The Long Goodbye
United Artists | Release Date: March 7, 1973 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
87
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 17 Critic Reviews
Positive:
15
Mixed:
2
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye attacks film noir with three of his most cherished tools: Whimsy, spontaneity and narrative perversity. Read full review
100
The New York TimesVincent Canby
It's great fun and it's funny, but it's a serious, unique work. Read full review
100
EmpireKim Newman
A subtle criqiue of the main character that contains some astonishing set pieces. Read full review
100
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
Impure Chandler it may be, but it's pure Altman and one of his nose-thumbing '70s maverick classics. [25 May 2007, p.C5]
90
The Hollywood ReporterAlan R. Howard
A gloriously inspired tribute to Hollywood that never loses sight of what Los Angeles has become. Read full review
90
Time OutStaff (Not Credited)
Despite cries of outrage from hard-line Chandler purists, this is, along with Hawks' The Big Sleep, easily the most intelligent of all screen adaptations of the writer's work. Read full review
90
The GuardianPhilip French
Superbly photographed by Vilmos Zsigmond in a desaturated colour that echoes a bygone age, The Long Goodbye is an elegant, chilly, deliberately heartless movie. Read full review
88
Slant MagazineEric Henderson
The film is simultaneously an act of revisionism as well as a parody of then-revitalizing neo-noir. Read full review
88
Chicago ReaderDave Kehr
The film is so inventive in its situations and humor that its shortcomings—the blunt ideas at its core—don't become apparent before several viewings. Read full review
88
USA TodayMike Clark
Robert Altman's oddball send up of the late Raymond Chandler got a rigidly polarized response, but I love it. [21 Jun 1991, p.3D]
80
The DissolveNoel Murray
Sometimes important plot-points unfold through windows, too, and The Long Goodbye as a whole peels back the surfaces of private-eye stories, paying special attention to their macho bluster and abused women. Read full review
80
New York Magazine (Vulture)Judith Crist
If you can have another movie myth shattered in high style, with love as well as wit, The Long Goodbye is for you. [29 Oct 1973, p.80]
80
The New YorkerPauline Kael
Altman gracefully kisses off the private-eye form in soft, mellow color and volatile images; the cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond is responsible for the offhand visual pyrotechnics (the imagery has great vitality). Gould gives a loose and woolly, strikingly original performance. Read full review
80
TV Guide MagazineStaff (Not Credited)
While it may not be Chandler, it is a moody and entertaining film. Read full review
75
LarsenOnFilmJosh Larsen
The Long Goodbye is cheeky and often cheerily meta, but I certainly wouldn’t call it a lark. Read full review
50
VarietyStaff (Not Credited)
Robert Altman's film version of Raymond Chandler's novel is an uneven mixture of insider satire on the gumshow film genre, gratuitous brutality, and sledgehammer whimsy. Read full review
50
Village VoiceAndrew Sarris
The Long Goodbye rides off furiously in too many different directions with too many gratuitously Godardian camera movements to make even one good movie. [29 Nov 1973, p.84]
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