TheNew Hollywood,Hollywood Renaissance, orAmerican New Wave, was a movement inAmerican film history from the 1960s to the 1980s, when a new generation of filmmakers came to prominence. They influenced the types of film produced, their production and marketing, and the way major studios approached filmmaking.[6] In New Hollywood films, the film director, rather than the studio, took on a keyauthorial role.[7]
The definition of "New Hollywood" varies, depending on the author, with some defining it as a movement and others as a period. The span of the period is also a subject of debate, as well as its integrity, as some authors, such as Thomas Schatz, argue that the New Hollywood consists of several different movements. The films made in this movement are stylistically characterized in that their narrative often deviated fromclassical norms. After the demise of thestudio system and the rise of television, the commercial success of films was diminished.[7]
It is also the name of a 1990NBC News special hosted byTom Brokaw about the then "new" Hollywood industry of the 1980s and early 1990s making epic mainstream blockbusters, personal mid-budget fare and smaller independent efforts.[20]
In fact,The Wild Angels was kind of a... it was a big success for theNew Hollywood. It wasRoger Corman, it wasPeter Fonda,Nancy Sinatra, it was a New Hollywood kind of movie, and it was very anti-the Old Hollywood, it was very hard-edged, violent, you know, it was not at all an Old Hollywood movie. And I didn't, I wasn't particularly aware of it. Then the following year wasBonnie and Clyde.Shadows had come out in the early '60s, so that was really the first sign of a kind of off-Hollywood movement.[21] –Peter Bogdanovich
Following theParamount Case (which ended block booking and ownership of theater chains by film studios)[15][22] and the advent of television[23] (whereGore Vidal,Rod Serling,John Frankenheimer,Arthur Penn,Paddy Chayefsky andSidney Lumet worked in their earlier years)[33], both of which severely weakened both the traditionalstudio system[34][35] and the Motion Picture Production Code (or theHays Code), Hollywood studios initially used spectacle to retain profitability.Technicolor developed a far more widespread use, whilewidescreen processes and technical improvements, such asCinemaScope,stereo sound, and others, such as3-D, were invented to retain the dwindling audience and compete with television. However, these were generally unsuccessful in increasing profits.[36] By 1957,Life magazine called the 1950s "the horrible decade" for Hollywood. It was dubbed a "New Hollywood" by a press.[37]
By the time theBaby Boomer generation started to come of age in the 1960s, "Old Hollywood" was rapidly losing money; the studios were unsure how to react to the much-changed audience demographics. Thechange in the market during the period went from a middle-aged high school-educated audience in the mid-1960s to a younger, more affluent, college-educated demographic: by the mid-1970s, 76% of all movie-goers were under 30, 64% of whom had gone to college.[44]European films, both arthouse and commercial (especially theCommedia all'italiana, theFrench New Wave, theSpaghetti Western), andJapanese cinema[45] were making a splash in the United States – the huge market of disaffected youth seemed to find relevance and artistic meaning in movies likeMichelangelo Antonioni'sBlowup, with its oblique narrative structure and full-frontal female nudity.[46][47]
WhenJack L. Warner, then-CEO ofWarner Bros., first saw a rough cut ofBonnie and Clyde in the summer of 1967, he hated it. Distribution executives at Warner Brothers agreed, giving the film a low-key premiere and limited release. Their strategy appeared justified whenBosley Crowther,middlebrow film critic atThe New York Times, gave the movie a scathing review. "It is a cheap piece of bald-faced slapstick comedy," he wrote, "that treats the hideous depredations of that sleazy, moronic pair as though they were as full of fun and frolic as the jazz-age cut-ups inThoroughly Modern Millie..." Other notices, including those fromTime andNewsweek magazines, were equally dismissive.[65]
Its portrayal of violence and ambiguity in regard to moral values, and its startling ending, divided critics. Following one of the negative reviews,Time magazine received letters from fans of the movie, and according to journalistPeter Biskind, the impact of criticPauline Kael in her positive review of the film (October 1967,New Yorker) led other reviewers to follow her lead and re-evaluate the film (notablyNewsweek andTime).[66] Kael drew attention to the innocence of the characters in the film and the artistic merit of the contrast of that with the violence in the film: "In a sense, it is the absence of sadism — it is the violence without sadism — that throws the audience off balance atBonnie and Clyde. The brutality that comes out of this innocence is far more shocking than the calculated brutalities of mean killers." Kael also noted the reaction of audiences to the violent climax of the movie, and the potential to empathize with the gang of criminals in terms of their naiveté and innocence reflecting a change in expectations of American cinema.[67]
The cover story inTime magazine in December 1967, celebrated the movie and innovation in American New Wave cinema. This influential article byStefan Kanfer claimed thatBonnie and Clyde represented a "New Cinema" through its blurred genre lines, and disregard for honored aspects of plot and motivation, and that "In both conception and execution,Bonnie and Clyde is a watershed picture, the kind that signals a new style, a new trend."[47] Biskind states that this review and turnaround by some critics allowed the film to be re-released, thus proving its commercial success and reflecting the move toward the New Hollywood.[68] The impact of this film is important in understanding the rest of the American New Wave, as well as the conditions that were necessary for it.
