They Live by Night

Ratings & Reviews

wiwitaek

Truth to be told, overall, I have a mixed feeling about this one. I just can't pick side. It just is.

James Mackin

Films like this make me sad to be alive. I need to watch more of Ray's films.

nessa

i like when keechie wakes up and they call her a kitten

Ethan

This is a gritty and beautiful film and an excellent debut for Nicholas Ray. Granger and O'Connell have great chemistry here as well. This is a true gem.

Cinema Omnivore

7.1/10, my review: http://wp.me/p1eXom-2Y8

Balthaz21

4,5

Samuel Andrade

noir wedding.

nico

Ray's first movie sets the loneliness atmosphere that would be his personal brand. Tragic, romantic and thrilling.

FISCHER

Premier film réalisé par Nicholas Ray qui signe ainsi par un chef-d'oeuvre son entrée dans le gotha des metteurs en scène. Un film noir inoubliable et cruel... www.cinefiches.com

Aardsy

You can get far on charm.

Hugo Poderoso

Unusual level of intimacy. The quality of tenderness appears as inseparable from the misfit identity. Not even the worst characters can escape melancholy.

bulgrin

Well-crafted story about desperation and fatalismn, if only Farley Granger would be a better actor this would deserve a better rating. Still an important movie.

Diogo Monteiro

The first film of Nicholas Ray, and probably his best...

Wee Hunk

There's two types of Communists in Hollywood. Howard da Silva, who gets blacklisted, and Nicholas Ray, who gets to have a career protected by Howard Hughes. The most ridiculous scene in this movie is the one where the policemen sympathize with the outlaws on the run. Pure insanity.

Laura Gama Martins

rever

Pedro Miguel

love is redemption

Dalibor

Out of first two Ray's films (other being "Knock on Any Door") concerning troubled adolescent criminals, their background and ways of dealing with future to come, this one looks a lot successful. By emphasizing on main characters love affair (thus more on their persona), rather than his "cruel destiny", it managed to unveil a lot more issues lying underneath such a topic.

Braden Vallenères

Ray's first and probably his best. A top-notch noir.

Duncan Gray

Seen today, They Live By Night looks less like a B-movie masterpiece than a stepping stone, the first crack in a dam that would explode a decade later. There was romantic fatalism before—You Only Live Once, etc.—but Ray's film adds a vital generation gap. He had a way with photographing young people that could turn a pensive Farley Granger close-up into Byronic poetry. But then Farley Granger had to open his mouth.

El Biffo

Great debut by Nicholas Ray, but I just can't take Farley Granger as anything more than a pretty Hollywood face. He's in some very good films, but in every one of them, I wish that they'd cast a more serious actor. This film is still quite good, but not nearly as good as the re-make by Robert Altman, THIEVES LIKE US. (Forgive me for comparing apples and oranges-such different films, but both based on the same book).

ihor

Disappointing first feature from Ray. A lover's on the run plot full of archetypes, and expected plot conventions lacking most of Ray's great exploration of moral uncertainty and darkness. Some hints are present as an outlaw in an impossible romance is sympathized. Nonetheless Ray mostly plays it safe with a tragic, but expected ending. Don't understand what Truffaut saw in it.

Michael Harbour

A lovers on the run movie that focuses on the romance without compromising the criminal endeavors that drive the plot. It's a remarkable first feature from Nicholas Ray, showing right from the start his ability to create beautiful films about people who don't fit into society.

Warren Spratley

My heart exploded a bajillion times during this movie.

CarlosEsquives

Un antecedente de los amantes prófugos vistos en "Bonnie and Clye" o "Pierrot le fou". Entonces un cine conservador con un final trágico que su predecesores se encargarían se replantearlo en clave violento.