Editing The Wild Bunch (section)

==Critical reception==
Critical reaction in New York was mixed, with four reviewers with favorable reviews and three with unfavorable opinions, although there was debate as to whether the ''[[New York Post]]''{{'s}} [[Archer Winsten]]'s review was mostly favorable despite asking "was this violence necessary?".<ref name=NYcrix>{{cite magazine|magazine=[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]]|date=July 2, 1969|page=15|title=N.Y. Critics, 4 to 3, On 'The Wild Bunch'; 'Krakatoa' Does Well |url=https://archive.org/details/sim_variety_1969-07-02_255_7/page/n14/mode/1up?view=theater|access-date=April 29, 2024|via=[[Internet Archive]]}}</ref> [[Vincent Canby]] began his review in ''[[The New York Times]]'' by calling the film "very beautiful and the first truly interesting American-made Western in years. It's also so full of violence—of an intensity that can hardly be supported by the story—that it's going to prompt a lot of people who do not know the real effect of movie violence (as I do not) to write automatic condemnations of it."<ref name=Canby>{{cite news| url=https://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=EE05E7DF1730E774BC4E51DFB0668382679EDE | title= The Wild Bunch (1969) |date=June 26, 1969 | work=[[The New York Times]] | last= Canby | first=Vincent | author-link=Vincent Canby | access-date=2010-04-13}}</ref> He observed, "Although the movie's conventional and poetic action sequences are extraordinarily good and its landscapes beautifully photographed ... it is most interesting in its almost jolly account of chaos, corruption, and defeat". About the actors, he commented particularly on William Holden: "After years of giving bored performances in boring movies, Holden comes back gallantly in ''The Wild Bunch''. He looks older and tired, but he has style, both as a man and as a movie character who persists in doing what he's always done, not because he really wants the money but because there's simply nothing else to do."<ref name=Canby />

''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' also liked Holden's performance, describing it as his best since ''[[Stalag 17]]'' (a 1953 film that [[26th Academy Awards|earned Holden an Oscar]]), noting Robert Ryan gave "the screen performance of his career", and concluding that "''The Wild Bunch'' contains faults and mistakes" (such as [[Flashback (narrative)|flashbacks]] "introduced with surprising clumsiness"), but "its accomplishments are more than sufficient to confirm that Peckinpah, along with [[Stanley Kubrick]] and [[Arthur Penn]], belongs with the best of the newer generation of American filmmakers."<ref>{{cite magazine| title= New Movies: Man and Myth |url= http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,844896,00.html |archive-url= https://archive.today/20120914104756/http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,844896,00.html |url-status= dead |archive-date= September 14, 2012 | date=June 20, 1969 | magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]] | access-date=2010-04-13}}</ref>

William Wolf for ''[[Cue (magazine)|Cue]]'' magazine found no merit in the film and gave it a two sentence dismissal and [[Judith Crist]] of ''[[New York (magazine)|New York]]'' magazine was also negative about the film.<ref name=NYcrix/>

In a 2002 retrospective [[Roger Ebert]], who "saw the original version at the world premiere in 1969, during the golden age of the junket, when Warner Bros. screened five of its new films in the Bahamas for 450 critics and reporters", said that, back then, he had publicly declared the film a masterpiece during the junket's press conference, prompted by comments from "a reporter from the ''[[Reader's Digest]]'' [who] got up to ask 'Why was this film ever made?'" He compared the film to ''[[Pulp Fiction (film)|Pulp Fiction]]'': "praised and condemned with equal vehemence."<ref>{{cite news| title= The Wild Bunch (1969) |url= https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-the-wild-bunch-1969  | date=September 29, 2002 | newspaper=[[Chicago Sun-Times]] | last=Ebert| first=Roger| author-link=Roger Ebert | access-date=2022-06-26}}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine|magazine=[[Variety (magazine)|Variety]]|date=July 2, 1969|page=15|title=Press Violent About Film's Violence; Prod Sam Peckinpah Following 'Bunch'|url=https://archive.org/details/sim_variety_1969-07-02_255_7/page/n14/mode/1up?view=theater|access-date=April 29, 2024|via=[[Internet Archive]]}}</ref>

"What ''[[Citizen Kane]]'' was to movie lovers in 1941, ''The Wild Bunch'' was to cineastes in 1969," wrote film critic [[Michael Sragow]], who added that Peckinpah had "produced an American movie that equals or surpasses the best of [[Akira Kurosawa|Kurosawa]]: the [[Gotterdammerung]] of Westerns".<ref>{{cite news|last=Sragow|first=Michael|title='Wild Bunch' is western writ large|url=https://www.baltimoresun.com/2003/02/14/wild-bunch-is-western-writ-large/|access-date=May 21, 2013|newspaper=The Baltimore Sun|date=February 14, 2003|archive-date=October 15, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181015064339/http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2003-02-14/features/0302140119_1_wild-bunch-peckinpah-quiet-american|url-status=live}}</ref>

Today, the film holds a 91% rating on [[Rotten Tomatoes]] with an average rating of 8.8/10 based on reviews from 66 critics with its consensus stating, "''The Wild Bunch'' is Sam Peckinpah's shocking, violent ballad to an old world and a dying genre".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1059489-wild_bunch/|title=The Wild Bunch|website=[[Rotten Tomatoes]]}}</ref>

''The Wild Bunch'' was cited as cinematographer [[Roger Deakins]]'s favorite film,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://aframe.oscars.org/news/post/internet-goodie-alert-roger-deakins-handwritten-list-of-favorite-films|title = Internet Goodie Alert: Roger Deakins' Handwritten List of Favorite Films|website=A.frame|date=May 28, 2021}}</ref> and film director [[Kathryn Bigelow]] named it as one of her five favorite films.<ref>{{Cite web |date=April 3, 2022 |title=Kathryn Bigelow's five favourite films of all time|url=https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/kathryn-bigelows-five-favourite-films-of-all-time/|first=Aimee |last=Ferrier|website=[[Far Out (website)|Far Out]] |access-date=2022-11-03 |language=en-US}}</ref> In the 2012 [[British Film Institute|BFI]] ''[[Sight and Sound|Sight & Sound]]'' poll for The Greatest Films of All Time, ''The Wild Bunch'' received 27 votes from critics and directors such as [[Michael Mann]], [[Paul Schrader]] and [[Edgar Wright]].<ref name="bfi poll 2012">{{Cite web |title=The Greatest Films of All Time 2012 Poll: Votes for The Wild Bunch (1969) {{!}} BFI |url=https://www2.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b6bad3a0d/sightandsoundpoll2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171106034551/http://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b6bad3a0d/sightandsoundpoll2012 |url-status=dead |archive-date=November 6, 2017 |access-date=2022-05-28 |publisher=[[British Film Institute]]'s [[Sight and Sound|Sight & Sound]]}}</ref>