Human Desire 1954

Bosley Crowther, New York Times: There isn't a single character in it for whom it builds up the slightest sympathy -- and there isn't a great deal else in it for which you're likely to have the least regard. Read more

Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader: A gripping melodrama. Read more

Richard Brody, New Yorker: Though the action pivots on blackmail and murder, the heart of the movie is a regular guy's struggle with the inner violence of sexual frenzy and the outer violence of war. Read more

Steve Jenkins, Time Out: Lang's version of Zola's La Bete Humaine is, like all his best '50s work, as cold, hard and steely grey as the railway tracks which here mark out the action. Read more

Variety Staff, Variety: Fritz Lang, director, goes overboard in his effort to create mood. Long focusing on locomotive speeding and twisting on the rails is neither entertaining nor essential to the plot. Read more