New York Times
"...DAZED AND CONFUSED unfolds in a loose, natural style that suits its teenage characters....Enjoyably playful spirit..." 09/24/1993 p.C12Entertainment Weekly
Ranked #9 in Entertainment Weekly's "10 Favorite Films of the '90s" - "...The freest, most graceful comedy of American teenage life ever made..." 04/01/2000 p.160 Sight and Sound
"...[A] vibrantly laid-back comedy....A tightly bound ensemble of funny and believable adolescent..." 10/01/1994 p.39-40 Variety
"...Giddily amusing..." 06/21/1993 Chicago Sun-Times
"...This is a good film..." 09/24/1993 p.35 Total Film
"...No movie understands the agony and ecstasy of teenage life better than Richard Linklater's underrated classic..." 08/01/2003 p.128 Premiere
"[It] remains the loose-limbed, thoroughly entertaining trip it was when it was released..." 11/01/2004 p.101 Premiere
"[T]he dialogue is hilariously quotable, the period textures are precise and hardly parodic....[and with a] soundtrack dialing from Aerosmith to ZZ Top." 07/01/2006 p.102 ReelViews 6 of 10
At one time or another, a movie is made about every generation. Dazed and Confused is for the survivors of the 1970s: that group of Americans who came of age when bellbottoms, love beads, mantras, and marijuana were the fashion, drinking and driving hadn't become taboo, and safe sex was used only to avoid pregnancy or VD. As the United States reached her bicentennial, Vietnam was over -- if the memories still lingered -- and the short-lived disco craze was building to a frenzy that Saturday Night Fever would both exploit and exacerbate...Dazed and Confused is irresponsible and politically incorrect, and almost worth applauding on those grounds alone. Overall, however, this is light entertainment -- nothing groundbreaking or even especially noteworthy. This film was made to celebrate a dead culture, and those who were part of it, or are merely curious, will find a path into the past through it. Unfortunately, due to the weakness of the script, they won't find anything substantial there. - James Berardinelli
Reel.com 10 of 10
Everything is larger than life at age 17; on the cusp of adulthood, the previous four years of high school start to seem like a rehearsal for adult life and responsibilities...That's where the high schoolers in Richard Linklater Dazed and Confused find themselves on the last day of school in 1976, grappling with such important issues as terrorizing incoming freshmen, smoking weed, organizing a beer bust, and driving around in Sixties muscle cars. In typical adolescent fashion, the kids are divvied up into a fairly strict caste system; there are the football types like Don Dawson (Sasha Jenson) and bully Fred O'Bannion (Ben Affleck), the stoners such as Ron Slater (Rory Cochrane), the brainy college-bound nonconformists like Mike Newhouse (Adam Goldberg), Tony Olson (Anthony Rapp) and Cynthia Dunn (Marissa Ribisi), and the popular uber-bitches such as Darla Marks (Parker Posey). Add into the mix incoming frosh Mitch Kramer (Wiley Wiggins) and Sabrina Davis (Christin Hinojosa), social gadabout Randall "Pink" Floyd (Jason London) and post-high-school Lothario David Wooderson (Matthew McConaughey) and you have the makings of a truly memorable teen movie. - Jerry Renshaw
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