American Arthouse Cinema and Midnight Movies: Off-Hollywood and Offbeat Movies 1954-1972

The American Arthouse film movement brought some of the finest films ever made to American movie houses. The period from 1954 to 1972 was an especially fertile time for world cinema. Many great directors produced their best work during this time. At the same time the theaters were dealing with declining ticket sales and an unreliable supply of films from the big studios.

Adventurous film distributors came to the rescue, supplying the smaller theaters with great films from around the world, to share with their passionate cineaste customers. The arthouse cinema movement was born. At the same time film societies sprouted up in college town and larger cities across the county. One of the largest, Cinema 16 in New York, had over 5,000 members. These film clubs were able to bypass all movie censorship regulations and showed an incredible array of films which has never been repeated. American underground films, scientific study films, esoteric documentaries, and obscure Japanese films all shared the screen with the most exciting independent films being made in the U.S

I’d like to invite you on this journey to explore the origins of the arthouse film movement. We’ll get an opportunity to watch some of these great films and learn how they fit into cinema history.