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The Outsiders
Metascore
38 out of 100

Generally unfavorable - based on 10 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4 out of 10
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 10
  3. Negative: 4 out of 10
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  1. Rolling Stone
    Reviewed by: Peter Travers
    75
    Francis Coppola's revision of his 1983 film of S.E. Hinton's best seller The Outsiders is funny, touching and revelatory, with twenty-two minutes of added footage and a new soundtrack featuring Elvis Presley. [Review of re-release]
  2. TV Guide
    Reviewed by: Staff (Not Credited)
    75
    The charismatic Dillon is a believable delinquent and gets solid support from a cast that went on to populate some of the better youth pictures in years to come. [Review of re-release]
  3. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: John Engstrom
    75
    The director gives us a small, sincere and nearly perfectly realized film about adolescence in Oklahoma, aptly entitled The Outsiders. [24 Mar 1983]
    All this publication's reviews
  4. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    63
    Coppola's teenagers seem trapped inside too many layers of storytelling.
  5. Variety
    Reviewed by: Staff (Not Credited)
    60
    Francis Coppola has made a well acted and crafted but highly conventional film out of S.E. Hinton's popular youth novel, The Outsiders.
  6. The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
    Reviewed by: Jay Scott
    50
    This is an honestly moving, ungainly film. [25 Mar 1983]
    All this critic's reviews
  7. Time
    Reviewed by: Richard Corliss
    30
    Alas, The Outsiders is not quite a good one. Because it falls in with the undulating rhythm of the life of its heroes, for whom a fatal fight and a quiet night have almost equal importance, the picture never manages to reach the peaks of satisfying Hollywood melodrama.
  8. Christian Science Monitor
    Reviewed by: David Sterritt
    25
    As a movie, it's mediocre.
  9. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Vincent Canby
    20
    It is spectacularly out of touch, a laughably earnest attempt to impose heroic attitudes on some nice, small characters purloined from a ''young-adult'' novel by S.E. Hinton, the woman who wrote the novel on which ''Tex'' was based.
  10. Chicago Reader
    Reviewed by: Dave Kehr
    10
    Francis Ford Coppola's gang film is as moony about death as "One From the Heart" was over romance; the film is unremitting in its morbid sentimentality, running its teenage characters through a masochistic gamut of beatings, killings, burnings, and suicides.
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User Reviews

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User Score
7.5 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 14 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 8 out of 9
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 9
  3. Negative: 0 out of 9
  1. wildermovreview
    10
    A very hard hitting and moving story about rival gangs and the effect it has on the lives of the people in and around the gangs. The story follows two of the younger greasers after one of them accidently kills a rival gang member in self defence. They leave town and believe they will have to remain on the run forever. With a cast to die for, The Outsiders is an incredible, hard hitting film. Portrayed in a believable and moving way, the cast includes Matt Dillon, Emilio Estevez, Diane Lane, Patrick Swayze, Tom Cruise, C. Thomas Howell and Rob Lowe. But Ralph Macchio stands out in this film as Johnny Cade. The direction of Francis Ford Coppola along with stunning performances from the cast bring this film to life. You feel for the characters as they take you on an emotional rollercoaster. You laugh along with them and share in the anguish and feel the pain they all go through just to survive. It is hard not to watch the film now without comparing other films the cast have made since this film. But for many of the cast, it is up there with the finest performances of their career. The film is an adaption of a classic novel by S.E. Hinton who was just 16 when the novel was first published in 1967. It was also her first novel. The book has become part of school English curriculum.… Full Review »
  2. Creviewer
    7
    The first problem, the actors not that they were bad but the fact that the movie relied on them too much. It had good action and seemed believable. Until they started talking. The problem is that it followed the book almost line by line and that made it very cheesy and the buff cool kids would suddenly spout a line from a poem and that ruined it.… Full Review »
  3. alano
    7
    I've read the novel the movie was based on and both the movie and novel were great. Some critics just don't get these kind of movies. This adaption is very decent!… Full Review »
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