Dog Day Afternoon

The film's tone is extraordinarily flexible, holding within the same reality elements of the absurd, the ridiculous and the comic while sustaining a sense of tension and dread throughout.

Pacino's inner alienation transforms this film into something far beyond a simple historical recreation of an "actual" event.

One of the best "New York" movies ever made.

There are scattered moments of wry humor, sudden pathos, and correct observation throughout.

Sidney Lumet begins his film as a comedy, almost. He finishes it as a qualified tragedy. Between the two, there is a detailed, absorbing, by turns horrifying and hilarious picture...

Sidney Lumet's gritty and gripping semi-documentary crime melodrama "Dog Day Afternoon” is a triumphant new classic of American movie naturalism.

Dog Day Afternoon may throw calculated criticisms at the invasive nature of television media and explore the nature of criminality, but remains a perfect example of cutting-edge '70s cinema for those who want to be reminded.

What starts as a very funny movie -- on the order of a realistic escapade involving the Keystone Kops -- evolves into a very sobering drama.

[Pacino's] performance here is spectacular, and achieves a kind of nuance and complexity that few actors from his or any other generation have before or since achieved.

A biting satire on life today where the criminal can get the crowd behind him.