Heavy Traffic

Where to watch

Not streaming in the US right now.

US availability from JustWatch

Open Heavy Traffic in ReelRoll

Heavy Traffic is a 1973 animation and comedy movie directed by Ralph Bakshi. It stars Joseph Kaufmann, Beverly Hope Atkinson and Frank De Kova. It runs 1h 17m and is rated NC-17. TMDB users rate it 6.5 out of 10.

A white dropout struggles to become a cartoonist and filmmaker, drawing inspiration from the harsh, gritty world around him. Still sharing his rundown apartment with his middle-aged parents, an oafish slob of an Italian father and a ditzy nutcase of a Jewish mother, he's ridiculed and looked down upon by his friends, hypocrites who run with violent gangs and the Italian Mafia, and a shallow Black girl who makes her living downtown with the pimps and pushers. The cartoonist gets a chance to pitch a film idea to a movie mogul, but the story proves too outrageous: a far-future Earth, depleted by war and pollution, where a mutant antihero challenges and kills God.