Rebel Without a Cause

A milestone in the creation of new idea about young people. Read full review

There are some excruciating flashes of accuracy and truth in this film...However, we do wish the young actors, including Mr. Dean, had not been so intent on imitating Marlon Brando in varying degrees. The tendency, possibly typical of the behavior of certain youths, may therefore be a subtle commentary but it grows monotonous. Read full review

The red-jacketed, Method-pouting James Dean steals every scene, but the ensemble playing is nothing short of exemplary. Read full review

It contains some extraordinarily good acting by the late James Dean, Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo (who is coming up fast and reveals himself to be a real trouper in this one). The direction by Nicholas Ray is outstanding...This is a superficial treatment of a vital problem that has been staged brilliantly. Read full review

Here is a fairly exciting, suspenseful and provocative, if also occasionally far-fetched, melodrama of unhappy youth on another delinquency kick. Read full review

Where the attitudes of "East of Eden" are hopelessly dated and broad, the poetic longing for connection in Rebel Without a Cause will always feel timeless. Read full review

There is some stuffy, faintly reactionary stuff in this famed 1955 teen drama, but James Dean is truly extraordinary, and it has some brilliant scenes Read full review

The strong implication of this picture is that the real delinquency is not juvenile but parental. The point may be obvious and only a part of the problem, but it is well worth propounding. The best thing about the film, in any case, is James Dean, the gifted actor who made his movie start in East of Eden, and was killed last month at 24 in an automobile accident. In this, the second of his three movie roles—Giant will probably be released next year—there is further evidence that Actor Dean was a player of unusual sensibility and charm. Read full review

What makes the film so powerful is both the sympathy it extends towards all the characters (including the seemingly callous parents) and the precise expressionism of Ray's direction. His use of light, space and motion is continually at the service of the characters' emotions, while the trio that Dean, Wood and Mineo form as a refuge from society is explicitly depicted as an 'alternative family'. Still the best of the youth movies. Read full review

The crack in the pretty picture of America goes a lot deeper than we thought, thanks to Ray's brooding vision. Read full review

Dean's profoundly influential sullen charisma is still captivating. Read full review

In this powerful study of juvenile violence, Dean is riveting as a teenager groping for love from a society he finds alien and oppressive. Read full review

Dean's alienation is perfectly expressed through Ray's vertiginous mise-en-scene: the suburban LA setting becomes a land of decaying Formica and gothic split-levels. An unmissable film, made with a delirious compassion. Read full review

[A] generation-gap soap opera of the 50s, which had more emotional resonance for the teenagers of the time than many much better movies.

It's been 40 years since James Dean essayed his quintessential role in as a troubled American teen and, along with co-stars Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo, established an iconography of adolescence whose potency extends into the present.

Originally shot in black and white, then switching to CinemaScope early in production, Rebel Without A Cause is a brilliant, iconic movie. Read full review

James Dean's ultimate movie, Rebel Without a Cause is both a great teen picture--full of front-seat romance, fast-car thrills, adolescent alienation, nightmare suspense and all the nervy grace director Nicholas Ray could muster--and a perfect memento of the edgier side of the '50s. The sublime supporting cast includes Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo, Dennis Hopper and Jim Backus; together, they create one memorable scene and incandescent moment after another. [03 Jun 2005, p.C8]

Even the film’s weaknesses – a penchant for melodrama and a tendency towards the hysterical – work as remnants of their time and betray an earnest effort to emphasise with the characters and their heightened do-or-die mentality. Read full review

Rebel Without a Cause has such beautiful color photography that it seems almost impossible to conceive of the fact that they initially started filming it in black and white. Dean is every bit as tormented here as he was in East of Eden, but it’s more of an existential torment this time. Read full review