Directed by Elia Kazan • 1961 • United States
Starring Natalie Wood, Warren Beatty, Pat Hingle

Elia Kazan’s delirious drama of sexual repression stars Natalie Wood (in one of her finest performances) and Warren Beatty (smoldering in his film debut) as two teenage lovers in 1928 Kansas whose internal conflicts over intimacy and sex—learned from their overbearing parents—threaten to thwart their hopes for happiness. Daringly scripted by playwright William Inge to expose the hypocrisies of small-town morality, SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS roils with the emotional intensity of anguished adolescence.