Film

The Landlord

Name: The Landlord
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Released: 1970
Cast: Beau Bridges, Lee Grant, Diana Sands, Pearl Bailey, Walter Brooke

Social drama

A wealthy white man impulsively buys a tenement in 1970s Brooklyn to escape his suffocating family, planning to displace Black tenants for profit—then discovers himself through genuine connection with the community he meant to exploit. Hal Ashby's debut is a tonal high-wire act: simultaneously sharp satire about privilege, earnest romance, and lived comedy that earns its emotional turns without ever feeling sanctimonious.

TMDb rating

3.0

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you enjoy satirical comedies about class and race that stay sharp and uneasy, where the laughs keep turning into something more pointed, in the manner of late-sixties American films that dared to be awkward.

Skip it if you want a tidy, feel-good comedy with clear heroes; its humor is often prickly and its wit cuts close to discomfort, and the tone can feel abrasive or scattered at points.

What it asks of you: It runs about two hours at an unhurried, wandering pace, asking you to sit with uncomfortable social observation and shifts in mood rather than following a neat comic rhythm.

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The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

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