In John Milius’ famous surf epic, three rambunctious friends navigate the shifting tides of adolescence and American idealism across a series of California summers. As his peers Spielberg and George Lucas made history with the new blockbuster form, Milius’ novelistic portrayal of carefree youth and lost innocence is as much an elegy to New Hollywood as it is to the surf culture of the 60s. The sight of a surfer catching a break has never been more majestic or melancholy.
