The filmmaker, who died Wednesday at the age of 83, was behind some of cinema’s most famous moments and images.
Mrs. Robinson seduces Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate (1967)
Mike Nichols got his start as a director in 1966 with the fabulously venomous Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, and as the years went on, he made an impressive array of films, ending his career more than 40 years later with the 2007 political biopic Charlie Wilson's War.
But nothing he's done has lodged itself in the pop cultural consciousness like 1967's The Graduate, especially the scene in which disaffected recent college grad Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) is seduced by the slinky Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft). As Robinson, the unhappy wife of Benjamin's father's law partner, Bancroft flaunts some of the most famous gams in movie history, arching one in front of the camera as Benjamin stammers, "Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me... Aren't you?"
MGM
Benjamin Braddock crashes the wedding in The Graduate (1967)
DECADES-OLD SPOILER WARNING! The seduction sequence may be the best-known part of The Graduate, but it's not the film's only famous scene. There's also the ending, in which Benjamin crashes the wedding of his ex-girlfriend Elaine (Katharine Ross), Mrs. Robinson's daughter, in hopes of stopping her from marrying someone else. The pounding on the glass and the scene in the bus afterward will look familiar even if you haven't seen the whole movie — and if you haven't, now's a very good time to check it out.
MGM
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
