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My first car was a ‘54 Ford and I bought it for $435. It wasn’t scooped, channeled, shaved, decked, pinstriped, or chopped, and it didn’t have duals, but its hubcaps were a wonder to behold.

On weekends my friends and I drove around downtown Urbana -- past the Princess Theater, past the courthouse -- sometimes stopping for a dance at the youth center or a hamburger at the Steak ‘n’ Shake (“In Sight, It Must Be Right”). And always we listened to Dick Biondi on WLS. Only two years earlier, WLS had been the Prairie Farmer Station; now it was the voice of rock all over the Midwest.

When I went to see George Lucas ’s “American Graffiti” that whole world -- a world that now seems incomparably distant and innocent -- was brought back with a rush of feeling that wasn’t so much nostalgia as culture shock. Remembering my high school generation, I can only wonder at how unprepared we were for the loss of innocence that took place in America with the series of hammer blows beginning with the assassination of President Kennedy.

The great divide was November 22, 1963,and nothing was ever the same again. The teenagers in “American Graffiti” are, in a sense, like that cartoon character in the magazine ads: the one who gives the name of his insurance company, unaware that an avalanche is about to land on him. The options seemed so simple then: to go to college, or to stay home and look for a job and cruise Main Street and make the scene.

The options were simple, and so was the music that formed so much of the way we saw ourselves. “American Graffiti”‘s sound track is papered from one end to the other with Wolfman Jack ’s nonstop disc jockey show, that’s crucial and absolutely right. The radio was on every waking moment. A character in the movie only realizes his car, parked nearby, has been stolen when he hears the music stop: He didn’t hear the car being driven away.

The music was as innocent as the time. Songs like “ Sixteen Candles ” and “Gonna Find Her” and “The Book of Love” sound touchingly naive today; nothing prepared us for the decadence and the aggression of rock only a handful of years later. The Rolling Stones of 1972 would have blown WLS off the air in 1962.

“American Graffiti” acts almost as a milestone to show us how far (and in many cases how tragically) we have come. Stanley Kauffmann, who liked it, complained in the New Republic that Lucas had made a film more fascinating to the generation now between thirty and forty than it could be for other generations, older or younger.

But it isn’t the age of the characters that matters; it’s the time they inhabited. Whole cultures and societies have passed since 1962. “American Graffiti” is not only a great movie but a brilliant work of historical fiction; no sociological treatise could duplicate the movie’s success in remembering exactly how it was to be alive at that cultural instant.

On the surface, Lucas has made a film that seems almost artless; his teenagers cruise Main Street and stop at Mel’s Drive-In and listen to Wolfman Jack on the radio and neck and lay rubber and almost convince themselves their moment will last forever. But the film’s buried structure shows an innocence in the process of being lost, and as its symbol Lucas provides the elusive blonde in the white Thunderbird -- the vision of beauty always glimpsed at the next intersection, the end of the next street.

Who is she? And did she really whisper “I love you” at the last traffic signal? In “ 8 1/2 ,” Fellini used Claudia Cardinale as his mysterious angel in white, and the image remains one of his best; but George Lucas knows that for one brief afternoon of American history angels drove Thunderbirds and could possibly be found at Mel’s Drive-In tonight... or maybe tomorrow night, or the night after.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Film credits.

American Graffiti (1973)

110 minutes

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American graffiti, common sense media reviewers.

Coming-of-age classic has smoking, gender stereotypes.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Friends express their loyalty to one another, and

Most of the teens in American Graffiti are struggl

Main characters are all White and mostly men. Whit

Fistfights, but no blood. Gunshots during a robber

Teens flirt constantly, talk about dating and brea

Several uses of "s--t," plus "damn," "goddamn," "a

Mentions of Chevy, Thunderbird, and Jeep cars, and

One teen gets a stranger to buy him alcohol at a l

Parents need to know that George Lucas' American Graffiti follows a group of teens in the early 1960s as they cruise the streets in their showy cars, flirting, fighting, and drag racing the night away. It stars Ron Howard, Mackenzie Phillips, Harrison Ford, and other well-known actors/directors early in their…

Positive Messages

Friends express their loyalty to one another, and Steven and Laurie thoughtfully try to figure out what the uncertain future will do to their relationship. But rebelliousness, including illegal acts (drag racing, etc.), is rewarded, and symbols of authority (cops and laws) exist to be circumvented and mocked. Casual racism when a teen says her mom won't let her listen to a radio host "because he's a Negro."

Positive Role Models

Most of the teens in American Graffiti are struggling with their identity and the transition to life after high school. Steve hurts Laurie at the start of the film but eventually realizes his mistake. Carol is tough, curious, and independent.

Diverse Representations

Main characters are all White and mostly men. White women have supporting roles; their lives revolve around boys (and what type of cars the men drive), but they do have their own minds and opinions. Still, gender norms are strongly enforced, as men are expected to chase women, a girl says "girls don't pay, guys pay," etc. Mexican American character Carlos, played by Latino actor Manuel Padilla Jr., has a handful of lines playing a gang member. The role starts off stereotypically, but the gang eventually becomes friendly with the main character. Casual racism when a teen says her mom won't let her listen to a radio host "because he's a Negro." At a school dance, brief glimpses of East Asian and Black students among a nearly all-White crowd.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

Fistfights, but no blood. Gunshots during a robbery. A car crash and a car explosion. Groups of men, including a main character, harass women and girls on the street (whistling, a White teen calls out "buenos noches," young men follow women and girls with their cars) -- it's portrayed as OK behavior, with one girl appearing pleased when a man eventually uses the "right" compliment on her (comparing her to a celebrity she likes).

