Synopsis
A couple of high school graduates spend one final night cruising the strip with their buddies before they go off to college.
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Cast
- Richard DreyfussCurt Henderson
- Ron HowardSteve Bolander
- Paul Le MatJohn Milner
- Charles Martin SmithTerry 'The Toad' Fields
- Cindy WilliamsLaurie Henderson
- Candy ClarkDebbie Dunham
- Mackenzie PhillipsCarol
- Wolfman JackXERB Disc Jockey
- Bo HopkinsJoe Young
- Manuel Padilla Jr.Carlos
Recommendations
- 100
Chicago Sun-Times
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 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
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
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
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
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
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
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.
