The Desperate Hours

Ratings & Reviews

Samuel Andrade

"clickety-clickety-click, don't work it overtime!"

SpacePirate

Another phenomenal film by Wyler. Bogey looks weary, probably in the early stages of his cancer, but he kills it throughout and the interplay between he and March is really great as is the dynamic between the 3 prisoners. Tension is thick throughout, culminating w/ dramatic finish thats predictable but nonetheless well done. Supporting cast filled with Oscar noms, so all performances are stellar. 5 stars. Great noir

Bob

It keeps tension without much action. Instead, there's a psychological and even social conflicts to keep viewer engaged through the whole running time. With so many tools to keep the plot intriguingly, it's hard for an ending to be anything but ugly, regardless of the outcome. The cast brings their A game, but final impression is not daring enough to reward this flick as being something more than playing safe.

FISCHER

Une oeuvre puissante et magistrale entre huis clos étouffant et tension permanente qui laisse pantois ! www.cinefiches.com

LETTERBOXD.COM/XESCIE

If films like The Petrified Forest, The Desperate Hours and Lady In A Cage inspired Haneke's Funny Games I would not be surprised.

Graeme Higginson

One of the finest films of its era; a major instalment in the canon of a great director, and an equally impressive final-years effort from a great actor. Little else of its time has dissected human animality and its fundamental values-- both often mired by blind social conformity, as fully realized in its opening moments-- as profoundly, or evocatively.

Michele Andreoli

GREAT GREAT GREAT..!!

Daniel S.

***1/2. Earned the Edgar Allan Poe award. A classic. Bogart as the bad guy and Robert Middleton as a vicious and deficient killer. Very good but not great because it’s precisely a classic.