YMMV / American Graffiti

• Adorkable: Terry "Toad" Fields is an endearing nerd, who is socially awkward, wears large glasses, and wins the affections of the sweet popular girl, with whom he spends an adventurous evening.
• And You Thought It Would Fail:
  • Universal thought so little of the film (not knowing how to market it, and certain that as it had no stars it would flop), that it sat on The Shelf of Movie Languishment for six months before the studio finally decided to release it. To their great surprise, it became enormously successful at the box-office.
  • Richard Dreyfuss thought at the time that this was just another film.
• Award Snub: The film received five Academy Award nominations – for Best Picture, Director, Original Screenplay, Editing, and Best Supporting Actress for Candy Clark – but lost all five. Granted, it was the same year The Sting and The Exorcist came out. There's also Richard Dreyfuss missing out on a Best Actor nomination.
• Awesome Music: The entire soundtrack, really, but special mention has to be made of "Green Onions" by Booker T. and the M.G.'s accompanying the climactic drag race.
• Common Knowledge: The film is often cited as being the inspiration for Happy Days, when in fact it was more or less the other way around. Grafitti was inspired by an episode of Love, American Style starring Ron Howard, and then its success inspired Garry Marshall to expand that episode into a whole show.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Ask any fan who their favorite characters besides the four heroes (and maybe the blonde in the T-bird) are, and they will likely answer Give Geeks a Chance Debbie (who got the film’s only acting Oscar nomination), John’s rival drag racer Bob Falfa (a young Harrison Ford), helpful DJ Wolfman Jack, Affably Evil Greaser Delinquents leader Joe, and Tag Along Kid Carol (all of whom, with the exception of Jack, were brought back for the sequel).
• Fanon Discontinuity: A lot of people try to disregard the Sudden Downer Ending "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue giving grim futures for Terry and John, who some fans consider the best characters in the movie.
• Harsher in Hindsight: The scene where Paul Le Mat's character pretends to come on to Mackenzie Phillips' to get her to go home is more than a little uncomfortable, given what would allegedly happen to Mackenzie a few years later...
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • While Curt is cruising with the Pharaohs, they pass a car driven by Bob Falfa, the man in the cowboy hat. One of the Pharaohs remarks that the driver looks like a wimp – hilarious when one remembers that Falfa is played by Harrison Ford, who nearly embodies the cool leading man archetype in later films.
  • Steve's remark about Laurie's Big Brother Attraction, when you realize this film is made by the same guy responsible for the Star Wars movies, one of which is infamous for a passionate kiss between Luke and Leia before they find out they're siblings.
    • Additionally, Cindy Williams (Laurie) was one of the many actresses who auditioned to play Princess Leia!
    • Similarly, John and Carol's chaste May–December Romance from the director of one that becomes not so chaste and with the genders reversed. And the age gaps are comparable: Anakin and Padmé are 5 years apart, and John and Carol are 5 at minimum (if John is between 18-20 and Carol is 12-13).
  • Ron Howard would later direct a Star Wars movie, but only after some serious drama between the studio and the original directors that Lucas himself would be proud of. For extra hilarity, said movie? Solo, the origin story for Harrison Ford's character!
    • And even his daughter followed in his footsteps on The Mandalorian.
  • Bob Falfa wears a hat because Harrison Ford was unwilling to cut his hair for a period-appropriate hairstyle. This would be oddly inverted when Ford starred in Blade Runner nine years later; there, Deckard was supposed to wear a Cool Hat, but Ford deliberately had his hair cut to avoid this, especially because he'd recently starred as another hatted hero.
  • During the climactic race Bob flips and crashes his car. Harrison Ford grew to have a real life reputation as an especially accident-prone pilot.
• Magnificent Bastard: The unnamed liquor store thief who an oblivious Terry tries to get to buy alcohol for Debbie and himself. He instantly sees through the lie before Terry can even tell it, but then agrees to buy a bottle of alcohol with the money Terry gives him. Instead of spending that money, he holds up the liquor store, getting in and out in less than twenty seconds, without firing a shot. He also bothers to snatch the bottle that Terry wanted and tosses it to his new acquaintance without missing a stride before escaping from the gun-toting storekeeper.
• Once Original, Now Common:
  • Fifties nostalgia, now old hat, was still a pretty novel subject for a film in 1973.
  • The habit of movies looking back a decade or two with a nostalgic melancholy in general. Cooley High, Dazed and Confused, Boogie Nights, a lot of Coming of Age movies... it all started with this movie.
  • This was also the first film to make its soundtrack basically another character, made up entirely of specifically chosen songs for each scene, which directors like Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino have since made into its own artform.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • Suzanne Somers as the Blonde in the T-Bird. All she does is mouth "I love you" at the camera and fans have been wondering about her character ever since.
  • Although his God-like voice is present throughout the movie as background chatter, Wolfman Jack's actual appearance at the end – offering Popsicles and wisdom to Curt – counts. It was even more so at the time, as his appearance was the first time his legions of fans got to see what he looked like after two decades of his radio show.
• Parody Displacement: The "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue which everyone has mimicked/spoofed since, originated with that film.
• Retroactive Recognition: For a big chunk of the cast.
• Sequelitis: The original American Graffiti is regarded as a classic and one of George Lucas' best movies outside of the Star Wars franchise. More American Graffiti? Not so much.
• Tear Jerker: Finding out the fates of John Milner and Terry the Toad (unless you've seen the sequel) in the epilogue.
  • In the sequel, Toad is drafted to Vietnam, and he so desperately tries to get back home (to the point of self-inflicted injuries). Then in order to get out of the war, he fakes his own death (with everybody, including his friends and family, thinking he's dead) and becomes a deserter in the jungles of Vietnam, never to be seen again.
  • Likewise, Bo's gruesome death in the sequel, while serving in Vietnam.
• Values Resonance: The film is relatively progressive on the issue of avoiding Date Rape.
  • When Toad tries to kiss Debbie and she moves away, he doesn't refuse to take no for an answer and draws back, apologizing, before it turns out that Debbie just wanted to take off her jacket before the makeout session.
  • While Steve is unhappy that Laurie changed her mind about having sex at the last minute and argues with her about it, he does immediately sit up and move away rather than insist on taking advantage of her initial consent.

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