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

| Nov 26, 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

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

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

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

Part of an incredible 1970s career run for the director Peter Bogdanovich, Paper Moon remains a high point, not just for the talent involved behind the scenes and in front of the camera, but also for Hollywood.

| Original Score: 5/5 | May 14, 2015

It is very fussy about period detail, and goes to some length to evoke the dim days of Depression America, while just about everything else is left to slide.

| Aug 17, 2010

Tatum O'Neal makes a sensational screen debut.

| Mar 26, 2009

A charming mixture of Hawksian comedy and Fordian lyricism.

| Jun 24, 2006

The film never makes up its mind whether it wants to be an instant antique or a comment on one.

| Original Score: 2/5 | May 10, 2005

I wonder how many moviegoers will be prepared for the astonishing confidence and depth that Tatum brings to what's really the starring role.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Oct 23, 2004

The images (by Laszlo Kovacs) have a lovely dusty openness -- a realistic view of the Midwestern flatlands fading into a romantic memory.

| Jan 1, 2000