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Teens flirt constantly, talk about dating and breaking up, and kiss. A character is pantsed, briefs visible. Innuendo ("I'll let you touch it. I mean, I'll let you touch the upholstery"). Backseat necking, petting implied. Flashing of bare bum (mooning). Stereotypes of romantic roles (men chase women; women judge men on how flashy their cars are). Some flirtations border on harassment -- see Violence & Scariness for details.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Several uses of "s--t," plus "damn," "goddamn," "ass," "hell," "bitchin'," "spastic," and "Jesus" used as an exclamation. Middle-finger gesture. A White character says her mom won't let her listen to a radio host "because he's a Negro."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Mentions of Chevy, Thunderbird, and Jeep cars, and a pop culture reference to The Beach Boys.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

One teen gets a stranger to buy him alcohol at a liquor store and then gets so drunk that he throws up. He also drives after drinking. Teens smoke cigarettes.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that George Lucas ' American Graffiti follows a group of teens in the early 1960s as they cruise the streets in their showy cars, flirting, fighting, and drag racing the night away. It stars Ron Howard , Mackenzie Phillips , Harrison Ford , and other well-known actors/directors early in their careers. Teens frequently smoke cigarettes and drink. There's a fistfight, gunshots (no one gets injured), drag racing, a car explosion, and some strong language ("s--t," "damn," "ass," "hell," "bitchin'," and "spastic"). Teens challenge authority, drink and drive, talk about sex, and make out, and there's one shot of a naked backside during a drive-by mooning. There's not much diversity -- the cast is nearly all White, and gender norms are strictly enforced (plenty of street harassment is portrayed as OK behavior, a woman says "girls don't pay, guys pay," etc.). But the characters realistically portray the confusion around this age, as newly graduated high schoolers who have yet to start work or college. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Community Reviews

• Parents say (4)
• Kids say (14)

Based on 4 parent reviews

It nails youthful nostalgia almost perfectly!

What's the story.

AMERICAN GRAFFITI is a coming-of-age dramedy set in Modesto, California, in 1962. Steven ( Ron Howard ) and Curt ( Richard Dreyfuss ) are leaving for college. Over the course of a long last night, Steven and Laurie ( Cindy Williams ) resolve to date others, while Curt chases a mysterious blond woman ( Suzanne Sommers ) in a T-bird. Meanwhile, Steven's friend Toad ( Charles Martin Smith ) takes Steven's car and romances a girl named Debbie (Candy Clark). Another friend, John Milner (Paul Le Mat), wants to drag-race hotshot Bob ( Harrison Ford ). Unfortunately, Milner gets saddled with babysitting 13-year-old Carol for the evening ( Mackenzie Phillips ). Teens tangle with a gang, destroy a cop car, get into a car crash, and consult with DJ Wolfman Jack (playing himself). With varying degrees of anticipation and fear, the teens leave high school behind.

Is It Any Good?

Four years before he would make Star Wars , a then-unknown George Lucas set the standard for teen movies with this exceptional film . The cast is uniformly strong. Most of the young actors are famous now: Howard, Ford, Dreyfus, Sommers, and Phillips have all had long careers. And the soundtrack, virtually a greatest-hits collection from the early 1960s, includes recordings from such early rock legends as Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, and Fats Domino. The songs are beautifully woven into the movie's restless teenage world. Like the characters themselves, America in 1962 was on the brink of enormous changes, and Lucas captures that momentous feeling, tinged with uneasiness, in the exceptional American Graffiti .

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about how the teens in American Graffiti have just closed a chapter of their lives and whether they can relate. Teens: What phases of life have you completed? Elementary, middle, or high school? What do you think about the idea of moving away from everything you know?

How does American Graffiti compare with contemporary movies about high school kids? How is it different? The same?

Which characters do you most identify with? Which ones feel more remote? What are the similarities or differences that make you feel this way?

The teens in American Graffiti spend several hours aimlessly driving around. Do you experience a modern-day equivalent of this type of freedom? Or does this lifestyle feel rooted in the past? What are the pros and cons of growing up without any digital connectivity?

What do you think about the way characters flirt and date in this film? Are they relatable, or do teens pursue romance differently today? Are the aggressive tactics used by male teens in this movie acceptable? Why, or why not?

Movie Details

• In theaters : April 11, 1973
• On DVD or streaming : March 1, 1992
• Cast : Richard Dreyfuss , Ron Howard , Charles Martin Smith , Paul Le Mat , Cindy Williams , Harrison Ford
• Director : George Lucas
• Inclusion Information : Female writers
• Studio : Universal Pictures
• Genre : Comedy
• Topics : Cars and Trucks , Friendship , High School
• Run time : 110 minutes
• MPAA rating : PG
• MPAA explanation : mature themes and sexuality
• Award : Golden Globe
• Last updated : April 16, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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American Graffiti Reviews

The primary interest of American Graffiti is its setting and the nostalgia that it conjures.

Full Review | Nov 8, 2023

American Graffiti is a classic coming-of-age flick that holds up rather well after 50 years. It may not be too heavy on plot, but it more than makes up for it with its charming characters, brought to life by a tremendous cast, and its rockin' soundtrack.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Nov 6, 2023

I'm not sure I would have enjoyed their way of life, but it's a great one to remember, even if you didn't live it yourself, and it makes American Graffiti the ultimate nostalgia movie -- certainly the best teen-myth movie since Rebel Without a Cause.

Full Review | Oct 3, 2023

The movie has no resonance except from the jukebox sound and the eerie, nocturnal jukebox look.

Full Review | Sep 19, 2023

A surprise blockbuster hit with an enormous and lasting cultural footprint.

Full Review | Aug 26, 2023

Nothing much really happens as they hit the sock-hop, cruise the strip, grab a bite at the drive-in, and square off in a drag race on the outskirts of town. It’s more of a mosaic, jumping from character to character over the long, last night...

Full Review | Aug 19, 2023

George Lucas's “Great Gatsby,” his statement on his generation, and looking back, it’s clear that as popular as his later works became, this was his masterpiece.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Jun 10, 2023

A wistful picture about the twilight of American innocence, set on the precipice of the Kennedy assassination and Vietnam. It’s the last night of summer, in more ways than one.

Full Review | May 12, 2023

I admit it, seen it at least fifty times since 1973. Similar to Gone With the Wind American Graffiti packs a potent nostalgia which is why it always leaves you with a bittersweet ache.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Apr 27, 2023

Like a lot of great nostalgia pieces (Meet Me in St. Louis, Summer of ‘42, Cooley High, New York New York, Dazed and Confused) it seems to get better the further it gets from its original release date.

