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American Graffiti

American Graffiti

Comedy · Drama · 1973

A couple of high school graduates spend one final night cruising the strip with their buddies before they go off to college.

Movie details

American Graffiti

“Where were you in '62?”

1973 Comedy · Drama 1h 52m

Critical arithmetic

The consensus, allegedly.

IMDb

7.4 / 10

104.2K votes

Rotten Tomatoes

95 %

Tomatometer

Metacritic

97 / 100

Metascore

TMDB

7.0 / 10

Community rating

External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.

A couple of high school graduates spend one final night cruising the strip with their buddies before they go off to college.

CriticWise case file

What this film says about your taste.

Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.

The archetype split

Who fights over American Graffiti?

The split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.

Taste neighbourhood

Nearby on the taste map.

TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.

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Green Book

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Where it lives

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Streaming availability data supplied by JustWatch.

Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

George Lucas

Written by

Willard Huyck · George Lucas · Gloria Katz

Richard Dreyfuss

Richard Dreyfuss

Curt Henderson

Ron Howard

Ron Howard

Steve Bolander

Paul Le Mat

Paul Le Mat

John Milner

Charles Martin Smith

Charles Martin Smith

Terry 'The Toad' Fields

Cindy Williams

Cindy Williams

Laurie Henderson

Candy Clark

Candy Clark

Debbie Dunham

Mackenzie Phillips

Mackenzie Phillips

Carol

Court is in session

Put American Graffiti on trial.

Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.

The defence The Prestige Tourist

“Sincerity is not manipulation.”

The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.

The prosecution The Popcorn Loyalist

“The strings are showing.”

Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.