Also released the same year was another era-defining hit about the celebration of youthful rebellionThe Graduate, starringDustin Hoffman, with soundtrack by the popular folk duoSimon & Garfunkel[69][70][71] and directed byMike Nichols (for which he won the film's sole Oscar forBest Director), about Benjamin, a young college graduate rejecting the traditional values of his parents and their hypocritical society alongside a future in "plastics".[72][73]
These initial successes paved the way for the studio to relinquish almost complete control to these innovative young filmmakers. In the mid-1970s, idiosyncratic, startlingly original films such asPaper Moon,Dog Day Afternoon,Chinatown, andTaxi Driver, among others, enjoyed enormous critical and commercial success. These successes by the members of the New Hollywood led each of them in turn to make more and more extravagant demands, both on the studio and eventually on the audience.
The new generation of Hollywood filmmakers was most importantly, from the studios' view, young, therefore able to reach the youth audience they were losing. This collective of actors, screenwriters and directors, dubbed the "New Hollywood" by the press, briefly changed the business from the producer-driven Hollywood system of the past as Todd Berliner has written about the period's unusual narrative practices.[74]
The 1970s, Berliner says, marks Hollywood's most significant formal transformation since the conversion to sound film and is the defining period separating the storytelling modes of the studio era and contemporary Hollywood. New Hollywood films deviate from classical narrative norms more than Hollywood films from any other era or movement. Their narrative and stylistic devices threaten to derail an otherwise straightforward narration. Berliner argues that five principles govern the narrative strategies characteristic of Hollywood films of the 1970s:
Seventies films show a perverse tendency to integrate, in narrative incidental ways, story information and stylistic devices counterproductive to the films' overt and essential narrative purposes.
Hollywood filmmakers of the 1970s often situate their film-making practices in between those of classical Hollywood and those of European and Asian art cinema.
Seventies films prompt spectator responses more uncertain and discomforting than those of more typical Hollywood cinema.
Seventies narratives place an uncommon emphasis on irresolution, particularly at the moment of climax or in epilogues, when more conventional Hollywood movies busy themselves tying up loose ends.
Seventies cinema hinders narrative linearity and momentum and scuttles its potential to generate suspense and excitement.[75]
Seventies cinema also dealt with female identity in the era ofsecond wave feminism, masculine crises featuring flawed male characters, downbeat conclusions and pessimistic subject matters[82] alongside emotional realism in female identity stories,[83] negative attitudes toward authoritative institutions and other aspects of American life[84][85] and hard-nosed depictions of an America reeling from tense conflicts likeThe Vietnam War and PresidentRichard Nixon'sWatergate scandal.[86][87][88] Some New Hollywood titles like Hopper'sacid western[89]The Last Movie andBrian De Palma's musicalPhantom of the Paradise had more eccentric characteristics including indulgent storylines and dizzying disregard of genre conventions.[90]
Thomas Schatz points to another difference with the Hollywood Golden Age, which deals with the relationship of characters and plot. He argues that plot in classical Hollywood films (and some of the earlier New Hollywood films likeThe Godfather) "tended to emerge more organically as a function of the drives, desires, motivations, and goals of the central characters". However, beginning with mid-1970s, he points to a trend that "characters became plot functions".[91]
During the height of the studio system, films were made almost exclusively on set in isolated studios. The content of films was limited by the Motion Picture Production Code, and though golden-age film-makers found loopholes in its rules, the discussion of more taboo content through film was effectively prevented. The shift towards a "new realism" was made possible when theMotion Picture Association of America film rating system was introduced andlocation shooting was becoming more viable.New York City was a favorite spot for this new set of filmmakers due to its gritty and grimy atmosphere.[92][93][94][95][96]
Because of breakthroughs in film technology (e.g. thePanavisionPanaflex camera, introduced in 1972; theSteadicam, introduced in 1976), the New Hollywood filmmakers could shoot 35mm camera film in exteriors with relative ease. Since location shooting was cheaper (no sets need to be built) New Hollywood filmmakers rapidly developed the taste for location shooting, resulting in a more naturalistic approach to filmmaking, especially when compared to the mostly stylized approach of classical Hollywood musicals and spectacles made to compete with television during the 1950s and early 1960s. The documentary films ofD.A. Pennebaker,Emile de Antonio,the Maysles Brothers andFrederick Wiseman, among others, also influenced filmmakers of this era.[97][98]
However, in editing, New Hollywood filmmakers adhered to realism more liberally than most of their classical Hollywood predecessors, often using editing for artistic purposes rather than for continuity alone, a practice inspired by European art films and classical Hollywood directors such asD. W. Griffith and Hitchcock. Films with unorthodox editing includedEasy Rider's use ofjump cuts (influenced by the works ofexperimentalcollage filmmakerBruce Conner)[99][100][101] to foreshadow the climax of the movie, as well as subtler uses, such as those to reflect the feeling of frustration inBonnie and Clyde, the subjectivity of the protagonist inThe Graduate and the passage of time in the famousmatch cut from2001: A Space Odyssey.[102][103] Dense sound design was also commonplace during this era.[104]
