during the winter holidays, even if its theme is not necessarily related to Christmas. For 2025, we have chosen a classic of cinematography, which in 2025 turned four decades after its release.

• The first movie Back to the Future can be seen streaming on Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+ and SkyShowtime, and the latter two platforms currently have all 3 feature films of the trilogy in their cinematheque.

“Back to the Futurereleased 40 years ago, is at once completely anchored in its era and completely timeless. It was a huge box office hit, set a benchmark for time travel movies, and was cited by everyone from President Ronald Reagan to Avengers: Endgame. It is probably a perfect film, without a false note or a scene out of place, a fantastic fable, endlessly watchable”, noted The Guardian in an article about the film published exactly 4 decades after its release in cinemas.

The public in Romania could see it after the fall of communism under the title Back to the futureand now it can be seen streaming on no less than 4 of the 5 major platforms available in our country: Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video and SkyShowtime. It's probably the only classic film so prized that so many rival companies would pay for the licensing rights.

Bob Gale, one of the screenwriters of the feature film, said in an interview with The Guardian that everything fell into place at the right time, including the relationship between the young Marty (played by Michael J Fox) and the eccentric scientist Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd). Now 74, Gale believes that “the film couldn't even be made today.”

“We'd go into the studio and they'd be like, 'What's with this relationship between Marty and Doc?'. They'd start playing pedophilia or something. There'd be a lot of things they'd have a problem with,” says the filmmaker who worked on both the first film Back to the Future from 1985, as well as the two sequels that followed in 1989 and 1990.

One of the most beloved films in history has been rejected dozens of times

Gale had met the film's director, Robert Zemeckis, at the USC School of Cinema in 1972, and together they had sold several television scripts to Universal Studios, attracting the attention of Steven Spielberg and John Milius. Gale and Zemeckis, who had already collaborated on 3 feature films, had always wanted to make a time travel film, but had not found the right idea. Then Gale had the idea that set things in motion.

“I put the time travel story on the back burner until I found my dad's high school yearbook and boom, it hit me and I was like, 'Huh, that would be cool: a kid goes back in time and goes to high school with his dad!'”

Gale and Zemeckis pitched the script over 40 times over 4 years, but the studios deemed it too risky or too bold. It was Spielberg who saw their potential and proposed that the two join them as producers. After Zemeckis had a hit with the film Romancing the Stone from 1984, the Universal studio also approved the project for which he received so many rejections.

The character Doc Brown was inspired by Gale's childhood neighbor, a photographer who showed him the “magic” of camera obscura development, and a US educational TV show called Mr Wizardwhich demonstrated scientific principles. Then Christopher Lloyd came along and added an interpretation based partly on Albert Einstein, partly on the British conductor Leopold Stokowski.

'Back to the Future' Feature Films Begin Filming With Another Actor as 'Marty'

But the movies Back to the Future as we know them could look quite different. Sidney Sheinberg, a Universal executive who had backed Spielberg and pitched the film Jaws in the production, he had requested and obtained the young American actor Eric Stoltz to be cast in the lead role of Marty McCfly.

After only a few weeks of filming it became apparent that Stoltz's serious tone wasn't working. “He wasn't giving us the kind of humor that we thought the character should have. He actually thought the movie was a tragedy because he ends up in a 1985 where a lot of his life is different,” screenwriter Gale recounted.

Ultimately, it fell to director Zemeckis to tell Stoltz that his services were no longer needed. His sudden departure came as a shock to the rest of the cast. “It was terrible. He was my friend and obviously a great actor. Everyone wants to think that making a movie is fun and that we're laughing for 14 hours in the middle of a street somewhere,” said actress Lea Thompson, who played Marty's mother Lorraine in the film.

Stoltz was replaced by another young actor, from Canada, whom Zemeckis and Gale wanted from the beginning: Michael J. Fox. The change meant that several scenes had to be reshot, but the rest is history. His overflowing charm, energy and comic timing, including improvisations, were the missing piece of the puzzle.

Reagan cited the film in his “State of the Nation” address

Back to the Future was the biggest blockbuster of the year, grossing over $200 million in the US, a huge amount for the time, and entering mainstream culture. When Doc asks Marty who is president in 1985, Marty replies, “Ronald Reagan,” and Brown says in disbelief, “Ronald Reagan? The actor? So who's the vice president? [Actorul și comediantul] Jerry Lewis?”.

Reagan, an avid moviegoer and former successful actor, was so amused by the joke that he asked the projectionist in the small movie theater in the East Wing of the White House to stop the film and run the scene. He ended up mentioning Back to the Future and to quote the line “Where we go, we need no roads” in his 1986 State of the Nation address.

The film ends with Doc taking Marty and his girlfriend, Jennifer, into the DeLorean and taking off into the sky. But Gale pointed out that the “to come” message was only added for the videotape release as a way to announce a sequel, not being present in the original theatrical release.

Back to the Future Part IIreleased 4 years later, brought back most of the lead actors. The third film, which came out in 1990, was released just a year before Michael J. Fox was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.

All three “Back to the Future” movies can be seen streaming

Fox revealed his diagnosis in 1998 and became a major campaigner for research and awareness of the disease. He continued to act, but most of his roles were in small-scale films or cameo appearances in popular series like Scrubs, The Good Wife and Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Fox announced his retirement from acting in 2020 and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States' highest civilian honor, 3 years later. He published in October of this year a biographical book entitled “Future Boy”, about the period in which he shot his first feature film Back to the Future simultaneously with the series Family Ties very popular in the USA.

As for Christopher Lloyd, the movies Back to the Future they made him a pop culture icon, and he continues to star at the age of 87 in Hollywood-produced movies and TV shows, though he's never quite enjoyed the success of his 80s feature films.