X
- 1971
- R
- Twentieth Century Fox
- 1 h 50 m
- 1971
- R
- Twentieth Century Fox
- 1 h 50 m
Summary Follows the lives of heroin addicts who frequent "Needle Park" in New York City.
Directed By: Jerry Schatzberg
Written By: James Mills, Joan Didion, John Gregory Dunne
- 1971
- R
- Twentieth Century Fox
- 1 h 50 m
- 1971
- R
- Twentieth Century Fox
- 1 h 50 m
The Panic in Needle Park
74
8.0
Summary Follows the lives of heroin addicts who frequent "Needle Park" in New York City.
Directed By: Jerry Schatzberg
Written By: James Mills, Joan Didion, John Gregory Dunne
Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 15 Critic Reviews
74
67% Positive
10 Reviews
10 Reviews
33% Mixed
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 15 Critic Reviews
74
67% Positive
10 Reviews
10 Reviews
33% Mixed
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
The pitch to the studio was "Romeo and Juliet on junk": fair enough, but it crackles with life, and this is a tremendous rediscovery.
Underrated Jerry Schatzberg directed (he later did Pacino's 1973 Scarecrow), and the script is by Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne, so it's smart. [22 Jun 2007, p.3D]
A portrait of two junkies in love—largely faded from memory, but it proves well worth revisiting.
Remembered mainly as the neophyte Pacino’s launching pad into Godfather stardom, the modestly scaled, harrowing Panic in Needle Park has over the decades proven to be nearly as influential as Coppola’s blockbuster, setting a cinematic template later used by Drugstore Cowboy, Requiem for a Dream, and a good deal of Sundance Channel fodder.
It is a nightmare world view, but it is a world view, and The Panic in Needle Park never pretends that it is subject to moral condemnations, or to easy cure or the insights of urban sociology.
As far as dramas of this kind are concerned The Panic in Needle Park is, in my view, without doubt one of the most thought-provoking ever committed to film.
Pacino, as the boy, proves that he didn't need Coppola to make him act, but Kitty Winn is less satisfactory, and the film is finally subject to an iron law of diminishing returns after its plot plumbs the depths and can find nothing to do except batter us some more.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 8 User Ratings
8.0
88% Positive
7 Ratings
7 Ratings
13% Mixed
1 Rating
1 Rating
0% Negative
0 Ratings
0 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 8 User Ratings
8.0
88% Positive
7 Ratings
7 Ratings
13% Mixed
1 Rating
1 Rating
0% Negative
0 Ratings
0 Ratings
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