Opening

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—— Grace Unplugged $1.0M
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Coming Soon

78% Kill Your Darlings Oct 16
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Dog Day Afternoon (1975)

tomatometer

86

Average Rating: 7/10
Critic Reviews: 7
Fresh: 6 | Rotten: 1

No consensus yet.

audience

89

liked it
Average Rating: 4/5
User Ratings: 98,834

My Rating

Movie Info

Based on a true 1972 story, Sidney Lumet's 1975 drama chronicles a unique bank robbery on a hot summer afternoon in New York City. Shortly before closing time, scheming loser Sonny (Al Pacino) and his slow-witted buddy, Sal (John Cazale), burst into a Brooklyn bank for what should be a run-of-the-mill robbery, but everything goes wrong, beginning with the fact that there is almost no money in the bank. The situation swiftly escalates, as Sonny and Sal take hostages; enough cops to police the

R,

Drama, Classics

Frank Pierson, P.F. Kluge

Dec 16, 1997

WARNER BROTHERS PICTURES

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Cast

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All Critics (36) | Top Critics (7) | Fresh (35) | Rotten (1) | DVD (18)

Enjoyable and even exciting at the start, Dog Day Afternoon degenerates into frustration and tedium toward nightfall -- an experience no less painful for the audience than for the actors.

April 27, 2009 Full Review Source: Chicago Reader | Comments (55)
Chicago Reader
Top Critic IconTop Critic

One of Sidney Lumet's best jobs of directing and one of Al Pacino's best performances (as a bisexual bank robber) come together in a populist thriller with lots of New York juice

April 27, 2009 Full Review Source: Chicago Reader
Chicago Reader
Top Critic IconTop Critic

[Pacino] gives an electric performance, charged with a lunatic energy that expertly captures the weird blend of confidence and self-deprecation (if not hatred) that marks the paranoid syndrome.

August 24, 2008 Full Review Source: TIME Magazine
TIME Magazine
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Dog Day Afternoon is, in the whole as well as the parts, filmmaking at its best.

August 24, 2008 Full Review Source: Variety
Variety
Top Critic IconTop Critic

The film's strength lies in its depiction of surfaces, lacking the visual or intellectual imagination to go beyond its shrewd social and psychological observations and its moments of absurdist humour.

January 26, 2006 Full Review Source: Time Out
Time Out
Top Critic IconTop Critic

It's beautifully acted by performers who appear to have grown up on the city's sidewalks in the heat and hopelessness of an endless midsummer.

May 9, 2005
New York Times
Top Critic IconTop Critic

As much as it is about a deeply troubled individual, "Dog Day Afternoon" is about a shift toward exploitation in the American media via live television.

May 30, 2011 Full Review Source: ColeSmithey.com
ColeSmithey.com

Strong performances and forward-thinking situations make this political thriller an exceptionally vibrant experience.

April 11, 2011 Full Review Source: Cinema Sight
Cinema Sight

Fine, but overrated Pacino vehicle directed by Lumet.

October 23, 2008 | Comments (5)
Video-Reviewmaster.com

Though fact-based, Lumet's heist film (his best work) is a wild satire with farcical tones about a normless, irrational society whose (anti)heroes are crazy delusional marginal men, played with panache by Pacino and Cazale in their most spontaneous turns

September 28, 2008 Full Review Source: EmanuelLevy.Com
EmanuelLevy.Com

An American classic.

August 24, 2008 Full Review Source: Film4
Film4

Pure cinema.

August 2, 2008
ColeSmithey.com

An iconic movie, thoroughly New York, with Pacino in top form.

May 10, 2007 Full Review Source: Bangor Daily News (Maine)
Bangor Daily News (Maine)

[Dog Day Afternoon is] so perfectly executed that it almost feels like the wall of art is being pulled back slightly, revealing the reality of life, in all its messy, contradictory, confusing wonder.

February 28, 2006 Full Review Source: DVDTalk.com
DVDTalk.com

Few fictional thrillers are as tense or as funny as this real-life recreation.

February 24, 2006 Full Review Source: Movie Metropolis
Movie Metropolis

captures perfectly the zeitgeist of the early 1970s, a time when optimism was scraping rock bottom and John Wojtowicz was as good a hero as we could come up with.

February 10, 2006 Full Review Source: Filmcritic.com
Filmcritic.com

Pacino simmers in this daring and brilliantly constructed treatise on the many facets of a crime.

February 1, 2006 Full Review Source: Empire Magazine
Empire Magazine

Pacino gives an engaging performance.

May 2, 2004 Full Review Source: Ozus' World Movie Reviews
Ozus' World Movie Reviews

Pacino at the top of his game. A riveting ride.

March 26, 2003
Oz
Hollywood Bitchslap

Audience Reviews for Dog Day Afternoon

I was in Kenndy Airport the day this happen, was going to boot camp in the navy, my flight was held up for hours pissed off the drill instructors. A brilliant movie, and a mesmerizing Al Pacino. If u thought he was spectacular in GF I, II, and Scarface....then just watch him in Dog Day Afternoon. Quite simply one of the greatest performances in movie history. Definitely my favorite. The depth with which he plays Sonny is such a treat to watch that I lost count of how many times he left me in AWE. There's this indescribable nervous energy to his performance that there's no way he'll leave u NOT feeling sorry for Sonny.

Sadly, for some reason this movie is kinda forgotten when discussing Al's greatest movies/performances. That's because not many people have watched it. So please, if u consider yourself a movie fan, then go rent DDA and watch a fine movie with the legendary Al Pacino performing his art at the absolute peak of his career. 5 stars 8-20-13
August 28, 2013
bbcfloridabound
Bruce Bruce

Super Reviewer

One word: "ATTICA!"

Full review coming to themoviefreakblog.com on 8/1
November 13, 2011
spielberg00

Super Reviewer

    1. Sonny: Attica! Attica!
    – Submitted by Dutch E (6 months ago)
    1. Pizza Boy: I'm a fucking star!
    – Submitted by William C (7 months ago)
    1. Sonny: Hey Leon! Happy Birthday!
    – Submitted by William C (7 months ago)
    1. Sonny: Put your fucking guns down! Put your fucking guns down! Put your fucking guns down! Put your fucking guns down! Attica! Attica! Attica! Attica! Attica!
    – Submitted by William C (7 months ago)
    1. Sonny: WILL YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP AND LISTEN TOO ME!
    – Submitted by Adam O (8 months ago)
    1. Sylvia: Why don't you smoke?
    2. Sal: I don't want the cancer.
    – Submitted by Adam O (8 months ago)
View all quotes (17)

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Foreign Titles

  • Un après-midi de chien (FR)
  • Tarde de perros (ES)
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