John Schlesinger

Midnight Cowboy

Midnight Cowboy

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.

Film Info

  • 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

    New cover by Jay Shaw

Purchase Options

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

    New cover by Jay Shaw
Midnight Cowboy
Cast
Dustin Hoffman
Ratso
Jon Voight
Joe Buck
Sylvia Miles
Cass
John McGiver
Mr. O’Daniel
Brenda Vaccaro
Shirley
Barnard Hughes
Towny
Ruth White
Sally Buck
Jennifer Salt
Annie
Bob Balaban
The young student
Credits
Director
John Schlesinger
Producer
Jerome Hellman
Screenplay
Waldo Salt
Based on the novel by
James Leo Herlihy
Musical supervision
John Barry
Director of photography
Adam Holender
Production designer
John Robert Lloyd
Film editor
Hugh A. Robertson
Graphic effects
Pablo Ferro
Creative consultant
Jim Clark
Costume designer
Ann Roth
Casting by
Marion Dougherty

Current

Midnight Cowboy: On the Fringe
Midnight Cowboy: On the Fringe
John Schlesinger’s Midnight Cowboy is a milestone along several different paths of movie history, all of which converged at the majestically seedy crossroads of Times Square in the spring of 1968.

By Mark Harris

How the Movies Captured Times Square’s Grimy Golden Age
How the Movies Captured Times Square’s Grimy Golden Age

During a tumultuous period in New York’s history, movies like Midnight Cowboy, Taxi Driver, and Shaft found excitement and squalor in one of the city’s most infamous tourist attractions.

By Nathaniel Rich

Rashaad Ernesto Green’s Top 10
Rashaad Ernesto Green’s Top 10

The Independent Spirit Award–winning director of Premature selects ten masterpieces that introduced him to the beauty of cinema.

John Schlesinger’s Cinema of Failures and Outcasts
John Schlesinger’s Cinema of Failures and Outcasts

A gay man in an age when homosexuality was against the law in his native Britain, the Oscar-winning director eschewed political statements in favor of compassionate portrayals of the human condition.

Michael Imperioli’s Top 10
Michael Imperioli’s Top 10

The Emmy-winning actor, best known for his work on The Sopranos, shares his list of Criterion favorites, lavishing special attention on three masterpieces by John Cassavetes.