Movie Brats: 5 Key Players in the Film Movement That Changed Hollywood

“What are movie brats?” No, we’re not talking about the Brat Pack from the 1980s (the group of young up-and-coming actors of the time that included Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, Rob Lowe, Andrew McCarthy, Demi Moore, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald, and Ally Sheedy).

The Movie Brats was a term coined by iconic film critic Pauline Kael when referring to a new crop of young and influential filmmakers that came about during the late 1960s and 1970s, notably Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola, and Brian de Palma. She called them movie brats because they were younger than forty years old and were carnosaurs of old Hollywood movies, looking to take them to the next level. And most of them knew each other well and used one another for feedback on their films.

Author Susan Dworkin explained them best in her book Double DePalma:

“[The movie brats] were American spinoffs of the European nouvelle vague of the early 1960s. They had been raised on the notion that the real auteur of a good movie had to be the director. It was originally François Truffaut’s idea, put forth when he was still a film critic and not yet a director himself. The idea was that a director could take a genre movie…and so imbue it with his vision and technique that it would rise above the genre into the sphere of art.”

In the late 1960s, the Old Hollywood studio system began to collapse. Studios were beginning to be run by corporations instead of studio heads. The old studio system of signing movie stars and directors to long-term contracts for multiple pictures was gone.

These so-called movie brats were beginning to make movies that were more personal and introspective — real-world tales of coming-of-age and violence. And they were doing so primarily without established movie stars.

Bonnie and Clyde (1967)

Movies like 1968’s Bonnie and Clyde (Directed by Arthur Penn), 1969’s Mean Streets (Directed by Martin Scorsese), and 1969’s Easy Rider (Directed by Dennis Hopper) paved the way for a different style of filmmaking.

Brian De Palma, George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg were making their early films during this time. But it was Francis Ford Coppola that really jump-started the Movie Brats Movement.

Here we feature the five biggest movie brats of that era and the films that created what many referred to as New Hollywood. Here are the top 5 movie brats that changed cinema:

1. Francis Ford Coppola

Born on April 7th, 1939, Coppola eventually became a graduate student of the UCLA Film School program and spent most of the early 1960s making small softcore “nudie” flicks until legendary indie producer Roger Corman hired him to work on his productions. Coppola’s first feature directing gig was 1963’s Dementia 13.

In 1965, while still in UCLA’s graduate program, he won the annual Samuel Goldwyn Award for best screenplay (Pilma, Pilma) written by a UCLA student. The award secured him a job writing scripts for Seven Arts. He then earned his Master of Fine Arts Degree from UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television in 1967 with his thesis project, You’re a Big Boy Now. The film eventually received distribution through Warner Brothers and even managed to secure Golden Globe and Oscar nominations for the lead actress’s performance.

1968’s Finian’s Rainbow followed. And this was the film where Coppola met George Lucas, a young aspiring filmmaker that was working as a production assistant. They would work together again in Coppola’s 1969 film The Rain People.

He received his first Oscar nomination for the script for 1970’s Patton, which he was hired to co-write. But it was in 1972 when the real momentum for New Hollywood shifted into high gear with Coppola’s Oscar-winning The Godfather. It was a box office smash hit and a critical Awards Season darling. The film made Coppola a Hollywood powerhouse.

He wouldn’t match the success of the first two The Godfather films in the 1970s, primarily because he became weary of the studio system. He came closest with the celebrated 1979 Vietnam War film Apocalypse Now but nearly killed himself making it. While he made now-classic films in the 1980s, only 1982’s The Outsiders and 1986’s Peggy Sue Got Married were moderate box office hits. Regardless, he launched the movement and mentored one of cinema’s greatest powerhouses.

2. George Lucas

Born on May 14th, 1944, George Lucas attended the University of Southern California (USC) School of Cinematic Arts. Lucas eventually directed the short film Electric Labyrinth: THX 1138 4ED. The film won first prize at the 1967–68 National Student Film Festival.

Similar to Coppola’s experience of garnering a Warner Brothers gig after a successful student film, Lucas was awarded a student scholarship through the studio. He chose to work on Coppola’s Finian’s Rainbow.

