New Delhi: America has produced some of the greatest films, directors, and actors in world cinema. But when readers of The New York Times were asked to name the definitive film that best captures the country, the majority chose Idiocracy (2006), a dystopian satire imagining what America could look like 500 years into the future.
Directed by Mike Judge, the film follows United States Army librarian Joe Bauers and sex worker Rita, who are placed into hibernation for nearly 500 years. When they finally wake up, they find themselves in a devolved anti-intellectual society. The film is based on the idea that people with lower IQs and lower incomes reproduce at greater rates than more prudent, affluent, and intellectual people, resulting in a gradual decline in intelligence and the transformation of the world’s greatest democracy into an idiocracy. The film stars Luke Wilson and Maya Rudolph. Many readers described Idiocracy as feeling less like a comedy and more like a documentary.
The list was followed by The Godfather (1972), but for reasons beyond its cinematic excellence or storyline. A majority viewed the film as the story of an immigrant family striving for “the great American dream,” while some saw it as a tale of power and corruption mirroring America’s own development.
Next up was Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider (1969), in which a group of bikers searching for liberation embark on a cross-country road trip. Then comes George Lucas’s American Graffiti (1973), a nostalgic portrait of life in a small American town, followed by Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing (1989), which chronicles a single day in the life of ordinary Americans as racial tensions escalate into brutal violence on an otherwise sunny day. Other films featured on the list included The Grapes of Wrath (1940), Network (1976), To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), and It’s a Wonderful Life (1946).
While most chosen films questioned power, exposed social divisions, and reflected the country’s ideals, contradictions, and changing identity, readers also recommended films carrying the word “American” in their titles, including American Beauty (1999), American Pie (1999), American Hustle (2013) and American Honey (2016).
(Edited by Insha Jalil Waziri)