10 More Milestone Movies

Beau Bridges and Diana Sands in The Landlord (1970) — Courtesy Everett Collection

The Landlord (1970)
Ahead of its time and deserving of its cult status, Hal Ashby's hip directorial debut cast Beau Bridges as a callow rich kid who buys a rundown Brooklyn tenement as an investment. But to the chagrin of his family, he soon becomes involved in the lives of black tenants who include the married black woman (Sun's Diana Sands) he eventually impregnates — hardly an everyday situation in Hollywood movies from four decades ago. Familiar black actor Bill Gunn penned the screenplay from a Kristin Hunter novel, and its race-relations satire still has bite. The movie wasn't exactly obscure at the time — Lee Grant got an Oscar nomination as Bridges' mother — but it has more currency today as the opening salvo from a director who went on to make, for starters, Harold and Maude, Shampoo and Coming Home. (From MGM and available "on-demand" for $19.98 from Amazon.com)