Nostalgia Kinky

Arrow has released perhaps the most important restoration of the year: a comprehensive package dedicated to Miloš Forman’s magnificent The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996). Featuring hours of archival and new supplements, along with an incredible new restoration, The People vs. Larry Flynt is among the most important American films of the nineties, and its cultural necessity has never been more relevant and needed.
Order this must-have release now from Arrow or Stateside from MVD.

The People Vs. Larry Flynt is a masterpiece from one of cinema’s great directors. It features two of the best performances of the nineties and contains one of the most memorable screenplays from the period. Its portrait of Hustler founder Larry Flynt and his battles with censorship that almost led to his murder, as well as a Supreme Court victory, is riveting beyond description.
All of this pales in comparison to the film’s message and Forman’s stark warning about censorship, the importance of freedom of the press, and how the 1st Amendment is always much more at risk than we realize.

The People vs. Larry Flynt is about freedom of speech. Forman came from a country that lost that necessary freedom, and he could see thirty years ago we were in the process of losing it here. The Supreme Court case at the heart of The People Vs. Larry Flynt was indeed a landmark, but landmarks can be quickly destroyed and even erased from history.
And they are indeed rewriting our history right in front of our eyes.

The People vs. Larry Flynt has always attracted a weird assortment of reactions. There is the group that just doesn’t get the film at all. They view it as being a celebration of a pornographer whom took advantage of the 1st amendment for profit and they see no value in a film being made about him. Then there is the group that loves the film, totally gets what it is about but admits they admire it despite their negative feelings for Flynt and his publication.
Well, I’m in a third category.

As a very pro-porn film-historian who recognizes its value, I both admire The People vs. Larry Flynt as the ultimate celebration of our free-speech, as well as being a film about a trailblazing publication I respect. Hustler was an amazingly absurdist and brilliantly subversive magazine created by one of America’s great anarchic minds. I offer no apologies for how much I admire Flynt’s punk-rock spirit and work, and I can think of few films that have better captured someone so specifically and wondrously American.
Yes, Hustler could be ugly, and some might say exploitative but more than any other American magazine, it accurately captured the mood and spirit of its times. America is an ugly and exploitative place and, like Hustler, it can also be sexy and delightfully unhinged in the funniest way possible.

The People Vs. Larry Flynt finds Milos Forman at the absolute top of his game. It had been more than a decade since Amadeus and more than twenty years since One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest but Forman’s power behind the camera was as sharp and stinging as ever in 1995. Crazy that he almost didn’t direct what became one of his signature works because of Flynt’s reputation. Thankfully, he realized his mistake after reading the ‘fist in the air for freedom’ screenplay and like everyone else on the film grew to admire and love Flynt and his wacky spirit.

It is also crazy thinking about any two actors outside of Woody Harrelson and Courtney Love as Larry and Althea Flynt and yet many others were considered. As it stands, The People vs. Larry Flynt is one of the best-cast films of the nineties, and casting director Francine Maisler deserves major-props, as does the key creative team for flipping the bill to get Love insured.
Because,
Courtney Love is the heart
of The People Vs. Larry Flynt. Her work as Larry’s doomed wife and creative partner is one of the best performances from a decade stacked with great performances. Love not getting an Oscar nomination was an absolute travesty and Gloria Steinem should have been ashamed of the (obviously paid for and coordinated campaign) against the film.

Harrelson is just as good as Love, inhabiting Flynt in the same uncanny way that Val Kilmer had Jim Morrison a few years earlier in The Doors. Speaking of The Doors, Oliver Stone is one of the people behind The People Vs. Larry Flynt, and the film fits in well with his demystifying and terrifying portraits of America from this period.

The entire cast excels throughout The People vs. Larry Flynt. This is one of the great ensembles of the nineties, right up there with Short Cuts and Boogie Nights. The entire film is damn near close to perfect in my eyes, with Production Designer Patrizia von Brandenstein’s unnervingly accurate recreations of the seventies and beyond looking so damn amazing. What a wonderfully realized work and technical achievement this is and the fact that a major studio funded it is a mind-melting fact all these decade later.

