The Graduate · reception & legacy

How The Graduate has been received, argued over, and remembered.

The arc

A genuine phenomenon in 1967 — one of the biggest hits of its decade and the film that made Dustin Hoffman a star — it's since shifted from 'voice of a generation' to a movie each new generation re-reads: modern viewers tend to find Benjamin far less sympathetic than 1967 audiences did.

What's debated

The evergreen debate is the famous final shot — triumph or dawning dread? — plus whether the film is a timeless satire or a boomer artifact that hasn't aged as gracefully as its reputation.

Its footprint

'Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me' and the one-word career advice 'Plastics' are permanent fixtures of the quote canon, the Simon & Garfunkel soundtrack is inseparable from it, and the seduction-framed-through-a-leg image plus the church finale have been parodied everywhere from Wayne's World 2 to The Simpsons.

Where it stands

A founding text of New Hollywood and a permanent 'you must have seen this' — less a cult object than a load-bearing wall of the American canon.

Named by the director

Influences Mike Nichols has publicly named — the director's own word, distinct from the inferred lines of influence.

• A Place in the Sun (1951) — Nichols repeatedly said the George Stevens film was in his head while making The Graduate, later realizing how much of its mother/daughter romantic geometry and imagery he had absorbed.