The movie takes place during October 1999. John Sullivan (Caviezel), having broken family tradition by becoming a New York City policeman, instead of a fireman — his father, Frank Sullivan (Quaid), died 30 years ago in a warehouse fire, shortly after Game 2 of the 1969 World Series — and going through personal turmoil, discovers his father's ham radio and begins transmitting.
Due to unusual (and scientifically impossible), aurora borealis activity, he ends up communicating with Frank 30 years in the past, shortly before the date of the warehouse fire that would kill Frank. John is able to warn his father of the fire that would have otherwise taken his life.
However, by saving his father, a new timeline exists. Previously, his mother, Julia 'Jules' Sullivan (Elizabeth Mitchell), left her job as a nurse at a New York hospital to attend to the funeral arrangements. In this new timeline, she is at work, and saves the life of a man who turns out to be the "Nightingale Killer," who had already killed three nurses. Now, he goes on to kill a total of ten, the sixth being John's mother.
Thus, using information from 1999 police files on the killings that did not previously happen, John and Frank must work together across the gap of time to find the murderer and save Julia.
Evan Treborn (Ashton Kutcher), who suffered severe traumas as a boy (John Patrick Amedori), copes with the pain by blacking out at moments of high stress. While searching for an answer to heal his emotional wounds, he finds that when he reads from his adolescent journals, he travels back in time, and is able to essentially "redo" parts of his past. There are consequences of his choices, however, that he then propagates back to the present; his alternate futures vary from frat boy to prisoner to amputee. As he continues to do this, he realizes that even though his intentions are good, the actions he takes always have unintended consequences. In addition, he needs to go further back in time after every attempt as several fatal mistakes he makes do something to wipe out that and all subsequent journal entries. 
Doug Carlin (Denzel Washington) is an ATF agent who is called in to recover evidence in the investigation of a New Orleans ferry bombing. After finding evidence that shows it was terrorism, Doug finds the body of Claire Kuchever (Paula Patton), staged to look as if she too died in the bombing. Investigating the possible lead, Doug heads to her house to gather evidence. While there, he discovers bloody gauze and towels, a message on her refrigerator saying "U CAN SAVE HER," and that, for whatever reason, she called his office shortly before the bombing. Also, although he had gloves on, his colleagues tell him that he has been careless, leaving lots of fingerprints in the house. Confused, he helps the FBI with the ferry investigation and finds out his
partner was also killed in the bombing. FBI Agent Pryzwarra (Val Kilmer) recruits him to participate in a special task force, in the process revealing a futuristic device that allows one to observe anywhere four days and six hours in the past. According to the investigative team's explanation, the device (which is supposedly a composite of satellite images and other surveillance) cannot be fast forwarded or rewound due to the immense volumes of data being streamed. In other words, the team has a single opportunity to look into the past before the data is lost. Pryzwarra's team asks Doug to show them where to look in order to catch the culprit responsible for the ferry bombing. As they wait for the four days to happen so they can see the ferry bombing, Doug has them watch Claire and discovers how she came to be involved; the bomber wanted to buy her car to use for the bombing.
Doug grows suspicious of the device when the observed Claire begins to exhibit paranoia and notes that she feels as if "someone is watching" her. Suspecting that the device is more than a surveillance tool, he shines a laser pointer into the screen. Claire notices the beam just before the entire device crashes and is forced to reboot. Doug confronts the team, and demands an explanation for the machine, which he has realized is far more than a computer composite. The team admits that the machine is actually a tool capable of bending or folding time and space. In essence, they direct the flow of time back upon itself, enabling them to view past events through a wormhole. Doug immediately begins to question the possibility of them affecting the past either through a direct transportation (time travel), or through the communication of some sort of note or message. The team is initially skeptical but it quickly becomes apparent that there is no concrete theory on how they might influence the past or what they are capable of achieving. Doug persuades them to send a note through the device to the past version of himself, hoping that the 'anonymous tip' will lead his previous self to prevent the bombing. Unfortunately, the note reaches his partner in the past (who had been thought killed in the ferry bombing). The team proceeds to watch the chilling scene of the partner attempting to apprehend the suspect, but instead being killed in the process. An argument erupts over whether tampering with the past has just killed a federal agent, but cooler heads argue that he was already pre-destined to die on the ferry.
