Collections/May 2025

Terry Southern: Hollywood’s Most Subversive Screenwriter

Featuring a new introduction by Nile Southern, Terry Southern’s son Writer, satirist, “pornographer,” surrealist, and provocateur, Terry Southern was one of the great literary minds of his time. As a screenwriter, he brought his irreverent, gonzo sensibility to some of the defining counterculture films of the 1960s. Invited by Stanley Kubrick to assist on the screenplay for Dr. Strangelove , Southern was instrumental in transforming it from a straight thriller into a savagely satirical comedy, and the film’s success soon made him one of the most in-demand screenwriters of the decade. From cult classics like Easy Rider and Barbarella to his outrageous adaptation of his own novel The Magic Christian , starring Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr, to the ultracontroversial rarity End of the Road , Southern’s screenplays defined the wildly subversive spirit of the New Hollywood era.

5 films — 0 on the Channel, 5 unavailable