Midnight Cowboy
| Midnight Cowboy | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | John Schlesinger |
| Screenplay by | Waldo Salt |
| Based on | Midnight Cowboy by James Leo Herlihy |
| Produced by | Jerome Hellman |
| Starring |
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| Cinematography | Adam Holender |
| Edited by | Hugh A. Robertson |
| Music by | John Barry |
Production companies |
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| Distributed by | United Artists |
Release date |
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Running time | 113 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $3.2 million[1] |
| Box office | $44.8 million[2] |
Midnight Cowboy is a 1969 American drama film directed by John Schlesinger, adapted by Waldo Salt from the 1965 novel by James Leo Herlihy. The film stars Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight, with supporting roles played by Sylvia Miles, John McGiver, Brenda Vaccaro, Bob Balaban, Jennifer Salt and Barnard Hughes. Set in New York City, Midnight Cowboy depicts the unlikely friendship between two hustlers: naïve prostitute Joe Buck (Voight) and ailing con man Rico Rizzo (Hoffman), referred to as "Ratso".
At the 42nd Academy Awards, the film won three awards: Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay. Midnight Cowboy is the only X-rated film (equivalent of the current NC-17 rating) to win Best Picture and the only X-rated film ever to win an Academy Award .[3][4] It placed 36th on the American Film Institute's 1998 list of the 100 greatest American films of all time, and 43rd on its 2007 updated version.
In 1994, Midnight Cowboy was deemed "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress, and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.[5]
- ^ Balio, Tino (1987). United Artists: The Company That Changed the Film Industry. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. p. 292. ISBN 9780299114404.
- ^ "Midnight Cowboy". Box Office Mojo. Archived from the original on January 30, 2012. Retrieved February 26, 2012.
- ^ Mitchell, David (2014). "Gay Pasts and Disability Future(s) Tense". Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies. 8 (1): 1–16. doi:10.3828/jlcds.2014.1. S2CID 145241198.
- ^ Ditmore, Melissa Hope (2006). "Midnight Cowboy". Encyclopedia of Prostitution and Sex Work. Vol. 1. Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 307–308. ISBN 9780313329685.
- ^ "Complete National Film Registry Listing". National Film Registry. The Library of Congress. Archived from the original on October 31, 2016. Retrieved January 24, 2017.