The unlikely buddy drama, starring Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman, remains a compelling study of poverty and loneliness
Midnight Cowboy was the first and only X-rated film to win the Academy Award for best picture, a fact that’s useful to know on trivia night, but otherwise needs to be appended by about five or six asterisks. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) originally rated the film an R, changed it to an X for its depiction of prostitution and homosexuality, and then changed it back to an R only two years later, a tacit acknowledgement that the board had gotten it right the first time. Seeing the film today, 50 years later, the ratings controversy seems all the more curious, given the relative timidity of its nude scenes and a gay hustle at a Times Square theater that’s all uncomfortable glances and implication.
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