Synopsis
A stark portrayal of life among a group of heroin addicts who hang out in Needle Park in New York City. Played against this setting is a low-key love story between Bobby, a young addict and small-time hustler, and Helen, a homeless girl who finds in her relationship with Bobby the stability she craves.
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Cast
- Al PacinoBobby
- Kitty WinnHelen
- Alan VintHotch
- Richard BrightHank
- Kiel MartinChico
- Michael McClanathanSonny
- Warren FinnertySammy
- Marcia Jean KurtzMarcie
- Raúl JuliáMarco
- Angie OrtegaIrene
Recommendations
- 90
Variety
The Panic in Needle Park is a total triumph. Gritty, gutsy, compelling, and vivid to the point of revulsion, it is an overpowering tragedy about urban drug addiction. - 88
Chicago Sun-Times
It is not filled with quick cutting or gimmicky editing, but Jerry Schatzberg's direction is so confident that we cover the ground effortlessly. We meet the characters, we get to know the world. - 83
IndieWire
A portrait of two junkies in love—largely faded from memory, but it proves well worth revisiting. - 80
The New Yorker
Schatzberg doesn’t romanticize addicts’ troubles; with a tender but unsparing eye, he spins visual variations on shambling degradation and transient relief. - 75
Slant Magazine
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. - 70
The New York Times
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. - 70
Village Voice
Winn pretty much plays it as it lays—her obvious acting works with her character’s weak sense of self. Pacino, however, is a force of nature. - 60
CineVue
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.
