63
Metascore
7 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 100Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertChicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertArthur Penn's Little Big Man is an endlessly entertaining attempt to spin an epic in the form of a yarn.
- 100TV Guide MagazineTV Guide MagazineHoffman is uncharacteristically charming in a demanding role; the supporting cast is uniformly excellent, particularly Chief Dan George as a befuddled patriarch who takes the supernatural as a matter of course.
- 90TimeTimeIt also accomplishes that rarest achievement, the breathing of life into an ossified art form. The '70s has its first great epic.
- 70VarietyVarietyLittle Big Man is a sort of vaudeville show, framed in fictional biography, loaded with sketches of varying degrees of serious and burlesque humor, and climaxed by the Indian victory over Gen George A. Custer at Little Big Horn in 1876.
- 60Chicago ReaderDave KehrChicago ReaderDave KehrThe dual point of view is used effectively, though it's less valid as social criticism (where Penn's observations tend toward facile revisionism) than as an index of the uncertainty that characterizes most of Penn's heroes.
- 60EmpireKim NewmanEmpireKim NewmanEpisodic western with a great performance from Hoffman.
- 30The New York TimesVincent CanbyThe New York TimesVincent CanbyThe film tries to cover too much ground, even though Calder Willingham's script eliminates or telescopes events and characters from the Berger novel.