The Graduate: 10 Ways This Movie Inspired Filmmaking Forever

Mike Nichols’s The Graduate is a movie that people recognize lines and shots from even if they have never seen it before. It is an iconic movie that is still regarded with huge acclaim to this day. More than fifty years since it was released, the influence of The Graduate holds steadfast.

While some might look back on the movie and not see “the big deal,” it was certainly a huge cultural moment in the 1960s. Taking a closer look at the movie and its legacy, it becomes clear just how much The Graduate has inspired Hollywood movies for decades that followed and maintained its place in cinema history.

10 The Risk

There are many stories of movies that later became hits but had a difficult road to getting made. However, The Graduate seemed like a fluke that it even got made and the unique group of talent that came together to make it happen ended up changing Hollywood forever.

The film was based on a novel that was neither popular nor critically acclaimed yet producer Lawrence Turman saw enough potential to buy the rights with his own money. Others looked at it as an unfunny piece not worth making but its success would encourage Hollywood to take more risks in the movies they produced.

9 Casting

The lead character in the movie is a young man named Benjamin Braddock, a new college graduate lost in the uncertainly of what to do next. The casting was an essential part of the movie and, as it turns out, changed Hollywood’s perception of a leading man.

While the character description of Benjamin seemed like someone Robert Redford would play, Nichols chose theater actor Dustin Hoffman for the role. Nichols felt Hoffman helped make Benjamin feel like an outsider in this world. His casting made way for actors like Al Pacino and Robert De Niro to become leading men.

8 Acting

Hoffman was unfamiliar with movie acting when he was cast in the lead role, though his nervous performance was deemed by many to be one of the strongest elements of the movie. Similar to how Marlon Brando introduced a new style of acting in the 1950s, Hoffman’s mumbling performance was totally new to Hollywood.

Nichols allowed so much to be communicated through his actor’s facial expressions, including numerous scenes that were nothing more than close-ups of the actors with no dialogue.

7 Music

One of the most iconic aspects of the movie is the soundtrack, featuring several songs from Simon and Garfunkel. As essential as the music seems for the movie looking back, it’s interesting that the producers were staunchly against including these songs as they had already been released and were already popular with audiences.

Of course, the use of the songs worked incredibly well and changed the way Hollywood looked at including popular songs in their movies.

6 Camera Work

Prior to making The Graduate, director Mike Nichols had only directed one other movie, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? He was more experienced with theater directing, but despite that, he was willing to try a lot of different things in terms of camera work.

For a romantic comedy like The Graduate, most directors at the time would have approached it in a very conservative way. Nichols didn’t want to use the same expected camera angles and shots and instead wanted the camera to tell the audience things about the characters and the story without words.

5 Editing

Much like with his experimental camera work, Nichols was eager to try some new things out with his editing process. One terrific instance of this is with the montage that comes just after Benjamin sleeps with Mrs. Robinson for the first time.

The sequence has the song “Sound of Silence” playing over it as Benjamin is seen moving from one liaison with Mrs. Robinson to lazing in his pool at home then back to the hotel with Mrs. Robinson. The wordless sequence has been suggested as an early inspiration for music videos.

4 Sex

The Graduate is hardly the first movie to feature sex as a major plot point, but its handling of it was something not really seen in mainstream movies. The relationship of a young man being seduced by an older woman was a novel idea and the term “Mrs. Robinson” has been made synonymous with this type of relationship ever since.

The movie’s subject matter was so unique that producers feared it would not be accepted by audiences and tried to market off as a sexy B-movie. In the end, it was an inspiration to the sex-obsessed teen comedies that would follow.

3 The Audience

It is fascinating to imagine, but The Graduate was a movie that was the first of its kind in terms of talking to a younger audience. While Nichols rejects the idea that the movie was about the generational gap, there is no denying that it spoke to a generation that was never the primary audience of movies before.

This was the movie that convinced studios that this young adult market was actually the ones they should have been targeting all along. The revelation changed the way Hollywood made movies.

2 Box Office

Watching The Graduate now, it seems like a quaint and quirky romantic-comedy of its time. But even knowing that it was a huge hit with the younger audiences doesn’t prepare one for just how incredibly successful this movie was.

The movie was unlike anything that was being made in Hollywood at the time. Yet seemingly out of nowhere, it became the third highest-grossing movie of all time. Even today, adjusted for inflation, it ranks as the 23rd highest-grossing movie of all time. That type of success made Hollywood sit up and take notice.

1 The Ending

When thinking of the movie, one of the first things that will pop into the heads of most fans is the ending. Even people who have not seen the movie likely know the shot that ends the movie as Benjamin and Elaine board a bus after ditching her wedding to another man.

The pair sit side by side at the back of the bus, smiling and laughing at the possibilities of their life together. As the bus drives on and the camera stays on them, the smiles fade and are replaced by looks of uncertainty. It is a brilliant ending that has been mirrored many times since.

About The Author

Colin McCormick
(2030 Articles Published)

Colin McCormick is a Senior Writer with Screen Rant and has been a proud member of the team since 2019. In addition to his work as Screen Rant, Colin is also a writer of News, Feature and Review pieces at Game Rant. Colin has had a long passion and obsession with movies going back to the first time he saw The Lion King in theaters. Along with movies, Colin stays up-to-date on the latest must-see TV shows. While he loves to find interesting projects in any kind of genre, he has a special movie of crime stories that are infused with a little dark humor much like the work of his favorite author, Elmore Leonard.

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