You Only Live Once

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Madam D @Madam1948 02/24/2025 Despite the female lead character having no reason to love an ex-con, the plot still held my interest. Great acting by the entire cast. See more Ashley H @ashleyhobgood87 03/04/2024 You Only Live Once a terrific film. It is about public defender's secretary and an ex-convict who get married and try to make a life together. Sylvia Sidney and Henry Fonda give fantastic performances. The script is good but a little slow in places. Fritz Lang did a great job directing this movie. I enjoyed watching this motion picture because of the drama. You Only Live Once is a must see. See more 11/07/2021 Good. But it lost me early on when they don’t make it clear that Fonda is NOT the guilty one. The eyes we see in the car, just before the robbery, look almost exactly like Fonda’s. It fouls up the plot, and leaves the audience with a big ‘wait…huh?!’. If Lang just made it clear that Fonda is not that guy, and had less follow the shots of his hat, it would be solved. Otherwise a really worthy watch. See more 08/16/2020 After leaving Germany, the first two films Fritz Lang made in Hollywood are his best American movies: Fury and You Only Live Once. This feature works on all levels and there's good reason. The artist was extended control over the entire film including final cut. That's something most directors at the time were never given. Lang's favorite themes of fate and destiny, and a cynicism about society are on sharp display here. See more 12/30/2019 A nice movie with a fascinating story See more Robbie K @RT50853010 01/20/2019 Archetypal depression-era stars Henry Fonda and Sylvia Sidney are felicitously teamed in Fritz Lang's You Only Live Once. Fonda plays an ex-convict who can't get a break on the "outside". He marries Sidney, who like her husband is one of life's losers. Framed on a murder rap, Fonda is forced to take it on the lam, with his wife and baby in tow. In trying to avoid capture, Fonda becomes a murderer for real, condemning himself and Sidney to an early demise. Partly based on the legend of Bonnie and Clyde, the Gene Towne-Graham Baker screenplay stacks the deck against its protagonists to such an extent that the audience is virtually forced to hate their various antagonists. As superb as Henry Fonda is in portraying the foredoomed hero, Sylvia Sidney is even better as his wife; her reading of such lines as "We just call him...baby" are enough to shrivel the heart even after six decades. Fritz Lang's second American film... remains one of his all-time greatest. See more Read all reviews

You Only Live Once

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