young and handsome and muscular joe buck ( jon voight ) move from texas to new york thinking he will make a living by be a stud . he get there and find out quickly that it isn not go to be easy he go through one degrading experience after another . at the end of his rope he hook up with cripple and sleazy ratso rizzo ( dustin hoffman ) . together they try to survive and get out of the city and move to florida . but will they make it . very dark and disturb yet fascinate movie . director john schelsinger paint a very grimy portrait of nyc and it inhabitant . in that way it date the city may have be this bad in 1969 but it clean up considerably by now . he also use every camera trick in the book color turn to black and white while trippy dream sequence while flash forward while flash back ( especially involve a rape ) while shock cut while weird sound effect . you name it . it keep you disorient and off center but i couldn not stop watching . there isn not much of a story it basically center on the friendship between rizzo and buck . there be an implication that they may have be lover ( the final shot sort of show that ) . it just a portrait of two damaged character try to survive in a cold and cruel and urban jungle . this be originally rat x in 1969 the only reason be that the mpaa do not think that parent would want their child to see this . nevertheless and it be a big hit with high schoolers ( back then x mean no one under 17 ) . it also have be the only x rat film ever to win an academy award a best picture . hoffman and voight be up for act award a be ( mysteriously ) sylvia mile who be in the picture for a total of ( maybe ) 5 minute . it be eventually lower to an r ( with no cut ) when it be reissue in 1980. also the excellent song everybody talkin be introduce in this film and become a big hit . a great film but very dark . i be give it a 10. dont see it on commercial tv it cut to ribbon and incomprehensible .