For folks who were around in the 20th century, hearing “the 20s” stirs up images of people in tubular day dresses and knickerbockers, dancing the Charleston to ragtime while tipsy on illegal, speakeasy cocktails. Alas, here we are in “the 20s”, almost a quarter century into the 2000s. For many of us, its “the future”. What would our younger selves have to say about it?

Anyhoo, Its interesting to examine films that involve time travel from the 80s and 90s to see what filmmakers and writers got right, and what they got totally wrong. But beware! Analyzing these films may remind you of your mortality. Now that you’ve been warned, get ready to crunch the numbers with this list of facts from time travel movies of the 80s and 90s that will make you feel old.

Back to the Future trilogy (1985 - 1990)

One cannot have a list of time travel films from the 80s and 90s and not have the “Back to the Future” trilogy. Among the best time travel films ever, the series follows Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) as he travels to the past and future in a DeLorean with inventor “Doc” Emmet Brown (Christopher Lloyd) to save his family from peril. These classic Robert Zemeckis films are highly re-watchable. But be careful! Re-watch too much and you might begin thinking about the following facts that will make you feel old:

Marty was a teen in 1985 who traveled back in time 30 years to 1955 to meet his younger parents. If you went back in time the same number of years from today (2024), you would be in 1994, which is 9 years in Marty McFly’s future!
In the 9 years between 1985 and 1994, the Cold War ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The Internet and GPS were launched for commercial use. Jurassic Park would become the highest grossing film of all time in 1993. Incidentally, Robert Zemeckis would have yet another hit in 1994 with “Forrest Gump”.
Marty and Doc travel 30 years into their future which was 2015. If you were to travel to 2015, you would travel 9 years into the past! We still do not have flying car highways, self-tying shoes, self-drying clothes, or hoverboards. Strangely, the two top films of 2015 would be sequels to 80s and 90s classics with “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” and “Jurassic World”.
People born in 1985 will be celebrating their 40th birthdays next year. People born in 1994 will turn 30 this year. Most American children born in 2015 are 4th and 5th graders. Finally, if you travel back in time at 88mph to 1955, you’d be going back 69 years! 69 dudes!

Have a listen to our Back to the Future Retrospective on The 80s and 90s Uncensored podcast.

The Terminator & Terminator 2 (1984, 1991)

James Cameron’s time travel action classic “The Terminator” follows Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn), a soldier from the future, who is sent to protect Sarah Conner (Linda Hamilton) from a cyborg assassin (Arnold Schwarzenegger). How could it get any better? “Terminator 2: Judgement Day” that’s how! In one of the few sequels even better than the first, “T2” (as we called in 1991), reprises Arnold as the T-800 killing machine. But this time, Arnie is programmed to protect Sarah’s son, future resistance leader John Conner (Edward Furlong), from an indestructable, murderous shapeshifter. Subsequent films were made after the 80s and 90s so we don’t have to explore their convoluted, cannon-destroying plots. However, we will explore some timeline facts that will make you feel old:

The Terminators were sent back in time from the future year of 2029. The T-800 was sent back 45 years to 1984. The T-1000 was sent back 34 years to 1995. 2029 is only 5 years from now. I repeat: Skynet deploys its Terminator killing machines FIVE YEARS FROM NOW! On a side note, I learned that T2 takes place in 1995 even though it was made in 1991. This makes sense if you want a young preteen riding motorcycles and stealing cash from ATMs. If it was set in 1991, John Connor would have been a small child.
For reference, Edward Furlong who played John Conner, was 14 years old in 1991. That kid is now 46.
Back in 2005, famed futurist Ray Kurzweil predicted that computers would pass the Turing test and be like humans by 2029. He might not be far off. ChatGPT went online in late 2022. In our new world of AI, computer responses to human prompts are often indistinguishable from real people. Imagine five years from now! Kurzweil also predicted in his book, “The Singularity is Near”, that humans would merge with their AI creation in 2045. [Your Name Here]GPT?

Learn more about the pop culture and events of 1991 with our 1991 year retrospective.

