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Poster for Shadows

Shadows

A film not to be missed.

1960 · 1h 27m · PG Drama
Directed by John Cassavetes

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Overview

The relationship between Lelia, a light-skinned black woman, and Tony, a white man is put in jeopardy when Tony meets Lelia’s darker-skinned jazz singer brother, Hugh, and discovers that her racial heritage is not what he thought it was.

Director and cast

Critics on Rotten Tomatoes

Top critics, in their words

All reviews
100%
Tomatometer
Fresh

This is the only Cassavetes film made without a full script (it grew out of acting improvs), and rarely has so much warmth, delicacy, and raw feeling emerged so naturally and beautifully from performances in an American film.

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
Fresh

A very modern, impressionistic snapshot of New York bohemia with scenes linked not by dramatic line but by place, time and mood.

Derek Adams, Time Out
Fresh

Shadows is an unfinished picture in every sense of the word. Yet it is fitfully dynamic, endowed with a raw but vibrant strength, conveying an illusion of being a record of real people, and it is incontestably sincere.

Bosley Crowther, New York Times
Fresh

Arguably the founding work of the American independent cinema.

J. Hoberman, Village Voice

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