"Carol Reed’s black-and-white tale of postwar Vienna is a perfect storm of dialogue, music, photography, and production design. Although the most celebrated moment is the reveal of Welles and that sly smile, for me the moment that makes the film is the final shot when Alida Valli just walks right by Joseph Cotten. Damn."

"“In what ca-TEG-ory would you put Mr. James Joyce?” Or, for that matter, this film? Among other things, I’d call it the best gangster picture ever made. Orson Welles got the most mileage from it (including a radio spin-off that recast the swinish Harry Lime as a good-natured rogue), a renown I find difficult to fathom, given the superb ensemble work by Joseph Cotten, Trevor Howard, Alida Valli, Bernard Lee, Wilfred Hyde-White, and a doctor who pronounces his name VINK-el. Carol Reed’s direction makes the most of every incident, and the whole package is tied up with one of the best musical scores ever."

"The most thoroughly satisfying and perhaps only perfect film ever made. I forget which director said they should close all the film schools and just show the students The Third Man thirty times. It bears at least a dozen reseeings, with something new and fine discovered each time. And to think that Benzedrine-riddled David O. Selznick tried to transform the fabulous final moments into a happy ending; but Carol Reed refused, standing up for all of us. This year I found and stood in the dark Vienna doorway where Orson Welles stood when the kitty licked his shoe . . . and had my picture taken. I can find but one tiny glitch: Harry Lime’s address. It’s spoken by Joseph Cotten as “fünfzehn Josefsplatz,” but, moments later, the building with the caryatids prominently bears the number fünf. Okay, so no movie’s perfect."