Peggy Sue Got Married (1986)

The only non-action drama film on this list, Francis Ford Coppola’s “Peggy Sue Got Married” stars Kathleen Turner as Peggy, a middle aged mom in 1985 at odds with her husband Charlie (Nicholas Cage) for his infidelity. When Peggy goes to her 25-year high school reunion, she passes out after being crown reunion queen. She wakes up in her senior year in 1960. With a second chance, will Peggy Sue change the perceived mistakes of her past? If you haven’t seen this film, you should watch it and find out because its a good movie with a great cast and was nominated for some big awards. If you think Peggy Sue feels older, wait ‘till you read these fact:

Peggy went back in time (or dreamed she did) 25 years from 1985 to 1960. If you were shocked at the admiration of your peers and fainted while crowned, you’d awaken in the year 1999! That’s right, kids who graduated high school in 1999 are attending their 25-year reunions this year. Let that sink in.
People waking up today after traveling from the future would be coming from 2049. Yeah, like “Blade Runner 2049”. If your kid is graduating from high school this year, they will attend their 25-year high school reunion 4 years after Kurzweil’s Singularity. Will children need to go to school in 2049? They may be able to plug knowledge chips into their brains and download learning instantly like in “The Matrix”, which was released in… 1999!
Given the information, Peggy Sue would have been approximately 43 years old in 1985. Yet, Kathleen was only 32 when she played the part. In reality, Kathleen graduated from The American School in London in 1972. Helen Hunt played Beth, Peggy Sue’s daughter, but Helen is only 9 years younger than Kathleen Turner.

Highlander II: The Quickening (1991)

“Highlander II: The Quickening” is a train wreck of a film, and not even a director’s cut or additional deleted scenes can save it. But given major plot points are set in the (then) future of 2024, this dookie pile must be included on this list. In a fictional 1990s, Earth's ozone layer was depleted by industrial pollution leading to mass deaths. Connor MacLeod (Christopher Lambert) loses his wife Brenda (Karen Drexler) to the unfiltered solar rays. The affluent Connor uses his wealth to deploy an electromagnetic shield around the planet in… you guessed it, 1999. Although the world is saved, its also damned to eternal darkness, heat and humidity. Its like if Anchorage merged with Jackson on a planetary scale. Anyhoo, in 2024, Connor is a mortal old man dealing with harassment for causing the dark sky and high temperatures by an opposition group. He meets Virginia Madsen and has flashbacks of being an alien with Sean Connery before their exile as immortals on Earth. Blah blah blah. Let’s just get into the facts that will make you feel old.

In real-life 1994, 3 years after Highlander II crash landed into theaters, the EPA enacted PRN-93-4 which banned aerosol products containing CFCs, a major contributor to ozone depletion. Incidentally, women stopped wearing Aquanet “80s big hair” as fashion, and Hair Metal had thoroughly died out in favor Grunge music. Does correlation equal causation? Maybe not, but we very well might have “Highlander II: The Quickening” to thank for saving us from deadly solar rays and questionable 1980s fashion.
Also in 1994, “Highlander III: The Sorcerer” was released. It was a direct sequel to the original 1986 Highlander, completely ignoring in full the events of Highlander II. You know a sequel is bad if the following film completely supplants it. Ouch!
Christopher Lambert was 34 when Highlander II was released. He is 66 now. Lambert knew while filming that the movie would suck and actively tried to drop out. Sadly for him (and naive ticket buyers at the box office), he was under contract and had to trudge through. The late, great Sir Sean Connery was 61 when the film was released. Despite this flop, he left us with an epic cinematic legacy at the age of 90 in 2020. Aside from his James Bond films, this would be the only time he played a character in more than one movie.

