“Rebel Without a Cause’s uniqueness rests more in its cinematic syle and [James] Dean’s performance than in its script. [Nicholas] Ray uses a variety of camera angles, a dislocated mise-en-sc’ne, tight close-ups, point-of-view shots, intense color, and rapid, turbulent cutting to successfully project the tension, anger, and sense of almost metaphysical alientation that permeates the film. There are also luminous, metaphoric sequences: the “chicken run,” with a pinkish-white specter, Judy, signalling the beginning of the race in the center of a pitch-black runway lit by car headlights—an initiation rite or journey confronting death; and the scene shot in the vastness of the planetarium (which is located on a precipice) with its apocalyptic, end-of-the-world images of the galaxy exploding as the three alientated kids sit alone in the dark watching—all providing a powerful metaphor for the insecurity and isolation of adolescence.”

—Leonard Quart and Albert Auster, from American Film and Society Since 1945, 1991.