The end of the production code enabled New Hollywood films to feature anti-establishment political themes, the use of rock music, and sexual freedom deemed "counter-cultural" by the studios.[114] The youth movement of the 1960s turned anti-heroes likeBonnie and Clyde andCool Hand Luke into pop-culture idols, andLife magazine called the characters inEasy Rider "part of the fundamental myth central to the counterculture of the late 1960s."[115]Easy Rider also affected the way studios looked to reach the youth market.[115] The success ofMidnight Cowboy, in spite of its "X" rating, was evidence for the interest in controversial themes at the time and also showed the weakness of the rating system and segmentation of the audience.[116]
For Peter Biskind, the new wave was foreshadowed byBonnie and Clyde and began in earnest withEasy Rider. Biskind's bookEasy Riders, Raging Bulls argues that the New Hollywood movement marked a significant shift towards independently produced and innovative works by a new wave of directors, but that this shift began to reverse itself when the commercial success ofJaws andStar Wars led to the realization by studios of the importance ofblockbusters, advertising and control over production (even though the success ofThe Godfather was said to be the precursor to the blockbuster phenomenon).[117][118]
Writing in 1968, criticPauline Kael argued that the importance ofThe Graduate was in its social significance in relation to a new young audience, and the role of mass media, rather than any artistic aspects. Kael argued that college students identifying withThe Graduate were not too different from audiences identifying with characters in dramas of the previous decade.[119] She also compared this era of cinema to "tangled, bitter flowering of American letters in the 1850s".[120]
"regular moviegoers were becoming weary of modern American movies. The darkness, the drug use, the embrace of sensation-the violence, the sex, and the sexual violence. But even more than that, they became weary of the anti-everything cynicism... Was everything a bummer? Was everything a drag? Was every movie about some guy with problems?"
In 1980, film historian/scholarRobert P. Kolker examined New Hollywood film directors in his bookA Cinema of Loneliness: Penn, Kubrick, Coppola, Scorsese, Altman, and how their films influenced American society of the 1960s and 1970s.[121] Kolker observed that "for all the challenge and adventure, their films speak to a continual impotence in the world, an inability to change and to create change."[122]
John Belton points to the changing demographic to even younger, more conservative audiences in the mid 1970s (50% aged 12–20) and the move to less politically subversive themes in mainstream cinema,[123] as did Thomas Schatz, who saw the mid- to late 1970s as the decline of the art cinema movement as a significant industry force with its peak in 1974–75 withNashville andChinatown.[124]
Geoff King sees the period as an interim movement in American cinema where a conjunction of forces led to a measure of freedom in filmmaking yet also pointed out that scholarships about the era tend to center on two versions: the auteur-driven indie and blockbuster eras.[125][126] Todd Berliner says that 70s cinema resists the efficiency and harmony that normally characterize classical Hollywood cinema and tests the limits of Hollywood's classical model.[127]
According to author and film critic Charles Taylor (Opening Wednesday at a Theater or Drive-In Near You), he stated that "the 1970s remain the third — and, to date, last — great period in American movies".[128] Author and film criticDavid Thomson also shared similar sentiments to the point of dubbing the era "the decade when movies mattered".[120]
Video essayist Leigh Singer wrote that this celebrated period revered the epic dramas and serious state-of-the-nation addresses "made by homebred auteurs" (The Last Picture Show,The Godfather,Chinatown,Nashville,Network andTaxi Driver) over less respectable genre pictures.[129]
Author A.D. Jameson (I Find Your Lack of Faith Disturbing), on the other hand, claimed thatStar Wars was New Hollywood's finest achievement that actually embodied the characteristics of the respected "serious, sophisticated adult films" while questioning the often-told critical narrative of said "last great decade of American cinema".[130][131]
Author Julie A. Turnock, in her bookPlastic Reality, stated that one common explanation as to why bothStar Wars andClose Encounters succeeded was that each film offered hopeful optimism for troubling times as opposed to the "doom and gloom" cinema of the era that audiences were getting tired of with emphasis on mistrust in authority, pessimistic and fatalistic views of the future and anti-heroic aimlessness.[132]
Nathan Rabin, writing for an article commemorating the movie's 40th anniversary at Boston.com in 2015, contested thatJaws, despite being labeled by conventional wisdom as the film that killed the quirky New Hollywood, didn't feel like one by today's vantage point.[133]
All ills spring from the 1980s. A transitional decade that witnessed the film industry’s restructuring along the lines of President Reagan’s neoliberal agenda, the eighties did away with the last remnants of New Hollywood while laying the foundations for today’s High Concept wasteland – thus goes an all too familiar tale of decline. The retrospective The Real Eighties questions this commonplace of film history and sides with the mainstream of Hollywood cinema: filmic realisms of the 1980s – in immediate proximity to the dream factories of Steven Spielberg or George Lucas, yet at odds with the decade’s political and aesthetic imperatives – await rediscovery.
There’s a long-held belief about Hollywood history that, from basically the moment “Heaven’s Gate” nearly bankrupted United Artists in 1980 to the moment “Sex, Lies, and Videotape” kicked off the indie boom of the ‘90s, studio executives had an almost pathological aversion to any movie with artistic ambition. There’s at least some truth to this, and seminal texts like Peter Biskind’s 1998 book Easy Riders, Raging Bulls have cooked those kernels of truth into a full-blown mythologizing of ‘70s and ‘90s Hollywood, while the ‘80s remain largely dismissed as a creative wasteland.
