Midnight Cowboy
Academy Award × 3·AFI #43·National Film Registry
Rent/Purchase
Joe Buck is a wide-eyed hustler from Texas hoping to score big with wealthy New York City women; he finds a companion in Enrico "Ratso" Rizzo, an ailing swindler with a bum leg and a quixotic fantasy of escaping to Florida.
What critics thought
Broadly well-regarded over the decades, the film earns most of its reputation from Voight and Hoffman's central performances, which critics across eras consistently treated as the film's unshakeable core. Where reviewers divided was on Schlesinger's direction: some felt his satirical swipes at American society were heavy-handed and undercut the intimacy of the two leads' relationship, while others found the grimy New York atmosphere so vividly rendered it was almost physically overwhelming.
“a slick, brutal (but not brutalizing) movie version of ... Herlihy's 1965 novel. It is tough and good in important ways, although its style is oddly romantic and at variance with the laconic material.”
Vincent Canby·The New York Times
“I cannot recall a more marvelous pair of acting performances in any one film.”
Gene Siskel·Chicago Tribune
“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.”
Owen Gleiberman·Entertainment Weekly
Genres
Drama
Cast & Crew
DirectorJohn Schlesinger
StarringDustin Hoffman, Jon Voight, Sylvia Miles, John McGiver, Brenda Vaccaro
ComposerJohn Barry
Midnight Cowboy
Academy Award × 3·AFI #43·National Film Registry
Joe Buck is a wide-eyed hustler from Texas hoping to score big with wealthy New York City women; he finds a companion in Enrico "Ratso" Rizzo, an ailing swindler with a bum leg and a quixotic fantasy of escaping to Florida.
What critics thought
Broadly well-regarded over the decades, the film earns most of its reputation from Voight and Hoffman's central performances, which critics across eras consistently treated as the film's unshakeable core. Where reviewers divided was on Schlesinger's direction: some felt his satirical swipes at American society were heavy-handed and undercut the intimacy of the two leads' relationship, while others found the grimy New York atmosphere so vividly rendered it was almost physically overwhelming.
“a slick, brutal (but not brutalizing) movie version of ... Herlihy's 1965 novel. It is tough and good in important ways, although its style is oddly romantic and at variance with the laconic material.”
Vincent Canby·The New York Times
“I cannot recall a more marvelous pair of acting performances in any one film.”
Gene Siskel·Chicago Tribune
“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.”
Owen Gleiberman·Entertainment Weekly
Genres
Drama
Cast & Crew
DirectorJohn Schlesinger
StarringDustin Hoffman, Jon Voight, Sylvia Miles, John McGiver, Brenda Vaccaro
ComposerJohn Barry
Rent/Purchase