The genius of Tatum O’Neal’s performance in Paper Moon begins with her thousand-yard stare.

| Jan 22, 2025

'Paper Moon' isn't a mere narrative about con artists; it's a film that reflects on the complexities of human connections and the stark realities of life during the Great Depression. A classic of American cinema.

| Jan 15, 2025

A treat.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Dec 7, 2024

The bulk of the film’s success is thanks to the performances of its two stars, Ryan and Tatum O’Neal. The real-life father and daughter duo bring a comedic energy to their incessant bickering and a wholesome, sentimental chemistry to their relationship.

| Original Score: 9/10 | Nov 27, 2024

Peter Bogdanovich’s 1973 dramedy Paper Moon offers a kind of synthesis of his prior two critical and commercial hits.

| Nov 26, 2024

Paper Moon combines charming characters/performances, excellent direction, a marvelous screenplay, and remarkable period details to give us a delightful classic that has proven to be one of the director's most popular & enduring works.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 25, 2024

Tatum’s angry glares at the idiotic adults surrounding her character alone warranted the Oscar.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 27, 2024

The picture demonstrates that in the head of a writer given to swooning and to creating swoons a criminal may seem an admirable character.

| Jan 23, 2024

Bogdanovich has learned the oldest trade in Hollywood -- he doesn't direct the movie, he directs the audience. He doesn't have the tonic vision of the artists he admires, Wells and Ford; he has the commercial acumen of the first-class hacks.

| Oct 3, 2023

The mix of hard-times drama and cheeky humor sets off the touching relationship between the two survivors.

| Jun 11, 2023

Father and daughter are a delight when pulling a con together...

| Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 8, 2023

The problem with Paper Moon is that it’s hollow at the center. The central relationship, involving a small-time con man and a tough little girl who practice a Bible-selling racket in the Midwest during the Depression, remains undeveloped and unaffecting.

| Aug 8, 2022

A small but near-flawless gem—as well as a testament to the kind of eccentric film that could a big hit back then...

| Feb 11, 2022

Of all the nice things that can be said about Paper Moon, perhaps the nicest is this: it's the first new film in a long while that's as enjoyable as it is good, and absolutely first-rate in both departments.

| Oct 8, 2021

...grows more and more absorbing as it progresses...

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | May 25, 2021

It is distinguished by its moral tone, and it is the tone that lifts it above the average flim-flam comedy.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Mar 14, 2021

[Paper Moon] is exactly what we have in mind when we talk nostalgically of what movies "used to be"--meaningful rather than metaphorical, engrossing rather than exploitative, humanistic in their comedy and their sentiment.

| Jun 12, 2020

O'Neal leaves a continent-sized impact crater in the center of the film, delivering an instantly iconic performance none have been able to replicate.

| Original Score: 9/10 | May 18, 2020

Peter Bogdanovich, using all of the hootchie-kootchie at his command, plus Ryan O'Neal, and even more importantly, O'Neal's nine year old daughter Tatum, has made an ingratiating comedy.

| Jul 10, 2019

Shot in black and white by the versatile cinematographer Laszlo Kovacs, this has a mix of folksiness and precise craft that anticipates the Coen brothers, aiming to charm and succeeding.

| Sep 15, 2018