American Graffiti

American Graffiti is a 1973 American coming-of-age comedy-drama film directed by George Lucas, produced by Francis Ford Coppola, written by Willard Huyck, Gloria Katz and Lucas, and starring Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Paul Le Mat, Harrison Ford, Charles Martin Smith, Cindy Williams, Candy Clark, Mackenzie Phillips, Bo Hopkins, and Wolfman Jack. Set in Modesto, California, in 1962, the film is a study of the cruising and early rock 'n' roll cultures popular among Lucas's age group at that time. Through a series of vignettes, it tells the story of a group of teenagers and their adventures throughout a single night.

While Lucas was working on his first film, THX 1138, Coppola asked him to write a coming-of-age film. The genesis of American Graffiti took place in Modesto in the early 1960s, during Lucas's teenage years. He was unsuccessful in pitching the concept to financiers and distributors but found favor at Universal Pictures after every other major film studio turned him down. Filming began in San Rafael, California, but the production crew was denied permission to shoot beyond a second day. As a result, production was moved to Petaluma, California. The film is the first movie to be produced by his Lucasfilm production banner.

American Graffiti premiered on August 2, 1973, at the Locarno International Film Festival in Switzerland, and was released on August 11, 1973, in the United States. The film received widespread critical acclaim and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. Produced on a $777,000 budget (equivalent to approximately $0 in dollars), it has become one of the most profitable films ever. Since its initial release, American Graffiti has earned an estimated return well over $200 million in box-office gross and home video sales, not including merchandising. In 1995, the film was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.

Plot
On their last evening of summer vacation in 1962, high school graduates Curt Henderson and Steve Bolander meet two other friends, confident drag-racing king John Milner and unpopular but well-meaning Terry "The Toad" Fields in the parking lot of Mel's Drive-In in Modesto, California. Steve and Curt are to travel "Back East" in the morning and start college but the latter has second thoughts about leaving. Laurie, Steve's girlfriend and Curt's sister, arrive moments later, and Steve suggests to her that they see other people while he is away at college to "strengthen" their relationship. Though not openly upset at first, it affects her interactions with him through the night.

Curt, Steve, and Laurie attend the high school sock hop. En route, Curt sees a beautiful blonde woman driving a white Ford Thunderbird next to them, who mouths "I love you" before turning right. The interaction causes Curt to desperately search for her throughout the night. After leaving the hop, he is coerced into joining a group of greasers called "The Pharaohs", who force him to aid them in stealing coins from arcade machines and hooking a chain to a police car, ripping out its back axle. During a tense ride, the Pharaoh leader tells Curt that "The Blonde" is a prostitute, which he does not believe.

With Steve allowing Terry to take care of his car while he's studying at college, Terry uses it to cruise around the strip and pick up the rebellious Debbie. Telling her he is known as "Terry The Tiger", he spends the night trying to impress her, lying about the car being his and purchasing alcohol with no ID. While he and Debbie leave Steve's car in a rural spot to share a romantic interlude, thieves steal the car. Later, after the alcohol has made Terry violently sick, he finds Steve's car and attempts to steal it back. The car thieves appear and beat him up until John intervenes. Terry eventually admits to Debbie that he's been lying about the car all along and he rides a Vespa scooter; she suggests it is "almost a motorcycle" and says she had fun with him, agreeing to meet up with him again.

In an attempt to get cruising company for the evening, John inadvertently picks up Carol, a precocious 12-year-old who manipulates him into driving her around all night. He lies to suspicious friends that she's a cousin and he's stuck with babysitting duty, and they have a series of petty arguments until another car's occupants verbally harass her as she attempts to walk home alone, and John then decides to protect her. Meanwhile, skilled racer Bob Falfa is searching out John to challenge him to the defining race for John's drag-racing crown. During his night of goading anyone he comes across for a challenge, he picks up an emotional Laurie after the argument with Steve that was brewing all night.

