Midnight Cowboy (1969)
88%RT Audience Score: 88%
Awards & Nominations: Won 3 Oscars
28 wins & 16 nominations total
John Schlesinger’s gritty, unrelentingly bleak look at the seedy underbelly of urban American life is undeniably disturbing, but Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight’s performances make it difficult to turn away
Midnight Cowboy is a movie that will make you laugh, cry, and question the American dream. The performances by Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman are so good, you’ll forget they’re acting. The film takes you on a journey through the gritty streets of New York City and the sun-baked plains of Texas, and it’s a ride you won’t forget. It’s no wonder this movie is considered a masterpiece. So grab some popcorn, settle in, and get ready for a wild ride with Joe Buck and Ratso Rizzo.
Production Company(ies)
Toho Company,
Distributor
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Criterion Pictures
Release Type
Theatrical
Filming Location(s)
Calvary Cemetery – 4902 Laurel Hill Boulevard, Queens, New York City, New York, USA
MPAA / Certificate
X
Year of Release
1969
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Color:Color
Black and White -
Sound mix:Dolby
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Aspect ratio:NA
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Runtime:1h 53m
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Language(s):English, Italian
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Country of origin:United States
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Release date:Release Date (Theaters): May 25, 1969 Wide
Release Date (Streaming): Jan 1, 2000
Genre(s)
Drama
Keyword(s)
starring Dustin Hoffman, Jon Voight, Sylvia Miles, John McGiver, Brenda Vaccaro, Barnard Hughes, directed by John Schlesinger, written by James Leo Herlihy, Waldo Salt, drama, R-rated, box office gross $201.0K, reviewed by Sophie Monks Kaufman, Marjory Adams, John Huddy, Elston Brooks, Evan Williams, Michael Talbot-Haynes, Janet Graves, Madeleine Harmsworth, Harold V
Worldwide gross: $44,801,177
Worldwide gross (inflation-adjusted): $407,985,979
Worldwide gross ranking (inflation-adjusted): 377
Worldwide tickets sold (est.): 44,491,383
US/Canada gross: NA
US/Canada gross (inflation-adjusted): NA
US/Canada gross ranking (inflation-adjusted): NA
US/Canada opening weekend:
US/Canada opening weekend (inflation-adjusted): NA
US/Canada opening weekend ranking (inflation-adjusted): NA
Budget and Earnings Details
Production budget (est.): $3,600,000
Production budget (inflation-adjusted): $32,783,726
Production budget ranking: 1,107
Marketing and distribution budget (inflation-adjusted est.): $17,654,037
Box office net earnings to date (inflation-adjusted est.): $357,548,216
ROI to date (est.): 709%
ROI ranking: 175
Jon Voight – Joe Buck
Sylvia Miles – Cass
John McGiver – Mr. O’Daniel
Brenda Vaccaro – Shirley
Barnard Hughes – Towny
Director(s)
John Schlesinger
Writer(s)
James Leo Herlihy, Waldo Salt
Producer(s)
Jerome Hellman
Film Festivals
Awards & Nominations
Won 3 Oscars
28 wins & 16 nominations total
Academy Awards
Oscar Best Picture Winners, Oscar Winners
All Critics (115) | Top Critics (35) | Fresh (102) | Rotten (13)
Director John Schlesinger and screenwriter Waldo Salt pump so much emotion into it that it becomes a moving epitaph both to its two striving characters and the American dream itself.
March 14, 2022 | Rating: 5/5
Sophie Monks Kaufman
Time Out
TOP CRITIC
Midnight Cowboy is America’s challenge to any film from foreign shores… From now on, it is going to be difficult for the cinema snob to declare tritely that films in this country are made for immature audiences.
March 14, 2022
Marjory Adams
Boston Globe
TOP CRITIC
The film is a masterpiece, one of the finest ever made. It is staggering, shattering, heartbreaking, hilarious, tragic, raw and absurd. Midnight Cowboy surpasses even The Graduate in its uniqueness, sensitivity, and curious blend of the sad and the funny.
March 11, 2022
John Huddy
Miami Herald
TOP CRITIC
John Schlesinger, the British director who gave us Darling and Far From the Madding Crowd, has had the audacity to come to this country and capture on film the flavor of sun-baked West Texas and seamy New York City better than any director before him.
March 11, 2022
Elston Brooks
Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com
TOP CRITIC
This is obviously the sort of film in which people argue endlessly about which of the principals steals it, and the argument is irresistible, if pointless. Both are very good, in different ways.
March 11, 2022
John Russell Taylor
Times (UK)
TOP CRITIC
Mr. Voight’s and Mr. Hoffman’s performances are pretty well impossible to fault. I found the film profoundly touching and funny, and quite hypnotically enjoyable to watch.
March 11, 2022
Evan Williams
Sydney Morning Herald
TOP CRITIC
The characters’ dreams and memories intermingle with their daily actions, sometimes combining in surreal ways. The camerawork is amazing, capturing vistas of glory and grime from the dawn of 1970s New York.
March 25, 2022 | Rating: 10/10
Michael Talbot-Haynes
Film Threat
The movie is brilliantly acted by newcomer Jon Voight, in the lead, and Dustin Hoffman as Ratso Rizzo, his pathetic companion. Not only a study of loneliness, the movie probes the depths of love.
March 11, 2022
Janet Graves
Photoplay
Both performances are masterly. Rizzo, the human wreck, is a dream of a part and Hoffman plays him for all he is worth, gradually turning our disgust into sympathy. Voight’s identification with Joe Buck is so perfect, he doesn’t seem to be acting at all.
March 11, 2022
Madeleine Harmsworth
Sunday Mirror (UK)
Nothing so completely heart-warming and compassionate has ever come from something so sleazy. The performances are simply immense.
March 11, 2022
Harold V. Cohen
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Schlesinger has not only made a technically adroit and profoundly humane film: he has also provided the framework for some marvelous screen acting.
March 11, 2022
Michael Billington
Birmingham Post
Making bold use of the permissiveness of our uninhibited present-day artistic codes, this “X” picture takes the viewer through sickening disillusionment and degradation in a young man’s bitter story.
March 11, 2022
Dick Banks
Charlotte Observer…
Plot
Texas greenhorn Joe Buck arrives in New York City for the first time. Preening himself as a real “hustler”, he finds that he is the one getting “hustled” until he teams up with down-and-out but resilient outcast Ratso Rizzo. The initial “country cousin meets city cousin” relationship deepens. In their efforts to bilk a hostile world rebuffing them at every turn, this unlikely pair progress from partners in shady business to comrades. Each has found his first real friend.
Trivia
Goofs / Tidbits
There is no specific tidbit about someone in the cast mentioned in the Fresh Kernels description of Midnight Cowboy.
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