Jules and Jim
Criterion Collection, The | Release Date: April 23, 1962 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
97
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 18 Critic Reviews
Positive:
18
Mixed:
0
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
The DissolveCarrie RickeyFeb 10, 2014
François Truffaut’s Jules And Jim is many things, not least among them a modernist Pygmalion. Read full review
100
Chicago ReaderDave Kehr
With this 1961 film Truffaut comes closest to the spirit and sublimity of his mentor, Jean Renoir, and the result is a masterpiece of the New Wave. Read full review
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
Jules and Jim is one of those rare films that knows how fast audiences can think, and how emotions contain their own explanations Read full review
100
Time OutStaff (Not Credited)
There is great sadness in ‘Jules et Jim’, what with the war, Catherine’s betrayals and the nebulous tragedy that is growing up, for those who can manage it but, after the whirlwind has departed, it’s the joy – the sense of plunging into life – that remains. Read full review
100
LarsenOnFilmJosh Larsen
Playfulness is the defining characteristic of Jules and Jim, even if what it largely entails is a tragic gender gap of fatal proportions. Read full review
100
Austin ChronicleMarjorie Baumgarten
In this enduringly transcendent love story, Truffaut traces the relationships between three lovers and friends over the years. Moreau dominates every fragment of the movie with her magisterial eroticism. The film works in ways that touch the heart more than the mind. Read full review
100
TV Guide MagazineStaff (Not Credited)
Francois Truffaut's greatest achievement, Jules and Jim is a shrine to lovers who have known obsession and been destroyed by it. Read full review
100
CineVueD. W. Mault
It remains a marvel of a modern ethos, particularly in the behaviour of its principal characters: whether it’s the total lack of jealousy or its cinematic style that encompasses newsreel footage, photographic stills and freeze frames. Read full review
100
Village VoiceEd Gonzalez
More than 40 years old, Francois Truffaut’s whirling dervish remains an ageless beauty. The film appears to us as like a specter, with a sensibility about cinematic language and sexual relations rarely seen today. Read full review
100
EmpireDavid Parkinson
The mood of the movie reflects the exuberance of youth and the wisdom of experience. New Wave gold. Read full review
100
Entertainment WeeklySteve Daly
Seminal Truffaut. Read full review
100
The New YorkerPauline Kael
Elliptical, full of wit and radiance, this is the best movie ever made about what most of us think of as the Scott Fitzgerald period (though the film begins much earlier).
90
The Observer (UK)Philip French
The film introduced a crucial theme that was to run right through Truffaut's work: how we cope with death and how we preserve our memories of those who have died. I don't think Jeanne Moreau gave a better performance than as Catherine. Read full review
90
Village VoiceAndrew Sarris
Jules and Jim is that rarity of rarities, a genuinely romantic film. [03 May 1962, p.11]
88
Slant MagazineChuck Rudolph
It represents some of the first and most essential steps into a new age of filmmaking. Read full review
80
BBCJason Korsner
This is a painfully moving story about uncompromising friendship and uncontrollable love - not so much unrequited as undeserving and unfulfilled. Read full review
80
VarietyStaff (Not Credited)
A tender tale [from the novel by Henri-Pierre Roche] that avoids mawkishness and impropriety in treating the lives of two friends who are mixed up with a woman they share. Read full review
80
The New York TimesBosley Crowther
To put it quickly and crisply, it is charming, exciting and sad. Read full review
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