By anyone's estimate 1971 was a great year for cinema. Has any other year boasted such a mass of talented filmmakers plying their trade? Polanski, Woody Allen, Spielberg, Kubrick, Peckinpah, Sergio Leone, Robert Altman, George Lucas, Dario Argento, Nicolas Roeg and Ingmar Bergman, among many others, were behind the camera, while the stars were out in force, too. Clint Eastwood, Marlon Brando, Sean Connery, Michael Caine, Al Pacino, Jane Fonda, Gene Hackman, Paul Newman, Raquel Welch, Dustin Hoffman, Robert de Niro, Jack Nicholson, Steve McQueen and Warren Beatty all had films come out in 1971.

This remarkable artistic flowering that came from the 'New Hollywood' of the '70s was just beginning in 1971. The old guard was fading away and the new guard was taking over. With a decline in box office attendances by the end of the '60s, along with a genuine inability to come up with a reliable barometer of box office success, studio heads gave unprecedented freedom to younger filmmakers to lead the way. Featuring interviews with some of Hollywood's biggest names, bestselling author Robert Sellers explores this landmark year in Hollywood and in Britain, when this new age was at its freshest, and where the transfer of power was felt most exhilaratingly.