Description

One of the British New Wave’s most versatile directors, John Schlesinger came to New York in the late 1960s to make Midnight Cowboy, a picaresque story of friendship that captured a city in crisis and sparked a new era of Hollywood movies. Jon Voight delivers a career-making performance as Joe Buck, a wide-eyed hustler from Texas hoping to score big with wealthy city women; he finds a companion in Enrico “Ratso” Rizzo, an ailing swindler with a bum leg and a quixotic fantasy of escaping to Florida, played by Dustin Hoffman in a radical departure from his breakthrough in The Graduate. A critical and commercial success despite controversy over what the MPAA termed its “homosexual frame of reference,” Midnight Cowboy became the first X-rated film to receive the best picture Oscar, and decades on, its influence still reverberates through cinema.

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FILM INFO
John Schlesinger
United States
1969
113 minutes
Color
1.85:1
English
Spine #925

SPECIAL FEATURES
New 4K digital restoration, approved by cinematographer Adam Holender, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray
Alternate 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
Audio commentary from 1991 featuring director John Schlesinger and producer Jerome Hellman
New video essay with commentary by Holender
New photo gallery with commentary by photographer Michael Childers
The Crowd Around the Cowboy, a 1969 short film made on location for Midnight Cowboy
Waldo Salt: A Screenwriter’s Journey, an Academy Award–nominated documentary from 1990 by Eugene Corr and Robert Hillmann
Two short documentaries from 2004 on the making and release of Midnight Cowboy
Interview with actor Jon Voight on The David Frost Show from 1970
Voight’s original screen test
Interview from 2000 with Schlesinger for BAFTA Los Angeles
Excerpts from the 2002 BAFTA Los Angeles tribute to Schlesinger
Trailer
English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
PLUS: An essay by critic Mark Harris

 

Criterion Collection:

Since 1984, the Criterion Collection has been dedicated to publishing important classic and contemporary films from around the world in editions that offer the highest technical quality and award-winning, original supplements. No matter the medium—from laserdisc to DVD and Blu-ray to streaming—Criterion has maintained its pioneering commitment to presenting each film as its maker would want it seen, in state-of-the-art restorations with special features designed to encourage repeated watching and deepen the viewer’s appreciation of the art of film.

 

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