“Mr. Hawks has staged his flying sequences brilliantly. […] He has made proper use of the amiable performing talents of Mr. Grant, Miss Arthur, Thomas Mitchell, Mr. Barthelmess, Sig Rumann and the rest. But when you add it all up, Only Angels Have Wings comes to an overly familiar total. It’s a fairly good melodrama, nothing more.”Frank S. Nugent: Howard Hawks’s ‘Only Angels Have Wings’ Reaches Music Hall. In: The New York Times, 12. Mai 1939.
“In Only Angels Have Wings, Howard Hawks had a story to tell and he has done it inspiringly well. […] Jean Arthur […] is excellent for the assignment. […] The Grant-Arthur cynicism and unyielding romantics are kept at a high standard.” Vgl. Only Angels Have Wings. In: Variety, 1939.
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“This masterwork embodies a fantastic range of opposite states of mind and being: stoicism/grief, pragmatism/mysticism, stasis/change.” Zach Campbell: Only Angels Have Wings. (Memento vom 16. Mai 2010 im Internet Archive) In: Slant Magazine, 2. Oktober 2003.
“Only Angels Have Wings is a treasure trove of terse, pithy dialogue. […] Though sometimes laid low by obvious miniatures, the aerial scenes in Only Angels Have Wings are by and large first-rate.”Hal Erickson: Only Angels Have Wings (Memento vom 18. November 2021 im Internet Archive) bei AllMovie (englisch).
