# Breaking Away

Breaking Away is a 1979 American coming of age comedy-drama film produced and directed by Peter Yates and written by Steve Tesich. It follows a group of four male teenagers in Bloomington, Indiana, who have recently graduated from high school. The film stars Dennis Christopher, Dennis Quaid, Daniel Stern (in his film debut), Jackie Earle Haley, Barbara Barrie, Paul Dooley, and Robyn Douglass.
Breaking Away won the 1979 Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Tesich, and received nominations in four other categories, including Best Picture and Best Supporting Actress (Barbara Barrie). It also won the 1979 Golden Globe Award for Best Film (Comedy or Musical) and received nominations in three other Golden Globe categories. The film was ranked eighth on the List of America's 100 Most Inspiring Movies compiled by the American Film Institute (AFI) in 2006. In June 2008, the AFI also announced its 10 Top 10—the best ten films in ten classic American film genres—after it polled over 1,500 people from the creative community. In that poll Breaking Away ranked as the eighth best film in the sports genre.
As the film's young lead, Christopher won the 1979 BAFTA Award for Most Promising Newcomer and the 1979 Young Artist Award for Best Juvenile Actor, as well as getting a Golden Globe nomination as New Star of the Year.

## Plot

Dave, Mike, Cyril, and Moocher are working-class friends living in the university town of Bloomington, Indiana. Now turning 19, they all graduated from high school the year before, are not sure what to do with their lives, and consider attending university unrealistic. They spend much of their time together swimming in an abandoned water-filled limestone quarry. They sometimes clash with the more affluent Indiana University students in their hometown, who refer to them disparagingly as "cutters," referring to the locals' common work in the limestone industry. (The term was invented for the film because the real-world pejorative "stonies" was deemed unusable for its perceived link to marijuana.)
Dave is obsessed with competitive bicycle racing, Italian racers in particular, because he recently won a Masi bicycle. His down-to-earth father, Ray, a former stonecutter who now operates (sometimes unethically) his own used car business, is puzzled and exasperated by his son's love of Italian music and culture, which Dave associates with cycling. However, his mother, Evelyn, is more understanding and prepares Italian dishes for the family, to Ray's annoyance.
Dave develops a crush on a university student named Katherine and masquerades as an Italian exchange student to romance her. One evening, he serenades "Caterina" outside her sorority house by singing Friedrich von Flotow's aria M Apparì Tutt' Amor, with Cyril providing guitar accompaniment. Her boyfriend, Rod, and his fraternity brothers beat Cyril up because they mistake him for the suitor. Cyril wants no trouble, but Mike, a former high school football quarterback, insists on tracking down Rod and starting a brawl. The university president (played by real-life President Dr. John W. Ryan) reprimands the students for their arrogance toward the "cutters" and, over the students' objections, invites the town to field a team for the annual Indiana University Little 500 race.
When an Italian cycling team comes to town for an exhibition race, Dave is thrilled to compete with them. However, the Italians are annoyed by his challenge to their preordained victory and force him to crash, which disillusions him. He subsequently confesses his deception to Katherine, who is heartbroken.
Dave's friends persuade him to join them in racing the Little 500. Ray privately tells his son how, when he was a young stonecutter, he was proud to help provide the material to construct the university though he never felt welcome on campus. Later, Dave runs into Katherine, who is leaving for a job in Chicago. They patch things up.
Dave, the only skilled cyclist among his friends, rides most of the Little 500 without a break unlike the other teams, which switch riders periodically. Nonetheless, he gains a small lead, but is injured in a crash and comes in for a change. Mike, Cyril, and Moocher take turns to the best of their ability, but the team falls behind. Finally, Dave has them tape his feet to the pedals, which commits him to finish the race himself, and makes up lost ground. On the last lap, he overtakes Rod (who is riding for the favored fraternity team) and wins.
Ray is proud of his son and takes to riding a bicycle himself for his health. Dave later enrolls at the university, where he meets a pretty French student. Soon, he is extolling to her the virtues of the Tour de France and of French cyclists.

## Cast

* Dennis Christopher as Dave Stohler
* Dennis Quaid as Mike
* Daniel Stern as Cyril
* Jackie Earle Haley as Moocher
* Paul Dooley as Ray Stohler, Dave's Father
* Barbara Barrie as Evelyn Stohler, Dave's Mother
* Robyn Douglass as Katherine
* Hart Bochner as Rod
* P. J. Soles as Suzy
* Amy Wright as Nancy
* John Ashton as Roy, Mike's Older Brother

## Production
### Inspiration

The bicycling team is based on the 1962 Phi Kappa Psi Little 500 champions, which featured legendary rider and Italian enthusiast Dave Blase, who provided screenwriter and fellow Phi Kappa Psi team member Steve Tesich the inspiration for the main character in the movie. Blase, together with team manager Bob Stohler, provided the name of this character: Dave Stohler. In the 1962 race, Blase rode 139 out of 200 laps and crossed the finish line as the victor, much like the main character in the film. Blase appears in the movie as the race announcer.
The working title of the movie script was Bambino, written in 1978, which originally had Dave's family name as "Blase," which was later changed to "Stohler" for the film.

