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Last year when the Academy announced it would feature ten movies in the Best Picture race, there was rampant speculation whether more populist fare would be featured. With the inclusion of titles such as Up and The Blind Side, it would seem to support the argument that the expansion helped these titles. Of course, populist entertainment had been featured back when only five titles competed. Jaws, Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark all were singled out by the Academy. None of these won, but their presence in past contests highlights the fact that when hugely entertaining movies with broad appeal are done correctly, they can merit award consideration. However, this was not the case for a movie that might be just as well regarded as these other titles. In 1985, Oscar was bold enough to break out of conservative constraints, nominating a film centered around a gay man in Kiss of the Spider Woman, while honoring a pedestrian Meryl Streep romance set in Africa as the Best Picture. Yet, worse than Out of Africa’s win was the mere fact that one of the most pleasing and well-loved films of the last 25 years missed out on Hollywood’s greatest evening. Back to the Future is more than just a pop culture icon, but one of the most well-crafted and crowd-pleasing movies of recent memory.

Twenty-five years later, it is rather obvious that Back to the Future was the cream of the 1985 class. Kiss of the Spider Woman and Prizzi’s Honor, as strong as they may be, can’t compete with the broad appeal and flawless execution of Robert Zemeckis’s production. Start with a great concept, add one DeLorean - along with a crazy Christopher Lloyd hairstyle - and you have a classic. At least the Academy was smart enough to see the brilliance in the screenplay by at least nominating Zemeckis and Bob Gale for their work. They even found a way to nominate Huey Lewis, but because the movie lacked a certain level of sophistication, Academy members didn’t deem Back to the Future one of the year's best movies, even though they may have enjoyed it greatly.

I don’t know if they assumed that the movie would become dated (it hasn’t), but it just seems that the concept wasn’t high enough. Yet, today it may have had an easy road to earning a nomination, combining large box office with critical raves. On the other hand, the last decade has shown that less mainstream Hollywood movies are earning Oscar nominations, which has led to the ten nominee field in the first place. If Inception can land an Oscar nomination in a few months, it might prove as vindication for prior populist fare that missed out on Academy nominations.

Of course, Back to the Future didn’t need the Academy to shine a light upon it to earn a well respected place in American pop culture history. The movie, while heavily portraying the '80s, has become an honored time capsule, introducing new generations to Huey Lewis, a DeLorean, skateboarding and arcades. It also proved that Michael J. Fox could be a viable movie presence, ensuring that we would be graced with two Teen Wolf movies. 1.21 gigawatts is a perfectly excepted way to display dismay, and we also learned that perhaps something might be wrong with the Earth’s gravitational pull. And who isn’t tempted to see if they can time jump after hitting 88 along with a homemade flux capacitor? Finally, we also have to remember that Back to the Future also launched the careers of Lea Thompson and Crispin Glover.

Now, if we could only pretend the second two movies didn’t happen.