Editing Straight Time (section)

==Reception==
===Box office===
''Straight Time'' earned $9,900,000 at the United States [[box office]],<ref name=BOM/> but was a flop for Warner Bros. as it failed to earn a significant profit for the studio.{{sfn|Lenburg|2001|p=123}}

===Critical response===
[[Vincent Canby]] of ''[[The New York Times]]'' praised ''Straight Time'' as "a leanly constructed, vividly staged film" that "makes no attempt to explain Max. It simply says that this is the way he is. It requires us to fill in the gaps, and it's the measure of the film that we want to."<ref name=canby/> He also praised the performances, particularly those of Hoffman and Russell.<ref name=canby>{{cite web|work=[[The New York Times]]|title='Straight Time' a Film of Grim Wit|date=March 18, 1978|last=Canby|first=Vincent|author-link=Vincent Canby|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1978/03/18/archives/straight-time-a-film-of-grim-wit.html|archive-url=https://archive.today/20210103231837/https://www.nytimes.com/1978/03/18/archives/straight-time-a-film-of-grim-wit.html|archive-date=January 3, 2021|url-status=live}}</ref>

[[Gene Siskel]] of the ''[[Chicago Tribune]]'' gave the film four stars out of four, and called it "a superior thriller, a riveting portrait of an ex-con", adding, "Most criminals in American movies are drooling, trigger-happy psychotics. In 'Straight Time,' the criminals are people, and, somehow, that's more disturbing ... Credit ultimately must go to Hoffman, who continues to avoid playing the million-dollar cardboard roles that so many of his peers are drawn to."<ref>{{cite news|author=Siskel, Gene |author-link=Gene Siskel|date=March 22, 1978|title=Hoffman plays it straight again; this time it's a superior thriller|work=[[Chicago Tribune]]|p=7}}</ref> At the end of the year, he named it the best film of 1978.<ref>{{cite news|author=Siskel, Gene|author-link=Gene Siskel|date =January 9, 1979|title=Movies '78: Film Clips and the year's Top 10 in review|work=[[Chicago Tribune]]|p=3}}</ref>

[[David Ansen]] of ''[[Newsweek]]'' wrote, "Though made up of familiar elements - an ex-con, bank robberies, lovers on the run - it is an unusual movie out of today's Hollywood and a very fine one. Small in scale, grittily realistic, charged with a fierce intelligence about how people live on the other side of the law, the film makes few concessions to an audience's expectations, but it has an edgy, lingering intensity."<ref>Ansen, David (April 3, 1978). "Crime Junkie". ''[[Newsweek]]''. 91.</ref>

[[Charles Champlin]] of the ''[[Los Angeles Times]]'' called it "riveting to watch from start to finish", adding, "Hoffman's Max has less dimension than some of his earlier characterizations. You wish his fight [to go straight] had gone on a little longer. But his cool, hard disillusion, his unsentimental realism and his fatalistic attitude toward a life that never got going makes its own impact."<ref name="champlin">Champlin, Charles (March 18, 1978). "'Straight Time' Released on Bond". ''[[Los Angeles Times]]''. Part II, p. 10-11.</ref>

Arthur D. Murphy of ''[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]]'' panned the film as "most unlikable" because Hoffman "cannot overcome the essentially distasteful and increasingly unsympathetic elements in the character. Ulu Grosbard's sluggish direction doesn't help."<ref>Murphy, Arthur D. (March 22, 1978). "Film Reviews: Straight Time". ''[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]]''. 24.</ref>

Gary Arnold of ''[[The Washington Post]]'' wrote that there were "authentic, gripping moments in the film", but "in some unavoidable way [Hoffman] just doesn't look threatening and ruthless. You're tempted to console him rather than run from him. The cunning and aggression that one might accept immediately if actors like [[Robert De Niro]] or [[Harvey Keitel]] were cast as Max are only theoretically apparent in Hoffman."<ref>Arnold, Gary (March 22, 1978). "Get It Straight, Dustin Hoffman". ''[[The Washington Post]]''. D9.</ref>

{{Rotten Tomatoes prose|82|8.3|11|consensus=|access-date=March 30, 2025|ref=y}} {{Metacritic film prose|64|9|ref=yes|access-date=March 30, 2025}}

In 2003, ''The New York Times'' placed the film on its ''The Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made'' list.<ref name=NYBest>{{cite web|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080612032429/https://www.nytimes.com/ref/movies/1000best.html|title=The Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made|work=[[The New York Times]]|archive-date=June 12, 2008|date=April 29, 2003|url-status=dead|url=https://www.nytimes.com/ref/movies/1000best.html }}</ref>