They find the killer on the screen showing the past (always 4 days and 6 hours ago), but the wormhole machine has a limited range and he drives in a direction such that he will be out of range soon. Doug takes a mobile headset camera system with him such that he can see the past in a very small area from the power source in the vehicle; he starts chasing the killer's car driving in the past. He arrives at the wrecked house of the killer, with a wrecked ambulance. This allows the police to identify and catch the bomber. Doug questions the bomber in order to get a taped confession, engaging in lengthy dialog that delves into the bomber's philosophy and mindset.
After catching the bomber, Doug is angry that Claire must still die when she could h
ave possibly been saved. The agency wants the machine shut down for now, but before they do so, Doug illicitly uses it to send himself into the past to save the lives of Claire and of all the people aboard the doomed ferry. He cannot take a gun in the time machine, but after the transfer he steals one; for transportation he steals an ambulance. He wrecks the bomber's house with the ambulance, and succeeds in preventing Claire's death, but is wounded in the process, and so returns to her home to treat his wounds. At her home, he realizes that he was the one responsible for setting the entire chain of events off in the first place, i.e., he was the one who left the "U CAN SAVE HER" note and was the source of the bloody bandages. In essence, everything he witnessed in the present had already been changed by his going back into the past. Despite this unsettling information, the two race to prevent the bomb on the ferry from detonating. Claire waits behind as Doug moves in to defuse the bomb, but spots the bomber racing back to the ferry, tipped off to Doug's presence when he notices their vehicle parked nearby. She too races to the ferry, only to be cornered and caught by the bomber once again. The bomber ties her to the steering wheel of the bomb-rigged SUV before initiating a shoot-out with Doug and security personal on the ferry to ensure the detonation of the explosive. As Doug and gunman stalk each other, Doug motions to Claire to start the SUV.
The gun battle appears to be headed for a climax until Doug suddenly begins quoting dialog from his interrogation of the bombing suspect. Doug shows his hands and exposes himself, confronting the bomber with his own beliefs, dialog, and rhetoric. The suspect seems to have a moment of memory and deja vu, even though this previous version of himself was never interrogated. The bomber prepares to gun Doug down, but as he does Claire gases the SUV and pins him between the grill and another vehicle. Doug takes the split second of opportunity to finish the suspect with one well-placed head shot. Having killed the bomber, Doug and Claire drive the SUV with the bomb into the water to prevent it from damaging the ferry. Claire is able to escape the car, but Doug remains trapped inside as it explodes. However, as Claire waits to be questioned about her involvement, a "third version" of Doug appears: neither the one who was called in after the succesful terrorist attack, nor the one who prevented it, and with no memory of experiencing or viewing his other two versions. He comes up to question her before the two drive off. Claire recounts something Doug had said to her after saving her from the bomber. Doug seems to remember, but then laughs the feeling off, apparently thinking he has experienced déjà vu. 
The film opens with a montage shot of Earth in space, with a loud background noise made up of radio and television signals from recent years. As the camera pans out, the transmissions become older, until the camera loses sight of Earth, the Solar system, and the Milky Way in an unimaginably vast, silent universe. The main protagonist, Ellie Arroway, is introduced as a child, living with her father in Madison, Wisconsin and obsessed with amateur radio. After a scene in which Ellie asks her father if humans can talk to other planets, and if there are other civilizations in the universe, the scene changes to Arroway in her late 20s, a brilliant scientist and researcher working on the SETI programme, using the gargantuan Arecibo 
radio telescope in Puerto Rico for her research. While working at Arecibo, Arroway meets Palmer Joss, a student of theology researching for a book on science's impact on the Third World. The two fall in love and start a relationship. At this point it is revealed that Ellie, whose mother died during childbirth, lost her father due to a heart attack when she was still a child. Despite her commitment to the SETI project and her scientific genius, Arroway is unknown amongst the academic community, and is ridiculed by her former teacher, Dr. David Drumlin, an officious, pompous, arrogant man who has been promoted to Chief of the National Science 
Foundation and Science Advisor to the President of the United States. Drumlin arrogantly tells Arroway that her research is a waste of time and public money, and shuts down the project. The team, including the blind, brilliant astrophysicist Kent, leaves Puerto Rico, and for an unknown reason, Ellie deliberately does not telephone Palmer Joss, effectively ending the relationship. With the help of friends and partners from the Puerto Rico site, Ellie spends the next thirteen months trying to find a new source of funding for her research. During a presentation to a board of directors at the fictional 
Hadden Industries Inc, Ellie loses her temper and is ultimately awarded a large grant from the corporation's reclusive owner, billionaire industrialist S. R. Hadden (John Hurt).
