Metacritic reviews

The film has always been a favorite of those who enjoy visual and dramatic flamboyance.

Brilliant.

A masterclass in tension, visual panache and B-movie excess.

Astonishing cinematography and brilliantly played, this certainly one of the most influential crime movies in history.

Touch of Evil proceeds with one of the most celebrated long-takes in screen history. The sequence is a marvel of technical virtuosity and staged action. From the very start, Orson Welles’s grubby and sweaty noir classic has us in its grip with a gloriously devised piece of showmanship emblematic of the director’s audaciously talented spirit.

Eternal damnation to the wretch at Universal who printed the opening titles over the most brilliant establishing shot in film history—a shot that establishes not only place and main characters in its continuous movement over several city blocks, but also the film's theme (crossing boundaries), spatial metaphors, and peculiar bolero rhythm.

Welles manages to wring engaging performances out of all of his actors, but what's most impressive about the film is the way in which the director makes use of every corner of the screen with deliberate precision.

This nightmarish descent into dark entertainment has so much weirdness going on it's amazing.

Mr. Welles' is an obvious but brilliant bag of tricks. Using a superlative camera (manned by Russell Metty) like a black-snake whip, he lashes the action right into the spectator's eye. [22 May 1958, p.25]

Touch of Evil smacks of brilliance but ultimately flounders in it.