Reviews

• performance is key in keeping Chinatown from becoming just a genre crime picture--that, and a Robert Towne screenplay that evokes an older Los Angeles, a small city in a large desert.

  Roger Ebert - The Chicago Sun-Times
  
  12 May 2013

• But it's Polanski who pries the genre open until it goes metaphysical.

  Ty Burr - Entertainment Weekly
  
  12 May 2013

• But the greatness of Chinatown, unappreciated by my adolescent self, lies not in its cynical view of the California dream (that's too easy) but in its fatalistic, even tragic conception of America and indeed of human nature.

  Andrew O'Hehir - Salon.com
  
  12 May 2013

• An outstanding picture.

  - Variety
  
  12 May 2013

• A wonderfully brooding, suspenseful revisitation of the land of film noir, Chinatown is not only one of the greatest detective films, but one of the most perfectly constructed of all films.

  - TV Guide
  
  12 May 2013