Leasing time from the government-owned Very Large Array of radio telescopes in New Mexico, Ellie and her colleagues spend the next four years combing the skies. Yet again, Drumlin intervenes, and recommends to the government that they cancel Arroway's lease contract in favor of more legitimate research. But that very night, Arroway herself detects a signal of unknown origin being 
picked up by the radio telescopes. In frenzy, Arroway and the team realize the message is being transmitted as a sequence of prime numbers, and trace its origin to the star Vega. The team passes the co-ordinates to radio telescope stations across the globe and, realizing that they have found an artificial signal that can only have come from an advanced alien civilization, they release their information across the world.
Overnight, the New Mexico facility becomes the scene of an international media circus while two dozen radio telescope sites around the world confirm 
the message and continue to track it. Dr. Drumlin arrives at the site with the American National Security Advisor, Michael Kitz (James Woods). While Drumlin pompously tries to direct operations at the site, Kitz chastises Arroway for having breached National Security policy by sending the message around the world. Arroway and Kitz begin a heated argument, and at this point, Kent hears a complex interlaced audio structure woven into the sequence of prime numbers. The team quickly discovers that this sideband of additional data is interlaced with a television image. The team feeds the signal into a television set, which reveals that the television signal is footage of Adolf Hitler, making 
his opening speech at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. The Hitler footage causes uproar amongst the government, prompting Kitz to immediately try to militarize the SETI project, fearing that they have been contacted by a pseudo-fascist civilization. Arroway explains that that particular footage of Hitler was the first television transmission powerful enough to travel into space, that the aliens would not have understood what they were looking at or who Hitler was, and that their sending the message back was simply a way of making contact with another intelligent civilization. Despite her arguments, Arroway is increasingly ignored as Drumlin takes credit for finding the message and tries to strip Arroway of any authority in subsequent developments. Meanwhile, back in New Mexico, what was thought to be noise amongst the frames of the Hitler footage is found to be tens of thousands of pages of data written in an alien language. No-one, however, can work out how to decode the pages. At this point, Hadden, who had given Arroway the research money years ago, steps in and secretly pushes her back into the limelight by showing her how the encrypted data sheets fit together in a 3D fashion, revealing blueprints for a machine. This gives Arroway considerable power, and back in Washington D.C., the Cabinet meets to discuss theories on what the machine does, and whether or not they should build it. Arroway suggests the machine is an "Encyclopaedia Galactica" or an advanced communications device, while Drumlin quips that the message may contain "a few billion new commandments." Despite her insistence that the machine is peaceful, Arroway is confronted by military officials who fear it is a weapon of mass destruction or a Trojan horse, and by extremist Christian politicians who refuse to work with an alien civilization that does not follow Christianity. Arroway tries to argue back against these shallow theories, and finds herself supported by Palmer Joss, now the Religious Advisor to the President, who walks into the meeting room and defends her theories against the Christian politicians and military officials. The President himself (shown as Bill Clinton) walks in at this stage, and holds a press conference on the machine. Although scientists are unable to say what the machine does, the team at New Mexico uncovers a variety of clues, including an image of a human being inside a transport pod, that confirm the machine is an interstellar transport, designed to take a single human occupant to Vega. The President authorizes the United States to build the machine. Meanwhile, Palmer Joss and Arroway start a romantic relationship.
Known simply as "The Machine" throughout the rest of the film, the device slowly takes shape. Due to the high cost of The Machine, which prevents any single nation from paying for it alone, the International Machine Consortium is formed to finance its construction, with the actual construction taking place at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The US government compensates individual nations in different ways, offering them the opportunity to put forward candidates for the machine seat, or granting nations technology and contractual rights. To choose who will take the seat, an international committee of scientists, philosophers, theologians, politicians, psychologists, and various academics is formed, in order to screen and select a suitable candidate who can not only survive the rigors of the journey, but who can fairly represent the entire human race. Palmer Joss is included in this committee, and he therefore cannot spend much time with Arroway, as she is one of the candidates judged by the committee. Surprisingly, Dr. Drumlin resigns from his government post in order to become a candidate, and after a former astronaut abandons the contest at the request of his family, Drumlin and Arroway become the main contestants for the machine seat.
