Little Fugitive - Critical Reception

Critical Reception

The film was greeted by critical acclaim at the time, and was a major influence on the French New Wave.

François Truffaut was inspired by Little Fugitive's spontaneous production style when he created The 400 Blows (1959), saying long afterwards: “Our New Wave would never have come into being if it hadn’t been for the young American Morris Engel, who showed us the way to independent production with fine movie.”

Modern critics have also praised the film. Critic Dennis Schwartz wrote, "A remarkable indy classic, made on a shoestring budget by a group of still photographers. It's an affecting lyrical comedy-drama that fully captures the flavor of urban childhood innocence of the 1950s. It's written/directed by the team of Morris Engel and Ray Ashley and Ruth Orkin...The dialogue was sparse, the story was unambitious, the film lacked drama, the children were very ordinary and their problem was only a minor one, nevertheless this beautifully realized film caught the world through the innocent eyes of a curious and scared child and left an impression that was hard to shake. It was uplifting to watch because the effort was so genuine."

When the film was screened in New York in 2005, film critic Joshua Land wrote, "Little Fugitive shines as a beautifully shot document of a bygone Brooklyn—any drama here resides in the grainy black-and-white cinematography, with its careful attention to the changes in light brought on by the inexorably advancing sun...Filled with 'Aw, fellas!' period ambience and the mythic imagery of cowboys and horses, comics and baseball, it's a key proto-vérité slice of urban America."

The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 86% of critics gave the film a positive review, based on eight reviews.