"A charming, heartfelt, sometimes insightful look at four friends who form strong bonds while in high school in the early 1960s, and then desperately cling to that love during the turbulent social upheavals that marked the end of the decade. Unfortunately, Four Friends attempts to cover so much ground that at times the film becomes frustratingly muddled. … Though Four Friends runs out of gas toward the end, it's filmed with obvious love for the characters and features outstanding performances from the underrated Wasson, Thelen and Simon. Well worth seeing."

"Craig Wasson - Danilo"

"Elizabeth Lawrence - Mrs. Prozor"

"I was losing my old friends, and I wasn't making any new ones. I walked around looking sad and miserable, hoping that everyone would recognize what a tragic figure I was."

"Sometimes I can actually see the whole Universe, the galaxies, the stars, the planets — and yes, when stars collide it's out of loneliness. They're out there orbiting in the void, and they collide, as if to embrace. God, I hope I'm alive when we land on the moon. … Let's make a promise to each other. The minute that first man lands that first foot on the moon, that very instant — you'll think of me — and I, if such things are possible, I will think of you.."

"Too bad! — now I'm hooked."

"I love you like the Pilgrim loves the Holy Land, Like the wayfarer loves his wayward ways, Like the immigrant that I am loves America, And the blind man the memory of his sighted days."

"These middle class minds! They don't know what passion is — what ecstasy is! What it's like to be possessed! I'm going to be a famous dancer, I am, I just know it."

"Without style you're dead ducks, kiddos."

"To get quickly to the point, Four Friends is the best film yet made about the sixties, that harrowed time of war, prosperity, and broken promises, of turning on and dropping out to colors described as psychedelic, when establishment came to be written with a capital "E." … It's a film that embraces the looks, sounds, speech, and public events of the sixties, but not in the way of a documentary. It has the quality of legend, a fable remembered. The title is somewhat misleading, for although Four Friends is about the coming of age of three young men and the young woman they each love in turn, it's principally the story of Danilo Prozor (Craig Wasson). Danilo is the Yugoslavian-born son of immigrant parents, who arrives in this country in 1948 at the age of twelve and spends the next decade and a half sorting out the reality of America from his dream of it … Danilo never refers to this country as the United States but always as America — it's not a political union but a concept from childhood. …Four Friends is about ordinary people, but not ordinary people who speak a predictable, commonplace vernacular. They take leaps into the unknown and occasionally come up spouting what sounds like rubbish, which is part of the film's extraordinary style and what separates it from a kind of fiction that aspires to do nothing more than reproduce actuality. Mr. Wasson is very fine in a long difficult role that, I assume, is the beginning of a major film career, but then there's not a shabby performance in the picture. Four Friends … is one of Mr. Penn's most deeply felt achievements, ranking alongside Bonnie and Clyde, Alice's Restaurant, and Little Big Man. For Mr. Tesich, it is another original work by one of our best young screenwriters."

"Our Danilo will maybe be a famous poet one day — and I definitely will be a famous dancer! And we're all going to do wonderful things! And if anyone disagrees they can leave. School's ending, kiddos, and it's out into this world with us all. We are poised and ready to fly."

"I swear to God, Mr. Lucas, when I hear music something happens to me and I either have to move, or scream my head off or something. Something's in my blood, sir, and I don't know what it is, but I know that if I can't dance I'd die."

"Somewhere in the middle of My Dinner With Andre, Andre Gregory wonders aloud if it's not possible that the 1960s were the last decade when we were all truly alive — that since then we've sunk into a bemused state of self-hypnosis, placated by consumer goods and given the illusion of excitement by television. Walking out of Four Friends, I had some of the same thoughts. This movie brings the almost unbelievable contradictions of that decade into sharp relief, not as nostalgia or as a re-creation of times past, but as a reliving of all of the agony and freedom of the weirdest ten years any of us is likely to witness. … The movie is ambitious. It wants to take us on a tour of some of the things that happened in the 1960s, and some of the ways four midwestern kids might have responded to them. It also wants to be a meditation on love, and on how love changes during the course of a decade. … The wonder is not that Four Friends covers so much ground, but that it makes many of its scenes so memorable that we learn more even about the supporting characters than we expect to. … this is a movie that remembers times past with such clarity that there are times it seems to be making it all up. Did we really say those things? Make those assumptions? Live on the edge of what seemed to be a society gone both free and mad at once? Some critics have said the people and events in this movie are not plausible. I don't know if they're denying the movie's truth, or arguing that from a 1980s point of view the '60s were just a bad dream. Or a good one."

