Ten questions on Marty, Doc and Hill Valley, then a hard mode for the freeze-framers.
10 questions on Marty, Doc, Hill Valley, the music and the lines everyone still quotes.
Pick your level
The normal quiz covers what sticks after a first viewing: the characters, the town, the music at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance and the lines everyone still quotes. If you can hum the theme, you can probably get most of it right.
Hard mode is for the repeat viewers. It goes after the background details of all three films: the second dog, the alias Marty picks in the Old West, the 2015 that Part II imagined, and the casting change that made headlines. Five out of ten there is a respectable score.
Bob Gale had the idea while visiting his parents in St. Louis, where he found his father's high school yearbook. Looking at the young man on the page, he wondered whether he would have been friends with him if they had gone to school together. The whole film grows out of that question.
The studios were not convinced. The script was turned down again and again, too gentle for some and too risqué for others, until Robert Zemeckis had a hit with Romancing the Stone and could finally get it made.
Part II sent Marty to the future, and for a quarter of a century fans kept a list of what it got right. Video calls, flat screens on the wall and fingerprint payments arrived more or less on time. Flying cars and the hoverboard did not.
Hard mode includes a few questions on that imagined future, and on the details of 1885 in Part III.
All ten easy level questions, with the answer and the reasoning behind it.
Correct answer: A DeLorean
A DeLorean DMC-12. Doc says its stainless steel body helps with the flux dispersal, and that if you are going to build a time machine, you may as well do it with some style.
Correct answer: 88 mph
88 miles per hour. That's when you see some serious stuff.
Correct answer: Michael J. Fox
Michael J. Fox, who was shooting the sitcom Family Ties at the same time.
Correct answer: 1955
1955, the year his parents fell in love.
Correct answer: Chicken
Chicken. It gets him into trouble in the second and third films.
Correct answer: They lace themselves
They lace themselves, and Nike eventually made a real version.
Correct answer: Huey Lewis and the News
Huey Lewis and the News, whose song earned an Oscar nomination.
Correct answer: A photograph
A family photograph, in which his brother and sister fade first.
Correct answer: Jennifer
Jennifer Parker. Lorraine is his mother, Linda his sister and Clara is Doc's love in 1885.
Correct answer: The Wild West
The Wild West of 1885, with ZZ Top turning up at the town festival.
Want to warm up before playing or double-check something? Open any question to reveal the correct answer and a short explanation.
Correct answer: The flux capacitor
The flux capacitor, the Y-shaped device behind the seats that Doc dreamt up after hitting his head on the sink on 5 November 1955. The time circuits are the dashboard displays that set the destination.
Correct answer: "Great Scott!"
"Great Scott!", which comes back throughout the trilogy.
Correct answer: Christopher Lloyd
Christopher Lloyd, then best known as Reverend Jim in the sitcom Taxi. John Lithgow was considered for the part.
Correct answer: Hill Valley
Hill Valley, California. Its courthouse square was built on the Universal Studios backlot, where it was later used in many other films and series.
Correct answer: "Johnny B. Goode"
"Johnny B. Goode". Marvin Berry phones his cousin Chuck to let him hear "that new sound you're looking for", a joke on the fact that Chuck Berry recorded the song in 1958, three years later. "Earth Angel" is the slow song George and Lorraine kiss to.
Correct answer: Calvin Klein
Calvin Klein. Several foreign dubs swapped in a better-known name for their audience: the Italian version used Levi Strauss.
Correct answer: Einstein
Einstein, who becomes the first time traveller in history when Doc sends him one minute into the future in the mall car park.
Correct answer: Biff Tannen
Biff Tannen, played by Thomas F. Wilson, who also plays Biff's great-grandfather Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen in Part III and his grandson Griff in Part II.
Correct answer: "...roads."
"...roads." The DeLorean then lifts off and flies straight at the camera, a final shot that set up the sequel the film had not originally planned.
Correct answer: The Lone Pine Mall
The Lone Pine Mall. Arriving in 1955, Marty crashes into old Peabody's farm and runs down one of his two prized pine trees.
Stuck on one, or just curious how nasty it gets? Every hard mode question is here with its answer and the reasoning behind it.
Correct answer: Clint Eastwood
Clint Eastwood, which earns him the nickname "Eastwood" all over Hill Valley. He later uses a stove door under his poncho in a nod to A Fistful of Dollars.
Correct answer: Household rubbish
Household rubbish. Doc feeds it a banana peel, beer and the can it came in at the end of the first film, so the DeLorean no longer needs plutonium.
Correct answer: Copernicus
Copernicus. Like Einstein thirty years later, he is named after a scientist who changed the way people saw the universe.
Correct answer: Jaws 19
Jaws 19, "directed by Max Spielberg" according to the cinema marquee: a joke at the expense of Steven Spielberg, the trilogy's executive producer, and his son.
Correct answer: Crispin Glover
Crispin Glover, after a pay dispute. The production used another actor with prosthetics and footage from the first film, and Glover's lawsuit led to new rules in Hollywood on using an actor's likeness.
Correct answer: The Chicago Cubs
The Chicago Cubs, a joke in 1989 given their drought since 1908. They actually won in 2016, one year late.
Correct answer: Clara Clayton
Clara Clayton, played by Mary Steenburgen. Doc saves her from falling into the ravine that was supposed to be named after her.
Correct answer: Mr. Strickland
Mr. Strickland, played by James Tolkan, who was already at the school when George McFly was a student in 1955. Mr. Rooney and Mr. Vernon are from Ferris Bueller and The Breakfast Club.
Correct answer: Back to the Future
Back to the Future, ahead of both Rambo and Rocky IV. It spent most of that summer at number one in the US.
Correct answer: Alan Silvestri
Alan Silvestri, Zemeckis's regular composer, who went on to score Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Forrest Gump and the Avengers films.