The relationship would be a vital one to the New Hollywood movement. Lucas co-founded the studio American Zoetrope with Coppola in 1969. Their mission was to make movies outside of the Hollywood system. THX 1138 was a feature adaptation of Lucas’s student film. While it was Lucas’s feature directorial debut, it failed at the box office but has since become a cult classic.

With Coppola’s help, Lucas wrote and directed a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age movie called American Graffiti. It was Lucas’s homage to his upbringing in Modesto, California, where he grew up racing hotrod cars on the street (and nearly died doing so in a terrible accident that he somehow survived).

The film was a massive hit and launched Lucas into the stratosphere as he developed his next project — a little film called Star Wars.

The film became the most successful movie of all time and garnered many Oscar nominations. Lucas wouldn’t return to directing until the turn of the century — choosing to hand over directing duties to the two original Star Wars sequels to other — but he created an empire that included Lucasfilm, Industrial Light & Magic, Skywalker Sound, and many other hugely successful companies (later selling Lucasfilm and its properties to Disney for $4 billion in 2012).

3. Steven Spielberg

Born on December 18th, 1946, Steven Spielberg applied to USC film school but couldn’t get in due to his lackluster grades. He instead attended California State University – Long Beach. He dropped out three years later with no degree. However, his true film school experience began with a trip to Universal Studios. On the studio tour, he hid in the bathrooms during the tour break and walked the studio lot on his own accord. He managed to get a three-day pass to the studio, allowing him to look in on production. On the fourth day, because the security guards at the gate recognized him from his three-day pass visits, he walked onto the lot and eventually began to create contacts within Universal’s system after setting up a fake office.

Studio VP Sid Sheinberg eventually grew to know Spielberg and offered him a chance to direct a short film for the studio, 1968’s Amblin’, which would go on to earn Spielberg a seven-year directing contract. The deal made him the youngest to ever receive a multi-picture studio contract.

He directed TV episodes, including his first, a segment of the 1969 pilot episode for Night Gallery, where he was tasked with directing the great Joan Crawford. He directed episodes of Marcus Welby M.D., The Name of the Game, Columbo, Owen Marshall: Counselor at Law and The Psychiatrist.

Universal was so impressed with this young director, that they signed Spielberg to a four-picture deal for TV movies, the most notable being 1971’s Duel, which was also released theatrically overseas.

Spielberg was quickly displaying a unique and original style that Hollywood hadn’t seen before — certainly from someone so young. This success would lead to his first feature theatrical film, 1974’s Sugarland Express.

While the film was a critical success, it was Spielberg’s next film that would catapult him to iconic levels in Hollywood. Producers Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown took a chance on the young director to tackle the adaptation of a Peter Benchley thriller about a shark that terrorizes a vacation town. That film would be Jaws. While Spielberg went well over budget shooting on the water. With Jaws seemingly cursed throughout production, the film became a hit — going on to become the most successful movie of all time (two years prior to Lucas’s Star Wars).

Jaws was nominated for multiple Oscars. Spielberg’s next film, 1977’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind, would follow suit and go on to become a box office hit, as well as a film nominated for multiple Oscars.

With the misstep of 1979’s 1941, Spielberg decided to team up with his friend George Lucas (as Producer) to create the old-time movie serial-inspired Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark.

With another hit under his belt, Spielberg was becoming a behemoth within the industry. His next film, 1982’s E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, would overtake Lucas’s Star Wars current spot as the number one box office-earning movie of all time. Another box office hit. Another Best Picture Oscar nominee.

Spielberg was collectively creating what are now termed four-quadrant movies — films for all ages and genders. He would go on to become our generation’s greatest director (not to mention one of our greatest producers as well) with additional beloved groundbreaking films like the rest of the original Indiana Jones trilogy, The Color Purple, Empire of the Sun, Jurassic Park, Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Minority Report, Catch Me If You Can, War of the Worlds, Munich, Lincoln, etc.  With 2022’s The Fabelmans, he is the only director to have ever been nominated for a Best Director Oscar in each of the last six decades. He’s won the award only twice.

