Rating: 
Summary: I don't get it
Review: I don't get it. Are they trying to imply that Joe Buck was sexually abused as a child and that the experience forced him into a life of prostitution? This was a lame movie with lots of annoying special effects, an unclear background of the lead character, and a very irritating ending. Only the music and acting performances make it bearable.
Rating: 
Summary: Modern Love Story
Review: Midnight Cowboy is definetly one of the finest films of all time. For months after I saw it first I was haunted by several of the images. Deserved winner of the Best Picture Oscar in 1969 it is still the only X rated film to have done so, today it would probably by PG. This film contains the best performance that both Hoffman and Voight ever did. The story. A texas stud (Voight) decides to go to New York to try and teach the women over there what real lovin' is all about. Along the way he gets hustled by a rich woman (Sylvia Miles) and eventually meets up with a cripple (Hoffman)who becomes his manager. The film chronicles their many adventures and follows Ratso's dream of going to Florida. It is truly one of the best and most bizarre love storys ever captured on celluloid. One of the songs in the film "Everybody's Talking" was a hit while the main theme is extremely haunting and plays on your days after viewing.
Rating:
Summary: Startlingly tender film about friendship and loneliness ...
Review: Midnight Cowboy is a love story in the truest sense, yet the lovers (Ratso and Joe) never have sex or even think about it. Yet their scenes have an aching tenderness to them that is affecting no matter what your tastes in movies are. This is a movie about the NY underworld, where male prostitution, drugs, and hustling are such a way of life that it is almost an afterthought. Joe Buck is a male prostitute, but this movie makes his prostitution seem like a relatively minor aspect of his life -- he does it to survive, and escape his past, but that's it. Ratso is a crippled con artist who's also dying, but the movie again has the wisdom to make his petty crimes a minor part of his life -- he does it to survive, period. The friendship between Ratso and Joe is warm and sensitive. One of the most touching scenes has Ratso proudly cleaning Joe up for a night of hustling. It is like a mother watchign her daughter get ready for the prom. Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight give affecting, touching performances, and lets us see the humanity behind their sordid, unhappy lives.
Rating:
Summary: great great great
Review: this movie is great. it is touching and you really ccare for the chacters.it has held up the test of time very well. i think this was one of hoffsmans best perfomances even better than his later hit rain man. voight is also good too. if you have never sceen this dont be scared off by the former x rating. today x ratings have come to me porn. over the use to refer to intelligent adult flims like this one. i thnk this is the best movie of the late 6os
Rating:
Summary: A BITTERSWEET CLASSIC
Review: It's heartening to read so many glowing reviews from younger viewers who weren't around when this landmark film appeared on the scene in 1969. For me the film was pivotal in the development of my consciousness. Growing up in a brutal region where feelings were ignored, its evocation of selfless friendship reassured me that others valued caring above material worth and status. The humanity at the core of this film has been rarely matched, and what's great is that the film remains a hip time capsule.The recurrent criticism is that the Warholesque party sequence is dated and sloppy. I beg to differ. Layered with Elephants Memory's astonishing "Old Man Willow" in an overlapping, edited form to simulate psychedelic distortions and time shifts, the party sequence pretty much visualizes the herky-jerky sudden-ness interpolated with fluid moments of slo-mo timelessness that most people experience in altered states. Yes, the costumes are of the period, but I don't recall the object of the Party being to dress like viewers in 2000 would want them dress. I mean, hello-o-o-o-o. The invitation Ultra Violet handed Joe Buck clearly said the Party was "Hansel and Gretel at the Gates of Hell." And, indeed, it became the Stygian portal Hoffman and Voight walked through as their beautiful but sorrowful lives unravelled. I can't add much to the praise that precedes my own regards Hoffman and Voight; they are two of most endearing characters in screen history. Brenda Vaccarro is also great as a proto-feminist/catwoman ("Play..say..gay.. Is that your problem, cowboy?"). And Sylvia Miles ("ya stupid hunk! I'm 29 years old! I'm-a gorgeous chick, ya lug!"). Add to all this Waldo Salt's transformation of Herlihy's novel into a prismatic cinematic work, some deft editing, and the musical score and supervision by John Barry that marries pop tunes to his haunting score. It reminds me of a time one didn't have to dumb oneself down to go to the movies, or be promised that one would "FEEL GOOD" when leaving the HellPlex. I still blame it all on Reagan, Flashdance, and oh, 'what a feeling.' Nothing has been the same since. Oh well.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful mix of psychedelia and Urban Desperation
