Superb performances and a compelling script have made this film a strange mix of Oscar-winner and Cult Classic.
Comment
02/20/08
Midnight Cowboy (1969)
90 %
Reviews Counted: 49 Fresh: 44 Rotten:5 Average Rating: 8.3/10
Consensus:
John Schlesinger's gritty, unrelentingly bleak look at the seedy underbelly of urban American life is undeniably disturbing, but Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight's performances make it difficult to turn away.
Runtime: 1 hr 56 mins
Synopsis: Joe Buck (Jon Voight), an aspiring male prostitute from Texas, heads to Manhattan where he hopes to find plenty of wealthy women willing to pay for the services of a handsome man. When he arrives, the naive country boy befriends Ratso Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman), a tubercular homeless con artist... [More]
Genre: Dramas
Starring: Dustin Hoffman, Jon Voight, Sylvia Miles, Brenda Vaccaro, John McGiver
Reviews
Top Critic
An impressive and enduring evocation of time and place, this is a moving low-life drama built around Oscar-winning writing and performances.
01/30/08
Top Critic Top Critic Top Critic
The movie is locked into a sixties stylistic approach that can feel dated, but Hoffman’s performance can prevent one from ever tiring of the film.
01/30/08
Talented Englishman Schlesinger had an unerring eye for capturing the grimy reality of New York, even if his directorial style is more jittery than is really necessary.
12/13/06
Top Critic
The acting, showy and instinctual, is most of the movie; the visual style is too forced and chicly distended to let the drama acquire much natural life of its own.
12/13/06
Great performances from Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman cap this bravest Academy Awards Best Picture choice in history.
12/02/06
It only takes a movie like Midnight Cowboy to point out the limitations of a rating system: How can a measly four stars convey the magnificence of this acknowledged classic?
03/10/06
Schlesinger's frenzied style and visual pyrotechnicas (New Wave influence) are less impressive than the characters, the central friendship, the awakening of conscience in Joe Buck and Ratso, and Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman's superlative acting.
12/14/05
What has happened to Midnight Cowboy is that we've done our own editing job on it. We've forgotten the excesses and the detours, and remembered the purity of the central characters and the Voight and Hoffman performances.
10/23/04
Top CriticRelated Forums
great film
by: joescannura 12/7/07
by: joescannura 12/7/07
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