Tom Selleck wears a Timex Ironman Triathlon

Leonard Nimoy directed Three Men and a Baby, the highest-grossing film in America in 1987. Tom Selleck plays Peter Mitchell, a New York architect who shares a bachelor apartment with two friends until a baby is left on their doorstep, and the comedy runs on three grown men who cannot manage a diaper.

The Timex Ironman Triathlon, launched in 1986, became one of the best-selling watches in America, a digital sport watch with a chronograph, countdown timer, and lap memory. Mitchell wears it through the everyday, hands-on stretches of the film, the black resin case plain on his wrist as he holds the baby. He also turns up in a two-tone Rolex Datejust, and the pairing of a cheap plastic Timex with a gold-and-steel Rolex on the same leading man is the detail watch writers remember the film for.