The Last Picture Show is a masterpiece. It is not merely the best American movie of a rather dreary year; it is the most impressive work by a young American director since Citizen Kane.

| Oct 26, 2023

Clearly, the outstanding performance comes from Cloris Leachman, as the dowdy, pathetic coach's wife, who will settle for love -- any kind of love... She is tremendous, and totally unforgettable.

| Oct 26, 2023

Bogdanovich, keeping his audience in a suspended state of compassionate amusement, illuminates boredom from within and without and makes it entertaining.

| Oct 26, 2023

The Last Picture Show is an exceptional and original work, not so much a movie-movie as a film buff's film, an exercise in regret and a reminder of various losses.

| Oct 26, 2023

It doesn't take very long into this black-and-white film (by the end of its 119 minutes you must surely recognize the potency, the starkness in this tint) to realize that a deeply moving motion picture experience is unfolding.

| Oct 26, 2023

All the principals deliver striking acting performances. But certainly Johnson's, with his simple, touching speech by the lake recalling the days of glory... deserves a supporting actor Oscar.

| Oct 25, 2023

The movie gets to you quietly. You are likely to succumb to its melancholy spell without knowing quite why. But you realize, with absolute certainty, that you are watching something extraordinary in the way of filmmaking.

| Oct 25, 2023

A perfectly beautiful movie, because Bogdanovich knows perfectly the limits of styles and forms and he keeps it clear and pure, within the limits he set for himself.

| Oct 25, 2023

Like few films in recent years, Peter Bogdanovich's The Last Picture Show ends with us wanting to see more of the people who occupy the small town world that is Anarene, Tex., in 1951. This emotion is not easily achieved.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Oct 25, 2023

As drama, the film is slow, evolving at a pace that may tire you. Stick with it. It is funny, sexy, bleak and depressing.

| Oct 25, 2023

Whether for its honesty and careful blend of pathos and humor or the virtuoso performances of Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, Cloris Leachman, Ellen Burstyn, and especially Ben Johnson, The Last Picture Show... is a powerful and moving portrait of a town.

| Oct 25, 2023

Bogdanovich, with this slice of American Gothic, [has] given us one of the best picture shows of the the year.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 25, 2023

The film addresses itself, with consummate artistry and much-appreciated compassion, to truths that touch us all. It is, in short, a superb picture show, the best one we're likely to see in uncountable Saturday night.

| Oct 25, 2023

It is, I think, a classic American movie in a tradition that has long since been blithely abandoned by Hollywood.

| Oct 25, 2023

I have never seen buildings look so lonely or people so victimized by tradition; the heart of this kind of moviemaking is life itself.

| Oct 25, 2023

Just as Americans trouble with our North-country films, so I am slow to tune into Texan dialect. It is not, though, a high price to pay for the feeling of verisimilitude which Mr. Bogdanovich achieves.

| Oct 25, 2023

The most memorable performance in this finely crafted film is given by [Ben Johnson], a weather survivor of the cinematic Old West... What he does in The Last Picture Show deserves recognition when the next Oscar nominees are selected.

| Oct 24, 2023

A major work on a minor theme by a new director, it is the best film to come out of America in a good many years.

| Oct 24, 2023

Small-town people and places ring as true as Andy Hardy once rang false. A very good film, undoubtedly. But too parochial to be a great one.

| Oct 24, 2023

I suppose it is very good, actually, but I suspect that it will work with full force only for an American spectator. For it is above all an essay in nostalgia: not only nostalgia for a period, the early 50s, but also nostalgia for a place, a way of life.

| Oct 24, 2023