Los Angeles Times article film criticManohla Dargis described New Hollywood as the "halcyon age" of 1970s filmmaking, that "was less revolution than business as usual, with rebel hype".[137] She also pointed out in herNew York Times article that the era's enthusiasts insist this was "when American movies grew up (or at least starred underdressed actresses); when directors did what they wanted (or at least were transformed into brands); when creativity ruled (or at least ran gloriously amok, albeit often on the studio's dime)."[138]
This era was also infamous for its excessivedecadence and on-set mishaps (as was the case forApocalypse Now when the tumultuous production was documented byEleanor Coppola which in turn became her 1991 documentaryHearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse).[145] Incidents plaguing the behind-the-scenes of some of the horror films from this era (such asRosemary's Baby,The Exorcist,Twilight Zone: The Movie,Poltergeist andThe Omen) were also the subjects for the docuseriesCursed Films.[151] Even Spielberg, who co-directed/co-producedTwilight Zone withJohn Landis, was so disgusted by the latter's handling of adeadly helicopter accident that resulted in the death of three actors, that he ended their friendship and publicly called for the end of New Hollywood.[152] (De Palma and Friedkin shared similar sentiments about the crash.[153]) When approached by the press about the accident, he stated:[154]
"No movie is worth dying for. I think people are standing up much more now, than ever before, to producers and directors who ask too much. If something isn't safe, it's the right and responsibility of every actor or crew member to yell, 'Cut!'
Turner Classic Movies personality John Malahy, in his bookRewinding the '80s,[155] noted that a growing problem with this era was the director's ego spending millions on elaborate cinematic dreams that almost no one shared (e.g. Cimino'sHeaven's Gate).[156]
American Eccentric Cinema has been noted as influenced by this era.[169] Both traditions have similar themes and narratives of existentialism and the need for human interaction.[169] New Hollywood focuses on the darker elements of humanity and society within the context of theAmerican Dream in the mid-1960s to the early 1980s,[169] with themes that were reflective of sociocultural issues and were centered around the potential meaninglessness of pursuing the American Dream as generation upon generation was motivated to possess it.[169] In comparison, American Eccentric Cinema does not have a distinct context, its films show characters who are very individual and their concerns are very distinctive to their own personalities.[169]
This is adynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help byediting the page to add missing items, with references toreliable sources.
This is a chronological list of films that are generally considered to be "New Hollywood" productions:
^David A Cook, "Auteur Cinema and the film generation in 70s Hollywood", in The New American Cinema by Jon Lewis (ed), Duke University Press, New York, 1998, pp. 1–4
^Pauline Kael, "Bonnie and Clyde" in,Pauline Kael, For Keeps (Plume, New York, 1994) pp. 141–57. Originally published inThe New Yorker, October 21, 1967
^abcde"Last Summer (1969)".Post-Modern Pelican. February 24, 2020. RetrievedAugust 20, 2025.the conclusion clearly being that it is a masterpiece of the New Hollywood movement,
^abcdefghBroadway in the Box: Television's Lasting Love Affair with the Musical – Google Books (pg.128) ("A series of hits and misses attempted to embrace the synergistic impulses of the New Hollywood, with quasi-musicals or movies structured around their soundtracks and popular music stars hitting the screen:Grease, the Bee Gee'sSgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1978), the Village People'sCan't Stop the Music (1980), Olivia Newton-John'sXanadu (1980) and Dolly Parton'sThe Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982).")
^abcFisher, Greg (May 22, 2020)."The Incident (1967): A Retrospective Review".MoreMovies.co.uk. RetrievedAugust 20, 2025.The Incident is a pre-cursor to the neo-realism of the new Hollywood that would dominate the U.S. cinema throughout the 1970s.
^abcdeMecca, Dan (July 25, 2023)."Exclusive Trailer for Christian Slater: Outsider Brings the Actor's Cult Hits to Metrograph on 35mm".The Film Stage. RetrievedSeptember 20, 2025.Slater himself feels like a bridge between two moments in time. With his severe dyed hair inGleaming the Cube, his smoldering intensity inHeathers, or his pervasive Jack Nicholson-adjacent voice and eyebrows, he feels like the movie star who stood at the nexus of New Hollywood and the indie-infused '90s.
^"Repo Man".Film 5,000. RetrievedSeptember 22, 2025.Stanton had become a staple of New Hollywood cinema but hadn't broke into major stardom…Repo Man changed that,
^abcdefghiCacioppo, Cristina (February 18, 2021)."Notebook Primer: Debra Winger".MUBI. RetrievedSeptember 29, 2025.…There is a shallowness to many mainstream movies of the 1980s. The films of Debra Winger defy that trend, and with qualities more akin to the New Hollywood aesthetic.Mike's Murder was her first role afterTerms of Endearment,
^Goulding, Andy (June 15, 2016)."That Cold Day in the Park (1969)".Blueprint Review. RetrievedAugust 20, 2025.embraced as one of the most promising directors of the New Hollywood movement but unlike his contemporaries Altman was not a young man,
^abParry, Luke (October 31, 2024)."The Driller Killer: When the '70s Slasher Came to New York".Buffed Film Buffs. RetrievedSeptember 27, 2025.However, its uniqueness is in its fresh exploration of the slasher genre, which it combines with these quintessentially 'New Hollywood New York' elements.
