Farah Cheded A Good Movie To Watch Aug 12, 2023 79/100

For viewers, the radical Slacker generously provides a singular experience, one in which every possible idle curiosity that might occur to us about all the people we see on screen is satisfied.

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Brett Doze InSession Film May 2, 2023 B+

Slacker is certainly not the only, nor the most influential of low-budget independent filmmaking from the 1990s. But it is a model example of a feature depicting traits that came to define a filmmaker’s career...

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Kim Newman Empire Magazine Mar 14, 2021 4/5

This unconventional film will offend anyone looking for a plot, but Linklater's smart observations speak volumes.

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Jeffrey M. Anderson Common Sense Media Mar 14, 2021 4/5

Each new character lasts only a few minutes, but the bigger picture is one of the most memorable movies about young people trying to find themselves.

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Kenneth Turan Los Angeles Times Mar 14, 2021

When the way characters are described in the credits ("Dostoevsky wanna-be," "Having a breakthrough day") is more involving than the characters themselves, you know you're in for a long evening.

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Yasser Medina Cinefilia Aug 8, 2020 5/10

Although its structure seems novel to me from a formal point of view, I am not captivated by the lives of those characters that it presents in a simple day in Austin, Texas. [Full review in Spanish]

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Richard Brody The New Yorker Mar 30, 2020

The film presents the teeming weirdness of daily life in Austin as a swarm of individual alternatives, each spinning wildly out of control and crashing into one another's active fantasies to unleash vast creative energy.

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Lisa Nesselson France24 Feb 12, 2020

It holds up, a time capsule of laid-back denizens of Austin, TX that harkens back to the first stirrings of the independent film movement. It's also very funny.

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Lisa Laman The Spool Jan 18, 2020

Making sure those differences between its countless characters are both heavily discernible, and endlessly interesting, is what allows the individuals of Slacker to come alive as people.

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Derek Malcolm Guardian Mar 20, 2018

On the whole, this is a fascinating example of apparently fly-on-the-wall film-making, made all the more intriguing when you discover it was all planned like a military exercise.

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Josh Larsen LarsenOnFilm Mar 9, 2015 2.5/4

Pretension is kept at bay by the fact that whenever someone is holding court, the others in the scene barely seem to be listening.

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Eric Melin Scene-Stealers.com Oct 18, 2013 2.5/4

Linklater is very aware that his film doesn't have a linear narrative and the movie is structured with that knowledge, as well as for a variety in tone and theme.

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Cole Smithey ColeSmithey.com Mar 26, 2012 A

[VIDEO ESSAY] "Slacker" is a hallmark of American independent cinema because it is so thoroughly original in its concepts and execution.

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Owen Gleiberman Entertainment Weekly Sep 7, 2011 A-

Slacker has a marvelously low-key observational cool.

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Dennis Schwartz Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews Mar 9, 2009 B

The indie film has a fresh feel.

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Nigel Floyd Time Out Jun 24, 2006

At times, it's like watching someone else's home movies, but there's something oddly compelling about such studied eccentricity.

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Frank Swietek One Guy's Opinion Nov 10, 2005 4/5

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Rebecca Murray About.com Aug 31, 2005 4/5

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Emanuel Levy EmanuelLevy.Com Jun 27, 2005 A-

A charming ensemble piece, that may be the ultimate campus comedy, about media-fixated, affectless youngsters who became spokepersons for Generation X

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Nick Schager Lessons of Darkness May 4, 2005 C-

An exercise in meandering self-importance.

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