A brilliant and funny satire on the affluent, materialistic society.

| May 1, 2024

The Graduate engages its audience almost exclusively at the level of events until the grandly satisfying conclusion, when its problems (Benjamin's problems) seem to arrive at a happy solution.

| Jun 23, 2023

Something that any lover of American Cinema should see.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Jun 6, 2022

Its pleasures and wit stand the test of time. Plus the cinematography is flat-out fantastic, like David Hockney's pool paintings made live.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Jun 23, 2017

A hugely pleasurable film.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Jun 22, 2017

Mike Nichols' film makes such beguiling viewing largely because of Hoffman's performance as Benjamin, which combines humour, boredom and panic in equal measure.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Jun 21, 2017

Feels as sly, modern and bracing as it must have in 1967.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Jun 19, 2017

As it stands, the vacuum of that warped, moneyed Los Angeles society is too exaggerated, too incredible. But one can't help but believe in Hoffman if not in the disjointed character he portrays.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 10, 2015

Directorially, it is as cutting-edge late-Sixties as you can get -- all fish-bowl juxtapositions, dappled light and pensive close-ups.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Mar 10, 2015

Be agog at Anne Bancroft's Mrs. Robinson in some of the most hilariously icky seduction scenes ever filmed. See Mike Nichols (with help from Simon & Garfunkel) take control of the Zeitgeist. See the mood go dark -- darker than you remember.

| Mar 10, 2015

The Graduate gives some substance to the contention that American films are coming of age -- of our age.

| Nov 24, 2014

The remarkably true ring of Webb's dialogue is preserved and augmented, the visual potential lifted to next power in absurdity.

| Nov 20, 2014

The emotional elevation of the film is due in no small measure to the extraordinarily engaging performances of Anne Bancroft as the wife-mother-mistress, Dustin Hoffman as the lumbering Lancelot, and Katherine Ross as his fair Elaine.

| Jan 14, 2013

It's consistently fleet and funny, even as it probes the heady abandon and looming hangover that typified the decade of discontent.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 10, 2012

Mike Nichols and veteran cinematographer Robert Surtees threw out the DGA playbook for The Graduate.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Apr 10, 2012

The screenplay, which begins as genuine comedy, soon degenerates into spurious melodrama.

| Mar 29, 2011

The film itself is very broken-backed, partly because Anne Bancroft's performance as the mother carries so much more weight than Katharine Ross' as the daughter, partly because Nichols couldn't decide whether he was making a social satire or a farce.

| Jun 24, 2006

Visually stunning, but more superficial than you expect or remember.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 31, 2003

Makes you feel a little tearful and choked-up while it is making you laugh yourself raw.

| May 20, 2003

Nichols provides a masterclass in using the widescreen frame to elucidate complex emotional situations with ease and understatement.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Apr 18, 2001