After leaving the Pharaohs, Curt drives to the radio station to ask the omnipotent disc jockey "Wolfman Jack" to read a message out on air for the blonde in the White Thunderbird. He encounters an employee who tells him the Wolfman does not work there and that the shows are pre-taped for replay, claiming the Wolfman "is everywhere". He says the Wolfman would advise Curt to "get your ass in gear" and see the world, but promises to have the Wolfman air the request. As Curt leaves, he notices the employee talking into the microphone and realizes he is the Wolfman, who reads the message for the blonde asking her to call Curt on the payphone at Mel's Drive-In.

After taking Carol home, John is found by Bob Falfa, who successfully goads him into the definitive race along Paradise Road outside the city, with spectators appearing to watch. As Terry starts the drag race, John takes the lead, but Bob's tire blows out, causing his car to swerve into a ditch and roll over before bursting into flames. Steve, aware that Laurie was Bob's passenger, rushes to the wreck as she and Bob crawl out and stagger away before the car explodes. While John helps his rival to safety, Laurie begs Steve not to leave her, and he assures her that he will stay with her in Modesto.

Exhausted, Curt is awakened by the payphone. He finally speaks to the blonde, who does not reveal her identity but hints at the possibility of meeting that night. Curt replies that he is leaving town. Later at the airfield, he says goodbye to his parents and friends before boarding the plane. After takeoff, he looks down at the ground from the window and sees the white Thunderbird driving along the road below. Curt thoughtfully gazes into the sky.

A postscript reveals the fates of the four main characters: In 1964, John was killed by a drunk driver; in 1965, Terry was reported missing in action near An Lộc, South Vietnam; Steve is an insurance agent in Modesto and Curt is a writer living in Canada.

Inspiration
During the production of THX 1138 (1971), producer Francis Ford Coppola challenged co-writer/director George Lucas to write a script that would appeal to mainstream audiences. Lucas embraced the idea, using his early 1960s teenage experiences cruising in Modesto, California. "Cruising was gone, and I felt compelled to document the whole experience and what my generation used as a way of meeting girls," Lucas explained. As he developed the story in his mind, Lucas included his fascination with Wolfman Jack. Lucas had considered doing a documentary about the Wolfman when he attended the USC School of Cinematic Arts, but he ultimately dropped the idea.

Adding in semiautobiographical connotations, Lucas set the story in his hometown of 1962 Modesto. The characters Curt Henderson, John Milner, and Terry "The Toad" Fields also represent different stages from his younger life. Curt is modeled after Lucas's personality during USC, while John is based on Lucas's teenaged street-racing and junior-college years, and hot rod enthusiasts he had known from the Kustom Kulture in Modesto. Terry represents Lucas's nerd years as a freshman in high school, specifically his "bad luck" with dating. The filmmaker was also inspired by Federico Fellini's I Vitelloni (1953).

After the financial failure of THX 1138, Lucas wanted the film to act as a release for a world-weary audience:

"[THX] was about real things that were going on and the problems we're faced with. I realized after making THX that those problems are so real that most of us have to face those things every day, so we're in a constant state of frustration. That just makes us more depressed than we were before. So I made a film where, essentially, we can get rid of some of those frustrations, the feeling that everything seems futile."

United Artists
After Warner Bros. abandoned Lucas's early version of Apocalypse Now (during the post-production of THX 1138), the filmmaker decided to continue developing Another Quiet Night in Modesto, eventually changing its title to American Graffiti. To co-write a 15-page film treatment, Lucas hired Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, who also added semiautobiographical material to the story. Lucas and his colleague Gary Kurtz began pitching the American Graffiti treatment to various Hollywood studios and production companies in an attempt to secure the financing needed to expand it into a screenplay, but they were unsuccessful. The potential financiers were concerned that music licensing costs would cause the film to go way over budget. Along with Easy Rider (1969), American Graffiti was one of the first films to eschew a traditional film score and successfully rely instead on synchronizing a series of popular hit songs with individual scenes.

THX 1138 was released in March 1971, and Lucas was offered opportunities to direct Lady Ice, Tommy, or Hair. He turned down those offers, determined to pursue his own projects despite his urgent desire to find another film to direct. During this time, Lucas conceived the idea for a space opera (as yet untitled) which later became the basis for his Star Wars franchise. At the 1971 Cannes Film Festival, THX was chosen for the Directors' Fortnight competition. There, Lucas met David Picker, then president of United Artists, who was intrigued by American Graffiti and Lucas's space opera. Picker decided to give Lucas $10,000 (equivalent to approximately $0 in dollars) to develop Graffiti as a screenplay.