Full Review | Jun 30, 2022

The ostensible narrative focus is Curt (Richard Dreyfuss), the sensitive scholarship kid determined to break away, but the film, sometimes to its detriment, is more in love with the vibrant small-town milieu.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 20, 2021

I was, and remain, very tempted to add this film to my Top 100.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4.0 | Sep 2, 2020

A fun-filled cultural snapshot imbued with classic rock and reminiscence.

Full Review | Original Score: 9/10 | Aug 27, 2020

George Lucas has directed with a remarkably firm but unostentatious hand, two virtues equally rare in a young film maker.

Full Review | Jul 23, 2020

Without unnecessary nudging or underlining, Lucas beautifully establishes his characters as both enslaved to the image of themselves which the media have given them and permanently in need of its company.

Full Review | Mar 27, 2020

Stop reading this and go out and see it!

Full Review | Oct 2, 2019

... the music-filled picture still holds up nearly a half-century later.

Full Review | Aug 24, 2018

...it transports you to 1962, to a moment in American history in which all you had to worry about was your car, your music and your friends... [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Jun 5, 2018

The movie is a comic poem which celebrates the past but also catalogues its textures with telling precision. American Graffiti looks like no other movie, an achievement which is always the best measure of a truly gifted director.

Full Review | Aug 1, 2017

Maybe the best film about teenagers ever made.

Full Review | Original Score: 9/10 | Sep 11, 2014

American Graffiti

Of all the youth-themed nostalgia films in the past couple of years, George Lucas' "American Graffiti" is among the very best to date. Set in 1962 but reflecting the culmination of the 1950s, the film is a most vivid recall of teenage attitudes and mores, told with outstanding empathy and compassion through an exceptionally talented cast of relatively new players.

By A.D. Murphy

A.D. Murphy

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Of all the youth-themed nostalgia films in the past couple of years, George Lucas’ “American Graffiti” is among the very best to date. Set in 1962 but reflecting the culmination of the 1950s, the film is a most vivid recall of teenage attitudes and mores, told with outstanding empathy and compassion through an exceptionally talented cast of relatively new players. The Universal release, filmed in small towns north of San Francisco, is first-rate Americana which should strike its most responsive chord among audiences of 40 years of age and under, though older filmgoers certainly should enjoy it also.

Francis Ford Coppola was the nominal producer, and Gary Kurtz was coproducer. The superior original screenplay, in which the predominant comedy values are deftly supported by underlying serious elements of adolescent maturation, was written by director Lucas in collaboration with Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck. This is Lucas’ second feature; his first, “ THX 1138 ,” was a futuristic socio-political drama, not quite the total fantasy many might have thought it to be.

Popular on Variety

“American Graffiti” occupies that very lonely ground between the uptight misunderstood teenage mellers of its era, and the beach-party fluff on which American International held the only successful patents. Its milieu is the accumulated junk and materialism of the Eisenhower years, an endowment of tin theology and synthetic values which, in younger generations, sowed the seeds of an incoherent unrest that would mature violently a decade later.

Design consultant Al Locatelli, art director Dennis Clark and set director Douglas Freeman have brilliantly reconstructed the fabric and texture of the time, while Walter Murch’s outstanding sound collage–an unending stream of early rock platter hits–complements in the aural department. “Visual consultant” (read: cameraman) Haskell Wexler has done an excellent job in capturing the mood, refreshingly devoid of showoff lensing gimmicks. Even the limitations of the now-rarely used Techniscope anamorphic process contribute an artful touch of grainy, sweaty reality.

Against this chrome and neon backdrop is told the story of one long summer night in the lives of four school chums: Richard Dreyfuss, on his last night before leaving for an eastern college; Ronny Howard, less willing to depart the presence of Cindy Williams; Charles Martin Smith, a bespectacled fumbler whose misadventures with pubescent swinger Candy Clark are as touching as they are hilarious; and Paul Le Mat, 22 years old on a birth certificate but still strutting as he did four years earlier.

Mackenzie Phillips, in real life the 12-year-old daughter of composer John Phillips, is sensational in film debut as a likeable brat whom Le Mat cannot shake from his car. Harrison Ford is a hot-rodder whose drag-race challenge to La Mat provides a discreetly violent climax to the story’s restless night. Bo Hopkins leads a gang of toughs, and longtime deejay Wolfman Jack is heard regularly on the sound collage, and appears briefly in a scene with Dreyfuss.

There is brilliant interplaying and underplaying, of script, performers and direction which will raise howls of laughter from audiences, yet never descends on the screen to overdone mugging, pratfall and other heavy-handed devices normally employed. Some petting scenes get their point across without the patronizing voyeurisms so often found in nostalgia pix. The filmmakers’ hearts obviously were with their characters all the way. Lucas has done a truly masterful job.

Murch’s sound track uses about 40 platter hits, not all of which were precisely contemporaneons but no harm done. Film opens with Bill Haley’s “Rock Around the Clock,” which serves Lucas well now as it did Richard Brooks in 1955 in that never-to-be-forgotten whammo main title of “The Blackboard Jungle.” Karin Green was music coordinator. Kim Fowley produced the two original recordings for the film, done by Flash Cadillac and The Continental Kids, playing a local rock band engaged for a freshman hop.

In such a meritorious filmmaking ensemble, lots more people contributed: hair stylists Gerry Leetch and Betty Iverson; editors (to 109 minutes) Verna Fields and Marcia Lucas; operating cameramen Ron Eveslage and Jan D’Alquen; costume designer Aggie Guerard Rodgers; choreographer Tony Basil; production sound recorder Arthur Rochester; sound editor James Nelson; and casting supervisors Fred Roos and Mike Fenton.

Without exception, all players fit perfectly into the concept and execution, and all the young principals and featured players have a bright and lengthy future. And so does Lucas. “American Graffiti” is one of those rare films which can be advanced in any discussion of the superiority of films over live performances; the latter can vary from show to show, but if you get it right on film, you’ve got it forever.

[Pic was reissued in 1978 in a 112-min. version featuring three extra scenes.]

