Back to the Future

40 Years

Two major cinematic legacies were forged here. One is obviously Michael J. Fox, whose transition from TV star to movie star was meteoric. The other though was director Robert Zemeckis. While Zemeckis had already directed at least one box office hit with Romancing the Stone, Back to the Future gave him the freedom to pursue some of the most ambitious blockbuster movies ever made.

Sure, that freedom led Zemeckis to do his damnedest to tarnish his legacy with motion-capture abominations in the 2000s and 2010s, but before that,t we got some truly great films like Who Framed Roger Rabbit too.