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.
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Film Restoration | New 4K digital restoration with uncompressed monaural soundtrack. |
| Alternate Soundtrack | 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack. |
| Audio Commentary | 1991 commentary featuring director John Schlesinger and producer Jerome Hellman. |
| Selected-Scene Commentary | New commentary by cinematographer Adam Holender. |
| Short Film | The Crowd Around the Cowboy (1969), made on location for the film. |
| Documentary | Waldo Salt: A Screenwriter’s Journey (1990), Academy Award–nominated. |
| Additional Documentaries | Two short 2004 documentaries on the making and release of Midnight Cowboy. |
| Interviews | Interviews with Jon Voight and John Schlesinger, including excerpts from BAFTA LA Tribute (2002). |
| Trailer | Original theatrical trailer included. |
| Essay | Includes a new essay by critic Mark Harris. |