1973: Nominations: Best Picture, Director, Supp. Actress (Candy Clark), Original Screenplay, Editing

Related reviews: “ More American Graffiti ”

• Production: Universal. Director George Lucas; Producer Francis Coppola, Gary Kurtz; Writer George Lucas, Gloria Katz, WIllard Huyck; Camera Haskell Wexler Editor Verna Fields, Marcia Lucas; Music Karin Green (sup.) Art Dennis Clark. Reviewed at Directors guild of America, L.A., June 15, '73. (MPAA Rating: PG.)
• Crew: (Color) Widescreen. Available on VHS, DVD. Original review text from 1973. Running time: 109 MIN.
• With: Curt - Richard Dreyfuss Steve - Ronny Howard John - Paul Le Mat Terry - Charles Martin Smith Laurie - Cindy Williams Debbie - Candy Clark Carol - Mackenzie Phillips Disc Jockey - Wolfman Jack Bob Falfa - Harrison Ford Gang Members - Bo Hopkins, Manuel Padilla Jr., Beau Gentry Rock Band - Flash Cadillac and the Continental Kids Teacher - Terry McGovern Policeman - Jim Bohan Wendy - Debbie Celiz Blonde in Car - Suzanne Somers Vagrant - George Meyer Thief - James Cranna Liquor Store Clerk - William Niven

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American Graffiti (1973) review — Harrison Ford’s charisma shines in this iconic drama

Challenge yourself with today’s puzzles.

★★★★☆ This landmark teen drama is vital to the history of American cinema. It’s a love letter from the Star Wars creator George Lucas to radio rock’n’roll (the use of a radio DJ voiceover was replicated by Reservoir Dogs ), drag racing (see The Fast and the Furious ) and the innate charisma of Harrison Ford.

His star-making appearance here, as racer Bob Falfa, was a dry run for Han Solo and he injects the movie with a welcome dash of scoundrel when he hisses at Charles Martin Smith’s nerdy Terry: “I ain’t nobody, dork!”

The ostensible narrative focus is Curt (Richard Dreyfuss), the sensitive scholarship kid determined to break away, but the film, sometimes to its detriment, is more in love with the vibrant

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Metacritic reviews

American graffiti.

• 100 Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert On the surface, Lucas has made a film that seems almost artless; his teenagers cruise Main Street and stop at Mel’s Drive-In and listen to Wolfman Jack on the radio and neck and lay rubber and almost convince themselves their moment will last forever. But the film’s buried structure shows an innocence in the process of being lost, and as its symbol Lucas provides the elusive blonde in the white Thunderbird -- the vision of beauty always glimpsed at the next intersection, the end of the next street.
• 100 The Hollywood Reporter The Hollywood Reporter The ingeniously structured screenplay by Katz, Huyck and Lucas offers up a load of wonderful characters who whirl about in ducktail haircuts and shirtwaist dresses, lost in the obscenity of American culture. Thanks to some of the most spirited, daffy dialogue since Lubitsch, their sweetness is deliriously funny. No matter how high the dramatic stakes become, the movie never loses its sense of humor, and although it has a lot to say, it's gloriously free of pretensions.
• 100 The New York Times The New York Times American Graffiti exists not so much in its individual stories as in its orchestration of many stories, its sense of time and place. Although it is full of the material of fashionable nostalgia, it never exploits nostalgia. In its feeling for movement and music and the vitality of the night—and even in its vision in white—it is oddly closer to some early Fellini than to the recent American past of, say, The Last Picture Show or Summer of '42.
• 100 Variety Variety Of all the youth-themed nostalgia films in the past couple of years, George Lucas’ American Graffiti is among the very best to date. Set in 1962 but reflecting the culmination of the 1950s, the film is a most vivid recall of teenage attitudes and mores, told with outstanding empathy and compassion through an exceptionally talented cast of relatively new players.
• 100 The Dissolve Matt Singer The Dissolve Matt Singer It isn’t simply a nostalgic movie, it’s a nostalgic movie about nostalgia. Lucas could have set the film in 1959, when Steve, Curt, and John were still in high school and still cruising night after endless night. Instead, Graffiti begins right as the fun is about to end, and gives its characters just enough self-awareness to recognize that this is last call at the party. George Lucas isn’t the only one mourning for this magical lost era; the characters onscreen mourn right along with him.
• 100 TV Guide Magazine TV Guide Magazine In a series of touching and telling vignettes, American Graffiti follows a memorable crew of small-town teenagers through one momentous night in 1962. Based on George Lucas' own teenage hot-rodding days in Modesto, California, the appeal of American Graffiti is in its fragmentary scenes; the nervous camera jumps from character to character to present a powerful collage of American youth on the brink of maturity and the complex experiences of the coming decade.
• 90 The Telegraph The Telegraph American Graffiti is more a collection of vignettes than a straight forward movie, and the quality of the different plots is a bit hit and miss. But American Graffiti's appeal has less to do with plot and more to do with seeing the USA of the early 1960s faithfully recreated in celluloid, and Lucas gets every detail right. From the diner waitresses on skates to the hokey-sounding slang to the sock hop line dances to the gorgeous soundtrack (which is a aural treasure trove of late 50s and early 60s pop), Lucas doesn't put a foot wrong.
• 83 The A.V. Club Scott Tobias The A.V. Club Scott Tobias American Graffiti is an unabashed nostalgia piece, but the poignancy of Lucas holding onto this memory only becomes clear at the end. For these boys, nothing would ever be the same again.
• 80 Empire Empire A funny-serious movie with gorgeous cars and colours and an amazing feel for the artefacts of an instantly vanished era.
• 80 Time Out London Geoff Andrew Time Out London Geoff Andrew Too full of incident to reflect a typical night in reality, it's nevertheless funny, perceptive, pepped up by a great soundtrack, and also something of a text-book lesson in parallel editing as it follows a multitude of adolescents through their various adventures with sex, booze, music and cars.
• See all 15 reviews on Metacritic.com
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American Graffiti Review

01 Jan 1973

107 minutes

American Graffiti

George Lucas' second directorial effort - and his first big hit - was set in 1962 on the night before the graduating class of that year split up. An instant classic perfectly attuned to the mood of early 70s baby boomers who'd just woken up after Vietnam, Watergate and the hippie era. Besides setting Georgie and producer Coppola on the road to moguldom, this launched the acting careers of Ron Howard, Harrison Ford, Richard Dreyfuss, Candy Clark, Charlie Martin Smith, Cindy Williams, Joe Spano, Paul Le Mat and Kathleen Quinlan, all of whom interact as cruising teens on the strip in Modesto, California, and take their first steps into the turbulent 60s. A funny-serious movie with gorgeous cars and colours and an amazing feel for the artefacts of an instantly vanished era.