Freejack (1992)

Freejack was released in 1992, but the story starts in 1991. The film was supposed to released in 1991 but was delayed for re-shoots after a disastrous test screening. To make life easier for us, we’ll just use 1991 as a reference point. Freejack follows race car driver Alex Furlong (Emilio Estevez) who is beamed out of his car at the instant it makes an epic, leaping crash into an overhead bridge. He is transported into the future of… 2009. Furlong is a product of a program run by Vasendak (Mick Jagger) and his private army to sell the healthy body to ultra-rich Ian McCandless (Anthony Hopkins) for a mind transfer. But Furlong escapes, and with the help of his girlfriend Julia (Rene Russo), he must evade Vasendak’s paramilitary crew to save his life. This film is generally panned critically, even by its own actors, but has since gained somewhat of a cult following over the years. Here’s a Freejack fact attack to remind you that you’re old:

The film was (supposed to be) released in 1991, where the story begins. Furlong is snatched up with time travel 18 years into the future to 2009. As I am writing this, 2009 was 15 years in the past. Its also amusing to see the futuristic technology (complete with goofy, bulbous 90s future cars) and dystopian society the filmmakers predicted for 2009. I don’t think they believed any of it. Like “Back To The Future Part 2”, the producers didn’t want to go too far into the future so the time traveler could interact with older versions of people they knew. Yet, they still needed a far-future environment to make it interesting.
Emilio Estevez was 29 in 1991, 47 years old in 2009, and 61 today. Mick Jagger was 48 years old in 1991, 66 in 2009, and 80 today. Sir Anthony Hopkins was 54 in 1991, 72 in 2009, and is a spry 86 years old in 2024. All three have been busy acting, directing, producing and/or rocking to this day!
People born in 1991 became legal adults in 2009, old enough to vote, join the military, and buy cigarettes. If these people became young parents in 2009, their kids are now in high school. The highest grossing film of 2009 would become the highest grossing film of all time to this day: James Cameron’s “Avatar”.

Timecop (1994)

September of this year will mark the 30th anniversary of Timecop! Many are unaware, but this is a comic book film based on a series published by Dark Horse. Timecop is Jean-Claude Van Damme’s highest grossing, leading role film. In 1994, Max Walker (JCVD) is assigned to a newly formed law enforcement agency called Time Enforcement Commission or TEC. The secret agency was commissioned to police the abuse of time travel. But on his first day, Max is attacked by a group of men who murder his wife Melissa (Mia Sara). Ten years later in 2004, Max is a veteran TEC agent. He exposes and arrests a former colleague who went into the past to make money. He tells Max the man in charge of TEC, Senator McComb, sent him. Intrigue and action ensue.

I don’t have many facts about this movie, but it doesn’t need many to make you feel old. The film was released in 1994, which was 30 years ago. Even the film’s future setting of 2004 was 20 years ago. Jeanne-Claude was 34 and now he’s 63. The beautiful Mia Sara was 27 and is still beautiful at 54. If you had any cognition of 1994, or 2004 for that matter, you are either old or getting old.

A lot of significant events have come and gone since 1994, including the 9/11 terrorist attacks, two protracted wars in the Middle East, the biggest recession since the Great Depression, and a global pandemic.

We pit JCVD against Steven Seagal. Its no spoiler to reveal that JCVD won by a landslide.

Austin Powers trilogy (1997 - 2002)

The Austin Powers series is a masterful satire of spy films of the 1960s. The characters were created by Mike Myers, who also portrayed most of them, including the groovy Austin and his arch-nemesis, Dr. Evil. All three popular films were directed by Jay Roach. Each film has an element of time travel that pokes fun at 1960s and 1970s culture and attitudes.

In the first film, Austin Powers is frozen in 1967, awakening 30 years later in 1997 to a new world with different sensibilities. His free-love, swinger attitude is mocked by more pragmatic contemporaries of the 1990s. He seems relieved in the sequel, “The Spy Who Shagged Me”, as he travel back to 1969 to retrieve his “mojo”. In 2002’s “Goldmember”, the filmmakers take a stab at the disco culture of the mid 1970s.

Now its time to feel old. These films poked fun at the 60s and 70s. If these films were made today and comparable, they’d be poking fun at the 90s, which is when these movies were released. What are some things about 1990s culture would filmmakers satire today? I’m pretty sure they’ll use Vanilla Ice as at least one inspiration. So, for all you 90s youngsters who were making fun of your folks for their 60s and 70s sensibilities… you are now them.

So, what do you think? Feeling old yet? Don’t worry. If you remember any of these films from when they first came out, you are from an awesome time. With that, I leave you with this quote: