Midnight Cowboy 1969

Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune: Midnight Cowboy moves beyond realism into an archetypal tale of the Big City destroying dreamers. Joe and Ratso, like Of Mice and Men's George and Lenny, are quintessential failed, lower-class, buddy-dreamers. Read more

Gene Siskel, Chicago Tribune: I cannot recall a more marvelous pair of acting performances in any one film. Read more

TIME Magazine: No amount of obfuscation can obscure the film's vaulting performances. Read more

Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader: 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. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: Midnight Cowboy's peep-show vision of Manhattan lowlife may no longer be shocking, but what is shocking, in 1994, is to see a major studio film linger this lovingly on characters who have nothing to offer the audience but their own lost souls. Read more

Wanda Hale, New York Daily News: Even with every foot of grim realism and some humor, Midnight Cowboy is rather a sad picture. Read more

Vincent Canby, New York Times: It is ultimately a moving experience that captures the quality of a time and a place. It's not a movie for the ages, but, having seen it, you won't ever again feel detached as you walk down West 42nd Street. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: 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. Read more

Geoff Andrew, Time Out: Outrageously overrated at the cynical end of the Swinging Sixties. Read more

Robert J. Landry, Variety: In this film the scenery is lovely and only the human race is vile. Read more

Desson Thomson, Washington Post: The performances by Hoffman and Voight are big. Read more