Pauline Kael hailed this film for the performances of Sean Connery and Audrey Hepburn as the aging Robin Hood and Maid Marian: "For Connery...it's a change of soul-an openhearted acceptance of the human potential for courage and bravery.... The years have added depth to (Hepburn's) delicacy.... The two of them are so wittily matched, and their dark-brown eyes so full of life, that they achieve an elemental splendor...." The Village Voice called Robin and Marian "a beautifully balanced work of art in which the pathos of middle age never becomes maudlin or self-pitying, but soars like an arrow into the infinite.... Nicol Williamson, Robert Shaw, Richard Harris...are nothing short of sensational in support. Richard Lester's direction of James Goldman's script preserves the romanticism of the subject without tempering the rueful humor.... Al ye Third Avenue snobs, get thee hence to ye olde Radio City Music Hall for the most affecting emotional experience in recent years...."