American History X

"Some legacies must end."

1998 1h 59m EN

🙌

8.3

BANGER

★8.3TMDB · 12,998

Drama

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

Derek Vineyard is paroled after serving 3 years in prison for killing two African-American men. Through his brother, Danny Vineyard's narration, we learn that before going to prison, Derek was a skinhead and the leader of a violent white supremacist gang that committed acts of racial crime throughout L.A. and his actions greatly influenced Danny. Reformed and fresh out of prison, Derek severs contact with the gang and becomes determined to keep Danny from going down the same violent path as he did.

“Some legacies must end.”

WhatsApp X Facebook Telegram

Where to watch · US

Amazon VideoRent

Apple TV StoreRent

Google Play MoviesRent

Google Play MoviesBuy

YouTubeBuy

Fandango At HomeBuy

Cast

Edward Norton
Derek
Edward Furlong
Danny
Beverly D'Angelo
Doris
Jennifer Lien
Davina
Ethan Suplee
Seth
Fairuza Balk
Stacey
Avery Brooks
Sweeney
Elliott Gould
Murray

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Tony Kaye
Writers: David McKenna
Languages: English
Countries: United States of America

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

ERA

Did you know

28 years old — old enough to be someone's favourite childhood film.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Tony Kaye, shot by Tony Kaye. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Anne Dudley. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Alan Heim shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

RUNTIME

Did you know

Edward Norton and Edward Furlong and Beverly D'Angelo carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

FACT

Did you know

Marketing tagline: "Some legacies must end.".

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

WILD

Did you know

IMDB entry: tt0120586 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

WILD

Did you know

12,998 TMDB user ratings logged — serious cultural footprint.

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Tony Kaye directs. Tony Kaye behind the camera. Anne Dudley scores. Alan Heim cuts. Profitable at the box office. Produced in United States of America. Dialogue in English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

128 years old — old enough to be someone's favourite childhood film.
2Directed by Tony Kaye, shot by Tony Kaye. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
3Original score by Anne Dudley. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
4Editor Alan Heim shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
5Edward Norton and Edward Furlong and Beverly D'Angelo carry the top of the cast.
6Marketing tagline: "Some legacies must end.".
7IMDB entry: tt0120586 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
812,998 TMDB user ratings logged — serious cultural footprint.
9Classified under 23 themes, including "prison", "neo-nazism", "rape", "skinhead".
10Released under 16 different titles around the world.

The technical file

Cinematography: Tony Kaye
Original score: Anne Dudley
Editing: Alan Heim
Production design: Jon Gary Steele
Costume design: Doug Hall
Makeup / hair: Heather Fraker
Sound: Frederick Howard
Stunt coordinator: Paul E. Short
Runtime: 119 min · 1h 59m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Budget: $20,000,000
Box office: $23,900,000
Return: 120% of budget
Original language: EN
Certification (US): R
IMDB: American History X (1998)

Awards

Satellite Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture

Individual records documented via Wikidata; the summary above may count more.

Also by

Tony Kaye

Stills · wallpapers

Selected frames

Full-resolution frames — open one to save it as a wallpaper.

Wallpaper

Trailers & featurettes

Watch the pieces

Community reviews

What people are saying

tmdb154355192021-04-15
★ 9/10
Despite having a somewhat weak cast, this is an incredibly poignant drama of one man's struggle to live a new life. Probably too violent and close-to-home for some.
Andre Gonzales2023-04-16
★ 5/10
There's really no point to the movie. Just a lot of violence. That's pretty much it.
GenerationofSwine2025-12-04
★ 1/10
You could use this as a skinhead recruitment film because it failed so miserably in the message it was trying to push, and it failed miserably because they were too concerned about pushing the message that they forgot how they were framing the film. So a bunch of skinheads win a turf war basketball game, to stop the gang violence around the basketball courts, and then one of the Black people on the losing side tries to steal the car of one of the skinheads. And then the skinhead goes to jail for killing him. Then we have a flashback where the skinhead argues that Affirmative Action policies that put race before merit are racist because they put race before merit... to presumably illistrate how evil he is. Then his brother reads "Mein Kampf" for a book report and has to write a history paper titled American History X to teach him not to read books that should be banned... like the ACTUAL Nazis banned books. I mean that's not very free speech of them to tell people what they can or can't read. And before he turns it in, he gets killed by a Black kid, involved in the gangs, who took a gun into school. Too often in the film you get those moments where you have to stop and think "Why do the Neo-Nazis look like the good guys in comparison?" That's not what they were trying to do, at least I hope it wasn't, but it certainly was what they succeeded in doing. It's clearly supposed to tell you how the skinheads are the bad guys, I mean that was the intended message... but it doesn't really succeed in that, in fact it kind of makes the good guys, more often than not, with the exception of the prison scene... and people love it. And people love it. That raises a pretty serious question, do they love it for the message that they tried to push and failed miserably at, resulting in the movie making Neo-Nazis out to be the better of two evils more often than not, or do they love it because they faild miserably at making the Neo-Nazis out to be evil? It's sort of like "The Thin Red Line" where they pushed the leftwing message so hard that they made Americans seem like the bad guys in World War II.... when we were fighting actual Nazis and serious Japanese war criminals. They over did American History X on the narrative and because of that the message got lost in delivery.