Added to the National Film Registry in 2003.

Chicago, 1968. Just prior to the Democratic National Convention, impassive TV news cameraman John Cassellis (Robert Forster) learns his footage is being sold to the FBI in a flagrant abetting of civilian surveillance. This revelation kickstarts an awakening in an otherwise apolitical man. Massively influential cinematographer, producer, and director Haskell Wexler’s (1922–2015) narrative feature directorial debut is one of the more visceral, urgent American pictures to emerge from the tense 1960s to address the countercultural movement of a frustrated generation. The unassuming masterpiece blends fiction with reality for a “hybrid” film that insists the personal is political.