James R | On 21, Oct 2015

Happy Back to the Future Day! If you don’t know what we’re talking about, Back to the Future Day is a special day when brands across the Internet rush to cash in on the fact that this is the day Marty McFly travelled forward in time to in Back to the Future II. Social media posts trying to go viral. Bad jokes. Terrible Photoshop. Robert Zemeckis definitely didn’t predict the future correctly.

But the one question that we want to know on this most hallowed of days – apart from where our hoverboard is – is where we can Back to the Future online.

Is Back to the Future on Netflix? No. Is Back to the Future on NOW? No. Is it on Amazon Prime? No. Well, not quite.

Amazon has, in an attempt to be ready for 21st October, signed a deal with Studiocanal for the exclusive UK rights to a Back to the Future documentary called Back to the Present. You can watch that here.

The one-hour special, originally commissioned by French DTT channel D8 and produced by French indie AlloHouston, looks back at Zemeckis’ original sci-fi and may well prove a popular choice for those looking for some trivia and nostalgic tributes. It also marks a rare non-fiction acquisition by Amazon Prime, whose only other major factual commissions are the new show from the Top Gear team and its original docu-series, The New Yorker Presents.

Despite the arrival of the BTTF-themed film in time for Back to the Future Day, though, Amazon only offers the original trilogy for buy and rent, alongside many other pay-per-view VOD platforms, including blinkbox, Google Play and Wuaki.tv.

Indeed, there is no UK subscription service with Zemeckis’ franchise available to stream – Netflix UK has Back to the Beach, Back to the Sea, Back to the Garden and Back to School… anything but Back to the Future.

Where, then, is the cheapest place to watch Back to the Future online? The answer to that is iTunes, which currently offers the entire trilogy (which costs around £7 per film on other sites) for £15 in HD.

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