This 2-DVD set is Kenneth Bowser’s BBC-produced documentary of Peter Biskind’s controversial, best-selling book. It chronicles the evolution of a new breed of filmmaker who, in the late ’60s and ’70s, exploded old Hollywood, in the process redefining the very nature of movies. The results were edgy, impressionistic pictures—The Godfather, Easy Rider, Mean Streets, Midnight Cowboy, Rosemary’s Baby, Taxi Driver—by maverick, now-legendary directors: Scorsese, Coppola, Lucas, Altman, Polanski, Peckinpah.

In bringing the celebrated book to the screen, director Bowser employed some adventurous filmmaking of his own. Narrated by William H. Macy, Easy Riders, Raging Bulls features vintage clips of the directors who defined the movement; original interviews with such directors as Arthur Penn and John Milius, actors such as Peter Fonda and Richard Dreyfus and more.