History Main / BackToFront

[[folder:Videos Music]]

* An episode of ''Series/TheXFiles'' ("Redrum", #167, or S8-6), but the central character was aware of it. He woke up in prison, not understanding how he got there. He goes to sleep that night, and wakes up the next morning to discover that he is going to trial, for the crime he was incarcerated for "yesterday."

* The ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' episode "Before and After" has Kes living her life backwards. It even foreshadows episodes in the next season (specifically "Year of Hell"), though events proceeded differently since Kes had left the ship by then.
* ''Series/{{Smallville}}'' episode Abyss had Chloe losing all her memories except [[GenericDoomsdayVillain Davis Bloome]] due to a [[MindVirus computer virus in her mind]], where they flashed back all here memories in reverse order.
* In the ''Series/{{Sliders}}'' episode "As Time Goes By", one of the worlds has time going (kind of) backwards for the sliders. Quinn abuses this to prevent a murder, which causes a [[TimeCrash hole to appear in the sky]].

* A variation on the theme was ''Series/RedDwarf'''s "Backwards", where the characters encounter a world where time moves backwards. A mysterious ache in Lister's ribcage and back, which appears when he first lands on the planet, is explained when a backwards BarBrawl -- or more accurately a barroom ''tidy'' -- breaks out. Cat hides in the bushes near the end, for the sort of purpose cats do that for. Quite what happens isn't shown but it clearly isn't something he enjoys very much.
* "Zig Zag", an episode of ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'' revival, starts InMediasRes in the middle of an armed standoff between a group of cyber-terrorists threatening to blow up a MegaCorp and the police, then goes backwards chronologically to explain how they got in this situation before jumping back to the present for the climax.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'': River Song's arc up until "Let's Kill Hitler" was this, since due to time travel her meetings with the Doctor aren't in the right order, and of the three times we've seen her they've been steadily earlier in her own timeline. Since then, it's become AnachronicOrder.
* ''Series/{{CSINY}}'''s episode "Nothing For Something" opens with footage of the victim-to-be getting together with a guy from a bar, with the footage run in reverse. It actually doesn't look that odd until the spooning couple start putting their clothes ''on'' in bed.

* ''Series/InsideNo9'' episode "[[Recap/InsideNo9S4E3OnceRemoved Once Removed]]" is narrated in reverse chronology, in instalments of ten minutes from end to beginning.

[[folder:Theater]]

* ''Comicbook/{{Grayson}}: Comicbook/FuturesEnd'' opens with Dick being hanged by Helena, then each page is captioned "Earlier". As the story goes on, the gaps between the pages get longer, first explaining the immediate reason this is happening, then the situation that led up to it, and then stretching back through his careers as Nightwing and Robin to the moment of his parents' death, for an implied explanation of what ''really'' happened.

* ''Midnighter'' #7 tells the story backwards. Apparently it makes sense and is still good whether you read it front-to-back or back-to-front.
* The twelve issue miniseries, ''Marvel: The Lost Generation'', gave snippets of the history of the First Line (a team of superheroes [[RetCon retconned]] into the Franchise/MarvelUniverse), with each issue taking place earlier in time. [[spoiler:The first issue showed the final fate of the team, while the last issued showed how the it formed.]] The series is unique, however, in that it was written to be read either way; by proper numerical order (starting with issue #1 and ending with #12) or published order (#12 to #1). You end up getting the whole story no matter what "direction" you chose to take it in, but the concept is fairly novel.

* ''{{Series/Smallville}}'' episode Abyss had Chloe losing all her memories except [[GenericDoomsdayVillain Davis Bloome]] due to a [[MindVirus computer virus in her mind]], where they flashed back all here memories in reverse order.
* In the ''{{Series/Sliders}}'' episode "As Time Goes By", one of the worlds has time going (kind of) backwards for the sliders. Quinn abuses this to prevent a murder, which causes a [[TimeCrash hole to appear in the sky]].

* The backwards episode of ''{{Series/Seinfeld}}'' entitled "The Betrayal". The episode's title is a ShoutOut to the play ''Theatre/{{Betrayal}}'', as is the fact that one of the characters mentioned in the episode is named Pinter. [[LogoJoke This even extended to]] [[https://youtu.be/tk3RWMgGxe8 the closing logos]] (or opening logos in this case).

* ''{{Series/ER}}'':

* ''{{Series/CSI}}'': An episode started at the end of the shift and kept showing one case being worked, then jumping backward to the case just prior to it, showing how incidental characters in the later case were affected by the prior one, and at the end tying all the cases together in various ways.

* The backwards episode of ''{{Series/Seinfeld}}'' entitled "The Betrayal". The episode's title is a ShoutOut to the play ''Theatre/{{Betrayal}}'', as is the fact that one of the characters mentioned in the episode is named Pinter.

* The backwards episode of ''{{Series/Seinfeld}}'' entitled "The Betrayal". The episode's title is a ShoutOut to the play ''Theatre/{{Betrayal}}'', as is the the fact that one of the characters mentioned in the episode is named Pinter.

* In the 1931 Kaufman & Hart play ''Merrily We Roll Along'', each scene takes place in an earlier year than the previous one, opening in 1934 and ending in 1916. ''Merrily We Roll Along'' was loosely adapted into a [[Theatre/MerrilyWeRollAlong musical]] by Music/StephenSondheim and and George Furth in 1981, with a SettingUpdate; voices from the GreekChorus count the years of TheSeventies and TheSixties going backwards during the scene changes.