The People Vs. Larry Flynt has been one of my favorite films since I saw it opening weekend at a Lexington, KY theater with my movie buddy Dave. It felt important at the time. It was important. It felt like we were getting treated to the kind of truly great film only the seventies produced. The People Vs. Larry Flynt is ultimately as great as the classic films from the decades it so precisely brings to life.

The People vs. Larry Flynt was on its way to becoming a cultural and cinematic game-changer before it was completely derailed by Gloria Steinem, displaying one of the most aggressively anti-free-speech campaigns in history. The eventual mysterious high-dollar anti-Oscar campaign released against the film stands as one of the starkest warnings that we were in fact eventually going to lose our speech and it was going to be paid for by mysterious high–dollar forces.

The People vs. Larry Flynt is one of the great warning films ever made. Perhaps if more of the right people had seen it thirty years ago we wouldn’t have so many well-meaning but woefully ignorant people casually calling for the removal of certain media they don’t like, unaware that we have already been swept away by a snowball effect that will eventually affect what we can all watch and consume.

A scandalous person who led a scandalous life, Flynt has the usual baggage of unsubstantiated allegations and just had a natural rage-baiting tendency, so enough people will hate him no matter what.
But that’s the point.
We have to support speech we don’t like by people we don’t like.
That’s the country.
Without that, we all lose.
I’m afraid we’ve already lost but haven’t recognized it yet.
Personally, I loved Larry Flynt.
Love his shop over in Lexington and regret I never got to meet him.
Larry Flynt was a great sixties left-over who didn’t sell out.
He just sold,
bought
and
believed in
The American Dream.
Larry Flynt was an American, complex, ugly at times but beautiful in his casual disregard for the norm and respectability.

Like its recent edition of Tequila Sunrise, Arrow has knocked it out of the park with this edition of The People Vs. Larry Flynt. Along with looking the best it has looked since theaters, the film includes the two original cast, crew and screenwriter commentary tracks plus all these enlightening extras. Here are my thoughts on each:

Hail Larry: This brand new interview with lead actor Woody Harrelson is absolutely terrific. I love Harrelson and that he always keeps it exceedingly real. This is a wonderful remembrance of the film, his relationship with Flynt and his hurt over the backlash, that most likely cost him an Oscar.
Satire in Satin: I typically don’t get too hyped about producer’s interviews but this brand new interview with Columbia Pictures’ ex-production president Lisa Henson and producer Janet Yang is fascinating and I admire both these brave women very much.
Only in America: I also enjoyed this brand new interview with screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, who talk about writing this in the wake Ed Wood and about the unfair backlash the film received.
À la lumière de l’évidence: Well this is splendid. Here we have a lengthy archival interview with cinematographer Philippe Rousselot, an artist as responsible for my beloved Cinema-du-look as anyone.

We also get these fine archival features:

Miloš Forman on The Charlie Rose Show
Free Speech or Porn?, an archival featurette
Larry Flynt Exposed, an archival featurette narrated by Dennis Hopper (this is a nice thirty minute look at Flynt’s life narrated by one of my other favorite American troublemakers).
Deleted Scenes with optional audio commentary by Woody Harrelson and Larry Karaszewski

The People vs. Larry Flynt is a landmark American film that has never been granted its landmark status. A rare work that aims for importance that actually achieves it,
The People vs. Larry Flynt remains one of the best films ever made about free-speech.
Buy it, watch it, understand it, and help cultivate a love and support for speech of all kinds before we lose more of it.

Arrow’s edition of The People vs. Larry Flynt is close to the best archival release of the year, and it is certainly among the most valuable. The entire package, with booklet and slipcover is a thing of beauty, and I am so grateful the producers at Arrow saw the necessity in re-releasing this.

-Jeremy Richey, September 2026-