American Graffiti

If I had to guess whether George Lucas debuted with THX 1138 or American Graffiti, I'd probably pick this film because it feels more independent to me, less ambitious, and there's not as many memorable directorial ideas in it (for example, the car crash is completely sloppy). But it's not about how the film looks, but rather what it's about, and as a testimony of youth on the doorstep of the Sixties, it's really great. Almost Forman-like. The atmosphere of a hot summer night, during which there are various partings and meetings, is really good. I don't want to pick the one I liked the most from all these stories, but if I had to, it would be the one with Richard Dreyfuss looking for an enchanting beauty. (09/12/2018)

Lucas is awesome. A film that encapsulates exactly the wonderful atmospheric feeling I imagine when talking about the American sixties. Of course, the incredibly packed soundtrack, which can be heard almost continuously from the radio or during live performances, plays an important role, but the depiction of the youthful mood of the time, the haphazard search for oneself, the hesitation between the unbound enjoyment of life and the movement towards adult responsibility, between superficial foolishness and real experience, is also palpably real. I can't think of any other film I've seen that has left me depressed at not being able to experience the era it describes – endless evenings in drive-ins, on lively big-city streets with a James Dean-like hairdo (more like Yul Brynner in my case :), or on arid country roads, toting my father's old Trabant with a cowboy hat. A work much more nostalgic and naive than progressive, but nevertheless ageless and beautiful. And it's interesting to see that Richard Dreyfuss looked fifteen years younger in 1973 than he did two years later on the set of Jaws… (28/01/2017)

Youth, fun, hormones, cars, the life ahead. American Graffiti is an endearing look into American youth culture in the 1970s. Practically the whole movie is made up of a few guys and girls cruising in a small town. It is not only nostalgically naïve, refined and pleasant, but also historically valuable. In how many films can we see the now-great director Ron Howard in one of the lead roles or the young rookie Harrison Ford as a rakish redneck? (21/05/2005)

Or how George Lucas introduced himself so that regular audience could bear it. It must be said that I didn't really expect much from the movie, it's still essentially just a film about American youth, but it's a surprisingly good film that shows how the youth lived and what they wanted or didn't want. It's human, it's very well tolerable, and you wouldn't even think that this person will later direct "Star Wars". (03/09/2015)

The best film by George Lucas. It's a great shame that he forever devoted himself to a galaxy far away and a certain adventurer with a hat, because here he was able to perfectly create a small-town atmosphere in the intimate genre and tell a story with all aspects of a socially-existential drama, while also being a sufficiently light-hearted teenage comedy. The key is that until the very end, it's not clear which level the script will lean towards. Whether it will let the heroes mature definitively over the course of a single night or give them a painful lesson. And perhaps, it can do both completely effortlessly. (04/07/2007)