^abMir, Ziglet (January 14, 2023)."The Horsemen review".Letterboxd. RetrievedSeptember 27, 2025.…But this is the kind of film only New Hollywood era filmmaking could conjure,
^abcdWalters, Jake (May 26, 2024)."Midnight Screenings:Streets of Fire".The Long Take. RetrievedSeptember 25, 2025.Hill often worked in this register: grainy and low-to-the-ground like a New Hollywood greaser, but teasing out the illusive and fantastic, the penumbra of abstraction around the direct darkness, either by marking his film as an allegory, as in the turbid and tangled waters of Southern Comfort, orby turning the characters into abstractions a la The Driver or in the meta-theoretical-generational The Long Riders. A Hill film is like its title: tight, iconic, even brutally clipped, yet somehow suggestive and oneiric.
^abCrabtree, Benjamin (July 1, 2022)."Why John Waters'sPink Flamingos Continues to Shock and Delight".Collider. RetrievedAugust 27, 2025.While normative international audiences scoffed and even banned the film on its initial release, the sociocultural importance of Waters's message of self-acceptance and queer expression has empoweredPink Flamingos to transcend the trappings of its trash aesthetics to become a necessary artifact of the New Hollywood.
^abBarrett, Michael (April 23, 2015)."Cult of the Damned Leaps Directly Into the 'Camp' Camp".PopMatters.OCLC1122752384. RetrievedSeptember 30, 2025.This R-rated film (M at the time) shows where the bolder elements of New Hollywood Cinema were going at the time — inward and outward to 'shocking' themes with sex, drugs, nudity, and dangerous, ungrateful youth created by thoughtless parents.
^ab"Elia Kazan: Man on a Tightrope".Austrian Film Museum. February 18, 2010. RetrievedSeptember 13, 2025.At the same time, these works bear witness to a growing cinematic expression, culminating in the lyrical masterpiecesWild River (1960) andSplendor in the Grass (1961), which in their unruly passion can be seen as harbingers of the New Hollywood.
^Devlin-Gali-Matt-Patrick (January 14, 2021)."Episode 52:The Misfits".The Rewind Movie Podcast (Podcast). RetrievedOctober 2, 2025.This kind of stuff was the bread and butter of the New Hollywood output –
^Smight, Alec; Smight, Danny (April 10, 2025)."Lonely are the Brave and other stuff too!".Time:Code Cowboys (Podcast). Buzzsprout. RetrievedSeptember 20, 2025.IsLonely are the Brave (1962) the real beginning of New Hollywood?
^Kendrick, James."The Killers (1964)".QNetwork. RetrievedSeptember 27, 2025.In fact, the film plays as a primer for the revolution that would become 'The New Hollywood'…
^Faulkner, Kyle (February 13, 2023)."The Killers review".Letterboxd. RetrievedSeptember 27, 2025.…Those little inflections of truthiness forming a bridge out of Code and on to New Hollywood.
^"Rat Fink review".Letterboxd. July 18, 2025. RetrievedOctober 2, 2025.— Yet it's at that nexus where character driven, artfully stylized grindhouse evolves into the darker ambiguities of New Hollywood.
^SLEAZOIDS Podcast (July 27, 2024)."Rat Fink (1965) review".Letterboxd. RetrievedOctober 2, 2025.…A double feature of very dark New Hollywood rags-to-riches musical showbusiness melodramas…
^abcCiriaco, Andrea (July 4, 2024)."10 Best Movie Musical Stars of All Time, Ranked".Collider. RetrievedSeptember 23, 2025.The iconic film genre continued to evolve, reaching new heights during the New Hollywood Movement with unforgettable titles likeThe Sound of Music, Cabaret, andFunny Girl.
^Proofrock (November 15, 2023)."Young Dillinger review".Letterboxd. RetrievedSeptember 28, 2025.…The sensationalism of such a tale being laid out in striking repose a la the New Hollywood era,
^Fernandes, David (February 28, 2024)."Games (1967) review".Letterboxd. RetrievedSeptember 30, 2025.This really feels like it was made on the cusp of New Hollywood sensibilities.
^Whooper, Tobe (November 24, 2019)."Games review".Letterboxd. RetrievedSeptember 30, 2025.…One of the most interesting straddlers of Old and New Hollywood.
^Junkie, Snowboard (September 27, 2024)."Hells Angels on Wheels review".Letterboxd. RetrievedSeptember 21, 2025.Rush's film is a cheap precursor to the New Hollywood and it's (sic) censorship breakdowns that followed throughout the 70's.