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Classic Film Review: “American Graffiti” (1973) at 50 — Nostalgia as American Epic

“American Graffiti” was a culture-shifting blockbuster when it came out, a modestly-budgeted movie with a mostly-no-name cast that spawned a 1950s-early-’60s nostalgia boom that swam against the tide that gave birth to disco and punk.

Its warmth, innocence and fun, celebrating “car culture” in the middle of an Arab Oil Embargo, gave us “Happy Days” and “Laverne & Shirley” on TV, movies from “The Buddy Holly Story” to “La Bamba” and oldies radio stations that endured well into the ’90s.

But looking at it anew, 50 years after it launched the career of George Lucas, passing over its impact on the culture, you can’t help but be struck by how beautiful it is — the glossy images, indelible, quick-sketch archetypal characters, the visual and aural grandeur of it all.

“American Graffiti” is an American Epic.

It’s about the allure of leaving for a bigger life vs. the pull of the comforts and security of home, the celebration of youth culture and nostalgia for its rituals, an eagerness to “grow up” battling the ease of a life of arrested development, curiosity and naivete contrasted with the first insights of worldly wisdom.

Director and co-writer Lucas plainly felt bittersweet, conflicted about it all, looking back on the early ’60s a mere decade after he lived through them. His film became his “Great Gatsby,” his statement on his generation, and looking back, it’s clear that as popular as his later works became, this was his masterpiece.

Lucas was recreating his rural, overwhelmingly white Modesto, California youth, serving up a sort of “Andy Griffith” past where the farm-town’s Latin populace is represented by a lone character, and the tiny number of Black residents didn’t register.

But race and a shift in the culture worked its way in, through the music and by this admission from annoying tween Carol ( Mackenzie Phillips ) about her favorite DJ.

“I just LOVE listening to the Wolfman! My mom won’t let me at home, because he’s a Negro.”

The four threads of the totally masculine story are firstly, the Great Romance. Ron Howard is Steve, college-bound and clumsily trying to extract himself from his steady girlfriend. Laurie ( Cindy Williams ) is the only girl to wear his #62 letterman’s sweater.

“Where were you in ’62?” was the movie’s poster tag-line. And Steve’s big George-Bailey-in-“It’s-a-Wonderful-Life” decision is whether he has the guts to hurt someone he loves. Howard is wonderful as the exasperated, conflicted and responsible center of the movie. Cindy Williams is here to break his and our hearts.

You Can’t Go Home Again if you Never Leave is the thread about Curt. Richard Dreyfuss is Curt, Laurie’s brother and just as college-bound as Steve. But even though Curt has no real ties holding him there, he’s conflicted about going to college way out East. He will spend this “last night” sampling the world he might be leaving behind, tempted by the mysterious blonde in the white T-Bird ( Suzanne Somers ), buffeted by all the people urging him to “LEAVE.”

“We’re finally getting outta this turkey town,” Steve pleads. Besides, you don’t “wanna end up like John.”

That would be John Milner (Paul Le Mat ), the Big Fish in a Small Town icon story thread. He’s an auto mechanic, and thanks to his yellow Little Deuce Coupe , the king of the illegal drag racing subculture. Like Wooderson, the “Dazed and Confused” character he inspired, Milner never left town, still acts like a juvenile and cruises every Friday night, looking for high school girls.

In Western terms, Milner’s the fastest gun. There’s always somebody new gunning for the legend. This night, that would be hotrodded ’55 Chevy cowboy Bob Falfa, played by future superstar Harrison Ford.

Curt? In a town of hot-rods and every V-8 under the sun, Curt drives a tiny Citroen 2CV. He’s plainly too hip for this ‘burg.

And the final thread is a Princess and the Frog story. Toad ( Charles Martin Smith ) is the runty mascot of them all, liked by everyone, respected by few. He figures his ticket out of that pigeon-hole isn’t leaving town. It’s Steve’s generous act of leaving Toad his ’58 Chevy Impala, fuzzy dice and all, to drive and take care of while he’s in college. Toad can reinvent himself in a town that thinks it knows him.

As we’ve seen him tumble off his Vespa pulling into Mel’s Drive-in, we know he’s got the steepest hill to climb. A lot of lies and misadventures trying to impress Deb ( Candy Clark ) lay ahead of him on this long, late-summer night.

As the music of the era — oldies from the ’50s, pre-Beatlemania/British Invasion pop and rock of the early ’60s — weaves in and out of the soundtrack, everybody in this narrative meets, flees or embraces his or her destiny.

The Dennis Lynton Clark production design of this picture is era-defining, and the 35mm Techniscope photography — the film had two directors of photography, with Lucas pitching in on some shots and Haskell Wexler “consulting” on the shooting — has a sheen that few digital shoots today could match.

But if you’re looking for the “Star Wars” saga to come in this film, you have to see beyond Harrison Ford and use your ears to do that. The seamless sound design (Walter Murch & Co.) uses music as the soundtrack of these lives. It is diegetic here , sounds that emanate from car radios — with every car radio tuned in to The Wolfman Jack Show — or a diner jukebox, with Flash Cadillac and the Continental Kids recreating the hits of the day live at the Freshman Hop at the local high school.

A song introduces a shift in scene or a new sequence, heard in full, deep, stereophonic sound. Then we’re edited into the interior of this VW Beetle, that Chevy, Edsel, Buick or whatever , with the Wolfman pranking phone callers and promising that tonight “We’re gon’rock’n roll ourselves to DEATH.”

