--- title: "Prizzi's Honor: the reviews" canonical: "https://film.one/film/prizzis-honor/reviews" title_page: "https://film.one/film/prizzis-honor" critics_score: 84 critics_reviews: 5 licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Prizzi's Honor (1985): what the critics said Critics' score 84 from 5 reviews: 5 positive, 0 mixed, 0 negative. ## Los Angeles Times — Sheila Benson Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 14 June 1985. Huston shapes the story into a resoundingly comic love story with sobering underpinnings, imagining The Maltese Falcon set in Brooklyn and done like an Italian opera. It is a rich, dense character comedy with an unblinking eye at love and family loyalty, Sicilian style. [Read the review](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-06-14-ca-2456-story.html) ## RogerEbert.com — Roger Ebert Fi1m's normalised score 90/100 (inferred from the text). 11 June 1985. The critic calls it one of Huston's very best films, a bizarre dark comedy where two professional killers fall in love and find the mob isn't big enough for both. The plot's logical collision of romance and family honor makes shocking decisions feel inevitable. [Read the review](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/prizzis-honor-1985) ## The New Yorker — Pauline Kael Fi1m's normalised score 85/100 (inferred from the text). 24 June 1985. The picture revels in the murderous finagling of a Brooklyn Mafia family with a daring comic tone like The Godfather acted by The Munsters, using Italian opera arias to point up their sentimentality. Its elation and springiness make it feel like the work of a young director. [Read the review](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1985/07/01/ripeness) ## Time Out — CPea Fi1m's normalised score 80/100 (inferred from the text). 10 September 2012. The critic finds the film a stylish black comedy about a hit man and assassin whose romance turns deadly. Huston is praised for expertly blending tones including irony and camp into a coherent narrative focused on faces talking in rooms. [Read the review](https://www.timeout.com/movies/prizzis-honor) ## Variety — Variety Staff Fi1m's normalised score 75/100 (inferred from the text). 31 December 1984. John Huston's film packs love, sex, murder and dark comedy into a labyrinthine tale of a hit man who falls for a woman who turns out to be his counterpart in hired killings. Nicholson convincingly stretches into a street-tough accented gangster role while Turner jolts with her loveliness in key scenes. [Read the review](https://variety.com/1984/film/reviews/prizzi-s-honor-1200426496/) ## Empire — William Thomas 1 January 2000. The critic describes it as a slight but grimly amusing Mafia spoof with Jack Nicholson as a not-overbright mob hitman. It is enjoyable overall but not one of Nicholson's best performances. [Read the review](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/prizzi-honour-review/) ## The New York Times — Janet Maslin Rating NYT Critic’s Pick. 9 June 1985. Huston's black comedy walks a narrow tightrope between funny and serious as a stolid Mafia hit man falls for a glamorous fellow professional killer. The film captures the book's unique quality of being not just one thing. [Read the review](https://www.nytimes.com/1985/06/09/movies/film-prizzi-s-honor-takes-a-comic-view-of-deadly-lovers.html) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Our review: https://film.one/film/prizzis-honor.md