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The release of the film version of The Graduate late in 1967 had a swift and transforming effect on the direction of American film. A blockbuster success at the box office, it became one of the most honored films of the year. It also signaled -- along with Bonnie and Clyde, released earlier in 1967 -- a fresh energy and a mesmerizing new honesty in American filmmaking.

A brilliant stroke of casting only added to the film's impact. The hero, Benjamin Braddock, might have been a conventional young leading man, and a number of such actors were considered seriously for the role, including Robert Redford. Nichols decided to screen-test a young New York stage actor named Dustin Hoffman, who seemed the antithesis of the Hollywood glamor boy. The gamble paid off. Hoffman's brilliant performance as Benjamin turned out to be one of the great watershed events in the history of American film acting, redefining forever the nature of the hero and the meaning of star quality. The rest of the cast is equally well-chosen, with Anne Bancroft as Mrs. Robinson, the beautiful Katherine Ross as Elaine and -- in smaller roles -- William Daniels and Elizabeth Wilson as Benjamin's parents, and Murray Hamilton as Mr. Robinson. Richard Dreyfuss can be glimpsed in the bit role of a college sudent.

Already a star as a satirical comedian (teamed with Elaine May) and as an award-winning Broadway director, Mike Nichols had made a successful debut as a film director in 1966 with Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? The Graduate would become his signature work, reflecting the sharp, penetrating wit of his collaboration with May but also emerging as a mirror of the concerns and passions of its young and restless audience. Everything about the film seemed to defy the status quo and insist on a fresh perspective. The fiercely funny screenplay is by Calder Willingham and Buck Henry, and the inventive cinematography is by Hollywood veteran Robert Surtees. The use of Simon and Garfunkel recordings, including the biting new song "Mrs. Robinson," had an immediate and revolutionary impact on the use of music in films. Produced by Joseph E. Levine, The Graduate made a staggering amount of money for its day, nearly $40 million in its original release, making it the highest-grossing film of 1968.

Nichols became one of the most important directors of his generation with the release of The Graduate, for which he won the Oscar, the Golden Globe and the Best Director awards of the Directors Guild of America, the New York Film Critics and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. The film was nominated for seven Oscars (only Nichols won), and collected a number of other awards internationally.