The genius of this film is its sense of dropping in on one night of lives being lived. School restroom primping rituals, eagerness to get your hands on “the hard stuff,” the liberation of having a ride for the evening, the security of having someone you want to ride around with, it’s all become cliches now. But when Lucas came at it, it was fresh.

“American Graffiti” is brimming with movement — the swirl of the high school hop, the whirl of motion at the drive-in, the cars “doing the loop.” Cruising, flirting, mooning, and peeling out as a mating ritual  isn’t limited to America, but it was invented and perfected here.

My favorite bits about it haven’t changed over the years. I laugh at the hilarious intimidation and then initiation of Curt into The Pharoahs, led by Bo Hopkins , every time it turns up. The famous Richard Dreyfuss laugh was introduced to the world in these scenes. How he kept a straight face among these goofy goons is a marvel.

And Curt’s fateful meeting with Wolfman Jack is quiet, touching and just a tad thrilling. He’s a kid stumbling into a creature of myth from the pre-Internet days when media figures could seem larger than life because who knew who this dude was, what he looked like or where he even broadcast from? Mr. “Ha’MERCY, baby” embodies the idol you meet, mentally cut down to size, and then swells back up in the memory as he is everything you want and hope him to be.

That’s been the journey George Lucas has taken through pop culture over the decades. Built up, an icon and emperor of an empire of his own creative imagination, losing style points and widely criticized before selling his brainchildren to Disney and regaining some of his obscurity as he did.

But fifty years on, we can look back, past the huge footprint he left on world pop culture, and watch this beautiful film that came directly from his adolescence and straight from his heart, a young man facing the first big choices life gave him and plunging on, straight into the nostalgia that would make him and entertain generations that followed.

He made “Where were you in ’62?” universal, a touchstone era and cultural shorthand for every “last night” of a “last summer” and the choices we all have to make at just that moment — move on or stay, grow up or — as we say today in an arrested development societal change that George Lucas helped engineeer — “cosplay.”

Label it as culturally significant or dismiss it as simply an astonishingly vivid snapshot, but there’s no way you can rewatch this close-to-perfect jewel of a film and not think “American Graffiti” is a defining modern American classic.

Rating: PG, fisticuffs, teen drinking, smoking, mild profanity

Cast: Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Cindy Williams, Paul Le Mat, Charles Martin Smith, Candy Clark, Harrison Ford, Bo Hopkins, Mackenzie Phillips, Suzanne Somers and Wolfman Jack.

Credits: Directed by George Lucas, scripted by George Lucas, Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck. A Universal release.

Running time: 1:50

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American Graffiti

Time Out says

Release details.

• Duration: 110 mins

Cast and crew

• Director: George Lucas
• Screenwriter: George Lucas, Willard Huyck, Gloria Katz
• Charles Martin Smith
• Cindy Williams
• Harrison Ford
• Richard Dreyfuss
• Candy Clark

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Where to watch

American graffiti.

Directed by George Lucas

Where were you in '62?

A couple of high school graduates spend one final night cruising the strip with their buddies before they go off to college.

Richard Dreyfuss Ron Howard Paul Le Mat Charles Martin Smith Cindy Williams Candy Clark Mackenzie Phillips Wolfman Jack Bo Hopkins Manuel Padilla Jr. Beau Gentry Harrison Ford Jim Bohan Jana Bellan Deby Celiz Lynne Marie Stewart Terence McGovern Kathleen Quinlan Timothy F. Crowley Scott Beach John Brent Gordon Analla John Bracci Jody Carlson Del Close Chuck Dorsett Stephen Knox Joe Miksak George Meyer Show All… James Cranna Johnny Weissmuller Jr. William Niven Al Nalbandian Bob Pasaak Christopher Pray Susan Richardson Jan Dunn Charlie Murphy Ed Greenberg Lisa Herman Mark Anger Kay Lenz Caprice Schmidt Joe Spano Debralee Scott Ron Vincent Donna Wehr Cam Whitman Jan Wilson Suzanne Somers Fred Ross

Director Director

George Lucas

Producers Producers

Francis Ford Coppola Gary Kurtz James Hogan

Writers Writers

George Lucas Gloria Katz Willard Huyck

Casting Casting

Mike Fenton Fred Roos

Editors Editors

Verna Fields Marcia Lucas

Cinematography Cinematography

Jan D'Alquen Ron Eveslage

Assistant Directors Asst. Directors

Ned Kopp Charles Myers

Lighting Lighting

William Maley

Art Direction Art Direction

Dennis Lynton Clark

Set Decoration Set Decoration

Douglas Freeman

Stunts Stunts

Charlie Picerni Bob Herron

Choreography Choreography

Sound sound.

Walter Murch Art Rochester James Nelson

Costume Design Costume Design

Aggie Guerard Rodgers

Hairstyling Hairstyling

Gerry Leetch Betty Iverson

Universal Pictures Lucasfilm Ltd. The Coppola Company American Zoetrope

Releases by Date

01 aug 1973, 02 aug 1973, 11 aug 1973, 10 oct 1973, 22 nov 1973, 02 jan 1974, 13 jan 1974, 25 apr 1974, 23 aug 1974, 05 oct 1974, 31 oct 2012, 01 feb 2016, 14 dec 2000, 17 nov 2005, 15 nov 2011, 27 jun 2012, 30 aug 2023, releases by country.

• Theatrical M
• Theatrical 14
• Theatrical TP
• Physical DVD
• Physical Blu-Ray
• Theatrical Re-Release
• Digital VOD
• Physical 4K UHD
• Theatrical 16
• Theatrical T

Netherlands

• Physical 6 DVD
• Physical 6 Blu ray
• Theatrical M/12
• Theatrical 11

Switzerland

• Premiere 16 Locarno International Film Festival
• Theatrical PG
• Premiere PG Los Angeles, California

110 mins   More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by Patrick Willems ★★★★½ 29

I love Star Wars but it's a tragedy that it prevented us from ever getting more movies from the George Lucas who made American Graffiti

Review by Mike Ginn ★★★ 3

Pretty good for a movie about teenagers driving around saying hello to each other

Review by Todd Gaines ★★★★ 48

The Summer of '62. Before JFK went to Dallas. Before Vietnam. Before the Watts riots. The last summer of innocence for the first group of Baby Boomers. Our main characters in American Graffiti are these kids. They have no clue what's ahead of them. 