### Filming

Location filming in and around Bloomington took place during the summer of 1978.
The abandoned limestone quarry in which Dave and his friends swam, called Rooftop Quarry by locals, is at the end of East Empire Mill Road, off the old State Road 37, in Perry Township, south of Bloomington.

### Editing

Cynthia Scheider, one of the few women in film editing during that time, got her first job as chief film editor on Breaking Away.

## Reception

The film received positive reviews upon its release. Roger Ebert called it "a wonderfully sunny, funny, goofy, intelligent movie that makes you feel about as good as any movie in a long time. It is, in fact, a treasure... Movies like this are hardly ever made at all; when they're made this well, they're precious cinematic miracles." The New York Times's Janet Maslin wrote that, even though "the cast is unknown, the director has a spotty history, and the basic premise falls into this year's most hackneyed category ... the finished product is wonderful. Here is a movie so fresh and funny it didn't even need a big budget or a pedigree." A Variety magazine review concluded that "though its plot wins no points for originality, Breaking Away is a thoroughly delightful light comedy, lifted by fine performances from Dennis Christopher and Paul Dooley." Critic Dave Kehr, however, gave a later, somewhat dissenting opinion: "Released at a time when any small-scale film earned critical favor simply by virtue of its unpretentiousness, Breaking Away probably looked better in context than it does now." However, he conceded that "Peter Yates lends the film a fine, unexpected limpidity, and the principals are mostly excellent."
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 95% based on 42 reviews, with a rating average of 8.2/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "At once a touching, funny coming-of-age story and a compelling sports film, Breaking Away is a delightful treat." On Metacritic—which assigns a weighted mean score—the film has a score of 91 out of 100 based on 15 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".
The film grossed approximately $20 million in North America.
The New York Times placed the film on its Best 1000 Movies Ever list.
NBC paid $5 million to screen the film on television on May 5, 1980, bypassing HBO and significantly shortening the normal window between theatrical release and screening on broadcast television, which was generally three years at the time.

## Accolades

| Award | Category | Recipient | Result |
| Academy Awards | Best Picture | Peter Yates | Nominated |
| Academy Awards | Best Director | Peter Yates | Nominated |
| Academy Awards | Best Supporting Actress | Barbara Barrie | Nominated |
| Academy Awards | Best Screenplay – Written Directly for the Screen | Steve Tesich | Won |
| Academy Awards | Best Original Song Score and Its Adaptation or Adaptation Score | Patrick Williams | Nominated |
| British Academy Film Awards | Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles | Dennis Christopher | Won |
| Golden Globe Awards | Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy | Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy | Won |
| Golden Globe Awards | Best Director – Motion Picture | Peter Yates | Nominated |
| Golden Globe Awards | Best Screenplay – Motion Picture | Steve Tesich | Nominated |
| Golden Globe Awards | New Star of the Year – Actor | Dennis Christopher | Nominated |
| Writers Guild of America Awards | Best Comedy Written Directly for the Screen | Steve Tesich | Won |
| Young Artist Awards | Best Motion Picture Featuring Youth | Best Motion Picture Featuring Youth | Nominated |
| Young Artist Awards | Best Juvenile Actor in A Motion Picture | Dennis Christopher | Won |
| AFI's 10 Top 10 | Sports films | Sports films | 8th Place |
| AFI's 100 Years...100 Cheers | Most inspiring films of all time | Most inspiring films of all time | 8th Place |

## Legacy

A short-lived television series based on the film, also titled Breaking Away, aired in 1980–1981 and starred Shaun Cassidy. Barrie, Haley and Ashton reprised their roles in the prequel series.
The film inspired the song "One for the Cutters" by The Hold Steady, which appeared on their 2008 album Stay Positive.
The 1992 Bollywood film Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar, starring Aamir Khan, has certain similarities to Breaking Away. However, the director, Mansoor Khan, stated that he became aware of Breaking Away only after the likeness had been brought to his attention. Both films have several thematic similarities, including friendship, class barriers, bicycle racing, and parental relationship, but they are distinctly different films, with different narratives, characters, motivations, treatment, and racing rules.