Lucas planned to spend another five weeks in Europe and hoped that Huyck and Katz would agree to finish the screenplay by the time he returned, but they were about to start on their own film, Messiah of Evil, so Lucas hired Richard Walter, a colleague from the USC School of Cinematic Arts for the job. Walter was flattered, but initially tried to sell Lucas on a different screenplay called Barry and the Persuasions, a story of East Coast teenagers in the late 1950s. Lucas held firm—his was a story about West Coast teenagers in the early 1960s. Walter was paid the $10,000, and he began to expand the Lucas/Huyck/Katz treatment into a screenplay.

Lucas was dismayed when he returned to America in June 1971 and read Walter's script, which was written in the style and tone of an exploitation film, similar to 1967's Hot Rods to Hell. "It was overtly sexual and very fantasy-like, with playing chicken and things that kids didn't really do," Lucas explained. "I wanted something that was more like the way I grew up." Walter's script also had Steve and Laurie going to Nevada to get married without their parents' permission. Walter rewrote the screenplay, but Lucas nevertheless fired him due to their creative differences.

After paying Walter, Lucas had exhausted his development fund from United Artists. He began writing a script, completing his first draft in just three weeks. Drawing upon his large collection of vintage records, Lucas wrote each scene with a particular song in mind as its musical backdrop. The cost of licensing the 75 songs Lucas wanted was one factor in United Artists' ultimate decision to reject the script; the studio also felt it was too experimental—"a musical montage with no characters". United Artists also passed on Star Wars, which Lucas shelved for the time being.

Universal Pictures
Lucas spent the rest of 1971 and early 1972 trying to raise financing for the American Graffiti script. During this time, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Paramount Pictures, 20th Century Fox, and Columbia Pictures all turned down the opportunity to co-finance and distribute the film. Lucas, Huyck and Katz rewrote the second draft together, which, in addition to Modesto, was also set in Mill Valley and Los Angeles. Lucas also intended to end American Graffiti showing a title card detailing the fate of the characters, including the death of Milner and the disappearance of Toad in Vietnam. Huyck and Katz found the ending depressing and were incredulous that Lucas planned to include only the male characters. Lucas argued that mentioning the girls meant adding another title card, which he felt would prolong the ending. Because of this, Pauline Kael later accused Lucas of chauvinism.

Lucas and producer Gary Kurtz took the script to American International Pictures, who expressed interest, but ultimately believed American Graffiti was not violent or sexual enough for the studio's standards. Lucas and Kurtz eventually found favor at Universal Pictures, who allowed Lucas total artistic control and the right of final cut privilege on the condition that he make American Graffiti on a strict low budget. This forced Lucas to drop the opening scene in which the Blonde Angel, Curt's image of the perfect woman, drives through an empty drive-in cinema in her Ford Thunderbird, her transparency revealing she does not exist.

Universal initially projected a $600,000 budget but added an additional $175,000 once producer Francis Ford Coppola signed on. This would allow the studio to advertise American Graffiti as "from the man who gave you The Godfather". The proposition also gave Universal first-look deals on Lucas's next two planned projects, Star Wars and Radioland Murders. As he continued to work on the script, Lucas encountered difficulties on the Steve and Laurie storyline. Lucas, Katz, and Huyck worked on the third draft together, specifically on the scenes featuring Steve and Laurie.

Production proceeded with virtually no input or interference from Universal since American Graffiti was a low-budget film, and executive Ned Tanen had only modest expectations of its commercial success. However, Universal did object to the film's title, not knowing what "American Graffiti" meant; Lucas was dismayed when some executives assumed he was making an Italian movie about feet. The studio, therefore, submitted a long list of over 60 alternative titles, with their favorite being Another Slow Night in Modesto and Coppola's Rock Around the Block. They pushed hard to get Lucas to adopt any of the titles, but he was displeased with all the alternatives and persuaded Tanen to keep American Graffiti.