^abcPhipps, Grant (January 20, 2025)."We contained multitudes: an uncontained year in cinema".Tone Madison. RetrievedSeptember 21, 2025.After reacting so positively to Jacques Demy's Model Shop (1969) at the very end of last year, I wanted to explore some of the hidden treasures of the New Hollywood era, from 1966 through 1976, approximately (and maybe somewhat analogously to Sara's Frank Perry viewing). I only got to a dozen titles, but it's a start, as I sought further input from my mom, who grew up during this time. Most recognizable in the list might be Midnight Cowboy (1969), an outright masterpiece, but the most significant discovery for me was Joseph L. Anderson's Spring Night, Summer Night (1967). I love how this film captures the Southeastern Ohio locale in gorgeous (and very European) black-and-white cinematography that evokes Bergman regulars, Sven Nykvist and Gunnar Fischer. (SNSN's release and alternate-version history also feel comparable to Summer With Monika.) Anderson's gritty depiction of small-town affairs was a lot more compelling to me than The Last Picture Show (1971)'s doldrums, but maybe I can attribute part of that to the shorter runtime and the familiarity of its Mid-Atlantic vistas, as someone from South-Central Pennsylvania.n regulars,
^"Frederick Wiseman: The Choreography of Everyday Life".The Cinematheque. March 6, 2025. RetrievedAugust 20, 2025.|quote=(Titicut Follies is in the DNA of exemplars of New Hollywood and superhero film maudit alike, while a screening of Zoo in Yamagata circa 1993 is credited for almost single-handedly sparking a new wave of Chinese documentary filmmakers.)
^Williams, Craig (January 19, 2015)."Blu-ray Review:Two for the Road".CineVue. RetrievedSeptember 29, 2025.Two for the Road is a proto-American New Wave marriage drama that sizzles and bites.
^Caul (May 25, 2021)."The Brotherhood (1968) review".Letterboxd. RetrievedSeptember 22, 2025.This is definitely a part of the New Hollywood and came out only a year after the game changer that wasBonnie and Clyde.
^FROM THE ARCHIVES: The Legend of Lylah Clare – Cineaste Magazine ("Enter the new freedom of New Hollywood. There’s a lesbian on the premises. Rossella Forte (Rossella Falk), who was Lylah’s lover—along with many other men and women—is a pathetic attempt to open a discussion about the sexual complexities of Hollywood. If Rossella’s orientation is treated more directly than was previously permitted, the film is suffused by the homophobia of Old Hollywood. Rossella is not much more than a creepy threat to Elsa, for whom she becomes as hot as she was for Lylah, especially after Zarken bleaches the young actress’s hair Lylah’s shade of platinum, styles it as Lylah wore it, and dresses her in Lylah’s old gowns.")
^Walters, Jake (February 21, 2022)."Film Favorites: Uptight".The Long Take. RetrievedAugust 20, 2025.Perspiring and grubby, a New Hollywood hot-house of a film rejecting the niceties of Classical Hollywood,
^Aldarondo, Michael (March 13, 2022)."Popi (1969) review".Letterboxd. RetrievedSeptember 22, 2025.On a technical level,Popi is a prime example of the energetic and free-spiritedness of American New Wave cinema.
^Langdon, Nick (May 29, 2021)."Topaz review".Letterboxd. RetrievedSeptember 29, 2025.In another instance of trying to be more modern in order to keep up with the boundary-pushing New Hollywood movement as well as the more realistic/nihilistic films coming out in Europe at the time, there's no happy ending.
^Cash, Garrett (March 17, 2024)."Where It's At review".Letterboxd. RetrievedOctober 7, 2025.Visually speaking, this is the most stark 'New era' of Vegas movie that takes you right out of the glory of the glitzy golden era into the seedy and grainy New Hollywood version of Vegas.
^Ray, Joshua (September 18, 2020)."Golden Anniversaries:Beyond the Valley of the Dolls".The Take-Up. RetrievedSeptember 29, 2025.…Russ Meyer, is almost never mentioned among this New Hollywood elite. However, hisBeyond the Valley of the Dolls…is wholly representative of the time and the conditions that sparked the movement.
^abProofrock (November 21, 2017)."Making It review".Letterboxd. RetrievedSeptember 28, 2025.Feels at first like a breezy, inconsequential New Hollywood studio diceroll, a laCover Me, Babe,
^abcdHogan, Sean (September 26, 2023)."Pacino Picks: 5 underrated Al Pacino films".Arrow Films. RetrievedAugust 22, 2025.One of the prevailing trends of the New Hollywood cinema was a series of films that set out to satirise the systemic failures of America's great institutions: the military inM.A.S.H. (1970), the health service inThe Hospital (1971), and the media inNetwork (1976). Following on their heels,Norman Jewison's...And Justice for All aimed to do much the same for the American criminal justice system.
^"Desperate Characters (1971)".The Postmodern Pelican. February 7, 2023. RetrievedAugust 29, 2025.During the era of New Hollywood, we found several such films being produced, where there wasn't much need for high-concept storylines or a perpetual sense of excitement or thrilling content. Instead, a quiet, intimate character study could be extraordinarily resonant when given the chance. We can find a superb example of this principle in the form ofDesperate Characters,…
^Butcher, Terrence (May 17, 2009)."Johnny Got His Gun".PopMatters.OCLC1122752384. RetrievedAugust 20, 2025.Johnny Got His Gun is not merely a touchstone work of the now-mythologized 'New Hollywood' era, when a few lunatics took over the Tinsel Town asylum, but a rare instance of a celebrated author adapting his own book to film … and over three decades later!
