You Only Live Once

Released Jan 27, 1937

1h 26m

Crime

Drama

List

100%

10 Reviews

Tomatometer

78%

1,000+ Ratings

Audience Score

Joan Graham (Sylvia Sidney) works as the secretary to the public defender. Unfortunately, she's fallen madly in love with a criminal by the name of Eddie Taylor (Henry Fonda). Convinced that Eddie is a good man with bad luck, she pulls some strings and gets Eddie released from prison early. The two get married, but while Eddie tries to fly right, he soon discovers he can't change his nature. His past comes knocking at their door, and the couple is forced to go into hiding.

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Ashley H

You Only Live Once a terrific film. It is about public defender's secretary and an ex-convict who get married and try to make a life together. Sylvia Sidney and Henry Fonda give fantastic performances. The script is good but a little slow in places. Fritz Lang did a great job directing this movie. I enjoyed watching this motion picture because of the drama. You Only Live Once is a must see.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

03/04/24

Full Review

Audience Member

Good. But it lost me early on when they don’t make it clear that Fonda is NOT the guilty one. The eyes we see in the car, just before the robbery, look almost exactly like Fonda’s. It fouls up the plot, and leaves the audience with a big ‘wait…huh?!’. If Lang just made it clear that Fonda is not that guy, and had less follow the shots of his hat, it would be solved. Otherwise a really worthy watch.

Rated 3 out of 5 stars

11/07/21

Full Review

Audience Member

After leaving Germany, the first two films Fritz Lang made in Hollywood are his best American movies: Fury and You Only Live Once. This feature works on all levels and there's good reason. The artist was extended control over the entire film including final cut. That's something most directors at the time were never given. Lang's favorite themes of fate and destiny, and a cynicism about society are on sharp display here.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

02/13/23

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jim b

WOW, what TRASH. So this awful movie with Henry Fonda as an ex-con and soon to be on the run with a wife who is able to give birth like the Virgin Mary..... this whole thing is one of the biggest messes, the worst movie I've seen in some time...there's absolutely nothing redeeming about this whatsoever.

Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars

03/30/23

Full Review

Audience Member

A nice movie with a fascinating story

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

02/16/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Archetypal depression-era stars Henry Fonda and Sylvia Sidney are felicitously teamed in Fritz Lang's You Only Live Once. Fonda plays an ex-convict who can't get a break on the "outside". He marries Sidney, who like her husband is one of life's losers. Framed on a murder rap, Fonda is forced to take it on the lam, with his wife and baby in tow. In trying to avoid capture, Fonda becomes a murderer for real, condemning himself and Sidney to an early demise. Partly based on the legend of Bonnie and Clyde, the Gene Towne-Graham Baker screenplay stacks the deck against its protagonists to such an extent that the audience is virtually forced to hate their various antagonists. As superb as Henry Fonda is in portraying the foredoomed hero, Sylvia Sidney is even better as his wife; her reading of such lines as "We just call him...baby" are enough to shrivel the heart even after six decades. Fritz Lang's second American film... remains one of his all-time greatest.

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

01/14/23

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Fritz Lang

Director

Sylvia Sidney

Joan Graham

Henry Fonda

Eddie Taylor

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Stephen Whitney

William Gargan

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Jean Dixon

Bonnie Graham

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James Baldwin

The Devil Finds Work

Lang's concern, or obsession, was with the fact and the effect of human loneliness, and the ways in which we are all responsible for the creation, and the fate, of the isolated monster: whom we isolate because we recognize him as living within us.

Jan 17, 2024

Full Review

Pare Lorentz

McCall's

It is a high tribute to Fritz Lang that although you know what is coming, he does keep you harrowed almost throughout the picture waiting for his inevitable dénouement.

Oct 30, 2023

Full Review

Meyer Levin (Patterson Murphy)

Esquire Magazine

What a great director can do with a stale story. This would be the usual killer-row and jailbreak episode were it not for Fritz Lang's amazing ability to vitalize whatever he directs.

Apr 20, 2020

Full Review

Ann Ross

Maclean's Magazine

This picture has both excitement and genuine feeling, and is recommended for everyone, except the very young.

Jul 22, 2019

Full Review

Jeffrey M. Anderson

Combustible Celluloid

Fritz Lang's second American film... remains one of his all-time greatest.

Mar 26, 2007

Full Review

Dennis Schwartz

Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews

It always seems to be night and raining for its alienated main characters, who have only their love for each other to keep out the cold from the world.

Rated: A

Nov 9, 2006

Full Review

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Synopsis

Joan Graham (Sylvia Sidney) works as the secretary to the public defender. Unfortunately, she's fallen madly in love with a criminal by the name of Eddie Taylor (Henry Fonda). Convinced that Eddie is a good man with bad luck, she pulls some strings and gets Eddie released from prison early. The two get married, but while Eddie tries to fly right, he soon discovers he can't change his nature. His past comes knocking at their door, and the couple is forced to go into hiding.

Director: Fritz Lang
Producer: Walter Wanger
Screenwriter: Gene Towne, C. Graham Baker
Distributor: United Artists
Production Co: Walter Wanger Productions, Inc.
Genre: Crime, Drama
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Jan 27, 1937, Wide
Release Date (Streaming): Aug 23, 2018
Runtime: 1h 26m

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