Casting
The film's lengthy casting process was overseen by Fred Roos, who worked with producer Francis Ford Coppola on The Godfather. Because American Graffiti's main cast was for younger actors, the casting call and notices went through numerous high-school drama groups and community theaters in the San Francisco Bay Area. Among the actors was Mark Hamill, the future Luke Skywalker in Lucas's Star Wars trilogy.

Over 100 unknown actors auditioned for Curt Henderson before Richard Dreyfuss was cast; George Lucas was impressed with Dreyfuss's thoughtful analysis of the role, and as a result, offered the actor his choice of Curt or Terry "The Toad" Fields. Roos, a former casting director on The Andy Griffith Show, suggested Ron Howard for Steve Bolander; Howard accepted the role to break out of the mold of his career as a child actor. Howard would later appear in the very similar role of Richie Cunningham on the Happy Days sitcom. Bob Balaban turned down Terry out of fear of becoming typecast, a decision he later regretted. Charles Martin Smith, who, in his first year as a professional actor, had already appeared in two feature films, including 20th Century Fox's The Culpepper Cattle Co. and four TV episodes, was eventually cast in the role.

Although Cindy Williams was cast as Laurie Henderson and enjoyed working with both Lucas and Howard, the actress hoped she would get the part of Debbie Dunham, which ended up going to Candy Clark. Mackenzie Phillips, who portrays Carol, was only 12, and under California law, producer Gary Kurtz had to become her legal guardian for the duration of filming. For Bob Falfa, Roos cast Harrison Ford, who was then concentrating on a carpentry career. Ford agreed to take the role on the condition that he would not have to cut his hair lest he be offered other movie or TV roles set in the "present day" of the 1970s. The character has a flattop in the script, but a compromise was eventually reached whereby Ford wore a Stetson to cover his hair. Producer Coppola encouraged Lucas to cast Wolfman Jack as himself in a cameo appearance. "George Lucas and I went through thousands of Wolfman Jack phone calls that were taped with the public," Jack reflected. "The telephone calls [heard on the broadcasts] in the motion picture and on the soundtrack were actual calls with real people."

Filming
Although American Graffiti is set in 1962 Modesto, Lucas believed the city had changed too much in ten years and initially chose San Rafael as the primary shooting location. Filming began on June 26, 1972. However, Lucas soon became frustrated at the length of time it was taking to fix camera mounts to the cars. A key member of the production had also been arrested for growing marijuana, and in addition to already running behind the shooting schedule, the San Rafael City Council immediately became concerned about the disruption that filming caused for local businesses, so withdrew permission to shoot beyond a second day.

Petaluma, a similarly small town about 20 mi north of San Rafael, was more cooperative, and American Graffiti moved there without the loss of a single day of shooting. Lucas convinced the San Rafael City Council to allow two further nights of filming for general cruising shots, which he used to evoke as much of the intended location as possible in the finished film. Shooting in Petaluma began June 28 and proceeded at a quick pace. Lucas mimicked the filmmaking style of B-movie producer Sam Katzman (Rock Around the Clock, Your Cheatin' Heart, and the aforementioned Hot Rods to Hell) in attempting to save money and authenticated low-budget filming methods.

In addition to Petaluma, other locations included Mel's Drive-In in San Francisco, Sonoma, Richmond, Novato, and the Buchanan Field Airport in Concord. The freshman hop dance was filmed in the Gus Gymnasium, previously known as the Boys Gym, at Tamalpais High School in Mill Valley.

More problems ensued during filming; Paul Le Mat was sent to the hospital after an allergic reaction to walnuts. Le Mat, Harrison Ford, and Bo Hopkins were claimed to be drunk most nights and every weekend, and had conducted climbing competitions to the top of the local Holiday Inn sign. One actor set fire to Lucas's motel room. Another night, Le Mat threw Richard Dreyfuss into a swimming pool, gashing Dreyfuss's forehead on the day before he was due to have his close-ups filmed. Dreyfuss also complained over the wardrobe that Lucas had chosen for the character. Ford was kicked out of his motel room at the Holiday Inn. In addition, two camera operators were nearly killed when filming the climactic race scene on Frates Road outside Petaluma. Principal photography ended August 4, 1972.

