Kathy Fennessy Seattle Film Blog Dec 14, 2025 3.5/4

Sensitive, but never sentimental, it's the work of a born filmmaker.

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Nicholas Deutsch Gay Community News (Boston) Aug 22, 2022

Mala Noche is both funny and melancholy. All in all, an accomplished first feature film.

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Bernard Welt Washington Blade May 24, 2022

This moody, black-and-white production is a classic example of what one used to call the “art film”: confusing in places, and often tedious and sophomoric, but with flashes of originality and beauty.

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David Lamble Bay Area Reporter May 26, 2020

...you may have wondered where Gus Van Sant found his groove. He tapped into the Beats, the film underground and Warhol to spin stories of still-pretty junkies, narcoleptic rent-boys and too-cool-for-school South Boston janitors...

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Karl Soehnlein OutWeek May 20, 2020

Though definitely not PC, Mala Noche is oddly sexually liberting.

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Sean Axmaker Stream on Demand Oct 6, 2017

Mala Noche is a study in infatuation and rejection, euphoria and frustration, and Van Sant observes their dance of desire and dismissal and wary coexistence without judgment.

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Dennis Schwartz Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews Jul 23, 2012 B+

About open homosexual lust.

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David Fear Time Out Nov 17, 2011 4/5

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Paul Schrodt House Next Door Mar 4, 2011

White and other critics have accused the director of "race and class indifference," but Van Sant's approach has always been personal and deeply confessional, if not outwardly political.

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Phil Hall Film Threat Feb 6, 2008 1.5/5

Too artsy for its own good.

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Rob Humanick Slant Magazine Nov 5, 2007 4/4

Gritty, dirty, lyrical, altogether sensual.

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Marc Mohan Oregonian Sep 7, 2007 A-

It serves as Milepost 1 on Van Sant's highway to success.

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Rene Rodriguez Miami Herald Sep 1, 2007 3/4

Even at the start of his career, Van Sant has always been an artist who has savored the bittersweet pleasure of sadness and pain.

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Wesley Morris Boston Globe Jun 15, 2007 3/4

Of all Van Sant's movies, Mala Noche is the rawest, most personal, and least freighted. It's the one fans should see for the simplest inkling into Van Sant's complex artistic roots.

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Melissa Anderson Time Out Jun 2, 2007 4/6

Van Sant would later refine some of the blunter stylistic turns into a wondrous visual poetry; his ability to capture the addictive pull of desire, however, remains compelling even in its crudest state.

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Nathan Lee Village Voice May 29, 2007

Underseen but not exactly neglected, Mala Noche isn't in the same league as the recent smash IFC revival of Killer of Sheep. But this small, sensitive, wondrously likable debut occupies a nearby nook in the DIY pantheon.

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Mark Salisbury Time Out Jun 24, 2006

Offbeat, offhand, and at times off-the-wall.

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Emanuel Levy EmanuelLevy.Com May 2, 2006 B+

Shot on a cutrate stock with meager budget, Van Sant's debut, about a doomed romance between a store clerk and a sMexican immigrant, shows an iconoclast with nihilistic sensibility and fresh POV.

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Vincent Canby New York Times Aug 30, 2004 4/5

A very well-made movie, terse and to the point, nicely photographed by John Campbell and written and directed by Mr. Van Sant with sardonic humor.

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