Arroway appears before the international selection committee, and although she gives excellent answers to the questions asked and appears to be a prime candidate, her performance is shattered when Palmer Joss himself deliberately trips her up by forcing her to reveal her agnosticism. The committee rejects her application, explaining that they cannot choose someone who does not represent humanity's belief in a higher deity. Instead, the committee awards the seat to Dr. Drumlin, who, as Arroway points out, tells them exactly what they want to hear instead of telling the truth. Ellie ends her relationship with Joss and stays with the project as a technical advisor. On the day of the first full-scale systems test on The Machine, a huge crowd gathers at Cape Canaveral and the entire world watches to see what The Machine will actually do. As The Machine begins to operate, the world cheers, but at this stage Arroway detects a security breach. A religious fanatic (Jake Busey), whom Arroway had encountered in New Mexico and Washington, has infiltrated the site by posing as an employee. Beneath his disguise, he is wrapped in explosives. As Drumlin and technicians try to stop him, he commits a suicide bombing, killing Dr. Drumlin and dozens of technicians, and destroying The Machine.
After the disaster at Cape Canaveral, Arroway arrives home and finds satellite communications equipment. The equipment connects her with Hadden, who is now living on the Mir space station in an attempt to delay the progression of his cancer. Hadden informs Ellie of the existence of a second Machine, secretly built in Hokkaidō, Japan by sub-contractors recently acquired by Hadden's company. He then astounds Arroway by telling her that the International Machine Consortium wants an American to make the journey, and that they want Arroway to take the seat.
Ellie travels to Japan to become the passenger on the second Machine. Shortly before Ellie suits up, Palmer Joss makes amends with her by revealing that his acts at the committee hearing were influenced not entirely by his professional beliefs, but also by his personal fear of losing her. The two make amends as the Consortium reveals the Machine's existence to a stunned world, which waits eagerly for news from Hokkaidō. On the day of the test, Ellie enters the transport pod and notices bizarre changes occurring in the metal structure, which turns slightly translucent. Her communications signal becomes fuzzy and the team prepares to abort, but at this stage Kent, the astrophysicist who had stood by Ellie from the very beginning, picks up Ellie's faint voice telling the team she is ready to go. The team agrees to go ahead, and Ellie's transport module is dropped into The Machine.
Inside her pod, Ellie perceives herself traveling at immense speed through a series of wormholes which transport her from place to place, while the translucent metal of the pod allows her to see all around her. At her first stop she sees the star Vega, and catches a glimpse of a mammoth artificial object in space, which could only have been constructed by a highly advanced alien civilization. She is then rapidly transported to a quadruple-star system. Glancing down at the night side of a planet below her, Ellie sees the lights of an immense city arranged in a geometric pattern, exclaiming "They're alive" before being propelled at even greater speed to the site of a celestial event which is so beautiful she cannot find words to describe it. Drifting into unconsciousness, Ellie wakes in a bizarre environment which has been simulated to represent, to the smallest detail, a childhood drawing she made of the beach at Pensacola. At this point, Ellie notices an entity walking towards her, which reveals itself in the form of her deceased father. Ellie stammers that it is not real, and quickly realizes that it is not her father, but an alien creature that has taken the form of her father, and has downloaded her thoughts and memories in order to look, speak, and act like her father. The creature replies that she is right, that he is not her father, but speaks to her in the soothing, loving way her father used to, even using her childhood nickname "Sparks", and explaining that they have simulated her father's appearance and the beach environment in order to make her feel more comfortable. Ellie asks the creature why she has been brought here and why their civilization contacted Earth, to which the alien replies that it was Earth that first contacted them, and that they were just listening. The alien explains the nature of the transit system, explaining that their civilization merely found the system, built long ago by another alien race that has long since moved on. Ellie asks the creature if all the civilizations they found are brought through the system like she was, and it replies no, that only some are brought. The creature explains that the human race is an interesting species, capable of such extremes of love and hate, and it is this curious mix which has prompted their civilization to send Earth the plans for The Machine and bring Ellie through the system. Asked why she has been brought, the creature explains that it is not a test, not a trick, that the countless civilizations using the system are introduced to each other simply because existence in the immensity of space is lonely, and the only thing that makes the loneliness bearable, is each other. Ellie, despite her protests, is then told that she must return and cannot take any proof, according to the civilization’s ancient philosophy. As a farewell, the creature tells Ellie that her journey is just the first step towards contacting other civilizations, and that in time, humanity will make another step. With a loving farewell, the alien sends Ellie back through the system to Earth.
