X
  • 1990
  • R
  • Island Pictures
  • 1 h 37 m
  • 1990
  • R
  • Island Pictures
  • 1 h 37 m

Summary Nearly silent comedy filmed in black and white follows a street artist (Charles Lane), who rescues a baby after her father was murdered. The artist then sets off to find the mother, but has to first learn how to care for the child. Ultimately he ends up in a horse drawn chase of the murderers.

Directed By: Charles Lane

Written By: Charles Lane

  • 1990
  • R
  • Island Pictures
  • 1 h 37 m
  • 1990
  • R
  • Island Pictures
  • 1 h 37 m

Sidewalk Stories

Metascore Generally Favorable Based on 22 Critic Reviews
66
User Score Available after 4 ratings
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Where to Watch

Summary Nearly silent comedy filmed in black and white follows a street artist (Charles Lane), who rescues a baby after her father was murdered. The artist then sets off to find the mother, but has to first learn how to care for the child. Ultimately he ends up in a horse drawn chase of the murderers.

Directed By: Charles Lane

Written By: Charles Lane

Where to Watch

Top Cast

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Critic Reviews

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Metascore
Generally Favorable Based on 22 Critic Reviews
66
68% Positive
15 Reviews
27% Mixed
6 Reviews
5% Negative
1 Review

  • All Reviews
  • Positive Reviews
  • Mixed Reviews
  • Negative Reviews

Critic Reviews

 View All
Metascore
Generally Favorable Based on 22 Critic Reviews
66
68% Positive
15 Reviews
27% Mixed
6 Reviews
5% Negative
1 Review

  • All Reviews
  • Positive Reviews
  • Mixed Reviews
  • Negative Reviews
88
Charles Lane’s 1989 indie Sidewalk Stories doesn’t just hark back to The Kid; it formally revives the Chaplin classic in the street theater of Dinkins-era Greenwich Village.
By Steve Macfarlane FULL REVIEW
80
Lane approaches New York’s unbalanced, inhumane economy the same way he approaches filmmaking: by putting a new frame around familiar sights, and forcing the audience to reconsider them.
By Noel Murray FULL REVIEW
75
Basic as a home movie -- and twice as touching -- Charles Lane's Sidewalk Stories is a black-and-white silent comedy that pays tribute both to Charles Chaplin's The Kid (1921) and to the urban homeless. [06 Apr 1990, p.4]
By Carrie Rickey FULL REVIEW
70
SIDEWALK STORIES has more heart than art, but its heart is large, and Lane proves himself an ambitious, impassioned filmmaker.
FULL REVIEW
63
Lane does know how to photograph his own interesting, large-eyed face to potent effect. He's an appealing talent, and Sidewalk Stories is a likable film. Beyond novelty value, it also finds modern ways of making contact with the very real feel for poverty that was so much a part of the early Chaplin films. [21 Sep 1989, p.60]
By Jay Carr FULL REVIEW
50
An ambitious but sadly misguided attempt to make a contemporary silent comedy which opts for simplistic plotting, sentimentality and mime as it tells of a homeless, black New York street artist's attempts to trace the mother of a baby girl whose father's murder he has witnessed.
By Geoff Andrew FULL REVIEW
38
Chaplin's pathos was (at its best) touched with irony. Lane's isn't. [19 Jan 1990, p.68]
By Lawrence Toppman FULL REVIEW

User Reviews

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Details

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Production Company Palm Pictures
Release Date Jan 1, 1990
Duration 1 h 37 m
Rating R
Genres
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Awards

Film Independent Spirit Awards
• 3 Nominations
Würzburg International Filmweekend
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
Young Artist Awards
• 1 Nomination

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