The Graduate (1967)

With The Graduate, Dustin Hoffman challenged conventional notions of the Hollywood leading man and became an overnight star. Hoffman’s second film role earned him an Oscar nomination and sees him playing Benjamin Braddock, a directionless graduate romantically entangled with both the predatory Mrs Robinson and her daughter Elaine, his true love. A huge financial and critical success, the film turned Hoffman into an overnight sensation and proved to Hollywood that leading men didn’t need conventional looks in order to carry a film. The Graduate spoke to an America youth feeling uncertainty and doubt, partly due to the country’s deepening involvement in Vietnam, and gained a significant worldwide audience.