The final scenes in the film, shot at Buchanan Field, feature a Douglas DC-7C airliner of Magic Carpet Airlines, which had previously been leased from owner Club America Incorporated by the rock band Grand Funk Railroad from March 1971 to June 1971.

Cinematography
Lucas considered covering duties as the sole cinematographer, but dropped the idea. Instead, he elected to shoot American Graffiti using two cinematographers (as he had done in THX 1138) and no formal director of photography. Two cameras were used simultaneously in scenes involving conversations between actors in different cars, which resulted in significant production time savings. After CinemaScope proved to be too expensive, Lucas decided American Graffiti should have a documentary-like feel, so he shot the film using Techniscope cameras. He believed that Techniscope, an inexpensive way of shooting on 35 mm film and using only half of the film's frame, would give a perfect widescreen format resembling 16 mm. Adding to the documentary feel was Lucas's openness for the cast to improvise scenes. He also used goofs for the final cut, notably Charles Martin Smith's arriving on his scooter to meet Steve outside Mel's Drive-In. Jan D'Alquen and Ron Eveslage were hired as the cinematographers, but filming with Techniscope cameras brought lighting problems. As a result, Lucas commissioned help from friend Haskell Wexler, who was credited as the "visual consultant".

Editing
Lucas had wanted his then wife, Marcia, to edit American Graffiti, but Universal executive Ned Tanen insisted on hiring Verna Fields, who had just finished editing Steven Spielberg's The Sugarland Express. Fields worked on the first rough cut of the film before she left to resume work on What's Up, Doc?. After Fields's departure, Lucas struggled with editing the film's story structure. He had originally written the script so that the four (Curt, Steve, John, and Toad) storylines were always presented in the same sequence (an "ABCD" plot structure). The first cut of American Graffiti was three and a half hours long, and to whittle the film down to a more manageable two hours, many scenes had to be cut, shortened, or combined. As a result, the film's structure became increasingly loose and no longer adhered to Lucas's original "ABCD" presentation. Lucas completed his final cut of American Graffiti, which ran 112 minutes, in December 1972. Walter Murch assisted Lucas in post-production for audio mixing and sound design purposes. Murch suggested making Wolfman Jack's radio show the "backbone" of the film. "The Wolfman was an ethereal presence in the lives of young people," said producer Gary Kurtz, "and it was that quality we wanted and obtained in the picture."

Soundtrack
The choice of music was crucial to the mood of each scene; it is diegetic music that the characters themselves can hear and therefore becomes an integral part of the action. George Lucas had to be realistic about the complexities of copyright clearances, though, and suggested a number of alternative tracks. Universal wanted Lucas and producer Gary Kurtz to hire an orchestra for sound-alikes. The studio eventually proposed a flat deal that offered every music publisher the same amount of money. This was acceptable to most of the companies representing Lucas's first choices, but not to RCA—with the consequence that Elvis Presley is conspicuously absent from the soundtrack. Clearing the music licensing rights had cost approximately $90,000, and as a result, no money was left for a traditional film score. "I used the absence of music, and sound effects, to create the drama," Lucas later explained.

A soundtrack album for the film, 41 Original Hits from the Soundtrack of American Graffiti, was issued by MCA Records. The album contains all the songs used in the film (with the exception of "Gee" by the Crows, which was subsequently included on a second soundtrack album), presented in the order in which they appeared in the film.

Release
Despite unanimous praise at a January 1973 test screening attended by Universal executive Ned Tanen, the studio told Lucas they wanted to re-edit his original cut of American Graffiti. Producer Coppola sided with Lucas against Tanen and Universal, offering to "buy the film" from the studio and reimburse it for the $775,000 (equivalent to $0 million in ) it had cost to make it. 20th Century Fox and Paramount Pictures made similar offers to the studio. Universal refused these offers and told Lucas they planned to have William Hornbeck re-edit the film.

