Sightlines · reception
How Crimes and Misdemeanors was received
1989 · Woody Allen · Crimes and Misdemeanors on Sightlines
The arc
Acclaimed on release — three Oscar nominations, instantly ranked among Allen's best — and its critical standing has held; what's changed is the conversation around it, with the film's story of a man evading consequences now read uneasily against Allen's own reputation.
What’s debated
The perennial fight: is this Allen's true masterpiece over Annie Hall and Manhattan — and can you even discuss a film about guilt and getting away with it without the separate-the-art-from-the-artist debate swallowing the thread?
Its footprint
Alan Alda's insufferable TV producer gave the culture two endlessly quoted maxims — 'If it bends, it's funny; if it breaks, it's not funny' and 'comedy is tragedy plus time' — and the film remains a fixture in ethics and philosophy classrooms as cinema's go-to text on moral luck.
Where it stands
A 'you must have seen this' entry in the Allen filmography — routinely cited by critics and Letterboxd users alike as the peak of his serious mode, often described as his riff on Dostoevsky.
Did you know? Allen was unhappy with his first cut and went back to rewrite and reshoot a substantial chunk of the film — by his own account reworking roughly a third of it, reshaping Cliff's documentary-filmmaker storyline in the process.