New York-based specialty distributor Rialto Pictures and Studiocanal will release Mike Nichols’ groundbreaking THE GRADUATE, starring Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft, in new 4K digital prints beginning in April.

The 50 anniversary restoration had its World Premiere earlier this month at the TCL Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, as the centerpiece event of this year’s TCM Classic Film Festival. The new GRADUATE restoration will play in over 700 movie theaters nationwide on April 23 and 26, as part of TCM and Fathom Events’ monthly “TCM Big Screen Classics” series.

The new restoration will also screen at this year’s Il Cinema Ritrovato festival in Bologna and will be released theatrically and as a special edition Home Entertainment release in all Studiocanal territories (France, Germany, U.K., Australia and New Zealand) throughout the summer.

Hoffman, in his star-making, breakout role, is Benjamin Braddock, the college track star suddenly adrift after graduation, and ripe for seduction by an older, married woman: Bancroft’s coldly calculating friend-of-the-family Mrs. Robinson. When Ben ultimately falls for dream girl Elaine (Katharine Ross), who happens to be the Robinsons’ daughter, it sets up a love triangle like no other in American films up to that time.

Adapted from the Charles Webb novel by Buck Henry and Calder Willingham (which immortalized the word “plastics” in the lexicon of hip expressions), THE GRADUATE was the biggest box office surprise of the decade, nominated for seven Oscars and winning for director Nichols’ sophomore effort. The classic “Top 40” score by Simon & Garfunkel started a new, youthful trend in soundtrack music as well.