Instantly, Ellie wakes up inside the transport pod, being contacted by Hokkaidō Control. She asks how long she has been gone, and is stupefied to learn that the pod did not go anywhere, it simply dropped straight through The Machine. Forty-three separate cameras recorded the event, and since her head-mounted optical recorder taped only static, she has no evidence of her journey.
With opinion divided over whether Arroway made the journey or simply hallucinated it, Kitz heads a Congressional inquiry and suggests that the entire project could have been a hoax. By stating that the hoaxer would have needed immense financial resources, engineering expertise, and imagination, Kitz prompts Ellie to name Hadden (who by this point had finally succumbed to cancer while aboard the Russian space station). Kitz suggests that Hadden, a perverse and complicated man, hoaxed the signal and all subsequent events were a way for Hadden to test new technologies, with Earth governments paying the bill. Arroway admits that, as a scientist, she must acknowledge the possibility that it was all a hoax, that she may have hallucinated it, and that if she were part of the inquest, she would be just as skeptical. However, when Kitz asked her to openly accept that the journey did not happen, she cannot. She holds fast to her story, and, in an ironic twist, is placed in the position of believing in something for which she has only her personal experience and no objectively verifiable evidence to present to the world. When asked if she is telling others that they must take her story on faith, she replies that she wishes she could share her personal experience of the journey. Ellie leaves the hearing hand-in-hand with Joss, and to her surprise, is greeted by a large crowd of cheering supporters. As Arroway and Joss step into their car, a reporter asks Joss if he believes Ellie's story. Joss replies that as he is a man of faith, and that Ellie is a woman of science, they are bound by different covenants but share the same purpose - a search for truth - and that he believes her.
After the inquest concludes, a dialogue between Kitz and a Presidential Advisor reveals a secret report on Arroway's headset video camera, which only recorded static. Although the pod apparently dropped straight through the machine and Arroway was only out of contact for a fraction of a second, her headset recorded approximately eighteen hours of static, the time she claims it took to complete her journey. This objectively verified evidence in support of Arroway's story clearly impresses the presidential advisors and they decide her SETI work should be funded.
The film ends with Ellie having received a government grant to continue her SETI project at the newly-expanded radio telescope array back in New Mexico. Arroway is shown telling children to keep asking questions and looking for answers. The movie ends with Arroway reflecting quietly as the sun sets over New Mexico. The final shot depicts the words "For Carl" set against a backdrop of stars, as a dedication to the author, Carl Sagan.
On October 25, 1985, Marty McFly, a 17-year old high school senior, visits the home of his friend, an eccentric local scientist named Dr. Emmett L. Brown, but finds that "the Doc" is not there. Marty soon receives a call from Doc himself asking him to meet him at 1:15 AM in the parking lot at Twin Pines mall. As Marty agrees, the clocks in Doc's basement chime the hour. When Doc Brown remarks that the clocks are 25 minutes behind, proof that an experiment was successful, Marty realizes that he is late for school. After school, Marty, a guitarist, and his band, "The Pinheads," audition to play at the school dance, but the band is rejected for being "too darn loud". Afterward, Marty confides in his girlfriend Jennifer, worrying that he will never get a chance to play for an audience. They are interrupted when a woman hands Marty a flyer about a campaign to save the clock tower of the local courthouse, which was struck by lightning at 10:04 PM on Saturday, November 12, 1955.
When Marty gets home he finds that the family car has been totaled by his father George McFly's supervisor, Biff Tannen, who complains that George had not told him the car had a "blind spot". Biff then bullies George into writing his reports for work while making rude comments about Marty's mother Lorraine.