"Come now, did you think you are the only one who can play this game?"

"After we conclude our business here, I shall endeavor to find the most creative of endings for the good doctor and his wife."

"[aiming a sniper rifle at Watson] What are you playing at? [sees a cannon being aimed back at him] ...That's not fair."

"Let's not waste anymore of each other's time...we both know how this ends."

"You see...hidden within the unconscious is an insatiable desire for conflict. So you're not fighting me...so much as you are the human condition. All I want is to own the bullets and the bandages. War, on an industrial scale, is inevitable. They'll do it themselves, within a few years. All I have to do...is wait."

"Bishop to Bishop eight, discovered check and incidentally, mate."

"His advantage: my injury. My advantage: his rage."

"[throttling Holmes] Did you kill my wife?! Did-you-just-kill-my-wife?!"

"[to Moriarty] Be careful what you fish for."

"[note to Watson] Come at once if convenient. If inconvenient, come all the same."

"If we can stop him, we shall prevent the collapse of Western civilization... No pressure."

"I'm on my honeymoon!"

"[dancing with Sim] Just follow my lead."

"[ to Dr. Hoffmen-Stall ] Perhaps you have heard of me. My name is Sherlock H... [bomb explodes; coughing] H... Holmes!"

"[referring to his disguise, a great false beard] It's so overt it's covert."

"[to Holmes, performing CPR on him] I know you can hear me, you selfish bastard!"

"[as Watson is getting ready to shoot] Make it count!"

"[in need of a distraction to get the crowd out of the auction house.] One million pounds! [Everyone gasps and looks at him, mortified; the tapestry behind him promptly bursts into flames] Oh, and, uh, by the way, fire!"

"[to Watson] Don't dance! You know what happens when you dance."

"Your clock... is ticking."

"Joey meets a series of masters, most of them on both sides men who respected horses. Yet war is no place for sentiment, and as an officer explains with brutal realism, a horse is a weapon and must either be used or destroyed."

"Spielberg ennobles Joey and provides an ending for the film that is joyous, uplifting, and depends on a surely unbelievable set of coincidences. I suppose it must be that way for us to even bear watching such a story. I am reminded of Schindler's List. Six million Jews were exterminated in the World War II, but in focusing on a few hundred who miraculously survived, Spielberg made his story bearable. Among the horses of World War I, it can only be said that Joey's good luck was extraordinary. The film is made with superb artistry. Spielberg is the master of an awesome canvas. Most people will enjoy it, as I did. But not included in the picture is the level of sheer hopeless tragedy that is everywhere just out frame. It is the same with life, and if you consider the big picture, all of us, men and beasts, have extraordinary good luck."

"The war is taking everything, from everyone."

"[Freeing Joey after Topthorn dies of exhaustion] Run! Run! [An officer tries to stop him] GO TO HELL!"

"It’s the restraint that makes War Horse remarkable. Spielberg shows you enough to understand that what you’re watching — machine guns, mustard gas, bodies stretching into the distance — was unprecedented. And amid the incomprehensible slaughter, it’s a horse that reminds these warriors of their humanity. … Spielberg has been ridiculed for shooting his actors from below against impossibly Spielbergian skies and a denouement that lays the love on copiously. But there’s nothing simpleminded about how he uses movie magic, as a spell to dispel nihilism, to save us from the worst of ourselves by summoning up the best."

"[Taking Joey and Topthorn] They will pull artillery until they die. Or the war is over. [Grandfather protests the war will never end] You have your answer, then."

"Though based partly on a children's novel, Steven Spielberg's "War Horse" is not entirely a children's movie. It does star a boy and a horse, and it has many moments of warmth, humor and reassuring corn. But "War Horse" is also a film about the human animal and its capacity for violence and cruelty. You can always depend on Spielberg to land on the side of optimism, of course, just as you know he'll put you through the wringer to get there. … The material sometimes feels oversugared, though it's also guaranteed to raise a lump in your throat."

"I promise that I'll look after him, and if possible, I'll return him to your care."