John Schlesinger’s Midnight Cowboy is often hailed as one the most groundbreaking movies of the modern era movies of the modern era. The film starring Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman went onto became the only X- rated film to ever win the Academy Award for Best Picture.

The documentary Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy takes a look at the people behind the film, the city – New York City and and the 1960’s era.

Directed by Nancy Buirski, Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy premiered at Venice Film Festival, and will be released in theaters on June 23rd, 2023.

A half century after its release, Midnight Cowboy remains one of the most original and groundbreaking movies of the modern era. With beguiling performances from Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman as two loners who join forces out of desperation, black list survivor Waldo Salt’s brilliant screenplay, and John Schlesinger’s fearless direction, the 1969 release became the only X-rated film to ever win the Academy Award for Best Picture (in 1970). Its vivid and compassionate depiction of a more realistic, unsanitized New York City and its inhabitants paved the way for a generation’s worth of gritty movies with complex characters and adult themes.

But this is not a documentary about the making of Midnight Cowboy: it is about the deeply gifted and flawed people behind a dark and difficult masterpiece; New York City in a troubled time of cultural ferment; and the era that made a movie and the movie that made an era. With extensive archival material and compelling new interviews, director Nancy Buirski illuminates how one film captured the essence of a time and a place, reflecting a rapidly changing society with striking clarity.

Watch the official trailer for Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy.