Time Out

There is great sadness in ‘Jules et Jim’, what with the war, Catherine’s betrayals and the nebulous tragedy that is growing up, for those who can manage it but, after the whirlwind has departed, it’s the joy – the sense of plunging into life – that remains.

The Dissolve

François Truffaut’s Jules And Jim is many things, not least among them a modernist Pygmalion.

Austin Chronicle by Marjorie Baumgarten

In this enduringly transcendent love story, Truffaut traces the relationships between three lovers and friends over the years. Moreau dominates every fragment of the movie with her magisterial eroticism. The film works in ways that touch the heart more than the mind.

LarsenOnFilm by Josh Larsen

Playfulness is the defining characteristic of Jules and Jim, even if what it largely entails is a tragic gender gap of fatal proportions.

Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert

Jules and Jim is one of those rare films that knows how fast audiences can think, and how emotions contain their own explanations

Chicago Reader by Dave Kehr

With this 1961 film Truffaut comes closest to the spirit and sublimity of his mentor, Jean Renoir, and the result is a masterpiece of the New Wave.

The Dissolve by Carrie Rickey

François Truffaut’s Jules And Jim is many things, not least among them a modernist Pygmalion.

Time Out by Staff (Not Credited)

There is great sadness in ‘Jules et Jim’, what with the war, Catherine’s betrayals and the nebulous tragedy that is growing up, for those who can manage it but, after the whirlwind has departed, it’s the joy – the sense of plunging into life – that remains.

TV Guide Magazine by Staff (Not Credited)

Francois Truffaut's greatest achievement, Jules and Jim is a shrine to lovers who have known obsession and been destroyed by it.

CineVue by D. W. Mault

It remains a marvel of a modern ethos, particularly in the behaviour of its principal characters: whether it’s the total lack of jealousy or its cinematic style that encompasses newsreel footage, photographic stills and freeze frames.

Village Voice by Ed Gonzalez

More than 40 years old, Francois Truffaut’s whirling dervish remains an ageless beauty. The film appears to us as like a specter, with a sensibility about cinematic language and sexual relations rarely seen today.

Empire by David Parkinson

The mood of the movie reflects the exuberance of youth and the wisdom of experience. New Wave gold.

The Observer (UK)

The film introduced a crucial theme that was to run right through Truffaut's work: how we cope with death and how we preserve our memories of those who have died. I don't think Jeanne Moreau gave a better performance than as Catherine.

Slant Magazine

It represents some of the first and most essential steps into a new age of filmmaking.

BBC

This is a painfully moving story about uncompromising friendship and uncontrollable love - not so much unrequited as undeserving and unfulfilled.

Variety

A tender tale [from the novel by Henri-Pierre Roche] that avoids mawkishness and impropriety in treating the lives of two friends who are mixed up with a woman they share.