''Bless Their Little Hearts'' is a 1984 American

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super ...

produced and directed by Billy Woodberry and starring Nate Hardman. It was shot and written by Charles Burnett. The film had a limited theatrical release: it played for a week at the Royal in West Los Angeles and also at the Film Forum in New York. In 2013, the film was selected by the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...

for preservation in the United States

National Film Registry The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation, each selected for its historical, cultural and aesthetic contributions since the NFPB’s inception ...

for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". In 2019, it was released on Home Video in a 2K restoration by Milestone Films.

Plot summary

Cast

* Nate Hardman as Charlie Banks * Kaycee Moore as Andais Banks * Angela Burnett as Banks Child * Ronald Burnett as Banks Child * Kimberly Burnett as Banks Child * Langston Woodberry as mistress' son

Critical response

Review aggregator website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

gives the film an approval rating of 100% based on reviews from 18 critics. At the time of its release,

Vincent Canby Vincent Canby (July 27, 1924 – October 15, 2000) was an American film and theatre critic who served as the chief film critic for ''The New York Times'' from 1969 until the early 1990s, then its chief theatre critic from 1994 until his death in ...

of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' concluded his review with "

he film He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...

is so understated that at times it seems diffident, as if it were too shy to display its fury in more robust terms. This, however, is the style of the film that Mr. Woodberry, Mr. Burnett and their splendid cast, headed by Mr. Hardman and Miss Moore, have chosen to make, and it works beautifully."

References

External links

* * * * *
''Bless Their Little Hearts'' at UCLA Film & Television Archive ("L.A. Rebellion")
* Interview: Billy Woodberry on Bless Their Little Hearts by Steve Macfarlane and Madeline Coleman in Filmmaker Magazine, May 25, 201

{{Charles Burnett 1984 films 1984 drama films 1980s English-language films American black-and-white films American drama films United States National Film Registry films 1980s American films English-language drama films