4. Brian De Palma

Born on September 11th, 1944, Brian De Palma attended college on the East coast at Columbia University and Sarah Lawrence College. He was one of the first male students of the latter. Through the 1960s, De Palma was primarily making documentary films — quietly leading a New Wave of filmmaking. He was very well-known in the Greenwich Village filmmaking community, eventually working with a young Robert De Niro (1968’s Greetings and 1970’s Hi Mom!) in his fictional feature debuts.

De Palma was actually the first prolific filmmaker on this Top 5 Movie Brats list. However, most of his films weren’t very well known. He moved from New York to Hollywood to make 1970’s Get to Know Your Rabbit with Orson Welles and Tommy Smothers. After somewhat forgettable films like Sisters, Phantom of the Paradise and Obsession, De Palma had his first big hit in 1976 directing an adaptation of Stephen King’s breakout bestseller, Carrie. George Lucas and Brian De Palma had become fast friends, and actually cast that film and Lucas’s Star Wars at the same time using the same facilities and actors list.

Much like Coppola, De Palma used his box office success to finance smaller, more personal projects for the few years that followed. In the 1980s, he directed such films as 1980’s Dressed to Kill, 1981’s Blow Out, 1983’s Scarface, 1984’s Body Double, and 1987’s The Untouchables. Dressed to Kill, Blow Out and Body Double are considered cult Hitchcokian classics. Scarface is an iconic film. And The Untouchables was his most notable success from that decade. He would go on to direct the first installment of Tom Cruise’s Mission Impossible franchise.

While his success doesn’t match with the likes of Coppola, Lucas, and Spielberg (and our fifth entry below), De Palma is still known as one of the greats of his era.

5. Martin Scorsese

Born on November 17th, 1942, Martin Scorsese attended New York University and the Tisch School of the Arts. He was prolific in directing short films throughout his time there. His first feature was a student film entitled Who’s That Knocking at My Door, which starred a young Harvey Keitel (an actor Scorsese would work with many times again).

He later assistant-directed the 1970’s documentary Woodstock and eventually worked with Roger Corman, directing Boxcar Bertha.

But it was 1973’s Mean Streets that made Hollywood take notice of him. The film starred Keitel and Robert De Niro (who had been introduced to him by Brian De Palma). It would go on to lead the New Hollywood movement, along with the likes of The Godfather, offering a gritty and violent perspective of the world. The story and characters were inspired by Scorsese’s own upbringing on the streets of New York.

Scorsese would go on to be one of the most celebrated directors of his time. While Spielberg was directing big four-quadrant films, Scorsese was primarily directing more and more gritty and violent character studies.

1976’s Taxi Driver won Best Picture.

1980’s Raging Bull was nominated for pretty much everything but nabbed Best Film Editing, awarding Scorsese’s long-time editor Thelma Schoonmaker her first Oscar.

1986’s The Color of Money was a huge hit and awarded Paul Newman with his first and only Oscar.

1990’s Goodfellas was a box office hit and Best Picture/Best Director contender.

He finally won Best Director for 2006’s The Departed.

Other celebrated films include Casino, Gangs of New York, The Aviator, Shutter Island, Hugo, The Wolf of Wall Street and The Irishman.

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All five of these Movie Brats knew each other well. They celebrated each other’s work and even helped to better each other’s projects with private screenings for feedback and reaction.

The New Hollywood/Movie Brat Movement led the way to what we’ve seen in cinema from the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, and into the 21st Century of filmmaking. Without them, there are no Tarantinos, Coen Brothers, Camerons, Nolans, etc.

Ken Miyamoto has worked in the film industry for nearly two decades, most notably as a studio liaison for Sony Studios and then as a script reader and story analyst for Sony Pictures.

He has many studio meetings under his belt as a produced screenwriter, meeting with the likes of Sony, Dreamworks, Universal, Disney, and Warner Brothers, as well as many production and management companies. He has had a previous development deal with Lionsgate, as well as multiple writing assignments, including the produced miniseries Blackout, starring Anne Heche, Sean Patrick Flanery, Billy Zane, James Brolin, Haylie Duff, Brian Bloom, Eric La Salle, and Bruce Boxleitner, the feature thriller Hunter’s Creed, and many produced Lifetime thrillers. Follow Ken on Twitter @KenMovies and Instagram @KenMovies76.