Roger Ebert awarded the film three (out of four) stars and wrote, "The movie’s no masterpiece, but it’s an affecting story well told, it observes its teen-age characters with a fine insight, and it almost earns its tragic ending.

"[1] Lawrence Van Gelder of The New York Times stated that the film "is at once an alluring and fiercely disappointing movie that leaves one full of regret for what might have been," its chief flaw being that the characters were "types, observed keenly but unexplained, remote rather than real, remembered, but not revealed.

"[2] Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film two stars out of four and wrote that it "crudely imitates 'The Last Picture Show'," adding, "Worse than having an implausible story line, 'Buster and Billie' makes no attempt to justify it.

I can understand why Buster might leave his steady girl — she's a clothes-conscious drip — but the matchup with the emotionally troubled Billie is never justified, except as a vehicle for wringing our hearts.

"[4] Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times called it "an assemblage of ingredients previously identified as crowd-pleasers" with "little life of its own—almost nothing of that feeling, which for all its craft 'American Graffiti' certainly had, that its creators were looking back at someplace they'd been.

"[5] Gary Arnold of The Washington Post wrote that the film started out as "a pungent and authentic story," but once it turns dark "takes a rather precipitous header, going the way of gratuitously violent exploitation.

"[6] Leonard Maltin gave the film a *1/2 score, and said that it was a "blubbery account of high school romance in 1948 rural Georgia...[and that it] can't overcome cliched premise.