Programmed September 2024

The New American Cinema (1966–1979)

Featuring a new introduction by Mark Harris It was the era of movie brats, titanic ambition, and risk-taking creative gambles—the moment when a new generation of upstart filmmakers took over the Hollywood studios and forever changed the possibilities of American cinema. Liberated from the censorship of the Production Code and bankrolled by executives eager to reach an increasingly counterculture-minded youth market, hotshot auteurs like Arthur Penn ( Bonnie and Clyde ), Robert Altman ( MASH , California Split ), Terrence Malick ( Days of Heaven ), and Francis Ford Coppola ( Apocalypse Now ) brought a bracing new naturalism to the screen in the 1960s and ’70s, pushing the boundaries of sex, violence, and social commentary while shattering stylistic conventions with bold formal experimentation. As studio filmmaking has become increasingly dominated by franchises and blockbusters, these era-defining films stand as beacons of artistic vision and radical independence.