Academy Award for Best Picture

1978

The Deer Hunter

Release dates

December 8, 1978 (Los Angeles)

February 23, 1979 (United States)

February 27, 1979 (United Kingdom)

Starring

Robert De Niro

Christopher Walken

John Savage

John Cazale

Meryl Streep

George Dzundza

The Deer Hunter is a 1978 American war drama film co-written and directed by Michael Cimino about a trio of Russian American steelworkers and their service in the Vietnam War. The film stars Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, John Savage, John Cazale, Meryl Streep, and George Dzundza. The story takes place in Clairton, a small working class town on the Monongahela River south of Pittsburgh and then in Vietnam, somewhere in the woodland and in Saigon, during the Vietnam War.

The film was based in part on an unproduced screenplay called The Man Who Came to Play by Louis Garfinkle and Quinn K. Redeker about Las Vegas and Russian roulette. Producer Michael Deeley, who bought the script, hired writer/director Michael Cimino who, with Deric Washburn, rewrote the script, taking the Russian roulette element and placing it in the Vietnam War. The film went over-budget and over-schedule and ended up costing $15 million. The scenes of Russian roulette were highly controversial on release.

The film won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Supporting Actor for Christopher Walken, and was named by the American Film Institute as the 53rd Greatest Movie of All Time in the 10th Anniversary Edition of the AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies list.