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Back to the Future poster

Movies that feel likeBack to the Future (1985)

Eighties teenager Marty McFly is accidentally sent back in time to 1955, inadvertently disrupting his parents' first meeting and attracting his mother's romantic interest. Marty must repair the damage to history by rekindling his parents' romance and - with the help of his eccentric inventor friend Doc Brown - return to 1985.

If you loved Back to the Future, the closest films we have are Hot Tub Time Machine (2010), Barbarella (1968) and Ivan Vasilyevich Changes His Profession (1973). All three share Back to the Future's witty and playful feel, which is what we rank on before quality.

Seen the big three already? The under-the-radar pick below is Used Cars (1980).

🍅 93% Rotten Tomatoes★ 8.5 IMDb ↗TMDB ↗dir. Robert Zemeckisepicwittyplayfulcerebral
8 of 12 streaming nowNetflix · Amazon Prime Video · Disney Plus

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If Back to the Future hit the spot, these will too

Looking for the series itself? Also in this series: Back to the Future Part II (1989) · Back to the Future Part III (1990)

Hot Tub Time Machine poster
Hot Tub Time Machine
2010 · dir. Steve Pink
🍅 64%★ 6.4science fiction · comedy · adventure

Grown men redoing the 80s and fumbling the butterfly effect

The difference: Raunchy and crude — nostalgia with a hangover, not heart

Four pals are stuck in a rut in adulthood: Adam has just been dumped, Lou is a hopeless party animal, Nick is a henpecked husband, and Jacob does nothing but play video games in his basement. But they get a chance to brighten their future by changing their past after a night of heavy drinking in a ski-resort hot tub results in their waking up in 1986.

Barbarella poster
Barbarella
1968 · dir. Roger Vadim
🍅 64%★ 5.9science fiction · adventure · comedy

Epic and witty in the same breath

The difference: The critics' underdog of the pair

In the far future, a highly sexual woman is tasked with finding and stopping the evil Durand-Durand. Along the way she encounters various unusual people.

Ivan Vasilyevich Changes His Profession poster
Ivan Vasilyevich Changes His Profession
1973 · dir. Leonid Gaidai
★ 8.2comedy · science fiction

A tinkerer's time machine misfires into history with farcical fallout

The difference: Soviet-era farce — broad role-swap comedy, subtitles required

A scientist builds a time machine and accidentally sends his apartment complex manager and a petty burglar to 16th century Moscow, while Tsar Ivan the Terrible travels to 1973.

Paul poster
Paul
2011 · dir. Greg Mottola
🍅 70%★ 6.9adventure · comedy · science fictionPeacock

Affectionate genre comedy built by people who love the classics

The difference: An alien road trip running on references

For the past 60 years, a space-traveling smart-ass named Paul has been locked up in a top-secret military base, advising world leaders about his kind. But when he worries he’s outlived his usefulness and the dissection table is drawing uncomfortably close, Paul escapes on the first RV that passes by his compound in Area 51. Fortunately, it contains the two earthlings who are most likely to rescue and harbor an alien on the run.

The Adam Project poster
The Adam Project
2022 · dir. Shawn Levy
🍅 68%★ 6.7adventure · science fiction · comedyNetflix

Time travel as a machine for father-son reconciliation

The difference: Streaming-era gloss, the wonder secondhand

After accidentally crash-landing in 2022, time-traveling fighter pilot Adam Reed teams up with his 12-year-old self on a mission to save the future.

Free Guy poster
Free Guy
2021 · dir. Shawn Levy
🍅 80%★ 7.1comedy · adventure · science fictionDisney+

High-concept comedy where an ordinary guy bends his world's rules

The difference: Video-game reality instead of a time-traveling DeLorean

A bank teller discovers he is actually a background player in an open-world video game, and decides to become the hero of his own story. Now, in a world where there are no limits, he is determined to be the guy who saves his world his way before it's too late.

Men in Black poster
Men in Black
1997 · dir. Barry Sonnenfeld
🍅 91%★ 7.3action · adventure · comedyParamount+

Zippy sci-fi comedy with perfect chemistry and gadgets

The difference: Buddy-cop aliens, no timeline to fix

After a police chase with an otherworldly being, a New York City cop is recruited as an agent in a top-secret organization established to monitor and police alien activity on Earth: the Men in Black. Agent K and new recruit Agent J find themselves in the middle of a deadly plot by an intergalactic terrorist who has arrived on Earth to assassinate two ambassadors from opposing galaxies.

Sexmission poster
Sexmission
1984 · dir. Juliusz Machulski
★ 7.5science fiction · adventure · comedy

Men wake up in a future gone wrong and scramble to set things right

The difference: A Polish dystopian satire — its gender politics have aged rough

Two scientists are chosen as guinea pigs for a time experiment: they are placed in hibernation and should be brought back to life after three years. In the meantime, however, World War III breaks out and life has been wiped off the surface of Earth. When they wake up, it turns out that not only 50 years have passed but also that they are the only living specimens of the male sex in a new, underground society composed exclusively of women.

The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special poster
🍅 95%★ 6.9comedy · science fiction · adventureDisney+

Both land play and ideas at once

The difference: Made in the 2020s, in a different era of the craft

On a mission to make Christmas unforgettable for Quill, the Guardians head to Earth in search of the perfect present.

Used Cars poster
Used Cars
1980 · dir. Robert Zemeckis
🍅 77%★ 6.7comedyPrime Video

Zemeckis before the gloss — same motor, cruder and meaner

The difference: Crass adult comedy with no warmth to fall back on

When the owner of a struggling used car lot is killed, it's up to the lot's hot-shot salesman to save the property from falling into the hands of the owner's ruthless brother and used-car rival.

Thor: Ragnarok poster
Thor: Ragnarok
2017 · dir. Taika Waititi
🍅 93%★ 7.9action · adventure · comedyDisney+

Crowd-pleasing spectacle that leads with jokes and heart

The difference: Cosmic superhero camp, no hometown stakes

Thor is imprisoned on the other side of the universe and finds himself in a race against time to get back to Asgard to stop Ragnarok, the destruction of his home-world and the end of Asgardian civilization, at the hands of a powerful new threat, the ruthless Hela.

Galaxy Quest poster
Galaxy Quest
1999 · dir. Dean Parisot
🍅 90%★ 7.4comedy · science fiction · adventureParamount+

Affectionate genre play where ordinary people rise to sci-fi heroics

The difference: Parody first — it spoofs the stars instead of chasing wonder

For four years, the courageous crew of the NSEA Protector — Commander Peter Quincy Taggart, Lieutenant Tawny Madison, and Doctor Lazarus — set off on a thrilling and often dangerous mission in space... until their series was cancelled! Now, twenty years later, aliens under attack have mistaken the Galaxy Quest television transmissions for "historical documents" and beam up the crew of has-been actors to save the universe. With no script, no director, and no clue, the actors must turn in the performances of their lives.

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The best-reviewed films that share Back to the Future’s defining feeling.