Biff Tannen

Verified Timeline

Lore & Background

Biff was born in Hill Valley, California in 1937. He is the great-grandson of Old West outlaw Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen, son of gangster Irving "Kid" Tannen and grandfather of Griff Tannen. As a vigorously hotheaded teenager in 1955, Biff is known for bullying George McFly into doing his homework for him while he drinks and hangs out with his friends. Feared by most of his schoolmates, his only friends are his gang (Match, Skinhead, and 3-D). The one person at Hill Valley High School that Biff fears is Mr. Strickland. He lives with his grandmother, Gertrude Tannen (voiced by Wilson), at 1809 Mason Street and proudly owns a black 1946 Ford Deluxe convertible. A running gag is his particular dislike for manure, displayed when he is shoved into large quantities of it at multiple points during the films. In 1985, the still abusive adult Biff is George's supervisor at an unknown company who forces George to do his job for him until George's son, Marty McFly, changes history through his interactions with his teenage father, giving him the confidence to defeat Biff in a fight to save Lorraine Baines, his future wife and Marty's mother. Afterwards, the new 1985 Biff is a servile auto detailer.

In Their Own Story

In Back to the Future: Part II, an aged and physically decrepit Biff steals Emmett "Doc" Brown's time machine in 2015 and travels back to 1955 to give his teenage self a sports almanac chronicling victories from 1950 to 2000, then heads home to 2015, hoping to gain a happier life as a result of his actions. Consequently, on his 21st birthday in 1958, Biff's younger self wagers money on a horse race listed in the almanac with the victorious steed's name revealed, winning his first million dollars and giving himself prestige and increasingly arrogant confidence. Despite his progressively gaining vast wealth and power through this "fixed" sports-event betting, Biff is still unable to convince Lorraine to marry him; as before, she marries George and starts a family with him. At last, Biff resorts to murdering George in 1973, and uses his money and political influence to cover up any evidence. Without George's supporting her and her family financially, Lorraine reluctantly accepts the well-to-do Biff as her new husband, thus creating a dystopian alternate 1985, and gambling was legalized in 1979. He sends Marty off to boarding school in Switzerland. The petulant and arrogantly tempestuous Biff never feels content in the marriage since he treats Lorraine as a prize to be won and possessed, and often lashes out verbally and physically; in a deleted scene, Lorraine eventually gets so fed up with Biff's overbearing hostility and abuse, along with finding out that Biff murdered George, that she shoots him dead some time in the late 1990s. This incident explains why the elderly Biff's actions have no visible effect on the Hill Valley of the future and, after returning to 2015, he clutches his chest in pain, sinks to the pavement, and fades from existence. Marty returns to 1955, carefully avoiding disturbing the events from his previous visit, and battles against the teenage Biff, ultimately recovering the almanac and undoing Biff's alternate timeline by burning it.

Reader's Guide

Biff Tannen serves as the chaotic variable in the timeline, a force whose actions ripple through decades with devastating precision. Driven by an insatiable hunger for dominance and self-gratification, he adapts his methods to fit every era while remaining true to his core cruelty. In 1955, he is the quintessential high school tormentor, crushing potential and enforcing a hierarchy built on fear. By 1985, he has evolved into a symbol of societal decay, weaponizing legal loopholes and brute intimidation to enslave the McFly family and control Hill Valley's infrastructure. The narrative shifts when Biff discovers the mechanics of time travel itself. His theft of the Almanac to rewrite history ignites the trilogy's most desperate conflict: navigating a dystopian 1985 where he wields absolute power as a wealthy magnate who has murdered George and married Lorraine. The protagonists must outmaneuver this tyrant, stripping away his stolen fortune and restoring the timeline where Biff is once again just a bully with nothing but his arrogance to lose.

Did You Know?

• Biff is named after studio executive Ned Tanen, following an incident where Tanen reacted aggressively to a script pitched by Gale and Zemeckis.
• In the alternate 1985 timeline, Biff murdered George McFly in 1973 and used his money and political influence to cover up the evidence.
• Biff's great-grandfather, Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen, was shot in the back by Doc Brown on September 7, 1885 over a matter of $80.
• The character's middle initial was 'H' in early drafts, but this detail was omitted in further revisions.
• Writer Bob Gale said in 2015 that Donald Trump had influenced the character, though Snopes noted neither Gale nor Zemeckis had mentioned this in the preceding 30 years.