Bonnie and Clyde

Arthur Penn’s explosive reinvention of the gangster film stunned audiences in 1967 with its tonal whiplash and operatic finale—giving the cinematic antihero, at the height of the counterculture, a new and unmistakably modern face. It also earned Hackman his first Oscar nomination. Set in the depths of the Great Depression, the film begins when small-town waitress Bonnie Parker (Faye Dunaway) meets ex-con Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty), and the pair hit the road on a crime spree that soon draws in Clyde’s brother Buck (Gene Hackman), Buck’s skittish wife Blanche (Estelle Parsons), and their getaway driver C.W. Moss (Michael J. Pollard). Hackman cuts through the film’s mythic undertow with a performance that’s loud, funny, and just crazy enough to feel dangerous.