When Coppola's The Godfather won the Academy Award for Best Picture in March 1973, Universal relented and agreed to cut only three scenes (amounting to a few minutes) from Lucas's cut. These include an encounter between Toad and a fast-talking car salesman, an argument between Steve and his former teacher Mr. Kroot at the sock hop, and an effort by Bob Falfa to serenade Laurie with "Some Enchanted Evening". The studio initially thought that the film was only fit for release as a television movie.

Various studio employees who had seen the film began talking it up, and its reputation grew through word of mouth. The studio dropped the TV movie idea and began arranging for a limited release in selected theaters in Los Angeles and New York. Universal presidents Sidney Sheinberg and Lew Wasserman heard about the praise the film had been garnering in LA and New York, and the marketing department amped up its promotion strategy for it, investing an additional $500,000 (equivalent to $0 million in ) in marketing and promotion. The film was released in the United States on August 11, 1973 to sleeper hit reception. The film had cost only $1.27 million (equivalent to $0 million in ) to produce and market, but yielded worldwide box office gross revenues of more than $55 million (equivalent to $0 million in ). It had only modest success outside the United States and Canada, but became a cult film in France.

Universal reissued Graffiti on May 26, 1978, with Dolby sound and earned an additional $63 million (equivalent to $0 million in ), which brought the total revenue for the two releases to $118 million (equivalent to $0 million in ). The reissue included stereophonic sound and a couple of minutes the studio had removed from Lucas's original cut. All home video releases also included these scenes. Also, the date of John Milner's death was changed from June 1964 to December 1964 to fit the narrative structure of the upcoming sequel, More American Graffiti. At the end of its theatrical run, American Graffiti had one of the greatest profit-to-cost ratios of a motion picture ever.

Producer Francis Ford Coppola regretted having not financed the film himself. Lucas recalled, "He would have made $30 million (equivalent to $0 million in ) on the deal. He never got over it and he still kicks himself." It was the 13th-highest-grossing film of all time in 1977 and, adjusted for inflation, is currently the 43rd highest. By the 1990s, American Graffiti had earned more than $200 million (equivalent to $0 million in ) in box-office gross and home video sales. In December 1997, Variety reported that the film had earned an additional $55.13 million in rental revenue (equivalent to $0 million in ).

Universal Studios first released the film on DVD in September 1998, and once more as a double feature with More American Graffiti (1979) in January 2004. The 1978 version of the film was used, with an additional digital change to the sky in the opening title sequence. Universal released the film on Blu-ray with a new digitally remastered picture supervised by George Lucas on May 31, 2011. In celebration of its 50th anniversary, a 4K restoration of the film updated with a brand new 5.1 sound mix was re-released domestically on August 27 and 30 before a Ultra HD Blu-ray release on November 7, 2023.

Reception
American Graffiti received widespread critical acclaim. Roger Ebert gave the film a full four stars and praised it for being "not only a great movie, but a brilliant work of historical fiction; no sociological treatise could duplicate the movie's success in remembering exactly how it was to be alive at that cultural instant". Gene Siskel awarded three-and-a-half stars out of four, writing that although the film suffered from an "overkill" of nostalgia, particularly with regards to a soundtrack so overstuffed that it amounted to "one of those golden-oldie TV blurbs," it was still "well-made, does achieve moments of genuine emotion, and does provide a sock (hop) full of memories."

Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote, "American Graffiti is such a funny, accurate movie, so controlled and efficient in its narrative, that it stands to be overpraised to the point where seeing it will be an anticlimax." A.D. Murphy from Variety felt American Graffiti was a vivid "recall of teenage attitudes and morals, told with outstanding empathy and compassion through an exceptionally talented cast of unknown actors". Charles Champlin of The New York Times called it a "masterfully executed and profoundly affecting movie." Jay Cocks of Time magazine wrote that American Graffiti "reveals a new and welcome depth of feeling. Few films have shown quite so well the eagerness, the sadness, the ambitions and small defeats of a generation of young Americans." Pauline Kael of The New Yorker was less enthused, writing that the film "fails to be anything more than a warm, nice, draggy comedy, because there's nothing to back up the style. The images aren't as visually striking as they would be if only there were a mind behind them; the movie has no resonance except from the jukebox sound and the eerie, nocturnal jukebox look." She also noted with disdain that the epilogue did not bother to mention the fates of any of the women characters. Dave Kehr, writing in the Chicago Reader, called the film a brilliant work of popular art that redefined nostalgia as a marketable commodity, while establishing a new narrative style.