The music. The lack of a musical score is replaced by an almost constant soundtrack. The songs for the most part, follow the plot. This is something we will later see in two of my favorite movies: Dazed and Confused and Everybody Wants Some. I feel a slight disconnect with the song selections. I didn't grow up with this music. You could say some of it is "square". One of our characters reflects on how the…

Review by Neil Bahadur ★★★★★ 2

The illusions of freedom before the collapse of a culture. Lucas is more relevant than ever.

Review by andrea🌹 ★★★½ 2

my fav part was when matthew mcconaughey said 'alright alright alright'!

Review by kayla ★★★★ 3

Cars and music were so much cooler in the 60s

Review by Karst ★★★★ 2

Very very very good monologue in here near the end that I loved.

Review by matt lynch ★★★½

"This was the most perfect, dazzling creature I've ever seen!" "She's gone. Forget it."

Review by Larry ★★★★★ 8

You're the most beautiful, exciting thing I've ever seen in my life and I don't know anything about you.

Films that sweep you away into a time long gone, and make you feel like you've always been there are a rarity. Theyre even more antiquated today, which makes the existence of films like American Graffiti worthy of being put in special little time capsules. (Or a certain Library of Congress.)

This film may take place in the very early 60's but the laid back, nocturnal, real time hangout vibe of the film is the story of every American youth's summer years. This is your fathers story. This is your grandfathers story and his father before him. This is our story.…

Review by Tylot Lantern ★★★½ 3

Possibly the greatest movie soundtrack ever.

Review by Mario 🟠🟢🔵 ★★★★ 12

Dazed and Confused but in the 60s and without the weed.

Review by Dante ★★★★★ 2

"there's a great big beautiful world out there. and here i sit sucking on popsicles"

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American Graffiti (1973)

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American Graffiti (1973)

A close-knit group of teenagers relish their last night of summer vacation before their paths diverge, changing their lives forever, in George Lucas’s American Graffiti . Most of the cast succeed in creating wholly believable characters with compelling dilemmas, and Lucas lets the night’s events unfold in a striking, documentary style that makes the film feel immediate and real. The groundbreaking soundtrack features over forty vintage tunes, all introduced by famed radio deejay Wolfman Jack — the first motion picture ever to feature a wall-to-wall collection of pop tunes.

Among the ensemble of characters are Steve and Laurie (Ron Howard and Cindy Williams), two sweethearts who wonder if they’re going to stay together; Terry the Toad (Charles Martin Smith), an awkward dork who snags a dream date with the aloof Debbie (Candy Clark); and John (Paul Le Mat), a drag racer who gets stuck babysitting thirteen-year-old Carol (Mackenzie Phillips) while cruising the Modesto, California, streets in his deuce coupe. Then there’s Curt (Richard Dreyfuss), the college-bound guy who spends the entire night searching for a mysterious blonde he doesn’t even know. Harrison Ford also pops up as Bob Falfa, John’s racing adversary.

You get really caught up in American Graffiti — you’re with these kids, in their cars, at the diner, at the high school, in love, infatuated, anxious, worried. Just as Lucas’ later Star Wars films transported us to the far reaches of space, American Graffiti transports us to the summer of 1962, keeping us up for one glorious night with characters who are all at a volatile crossroads in their lives. It’s nostalgic, funny, fun, and moving — and the work of an auteur. As much as I love Star Wars , American Graffiti features Lucas’ best directing work to date.

Favorite scene: when Paul Le Mat and Mackenzie Phillips get their revenge on a car full of snobby girls by covering the girls’ vehicle with shaving cream and flattening its tires. It’s an editorial fete set to the tune of “Johnny Be Good” — kinetic and full of life.

Oscar saw fit to nominate American Graffiti for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actress (Candy Clark), Best Editing, and Best Screenplay.

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American Graffiti Reviews

• 97   Metascore
• 1 hr 50 mins
• Drama, Comedy
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Acclaimed music-packed, comedy-drama centres around teenage life on the last night of summer in 1962 California.

A hallmark film of the 1970s. In a series of touching and telling vignettes, AMERICAN GRAFFITI follows a memorable crew of small-town teenagers through one momentous night in 1962. Director Lucas' modest, near-verite approach contrasts strikingly with his glitzy following film, STAR WARS. Steve (Ron Howard), a clean-cut youth, is to leave for college the next day; Curt (Richard Dreyfuss), the class intellectual, is also slated for college but has doubts about his future; Laurie (Cindy Williams), Curt's sister and Steve's girlfriend, is upset by the latter's impending departure; Terry (Charles Martin Smith) is a hopeless nerd who desperately yearns to be "cool"; John (Paul LeMat), who's very cool indeed, drives "the fastest car in the valley" and is constantly being forced to prove that boast. After the school dance, everyone goes cruising. John picks up loquacious 13-year-old Carol (Mackenzie Phillips), thinking she's much older until she climbs aboard his 1932 Ford Deuce Coupe. Steve and Laurie, driving about in his 1958 Impala, clash over their ambitions; he's full of hope for the future, while she's afraid her life is over at 17. Curt goes off in search of the elusive Girl in the White T-Bird, while Terry has an adventure with a reputedly "experienced" older girl (Candy Clark). Based on George Lucas' own teenage hot-rodding days in Modesto, California, the appeal of AMERICAN GRAFFITI is in its fragmentary scenes; the nervous camera jumps from character to character to present a powerful collage of American youth on the brink of maturity and the complex experiences of the coming decade. The enormous financial and critical success of GRAFFITI--it grossed over $100 million domestically--allowed Lucas the freedom to finance one of the most beloved and highest-grossing films of all time--STAR WARS--and spawned numerous imitations, even inspiring the long-running TV sitcom "Happy Days." The film boosted the careers of a host of young performers including Dreyfuss, Howard, Williams, LeMat, Smith, Clark, Phillips, Harrison Ford, Kathleen Quinlan, and Suzanne Somers.

