Film Forum

(1968, Lindsay Anderson) “Violence and revolution are the only pure acts.” As hymns resound against sun-splashed Gothic buildings, “new Boy” Malcolm MacDowell – in a magnetic, star-making performance – learns arcane rituals as the school term begins, while the school “whips” smack their lips lasciviously over who’ll get a pretty boy junior as his gofer. DCP. Approx. 111 mins.

Reviews

“A modern classic in which Anderson minutely captures both the particular ethos of a public school and the general flavor of any structured community, thus achieving a clear allegorical force without sacrificing a whit of his exploration of an essentially British institution. The impeccable logic of the conclusion is in no way diminished by having been lifted from Vigo’s Zéro de Conduite, made thirty-five years earlier. If... was also a timely film – shooting began two months before the events of May 1968 in Paris.”
– Stephen Gilbert, Time Out (London)

“A landmark of ‘60s cinema and counterculture!”
– Village Voice