The family has dinner, during which the viewer discovers that Marty's older brot
her Dave works at a fast food restaurant, his sister Linda has no love life, and his mother disapproves of girls chasing boys. She remarks that fate brought her and her husband together from her father hitting George with a car, and mentions their first kiss at the "Enchantment Under the Sea Dance". "Doc" Brown (Christopher Lloyd) and Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) watching the first test of the time machine. Marty meets Doctor Brown at the mall to witness and film a demonstration of Doc's latest invention: a time-machine made from a modified DeLorean sports car, which must reach 88 miles-per-hour in order to travel through time. Doc tests the car by sending his dog Einstein one minute into the future. Overjoyed by this success, Doc demonstrates to Marty how the time machine works by entering several significant dates into the keypad. Doc enters the date November 5, 1955 and explains to Marty that this was the day that he came up with the idea for the flux capacitor, the device that makes time travel possible. After Doc refuels the time machine, a group of Libyan terrorists arrive, from whom he stole the plutonium necessary to power the time machine. The Libyans shoot Doc, but Marty escapes in the DeLorean, accelerating to 88 miles per hour and thus inadvertently sending himself thirty years back in time to November 5, 1955. The plutonium necessary to generate the 1.21 gigawatts of electricity required to make one jump in time (and hence to allow Marty to return home) is left in 1985. Marty encounters many differences between 1985 and 1955, including a cleaner, less run-down ambiance in the town square. While searching for a younger Doc Brown, he meets his father and accidentally interferes with the first meeting of his parents--being hit by his grandfather's Chevy in his father's place (George had been in a tree watching Lorraine undress). Lorraine falls in love with Marty instead, calling him Calvin Klein because she sees the name on his underwear. He has dinner with Lorraine's family, claims that he has seen the episode of The Honeymooners ("The Man from Space") on TV even though it is brand new, and meets his Uncle Joey, a future "jailbird" who loves being in his playpen.
Marty finds Doc, who disbelieves his story until Marty mentions the flux capacitor. Doc tells Marty that his encounter with his parents jeopardizes Marty's own existence. A snapshot Marty carries of himself, Dave and Linda documents this peril: part of Dave, the eldest, appears to have been "erased" from the photo, soon to be followed by Linda, and finally, unless disaster is averted, Marty.
After watching Marty's film about the experiment demonstration, Doc realizes 
that in lieu of plutonium, which is unavailable to him, the only other source of the necessary "1.21 gigawatts" of electricity needed would be a bolt of lightning. Marty shows him the flyer from 1985 that gives the exact time and place of a lightning bolt, one week away. Doc will build the device that will let them channel the lightning bolt into the flux capacitor, sending Marty back to 1985. After that night, Doc is seen watching the demonstration film over and over again, stopping on "they found me" and right before "the Libyans". Meanwhile, Marty must help his parents to fall in love, so that they will still have their first kiss at the dance -- coincidentally also one week away, on November 12.
Marty tries to persuade George to ask Lorraine to the dance, but George is too nervous. They also have trouble with a younger Biff Tannen (the school bully), who is after Lorraine and forces George to do his homework. Biff harasses George, and Marty trips Biff in retaliation. Biff and his friends chase Marty around the town square in their car while he rides a makeshift skateboard, and they crash their car into a manure truck. The incident makes Lorraine even more attracted to Marty, and she asks Marty to the dance.
Marty accepts, but tells George his plan is to 'take advantage' of Lorraine in the car, so that George can rescue her. On the night of the dance, however, Lorraine is more than willing to let Marty take advantage of her, having snuck out some liquor for the event (when Lorraine and Marty kiss, however, she is suddenly uncomfortable and says that it was like "kissing my brother"). Biff interrupts and gets in the car with Lorraine, while Biff's gang locks Marty in the trunk of singer-guitarist Marvin Berry's car. When George arrives, expecting Marty, he finds Biff harassing Lorraine instead. When Biff pushes Lorraine to the ground and laughs at her, George becomes infuriated, and knocks Biff out with a single punch. George and Lorraine head off to the dance just in time for Marty to see them together, having just been freed from Berry's car.