^Dorr, Greg (October 17, 2015)."Octoblur 2015 - #33:Let's Scare Jessica to Death (1971)".Media Life Crisis. RetrievedAugust 24, 2025.Combining the loose New Hollywood aesthetics ofEasy Rider with the mild horror trappings of TV movies…Let's Scare Jessica to Death is an unusual PG-rated psychological thriller…
^Wilkins, Budd (May 14, 2013)."Blu-ray Review: Nelson Lyon'sThe Telephone Book on Vinegar Syndrome".Slant Magazine. RetrievedSeptember 11, 2025.Credit for the film's visual sophistication is also due to its editor, Len Saltzberg, who deploys many of the edgy New Hollywood techniques he'd learned working on John Schlesinger's Midnight Cowboy.
^Brayton, Tim (April 1, 2020)."The Other (1972) - Movie Review: The bad seeds".Alternate Ending. RetrievedAugust 29, 2025.In some ways, it feels like one of the several Depression-era dramas scattered across the New Hollywood Cinema,
^"Film Review:Play It Again, Sam (1972)".Waivio. April 5, 2025. RetrievedAugust 23, 2025.Here, Allen's trademark wit collides with Bogart's mythic stoicism, creating a dialogue between old Hollywood glamour and New Hollywood introspection.
^Fyhr, Fredrik."To Kill a Clown".FredrikFyhr.se. RetrievedSeptember 21, 2025.Långsamt och udda triangeldrama med en typisk amerikansk 70-talskänsla och New Hollywood-erans överflöd av kreativitet och underskott av idé. [Slow and odd triangle drama with a typical American 70s feeling and New Hollywood era abundance of creativity and deficit of idea.]
^Burrows, Randy (May 28, 2024)."Battle for the Planet of the Apes review".Letterboxd. RetrievedSeptember 30, 2025.And J. Lee Thompson (who made the originalCAPE FEAR) deserves a pat on the back for dragging the series into the New Hollywood 70s and out of the cheeseyFLINTSTONES-looking backlot sets and Western genre.
^"Soylent Green (1973)".The Postmodern Pelican. March 25, 2022. RetrievedAugust 29, 2025.Soylent Green is one of the most notable science fiction films produced under the New Hollywood movement,
^Phipps, Grant (March 9, 2025)."The sights and shape(s) of the 2025 Wisconsin Film Festival".ToneMadison.com. RetrievedSeptember 23, 2025.I actually rented the 20-year-old DVD of his 1973 New Hollywood political satire,The Spook Who Sat By The Door,
^Gaughan, Liam (March 5, 2023)."The Goodbye Girl: Why You Should Watch the Classic Movie Referenced inThe Last of Us".MovieWeb. RetrievedAugust 23, 2025.Dreyfuss…during this "New Hollywood" era of 1970s filmmaking, male actors could challenge traditional notions about gender roles … Another hallmark of the New Hollywood era is the inversion of traditional depictions of familial life;…The Goodbye Girl is a great representation of this.
^"Last Chants for a Slow Dance (1977) review".Letterboxd. December 8, 2021. RetrievedSeptember 23, 2025.I've been heavily interested in the 'unadulterated Americana road trip' aspects of the New Hollywood era and this…this is about as ugly as it gets.
^De Vaulx, Jean-Baptiste (March 20, 2016)."Martin (George A. Romero, 1977)".Cine-Scope. RetrievedAugust 29, 2025.George Romero remains best known for single-handedly inventing the modern zombie genre, but this underrated, New Hollywood-era, teenage-angst movie with a serious twist saw him try his hand at a vampire film.
^Lynch, Hannah (August 29, 2021)."Short Eyes review".Letterboxd. RetrievedSeptember 20, 2025.The best qualities of the New Hollywood Era are its realistic film style, and ability to make viewers constantly question their morals.…Short Eyes embodies both of the aforementioned qualities..
^Phipps, Keith (June 27, 2022)."The Least Historically Accurate Music Biopics Ever Made".Vulture.Archived from the original on August 15, 2015. RetrievedSeptember 12, 2025.That's not that far off from most accounts of the real-life Holly, even if there's more than a touch of Old Hollywood sanitization to this New Hollywood–era film.
^Ucancld, Sam (July 14, 2021)."F.I.S.T. (1978) review".Letterboxd. RetrievedSeptember 23, 2025.Es excelente como está representada esa puja de poderes y como a veces hay que transar con el opuesto para lograr algo, el mundo desidealizado, muy propio del New Hollywood. [It is excellent as that bid of powers is represented and as sometimes you have to travel with the opposite to achieve something, the de-idealized world, very typical of the New Hollywood.]
^"Silver Screen Streak List #19: 02....And Justice For All. (1979)".Media Life Crisis. September 9, 2021. RetrievedAugust 22, 2025.Norman Jewison'sAnd Justice for All (1979) is from the same, frustrated, cynical mold, and goes through its chaotic paces with an excellent New Hollywood cast that helps it bridge its more awkward melodramas.
