In the 1960s, kitschy, dull, and stale films dominated Hollywood. Conservative and detached studio-controlled films were conspicuously failing to connect with audiences by the end of the turbulent 1960s. During this time, America was undergoing massive cultural upheaval—between counterculture, women’s liberation, generational tensions, the civil rights movement, and the country’s participation in the Vietnam War, people craved films that reflected the current cultural moment, and old-guard Hollywood looked stale and out-of-touch.
Along came a young crop of filmmakers—Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Arthur Penn, Robert Altman, John Cassavetes—who subverted classical Hollywood cinema and challenged audiences. These auteurs, often known as “movie brats,” controlled all creative components of production, resulting in daring, mature, and personal films. This “New Hollywood” period, spanning from the late 60s to the early 80s, revived American cinema, satisfied and challenged audiences, and became a profitable business.
Film scholars often cite Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde (1967) as the first New Hollywood movie. The film stars Warren Beatty (also the film’s producer) and Faye Dunaway as the titular bank-robbing lovers. The film introduced mainstream American audiences to frank depictions of sex and violence, all the while destabilizing conventional film narratives.
Bonnie and Clyde—and other late 60s counterculture favorites like The Graduate (1967) and Easy Rider (1969)—paved the way for the more idiosyncratic films of the 70s: Dog Day Afternoon (1975), Chinatown (1974), and The Last Picture Show (1971), among others. Influenced by European and Asian art cinema, these films employ unique stylistic devices, prompt a discomforting response among audiences, adopt irresolute or downbeat endings, and feature marginalized, detestable, and alienated protagonists. The films were often box-office success, and there was a high demand for them from studios and audiences alike.
Considered to be one of the more serious New Hollywood filmmakers, Martin Scorsese won serious praise with gritty 70s classics like Mean Streets (1973) and Taxi Driver (1976). His film Raging Bull (1980) is considered to be one of the last great New Hollywood films. Director power began to diminish in comparison to producers and marketers, so auteurs like Scorsese had less time and freedom to make the films that audiences and studios were previously devouring. In 1981, Raging Bull lost to the safely daring Ordinary People (1980) for the Academy Award for Best Picture. In many ways, Raging Bull’s loss cemented the rise of another era of Hollywood cinema: the slick, banal, tame, and predictable 1980s. The exciting and innovative New Hollywood period was over. Luckily, in more recent days, there has been a steady increase in independent, auteur cinema. Many have cited recent films like Lady Bird (2017) and Moonlight (2016) as evidence of a second wave of New Hollywood on the horizon.
