--- title: Rebel Without a Cause: 1955 Review of the James Dean Movie description: The film was released on Oct. 27, 1955 canonical: https://time.com/4079963/review-rebel-without-a-cause/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-10-27T12:00:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T11:56:16.425Z article:section: History og:title: Read TIME's Original Review of 'Rebel Without a Cause' og:description: The film was released on Oct. 27, 1955 og:url: https://time.com/4079963/review-rebel-without-a-cause/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt95d8aa8c871389c3/69886901196cf467f003897f/dean.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Rebel Without A Cause og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Read TIME's Original Review of 'Rebel Without a Cause' twitter:description: The film was released on Oct. 27, 1955 twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt95d8aa8c871389c3/69886901196cf467f003897f/dean.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Read TIME's Original Review of _Rebel Without a Cause_ > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription.  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Oct 27, 2015 12:00 PM UTC  A poster for Nicholas Ray's 1955 drama 'Rebel Without a Cause' starring James Dean. A poster for Nicholas Ray's 1955 drama 'Rebel Without a Cause' starring James Dean. Movie Poster Image Art / Getty Images  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Oct 27, 2015 12:00 PM UTC When _Rebel Without a Cause_ was released 60 years ago, it was almost exactly a month after James Dean’s [dramatic and tragic death](http://time.com/4038581/james-dean-photos-anniversary/) shook Hollywood—and [solidified the late actor’s celebrity](http://time.com/3425592/james-dean/). The death of its star gave the film an aura of consequence, but the drama was already grounded in reality, TIME’s critic noted shortly after its release. It was “a reasonably serious attempt, within the limits of commercial melodrama, to show that juvenile delinquency is not just a local outbreak of tenement terror but a general infection of modern U.S. society.” The plot was fairly straightforward—in a pleasant suburb, a teenager reacts to the soullessness of his parents by tempting death—but, the review continued, it had a point to make, and a star worthy of making it: --- > “” --- But Dean wasn’t the only thing that lent the movie heft. It got its title from a 1944 book by Robert Mitchell Lindner, which presented the real criminal psychology case of a 21-year-old man serving time for the actions he undertook as,[ in TIME’s words,](http://time.com/vault/issue/1944-08-28/page/56/) “a grownup infant with no self-restraint and a craving for instant satisfactions.” **_Read the full review, here in the TIME Vault:_** [The New Pictures](http://time.com/vault/issue/1955-11-28/page/104/) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4079963/review-rebel-without-a-cause/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4079963/review-rebel-without-a-cause/"},"headline":"Read TIME's Original Review of Rebel Without a Cause","datePublished":"2015-10-27T12:00:00.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T11:56:16.425Z","description":"The film was released on Oct. 27, 1955","url":"https://time.com/4079963/review-rebel-without-a-cause/","keywords":["movies"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt95d8aa8c871389c3/69886901196cf467f003897f/dean.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt95d8aa8c871389c3/69886901196cf467f003897f/dean.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Rebel Without A Cause","caption":"Rebel Without A Cause","creditText":"Movie Poster Image Art / Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/movies/","name":"movies"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4079963/review-rebel-without-a-cause/","name":"Read TIME's Original Review of Rebel Without a Cause"}}]}] ```