Review: Ending with one of the most beautiful and heartbreaking endings ever filmed, Midnight Cowboy is on of the world's most unforgettable contemporary classics. Though Dustin Hoffman's performance is alarmingly similar (if only in terms of the voice) to his later performance in "Rainman," it is one which deserved, entirely, it's Oscar Nomination. He plays Rico "Ratzo" Rizo, a down and out bum on the streets of The Big Apple. A character who finds sad hope in the dream of someday shaking of the illness which cripples him and moving to Florida (a fantasy played out with alarming alacrity by John Schlesinger). The hope is so moving that one finds it impossible not to be inspired to the point where you feel to the point of tears. But Jon Voight in his portrayal of the naive wannabe hustler, Joe Buck, takes the cake. His rugged honesty and hope are what break him in the urban jungle of New York City. Joe is the epitome of the small, personal American Revolution of the Sixties. With his hard, tough exterior broken he is almost weak. What holds him together, and pushes him to commit violent atrocities, is his love (which developes from pity) for Ratzo. One of Voight's lines ("I'll tell you where you can put your dishes. And if you won't I'd be happy to oblige, I truly would!") backed with Harry Nilssen's Oscar winning version of Everybody's Talkin' is pure magic. Take a hint and watch this beautiful film and don't be put off by the earlier X rating because this movie captures a beauty not seen since then until the magnificent 1999 film "American Beauty." And by the way, John Barry's overwhelming score (especially "Midnight Cowboy") is worth quite a listen as well.
Rating:
Summary: Classic film about loneliness and friendship......
Review: Until "American Beauty," this was the last "dark" film to win the Best Picture Oscar. Somber, penetrating, and full of desperate characters, this film, despite some dated qualities (the Andy Warhol-inspired party is a glaring example), is really an old-fashioned tale about the American Dream. Voight and Hoffman portray two losers in New York City who live on the edge of despair, hustling, stealing, and living in a condemned building with little food and no heat. Hoffman, as Ratso, dreams of going to Florida; his fantasies (literally played out in his head) include throwing off the limitations of his illness (which has left him crippled) and becoming a much-admired sex symbol on the beaches of Miami. The sequences are heartbreaking (because we know they will never be realized) and serve as a stark reminder of how delusions keep us from descending into total madness. While the friendship is the dramatic center of the film, there are also many supporting characters (pathetic individuals, all) and pointed shots at the callousness of the American landscape to enhance the central theme. This was John Schlesinger's last great film (he's been reduced to tripe like "Eye for an Eye" in recent years) and a perfect way to round out the decade of the 1960s. While it might seem tame by today's standards (it was rated X back in 1969), its essential power remains.
Rating: 
Summary: I WOLD GIVE IT 5, BUT.......
Review: I agree with everyone on this page that said this movie was a masterpiece but it had such a horrible ending that in my opinion i would give it 4 1/2 .Great movie though.
Rating:
Summary: Beyond the limits of mere Film; A Triumphant work of Art
Review: Midnight Cowboy stands as one of the most poignant, successfully artistic films to date. Of course it has many things going for it. It's based on a great novel, it was made in 1969, the most creative era in history, it has Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman, directed by Schlesinger, and Nielson soundtrack. This film captures the essence of New York City in the 1960's with a collage of impressions. It depicts the '60s New York underground in a documentary fashion, even using Morrissey to create a film within a film. The effect of all these impressions leaves you grasping for some ultimate underlying reality. Forget the film's plot as such, and concentrate on the whole of the painting. Something is there, something of power, greatness, sadness, yes, love. Another film so far beyond anything since, it's depressing to see what we've lost since the time of the 1960's.
Rating:
Summary: A movie you will never forget
Review: This is one of the most effective, touching movies I have ever seen and I listen to the soundtrack several times a week, sometimes more, and it always puts me in that mood. Its an indescribable mood that you can only understand if you've seen the movie. There are no words to describe this film, you have to see it for yourself. See it more than once, too, because it gets better with time.
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