In 1988, Shue starred in "Cocktail" as the love interest of Tom Cruise's lead character. The following year she starred in the short film "Body Wars", which was used at Epcot in an ATLAS Simulator attraction in the Wonders Of Life Pavilion until 2007. Other roles followed, including appearing as Jennifer Parker in "Back to the Future Part II" (1989) and "Back to the Future Part III" (1990), where she replaced Claudia Wells who declined to reprise the role from "Back to the Future" because of a family illness. It was around this time her older brother, William, died in an accident on a family holiday. Although her career was on the rise with her playing lead roles, Shue elected to take on the smaller supporting role of Jennifer in these sequels to allow her to deal with her family loss. The sequels were filmed back to back, and she featured prominently in Part II, appearing in bookend pieces in the third part of the trilogy.