"Ferrara's best picture by far, it's only half a movie, but what a half! Christopher Walken is wild and wiggly as a Big City crime boss with a jones for charities. He commands a black gang, done up like Little Richard's model, Esquerita. I wouldn't have been surprised if he'd started singing 'Tutti Frutti'. Half way through there's an unconvincing cardboard shootout in Chinatown. Leave then." (Barry Gifford) "King of New York (is) a violent parable of social unrest and thwarted redemption...What takes (it) out of the traditional gangster melodrama category is Ferrara's fabulist approach...There is a photo-realist quality to what is going on here, but it's half concealed by a dreamlike sensibility-the result is something that gets under a viewer's skin even while one seems to be floating in an underwater-like nightmare." (Ed Kelleher, Film Journal)