“One of the many remarkable things about Charlie Chaplin is that his films continue to hold up, to attract and delight audiences. I go to a lot of movies, and I can’t remember the last time I heard a paying audience actually applaud at the end of a film. But this one did. And the talk afterward in the aisles, the lobby and in line at the parking garage was genuinely excited; maybe a lot of these people hadn’t seen much Chaplin before, or were simply very happy to find that the passage of time has not diminished the man’s special genius.”
– Roger Ebert
“There’s an edge to The Circus that suggests a man gazing deep into the void, laughing at the darkness and urging us to do the same.” – Keith Uhlich, Time Out