Based on reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes,  of the critics enjoyed the film with an average score of. The consensus reads: "One of the most influential of all teen films, American Graffiti is a funny, nostalgic, and bittersweet look at a group of recent high school grads' last days of innocence." Metacritic calculated a score of 97 out of 100, indicating "universal acclaim".

Themes
American Graffiti depicts multiple characters going through a coming of age, such as the decisions to attend college or reside in a small town. The 1962 setting represents nearing an end of an era in American society and pop culture. The early 1960s musical backdrop also links between the early years of rock 'n' roll in the mid- to late 1950s (i.e., Bill Haley & His Comets, Elvis Presley, and Buddy Holly), and mid-1960s, beginning with the January 1964 arrival of The Beatles and the following British Invasion, which Don McLean's "American Pie" and the early 1970s revival of 1950s acts and oldies paralleled during the conception and filming.

The setting is two months before the Cuban Missile Crisis, and before the outbreak of the Vietnam War and the John F. Kennedy assassination and before the peak years of the counterculture movement. American Graffiti evokes mankind's relationship with machines, notably the elaborate number of hot rods—having been called a "classic-car flick", representative of the motor car's importance to American culture at the time it was made. Another theme is teenagers' obsession with radio, especially with the inclusion of Wolfman Jack and his mysterious and mythological faceless (to most) voice.

Accolades
The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:
 * 1998: AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies – #77
 * 2000: AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs – #43
 * 2007: AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) – #62

Legacy
Internet reviewer MaryAnn Johanson acknowledged that American Graffiti rekindled public and entertainment interest in the 1950s and early 1960s, and influenced other films such as The Lords of Flatbush (1974) and Cooley High (1975) and the TV series Happy Days. Alongside other films from the New Hollywood era, American Graffiti is often cited for helping give birth to the summer blockbuster. The film's box-office success made George Lucas an instant millionaire. He gave an amount of the film's profits to Haskell Wexler for his visual consulting help during filming, and to Wolfman Jack for "inspiration". Lucas's net worth was now $4 million, and he set aside a $300,000 independent fund for his long-cherished space opera project, which would eventually become the basis for Star Wars (1977).

The financial success of Graffiti also gave Lucas opportunities to establish more elaborate development for Lucasfilm, Skywalker Sound, and Industrial Light & Magic. Based on the success of the 1978 reissue, Universal began production for the sequel More American Graffiti (1979). Lucas and writers Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz later collaborated on Howard the Duck (1986) and Radioland Murders (1994). They were both released by Universal Pictures, for which Lucas acted as executive producer. Radioland Murders features characters intended to be Curt and Laurie Henderson's parents, Roger and Penny Henderson. In 1995, American Graffiti was deemed culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. In 1997 the city of Modesto, California, honored Lucas with a statue dedication of American Graffiti at George Lucas Plaza.

Director David Fincher credited American Graffiti as a visual influence for Fight Club (1999). Lucas's Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones (2002) features references to the film. The yellow airspeeder that Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi use to pursue bounty hunter Zam Wesell is based on John Milner's yellow deuce coupe, while Dex's Diner is reminiscent of Mel's Drive-In. Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman conducted the "rear axle" experiment on the January 11, 2004, episode of MythBusters.

Given the popularity of the film's cars with customizers and hot rodders in the years since its release, their fate immediately after the film is surprising. All were offered for sale in San Francisco newspaper ads; only the '58 Impala (driven by Ron Howard) attracted a buyer, selling for only a few hundred dollars. The yellow Deuce and the white T-bird went unsold, despite being priced as low as $3,000. The registration plate on Milner's yellow deuce coupe is THX 138 on a yellow, California license plate, slightly altered, reflecting Lucas's earlier science-fiction film (THX 1138).