Praise for "Last Exit to Brooklyn"

In his New York Times review, Vincent Canby wrote the film "is both grim and eloquent. The strike scenes are some of the roughest ever seen in a fiction film." Canby added the film "has a European sensibility that works to the advantage of its American subject matter...[and] sees everything at the distance of a sober-minded alien observer. One result is that 'Last Exit to Brooklyn' never appears to exploit its sensational subject matter."

 Roger Ebert wrote the characters "are limited in their freedom to imagine greater happiness for themselves, and yet in their very misery they embody human striving. There is more of humanity in a prostitute trying to truly love, if only for a moment, than in all of the slow-motion romantic fantasies in the world."