Drawing on his youth in Modesto, George Lucas created American Graffiti as a glamorized but broadly shared American teenage experience of cruising, racing cars, listening to rock 'n roll, and spending time with lifelong friends. Set during a pivotal night in 1962, the film follows four teenage boys—Curt, Steve, John, and Terry, aged 17 to 20—as they cruise the streets, pick up girls, race cars, and confront doubts about leaving their small hometown for college as larger changes in life and the country approach. Released on August 1, 1973, the film was shot in 30 days for $750,000 and earned more than $100 million, quickly becoming one of the most successful movies of its time. It won the 1974 Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture—Comedy or Musical and was nominated for Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Film Editing, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Original Screenplay. Lucas called it a kind of musical in which cars, not people, perform the dance of cruising, and its classic rock 'n roll soundtrack, inspired by the Modesto loop between 10th Street and 11th Street, became one of the most popular soundtracks of all time after he risked 10% of the budget to secure music rights. With its neon visual style shaped in part by Haskell Wexler as visual consultant, the film offered a nostalgic vision of small-town values and the last days of America’s innocence in contrast to the era of the Vietnam War, the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Kennedy brothers, the civil rights movement, and Watergate. Its appeal reached far beyond Modesto, struck a chord with audiences, sparked a worldwide revival of retro 1950s and 1960s culture, and helped launch Lucas’s rise as one of America’s most influential filmmakers.