Badlands
Warner Bros. Pictures | Release Date: October 15, 1973 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
94
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 20 Critic Reviews
Positive:
19
Mixed:
0
Negative:
1
Watch Now
Stream On
Stream On
Buy on
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Stream On
Expand

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The New YorkerRichard Brody
Badlands is [Malick's] Breathless. Read full review
100
Slant MagazineTina Hassannia
Where it’s not refined in form, Badlands is so by virtue of the specificity of its material (the then-topical sensationalism of teenage sociopaths and their glamorization in popular culture), a fact that has been buried by the dense literature published on Malick. Yet the film never once feels like the faded photos Holly examines under her father’s stereopticon. Read full review
100
SlateSteve Erickson
The difficulty of humanizing killers without romanticizing them may present a challenging problem, but Malick showed it’s not impossible to solve. Read full review
100
Time OutJoshua Rothkopf
Badlands is the American myth of freedom and violence; it doesn’t get old because it remains what we are. Read full review
100
Time OutWally Hammond
Badlands is as psychologically precise as it is splendidly visually observant. But it also exudes a timeless, mythical and tragic quality which is all the more remarkable for the languorous ease with which its story unfolds. Read full review
100
TV Guide MagazineStaff (Not Credited)
Director Malick neither romanticizes nor condemns his subjects, maintaining a low-key approach to the story that results in a fascinating character study. Read full review
100
The A.V. ClubMike D'Angelo
Critics don’t tend to talk about this much—it’s tantamount to a confession that we don’t always know what we’re doing—but it’s often the case that the most powerful, haunting aspects of a movie are those that we don’t fully understand. Read full review
100
Chicago ReaderDave Kehr
A film so rich in ideas it hardly knows where to turn. Transcendent themes of love and death are fused with a pop-culture sensibility and played out against a midwestern background, which is breathtaking both in its sweep and in its banality. Read full review
100
VarietyStaff [Not Credited]
Badlands is a unique American fairy tale...and it's an impressive debut. Read full review
100
Total FilmStaff [Not Credited]
Refracted through Holly’s naive, emotionally flat narration and Malick’s poetic visual style, this familiar tale is transformed into something strange and oddly beautiful. [29 Aug. 2008] Read full review
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
The movie makes no attempt to psychoanalyze its Kit Carruthers, and there are no symbols to note or lessons to learn. What comes through more than anything is the enormous loneliness of the lives these two characters lived, together and apart. Read full review
100
Empire Rob Fraser
Achingly evocative of a time when Hollywood had the courage to invest in complex and morally ambiguous films and an indisputable masterpiece of American cinema. [26 May 2003] Read full review
100
San Francisco ChroniclePeter Stack
Among the great American crime movies, 1973's Badlands stands alone. [13 Feb. 1998] Read full review
100
The GuardianPeter Bradshaw
An unmissable, transcendentally beautiful classic. [28 Aug. 1998] Read full review
100
The New York TimesVincent Canby
One may legitimately debate the validity of Malick's vision, but not, I think, his immense talent. Badlands is a most important and exciting film. Read full review
100
Boston GlobeJay Carr
Badlands is one of the great banality-of-evil films. [29 May 1998, p.C9]
100
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
Badlands is about a landscape as much as the couple fleeing across it. Watching it, you sense that Malick finds his outlaw lovers beautiful and terrible, pathetic and monstrous, funny and overwhelmingly sad. [27 March 1998] Read full review
88
LarsenOnFilmJosh Larsen
This is largely another of Malick’s impressionistic tales of paradise lost, but here the dreamy approach feels fresh and exciting. Read full review
63
San Francisco ExaminerBarbara Shulgasser
For all its lazy beauty, the movie is rooted in the personalities of its lead characters and they, unfortunately, are bloodless, affectless, emotionless dopes who turn their considerable lack of scruples on the business of senseless killing, for which they seemingly have no remorse. [13 Feb. 1998] Read full review
30
The New YorkerPauline Kael
There's a basic flaw in Malick's method: he has perceived the movie--he's done our work instead of his. In place of people and action, with metaphor rising out of the story, he gives us a surface that is all conscious metaphor. Badlands is so preconceived that there's nothing left to respond to. [18 March 1974, p.135] Read full review
More From This Movie

94 Critic Reviews

8.4 User Reviews

Details & Credits|Trailers

Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score
1 81 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
2 77 Project Hail Mary
3 75 Send Help
4 73 Hoppers
5 72 The Sheep Detectives
SEE ALL
Essential Links
New on Amazon Prime Video
New on Netflix
Coming Soon to DVD/Blu-ray
SEE ALL