"Two-Lane Blacktop is a far from perfect film (those metaphors keep blocking the road), but it has been directed, acted, photographed and scored (underscored, happily) with the restraint and control of an aware, mature filmmaker."
- Vincent Canby, New York Times

"The road itself has a real identity in Two-Lane Blacktop, as if it were a place to live and not just a way to move. There may be homes and gardens hidden behind those interstate terraces, but for the four people in this movie -- the road, as the saying goes, is home... The movie is intended, I suppose, to be a metaphor. But unless I missed the point, it doesn't have much of anything new to tell us. Sophomores in literary criticism could probably decode it as a metaphor involving the kinds of characters we meet, and our lack of communication with them, and yet our fundamental dependency on them, during life's journey -- but so what? Hardly anyone needs to be told that."
- Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun Times

"The strong and compelling plot fibre is supplied by the writing, direction and performing of Warren Oates' role... Much of the story's import is on Oates' back, and he carries it like a champion in an outstanding performance."
- Variety

"Two-Lane Blacktop manages to speak compellingly of contemporary alienation without ever tumbling into the visual clichés of sex, drugs, and violence."
- Roland Gelatt, The Saturday Evening Post

"... a unique, thematically interesting film that has deservedly become a cult favorite. Film bogs down toward the end, but there's a literally mind-blowing ending."
- Danny Peary, Guide for the Film Fanatic

"The quintessential road movie..."
- J. Hoberman, The Village Voice

"Hellman makes extraordinary use of his camera, with mesmerizing down shots of the road markings flashing by, and experimental elements like the melting celluloid at the end."
- The Rough Guide to Cult Movies

"Oates' performance is about as good as you'll ever see and should have had the Oscar. Quintessential movie of its time..."
- Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide

"Two-Lane Blacktop is deliberately slow – dull for those who don't fall for its hypnotic allure, fascinating for those who do. It's less a road trip than a road study, as Hellman contemplates the ordinariness and emptiness of his characters' motor-obsessed lives. He gives us a plain, unadorned world that speaks to the quiet dissatisfaction and endless yearning in all of us."
- Joel Wicklund, Centerstage

"There's not another character like Oates' in all American cinema."
- Kent Jones, The Cylinders Were Whispering My Name: The Films of Monte Hellman

"If Jean Paul Sartre had directed a drive-in movie, he might have crafted Monte Hellman's existential, car noir Two-Lane Blacktop... A masterpiece."
- Kim Morgan, Sunset Gun