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That said, at times this teeters on the brink of sentimentality, as if all that time Arnold has spent in the U.S. directing episodes of upscale television ( Big Little Lies , Transparent , I Love Dick ) has rubbed off and added a kind of American-indie-style slickness to the script — a tidy, over-workshopped tightness that the raw early films and American Honey mostly eschewed. But that may be exactly what some viewers will love about Bird . Given the presence of stars like Barry Keoghan and Franz Rogowski (both of them amping up the Barry Keoghan and Franz Rogowski-ness of it all to the max), this could be Arnold’s most commercial feature film.

Twelve-year-old Bailey (Adams) certainly has a remarkable amount of freedom, maybe a little too much. She lives in a large, squatted building in Gravesend, a ramshackle property — festooned with graffiti and furnished with furniture that looks like it was salvaged from a dumpster — that houses quite a few people in apartments on each floor, many of them animal lovers like Bailey and her family. On the floor Bailey lives on, she shares a space with her dad Bug (Keoghan, having an absolute blast), an unemployed party animal whose latest get-rich-quick scheme is to harvest the hallucinogenic slime off an imported toad, called “the drug toad” throughout. Bailey’s slightly older half-brother Hunter (Jason Edward Buda), who was born when Bug himself was only 14, also lives there, although he spends a lot of time with his “gang” (really just a bunch of kids) and his girlfriend, Moon.

As the film opens, Bailey learns that Bug plans on marrying Kayleigh (Frankie Box), his latest squeeze whom he’s only been dating for three months. The wedding is set for this coming Saturday, and when Bailey refuses to wear or even try on the sequined, pink, leopard-skin patterned catsuit Kayleigh has picked out for her and her own daughter to wear as bridesmaids, there’s a noisy row between Bailey and Bug that gets a little physical.

It’s a crowded extended community where everyone kind of knows each other and Hunter and his buddies dish out vigilante violence to people rumored to have hurt kids or their friends. But one day, a stranger arrives among them: Bird (Rogowski). Dressed in a swingy skirt and a complexly cabled thrift-shop sweater, the German-accented Bird has a fey, otherworldly quality about him. Like the seagulls and ravens that Bailey is drawn to and often films on her cellphone (clearly she’s a budding filmmaker), Bird is enigmatic, itinerant, restless and fundamentally other. After doing a charming, flappy dance around a field for Bailey’s camera, he flounces off to town to look for his parents in a tower block. Gradually, he and Bailey become friends — or as much as two wild creatures of different species can be friends.

And yet, despite the palpable darkness in the corners of the story and the pervasive sense of melancholy, the film ends on a gloriously optimistic, cotton-candy-scented note of joy. Nearly the whole ensemble enjoys a line dance to “Cotton Eye Joe,” a needle drop almost as good as the opening electric-scooter ride sequence set to Fontaines DC’s punky, atonal song “Too Real.” As per usual, Arnold picks a killer soundtrack, and she loves to get her cast dancing.

Keoghan, of course, obliges, offering a little throwback to his end-reel naked romp in Saltburn . (A character can be heard at one point dissing that viral moment’s backing track, “Murder on the Dance Floor,” only for another character to confess he loves that song.) Rogowski, who threw a mean shape or two in such films as Disco Boy and Passages , also contributes a very physical performance, cavorting around Gravesend like a shy woodland faun or fowl. It’s enough to send an audience out feeling giddy and a smidge weepy in the best sort of way.

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Richard Dreyfuss reportedly targets women, LGBTQ community at ‘Jaws’ event

Richard Dreyfuss caused a scene over Memorial Day weekend when the Oscar winner reportedly embarked on a sexist and homophobic rant during a screening of “Jaws.”

The “American Graffiti” star, 76, made several controversial statements about women and the LGBTQ community the “An Evening With Richard Dreyfuss + Jaws Screening,” held at The Cabot theater in Beverly, Massachusetts, according to the venue’s apology and posts making the rounds on social media.

“We are aware of, and share serious concerns, following the recent event with Richard Dreyfuss prior to a screening of the film ‘Jaws’ at The Cabot,” read a statement obtained by The Hollywood Reporter. “The views expressed by Mr. Dreyfuss do not reflect the values of inclusivity and respect that we uphold as an organization. We deeply regret the distress that this has caused to many of our patrons.”

Noting it took “full responsibility for … not anticipating the direction of the conversation,” the venue also apologized that what was “to celebrate an iconic movie instead became a platform for political views.”

During the Q&A portion of the event, Dreyfuss referred to his 2022 book, “One Thought Scares me,” and the changes in American curricula, claiming, “We have no knowledge of who the hell we are. … Make sure your kids are not the last generations of Americans. And you know exactly what I’m talking about.”

Elsewhere in the evening, he reportedly “went off the rails talking about how Barbra Streisand is a genius but he didn’t listen to her because she is a woman and women shouldn’t have that power,” according to one post on X, formerly Twitter. The stars worked together in 1987’s “Nuts.”

Dreyfuss , according to the post, then moved on to the #MeToo movement — during which he was accused of sexual harassment — and “how you shouldn’t be listening to some 10-year-old who says they want to … be a boy instead of a girl,” in reference to trans youth.

In a since-deleted tweet, one user suggested the event be renamed, “An Evening of Misogyny and Homophobia With Richard Dreyfuss. Disappointing doesn’t even begin to cover it,” per THR.

The incident comes just over a year after Dreyfuss slammed the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ diversity inclusion efforts , telling “Firing Line with Margaret Hoover” that the new qualifications for best picture nominations “make me vomit.”

As many as 300,000 Washingtonians at risk for losing Medicaid coverage with the end of the federal mandate maintaining coverage

With the end of the federal mandate requiring states to keep people enrolled in Medicaid during the PHE, an estimated 300,000 individuals covered by Apple Health, Washington's Medicaid program, need to update their Medicaid information