American Graffiti uses catchy music, bright visuals, and strong characters to take audiences back to their childhood and observe it from a new perspective.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 24, 2024

The primary interest of American Graffiti is its setting and the nostalgia that it conjures.

| Nov 8, 2023

American Graffiti is a classic coming-of-age flick that holds up rather well after 50 years. It may not be too heavy on plot, but it more than makes up for it with its charming characters, brought to life by a tremendous cast, and its rockin' soundtrack.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Nov 6, 2023

I'm not sure I would have enjoyed their way of life, but it's a great one to remember, even if you didn't live it yourself, and it makes American Graffiti the ultimate nostalgia movie -- certainly the best teen-myth movie since Rebel Without a Cause.

| Oct 3, 2023

The movie has no resonance except from the jukebox sound and the eerie, nocturnal jukebox look.

| Sep 19, 2023

A surprise blockbuster hit with an enormous and lasting cultural footprint.

| Aug 26, 2023

Nothing much really happens as they hit the sock-hop, cruise the strip, grab a bite at the drive-in, and square off in a drag race on the outskirts of town. It’s more of a mosaic, jumping from character to character over the long, last night...

| Aug 19, 2023

A wistful picture about the twilight of American innocence, set on the precipice of the Kennedy assassination and Vietnam. It’s the last night of summer, in more ways than one.

| May 12, 2023

I admit it, seen it at least fifty times since 1973. Similar to Gone With the Wind American Graffiti packs a potent nostalgia which is why it always leaves you with a bittersweet ache.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Apr 27, 2023

Like a lot of great nostalgia pieces (Meet Me in St. Louis, Summer of ‘42, Cooley High, New York New York, Dazed and Confused) it seems to get better the further it gets from its original release date.

| Jun 30, 2022

The ostensible narrative focus is Curt (Richard Dreyfuss), the sensitive scholarship kid determined to break away, but the film, sometimes to its detriment, is more in love with the vibrant small-town milieu.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 20, 2021

I was, and remain, very tempted to add this film to my Top 100.

| Original Score: 3.5/4.0 | Sep 2, 2020

A fun-filled cultural snapshot imbued with classic rock and reminiscence.

| Original Score: 9/10 | Aug 27, 2020

George Lucas has directed with a remarkably firm but unostentatious hand, two virtues equally rare in a young film maker.

| Jul 23, 2020

Without unnecessary nudging or underlining, Lucas beautifully establishes his characters as both enslaved to the image of themselves which the media have given them and permanently in need of its company.

| Mar 27, 2020

Stop reading this and go out and see it!

| Oct 2, 2019

... the music-filled picture still holds up nearly a half-century later.

| Aug 24, 2018

...it transports you to 1962, to a moment in American history in which all you had to worry about was your car, your music and your friends... [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 5/5 | Jun 5, 2018

The movie is a comic poem which celebrates the past but also catalogues its textures with telling precision. American Graffiti looks like no other movie, an achievement which is always the best measure of a truly gifted director.

| Aug 1, 2017

Maybe the best film about teenagers ever made.

| Original Score: 9/10 | Sep 11, 2014