* ''Series/InsideNo9'' "Once Removed" takes place over [[ExtremelyShortTimeSpan less than an hour]], each segment flashing back ten minutes.

* Music/{{Nightwish}}'s ''Dark Passion Play'' from the album with the same name begins with a boy whispering "The End" and ends with the boy whispering "The Beginning".

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* How you usually experience the chapters in ''VideoGame/ReturnOfTheObraDinn''. You have to find out what happened aboard the titular ship, and the primary way to do that is to see the moment a crew member died. In this memory there often will be another corpse who died earlier, and you can see the moment ''that'' person died, tracing back the chain of deaths from the last to the first. Chapters V and IV in particular are experienced entirely in reverse, with the (chronologically) last death of V connecting to the first death of IV in one long session of memory probing.

-->The future’s the same as the past. It’s all written down in the book of the world. The only reason we think any different is that our memory only works one way—aligned against entropy with the ordering of the world. But that’s an illusion. It’s not the truth. The truth is, it’s all just there, future and past, lifeworld and deadworld, hard and cold.

* The Mini advert "[[http://www.visit4info.com/advert/Mini-Car-Eat-My-Hat-MINI-Car-Range/19882 backwards]]" plays... well, backwards, starting with the line "Man eats hat. The end. It's a MINI adventure" and runs from, or rather to, there.

* ''VideoGame/ThanksForPlaying'' (A.K.A. [[spoiler:''The Last Hope of Dr. Zeit'']]) is a whole game of this, complete with the gameplay going backwards.

* [[http://www.alkemi-games.com/tfp/ Thanks for playing]][[labelnote:*]]No longer available there, but still playable via [[https://bluemaxima.org/flashpoint/ Flashpoint]][[/labelnote]] (A.K.A. [[spoiler:''The Last Hope of Dr. Zeit'']]) is a whole game of this, complete with the gameplay going backwards.

* [[http://www.alkemi-games.com/tfp/ Thanks for playing]] (A.K.A. [[spoiler:''The Last Hope of Dr. Zeit'']]) is a whole game of this, complete with the gameplay going backwards.

* "Little Motel" by Music/ModestMouse. Good god... [[spoiler:It starts off as if a mother is tucking her child into bed, but as the reverse story reveals everything, [[TearJerker it is revealed that the child is dead]]]].

* TearJerker example: ''Star Trek Annual #3'', which traces Montgomery Scott's relationship with his ex-wife in reverse order, from his notification of her death to their first meeting as children.

* The video for Arttu Wiskari's "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97DwMIf7_lI Tuntematon potilas]]" is from the POV an elder implied to be suffering from Alzheimer's. The video starts of with a couple cops looking at him with sympathetic faces. As the video goes on, [[HowWeGotHere it becomes evident]] that the guy had taken a pack of sugar from the local store and forgot to pay.

* The events of "[[Music/BobDylan All Along the Watchtower]]" start with the approach of the riders in the 3rd verse, followed by The Thief's reaction to that in the second verse, and end with The Joker's reply in the first verse.

* Rewind by Music/{{Nas}}. It starts with a man getting shot, and ends with him getting a message.
* The french song ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5WdpSPeQUE Tout va très bien, Madame la Marquise]]'' (Best known in its [[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff Russian]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DfFAlRmIBU version]], to the extent of ''the titlee becoming a proverb'' there). A woman calls to ask how things are going at home. Well, everything is fine, except for your horse dying... because the stables burned down... because the entire house did... because your husband learned he was broke and shot himself, knocking down a candle when he fell dead. [[BlatantLies Otherwise, everything is fine]].

* Music/{{Nightwish}}'s ''Dark Passion Play'' from the album with the same name begins with a boy whispering "The End" and ends with the boy whispering "The Beginning".

* One of Louis Sachar's ''Literature/WaysideSchool'' books has a chapter whose sentences are in reverse order. To bring it full circle, when read back-to-front (the only way it makes sense) the story ends with the main character being told to read the story backwards.

* Issue #71 of the ''ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehog'' comic book did the entire issue like this, with the letters page coming first, then the backup story, and then the main story. Incidentally, this was the issue where they provided an explanation for Sonic's makeover for ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure''.

* At one point, in Creator/ChuckJones's ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry'' cartoon "Shutter Bugged Cat", Tom plays footage from "WesternAnimation/HeavenlyPuss" backwards. Not a bad idea for a ClipShow.

* The LetsPlay of ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2SpecialEdition'' had each segment of its Metropolis Zone video played in reverse order, starting with the character-unlock screen and finishing with the [[OnceAnEpisode otherwise-episode-starting prayer]].

* The ''WesternAnimation/EquestriaGirls'' fanfic ''Fanfic/AGemOfADay'' involved the Mane 7 going on [[ThreeLinesSomeWaiting three parallel adventures]] shown in reverse. [[spoiler:It's revealed that the reason the events were shown in reverse was the side effect of a magical experiment of Twilight's]].

* How you usually experience the chapters in ''VideoGame/ReturnOfTheObraDinn''. You have to uncover what happened aboard the titular ship, and the primary way to do that is to see the moment a crew member died. In this memory there often will be another person who died earlier, and you can see the moment ''that'' person died, tracing back the chain of deaths from the last to the first. Chapters V and IV in particular are experienced entirely in reverse, with the (chronologically) last death of V connecting to the first death of IV in one long session of memory probing.