History Film / MidnightCowboy

** Perhaps the most notable example of Joe's gigolo career not going to plan is when ''he'' winds up paying Cass, the woman he finally managed to pick up off the street.

* MommasBoy: Towny is a middle-aged gay man who's implied to still live with his mother (he's on the phone with her saying that he'll be home soon when Joe comes up to his apartment).

* BittersweetEnding: Joe has lost his only friend and is alone in a new city. On the other hand, his remarks on the bus suggest that he finally has a chance to get his act together and live something resembling a normal life.

* TheBigRottenApple: New York in 1969 looking filthy and dirty and covered with garbage--and of course Joe is associating with various dirtbags and lowlifes of the sort that live in the Big Rotten Apple. Ratso lives in a disgusting condemned building, and dreams of escaping to Florida.

* BitRottenApple: This film shows the seedy side of New York City - a world of petty con men, deviants, prostitutes, and all around hopeless squalor.

* RealSongThemeTune: While Music/HarryNilsson's version of "Everybody's Talkin'" will forever be associated with this film (and became a hit single thanks to its inclusion on the soundtrack), it was first released on Nilsson's ''Aerial Ballet'' album a year earlier.

* ShoutOut: Joe Buck keeps a poster of Creator/PaulNewman as Film/{{Hud}} in his Times Square hotel room.

Joe Buck (Voight) is a dishwasher in a rural Texas diner, who's [[CountryMouse not the sharpest knife in the drawer]]. One day, he decides to dress up like a rodeo cowboy and move to New York City, hoping to prostitute himself to wealthy women. He burns through his savings very quickly, unable to hustle, and is taken in by Enrico "Ratso" Rizzo (Hoffman), a small-time con man with a bad leg and tuberculosis. They scrape by as best they can, hoping to escape to Florida one day...

Joe Buck (Voight) is a dishwasher in a rural Texas diner. [[CountryMouse He's not the sharpest knife in the drawer]]. One day, he decides to dress like a rodeo cowboy and move to New York City, hoping to prostitute himself to wealthy women. He burns through his savings very quickly, unable to hustle, and is taken in by Enrico "Ratso" Rizzo (Hoffman), a small-time con man with a bad leg and tuberculosis. They scrape by as best they can, hoping to escape to Florida one day...

The movie garnered quite a bit of controversy upon its release, being given an [[UsefulNotes/MediaClassifications "X" rating]] by the [[MoralGuardians MPAA]]--this being when the new "X" rating was meant to signify any kind of film for adults only and was not yet associated with porn (it was reduced to an "R" the following year anyway). However, it won UsefulNotes/{{Academy Award}}s for Best Picture and Director and for Waldo Salt's adapted screenplay, and is now seen as one of the defining movies of its era.

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* YourApprovalFillsMeWithShame: A meta example. The MPAA did originally give it an R rating, but United Artists preferred to exploit its controversial premise and initially released it with a self-applied X rating. They did accept the original R rating after a couple of years, though.

* ReasonYouSuckSpeech: Rizzo tells Joe that the cowboy duds are ridiculous and aren't doing him any favors.

** [[VillainousGentification And has changed a lot again since this one.]]

[[VillianousGentification And has changed a lot again since this one.]]