Nevertheless, the photograph is still fading. Marvin Berry cut his hand open freeing
Marty from the trunk, so the live music is seemingly over, robbing George and Lorraine of the opportunity to kiss on the dance floor. Marty volunteers to play the guitar instead. During the first number, "Earth Angel", another student cuts in between George and Lorraine. Dave and Linda are gone from the photograph and Marty begins to fade out too, both from the picture and in reality. George pushes away Dixon and then kisses Lorraine. Marty begins playing the guitar again with renewed strength. Linda and Dave have reappeared in the photograph, so Marty knows that the future is safe. At the band's request, Marty plays one more song, "Johnny B. Goode". Marvin Berry calls his cousin, Chuck Berry, and tells that he found the "new sound" Chuck was looking for. Marty does Chuck Berry's trademark duck walk, and then gets carried away imitating other guitar heroes: windmilling his arm and kicking over his amplifier in imitation of Pete Townshend, lying on the stage kicking his legs in imitation of Angus Young, playing behind his head like Jimi Hendrix, and tapping in the style of Eddie Van Halen. In the face of uncomprehending stares from the audience, Marty says, "I guess you guys aren't ready for that yet. But your kids are gonna love it."
Marty has a last chat with his parents and leaves to rejoin Doc Brown, who has suspended a cable from the top of the clock tower to channel the lightning into the DeLorean. Marty writes Doc a note warning him about being shot in 1985, and slips it into Doc's coat pocket. Doc discovers it and tears it up unread, being unwilling to endanger his future by knowing too much. A tree limb falls onto the cable, disconnecting it. Doc climbs up the clock tower to fix it. Marty gets in the DeLorean, and sets its time circuits to take him back earlier than he left, so he can save Doc. The car stalls and he has difficulty starting it. Meanwhile, Doc fixes one wire only to disconnect another. He slides down the wire and reconnects it, just as the lightning hits the tower. Marty accelerates to 88 miles per hour and contacts the cable just as the lightning speeds through the electrified wire, sending the DeLorean back to the future.
Marty returns to 1985 ten minutes before he left, but the car stalls again and he has to run to the mall, where he sees Doc being shot and himself driving the DeLorean back in time. The terrorists crash into a photo booth. Marty rushes down to Doc's body and turns away in tears. Doc suddenly sits up, opening his radiation suit to reveal a bulletproof vest. He then pulls out the letter Marty wrote him, yellowed and taped back together from the shreds he tore it into 30 years before.
Doc drives Marty home, and then departs for the year 2015. In the morning, Marty discovers his house is different; there is a new BMW in the driveway (in place of the wrecked Nova), Linda has an active social life and Dave has an office job. Lorraine and George arrive home from playing tennis, both more fit and attractive, and much more affectionate to one another, than when Marty left. George also shows more self confidence, even catching Biff in a fib. Biff, instead of bullying George, respects him. Biff, who instead of being George's supervisor now has an auto detailing service, runs in with the delivery of George's first novel, a science fiction story called A Match Made In Space. Marty finds that the Toyota pick-up truck that he previously coveted is now his. As Marty and Jennifer are about to take a ride in the truck, Doc reappears in the DeLorean, telling Marty to come with him to the future, that something has got to be done about their kids. He hurries Marty and Jennifer into the car. Marty points out that there is not enough road to accelerate to 88 mph, but Doc says "Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads," and flies off in the now fusion-powered and hover-converted car.
Somewhere in Time is a 1980 time travel romance film directed by Jeannot Szwarc, written by Richard Matheson and starring Christopher Reeve, Jane Seymour, Christopher Plummer, and Teresa Wright. Although this movie was well received during its previews, it was ruthlessly trashed by the critics upon release and was unsuccessful at the box office. It has earned a large and loyal following since its release to cable television and video, and the movie is now regarded by many to be a cult classic.
Reeve plays Richard Collier, a playwright who falls in love with a photograph of a young woman at The Grand Hotel. Through self-hypnosis he travels back in time to the year 1912 to find love with actress Elise McKenna (portrayed by Seymour).
The film is adapted from the 1975 novel Bid Time Return by science fiction writer Richard Matheson, which was subsequently re-released under the film's title. The film is known for its beautiful musical score, composed by John Barry. In addition to Barry's score, the eighteenth variation of Sergei Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini runs throughout the film.
