This is a plaintive, intelligent, laconic New York comedy.

| Dec 7, 2022

Throughout “Stranger Than Paradise” I couldn’t help but feel a hip French New Wave vibe in the vein of early Godard, Truffaut, and Chabrol.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Aug 25, 2022

And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack / And you may find yourself in another part of the world / And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile / Same as it ever was, same as it ever was.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 3, 2020

A unified vision of populist American aesthetics.

| Feb 3, 2020

One of the most important indie achievements of '84.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 24, 2019

Stranger Than Paradise captures what in retrospect turned out to be a last moment of unbranded American reality.

| Nov 29, 2018

Daring in its conception but made with a watchmaker's care, "Stranger Than Paradise" is a playfully eclectic, formally perfect gem. It is also a persistently funny film that owes as much to "The Honeymooners" as it does to the avant-garde.

| Jan 4, 2018

Its tale of two immigrant boys and a visiting Hungarian cousin tasting the trivia of freedom is clear-eyed, wistful and funny.

| Dec 7, 2017

...a love-it-or-hate-it sort of endeavor.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 18, 2014

It's a unique, indelible and hilarious film, and certainly one of the best of its era.

| Oct 18, 2008

It's a hipster version of Marty.

| Original Score: A- | Aug 11, 2008

... like a French New wave film by way of Bela Tarr, directed with a hipster American comic sensibility and an outsider's fascination with the details of the everyday.

| Oct 15, 2007

the American Dream inverted, that its characters are carefree is a by-product not of sharing in the Dream, but of dealing with life on the margins.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 10, 2007

Overrated but solid understated comedy.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 16, 2007

This austere, minimalist comedy put NY's East Village and Jim Jarmusch on the map, displaying unique sensibility and aesthetics (single long shots). Though only his second work, it's still Jarmusch's best picture--by far.

| Original Score: A | Dec 2, 2006

Not a lot to it, certainly, but the acting and performances combine to produce an obliquely effective study of the effect of landscape upon emotion, and the wry, dry humour is often quite delicious.

| Jun 24, 2006

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | May 19, 2005

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

A whimsical picaresque tale.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 19, 2004

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 27, 2004