^Mir, Ziglet (December 5, 2023)."The Lady in Red review".Letterboxd. RetrievedSeptember 27, 2025.DirectorLewis Teague seems to fill the gap between aRoger Corman type (apt since this film is produced by the man himself) and the likes of that New Hollywood vision, creating films with unique perspectives under pennies and dimes.
^abJameson, A.D (May 8, 2018).I Find Your Lack of Faith Disturbing: Star Wars and the Triumph of Geek Culture. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.ISBN978-0374537364.
^Burrows, Randy (May 28, 2023)."Fame review".Letterboxd. RetrievedSeptember 30, 2025.The film loves its Broadway and New Hollywood origins, though, and it provides a raw atmosphere for the proceedings.
^Grierson, Tim (March 18, 2024)."When Paul Simon Bombed at the Movies".RogerEbert.com. RetrievedSeptember 13, 2025.By comparison,One-Trick Pony was a more mainstream project, even if it did somewhat reflect the New Hollywood era in its lament for an outsider facing off with an unfeeling society.
^Sage, Tyler (August 12, 2022)."What Do We Mean When We Talk About Greatness?:The Stunt Man".Thoughts Mostly About Film. RetrievedAugust 23, 2025 – viaSubstack.The Stunt Man is an absolutely unique film. It bears the imprint of the energy and enthusiasm of the '70s New Hollywood moment,
^Rabin, Nathan (January 6, 2022)."The Fractured Mirror 2.0 #6The Stunt Man (1980)".Nathan Rabin's Happy Place. RetrievedAugust 23, 2025.The Stunt Man, not justa stuntman, in a towering masterpiece that, despite coming out in June of 1980, today feels like the last great film of the New Hollywood of the late 1960s and 1970s.The Stunt Man has all the hallmarks of a New Hollywood boundary pusher.
^Babiolakis, Andreas (July 16, 2020)."Arthur: On-This-Day Thursday".Films Fatale. RetrievedSeptember 13, 2025.With a pinch of New Hollywood edge and an awareness of early '80s warmth,Arthur is a dead-end stop that will satisfy some more than others,
^De Roxtra, James R. (October 7, 2025)."Victor/Victoria review".Letterboxd. RetrievedOctober 10, 2025.
^Walters, Jake (July 30, 2015)."Midnight Screening:White Dog".The Long Take. RetrievedSeptember 27, 2025.White Dog feels like the New Hollywood treatment of racism America actually needed,
^"1984:Choose Me".Forgotten Films. August 31, 2014. RetrievedSeptember 21, 2025 – via The Pink Smoke.In some ways, Rudolph's film bridges the gap between the New Hollywood of Altman, Bogdanovich, and Hal Ashby and the New American Independent work of Jarmusch, Soderbergh, and Hal Hartley.
^Montag, Michael (January 12, 2022)."Mask (1985) review".Letterboxd. RetrievedOctober 3, 2025.…One foot in the old Hollywood and one in the New Hollywood.
^abcdeGreen, Michael (October 1, 2019)."Cinema, Race and the Zeitgeist: OnPulp Fiction Twenty Years Later (Issue 72, October 2014)".Senses of Cinema. No. 72.ISSN1443-4059. RetrievedSeptember 25, 2025.As with the New Hollywood directors, these young filmmakers were primed to rebel against the status quo and the tired assembly line product of the studios. Their films' low budgets, general lack of movie stars, formal experimentation, self-conscious homage to cinema and popular culture, and subversive content, made them attractive to Xers. True to their era, many of these films (including Clerks (1994), Kids (1995), Slacker (1991), My Own Private Idaho (1991) and The Doom Generation (1995), among many others) feature non-linear or non-existent narratives, are character rather than plot-driven, and revel in ironic, sarcastic, glib or nihilistic tones.
^"Boyz n the Hood".ACMI. RetrievedSeptember 27, 2025.John Singleton's Boyz 'n the Hood was one of the pioneering works of this New Hollywood cinema.
^Stevenson, Billy (September 28, 2021)."Lee:Malcolm X (1992)".Cinema, Television, Music. RetrievedSeptember 25, 2025.The film comes full circle (again) at this point, segueing into the era of epics that Lee aims to rival, by way of the New Hollywood surveillance mode.
^abRoxborough, Scott (September 11, 2018)."Why a James Toback Film Will Get a Festival Screening".The Hollywood Reporter.ISSN0018-3660.OCLC44653726. RetrievedSeptember 25, 2025."It felt like New Hollywood lite, so many things were happening, so many new directors coming in from all over, and it felt open to everyone," Neumann recalls. "It was easy to set up a festival. You could just call up people and they were interested."
^Crumpler, David (March 23, 2017). "John Waters to talk aboutSerial Mom at screening during Sleeping Giant Fest in Jacksonville".The Florida Times-Union.ISSN0740-2325.OCLC49633482.…And I really loved the idea that we had Old Dreamland [his early troupe of actors] and New Hollywood together.
^Burrows, Randy (September 9, 2023)."Se7en review".Letterboxd. RetrievedSeptember 30, 2025.…New Hollywood indie directors of the 1990s influenced attitudes and style of filmmaking in Hollywood, Fincher did, too…
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