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Movies / On DVD / A Hard Day's Night
A Hard Day's Night

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A Hard Day's Night (1964)

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Reviews Counted:71

Fresh:71

Rotten:0

Average Rating:8.2/10

Consensus: A Hard Day's Night, despite its age, is still a delight to watch and has proven itself to be a rock-and-roll movie classic.

Runtime: 1 hr 50 mins

Genre: Television

Synopsis: A HARD DAY'S NIGHT, nominated for two Academy Awards and featuring the Beatles in their feature film debut, is one of the greatest rock-and-roll comedy adventures ever. The film has a fully... A HARD DAY'S NIGHT, nominated for two Academy Awards and featuring the Beatles in their feature film debut, is one of the greatest rock-and-roll comedy adventures ever. The film has a fully restored negative and digitally restored soundtrack.

The year is 1964 and four young lads from Liverpool are about to change the world – if only the madcap world will let them out of their hotel room. Richard Lester's boldly contemporary rock n' roll comedy unleashes the fledgling Beatles into a maelstrom of screaming fans, paranoid producers, rabid press and troublesome family members, and reveals the secret of their survival and success: an insatiable lust for mischief and a life-affirming addiction to joy.

The film takes on the just-left-of-reality style of a mock-documentary, following "a day in the life" of John, Paul, George and Ringo as fame takes them by storm. On their way from Liverpool to a London television stage, they must evade a teenage mob, outwit a press conference, answer fan mail and give one of their trademark, faint-inducing performances. But even this manic schedule gets interrupted as Paul has to oversee the shenanigans of his irrepressible grandfather (WILFRID BRAMBELL), a "real mixer" whose love of dissension threatens to break the band apart. Soon John and grandfather are butting heads, George is considering a modeling career and Ringo goes missing in the streets of London.

Throughout it all, witty one-liners, classic pop songs and world-class charm build up to happy-go-lucky moments of liberation that capture the sheer exuberance, innocence and rock n’ roll spirit of four young men trying to make their own rules in a world determined to confine them. [More]

Starring: Beatles, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison

Starring: Beatles, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Wilfred Brambell, Norman Rossington, Victor Spinetti, John Junkin, Anna Quayle, Kenneth Haigh, Richard Vernon, Eddie Malin

Director: Richard Lester

Director: Richard Lester
Screenwriter: Alun Owen
Producer: Walter Shenson
Studio: Miramax Films

[See More Credits]

Reviews for A Hard Day's Night

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1 - 20 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
Text View | 1 2 3 4 >> >|
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For fans this is a chance to enjoy The Beatles' legendary music and charisma with unprecedented clarity.

Full Review Source: Channel 4 Film | comment Comment
04/27/09
Channel 4 Film
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

The mop-tops are likeably relaxed, with Lennon offering a few welcome moments of his dry, acerbic wit.

Full Review Source: Time Out | comment Comment
06/24/06
Geoff Andrew
Geoff Andrew
Time Out
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

One of the most influential films of the past 40 years gets the spit and polish for a reissue -- and it still hasn't aged at all.

Full Review Source: Shadows on the Wall | comment Comment
12/10/01
Rich Cline
Rich Cline
Shadows on the Wall

Richard Lester's innovative film, the Beatles' debut feature, is a timewarp memento of that brief 1963-4 phase in their history known as Beatlemania.

Full Review Source: BBC | comment Comment
04/17/01
George Perry
George Perry
BBC
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Great band, great music, great film. Not only that, it remains a fascinating portrait of Britain on the cusp of change.

Full Review Source: Empire Magazine | comment Comment
04/17/01
Bob McCabe
Bob McCabe
Empire Magazine
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Director Richard Lester and writer Alun Owen (who has never gotten the credit he deserves) treat us to a fanciful day in the life of the Beatles, filmed in 1964 at (they thought) the peak of the Fab Four’s popularity.

Full Review Source: Sacramento News & Review | comment Comment
08/07/08
Jim Lane
Jim Lane
Sacramento News & Review

The film moves with such joy, humor and fluidity that you can't help getting swept up in the frenzied action.

Full Review Source: KPBS.org | comment 1 Comment
02/03/08
Beth Accomando
Beth Accomando
KPBS.org

American-born director Richard Lester serves up a helping of what, on this side of the pond, we came to think of as kicky, mod British filmmaking.

Full Review Source: Chicago Reader | comment Comment
09/10/07
Don Druker
Don Druker
Chicago Reader

It's by no stretch of the imagination a good film, but it gets over as a curio and a landmark in modern Western culture.

Full Review Source: Ozus' World Movie Reviews | comment Comment
08/29/05
Dennis Schwartz
Dennis Schwartz
Ozus' World Movie Reviews

See it for no other reason than it's all too rare you can spend 87 minutes smiling and feeling positive about life.

Full Review Source: Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC) | comment Comment
03/29/04
Ken Hanke
Ken Hanke
Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC)

That Lester and the Beatles got away with the irreverent and superb Hard Day's Night is, by today's standards, a miracle.

Full Review Source: About.com | comment Comment
10/15/03
Jurgen Fauth
Jurgen Fauth
About.com

The cinema has had many landmarks, but few have been as entertaining.

Full Review Source: Northwest Herald (Crystal Lake, IL) | comment Comment
06/19/03
Jeffrey Westhoff
Jeffrey Westhoff
Northwest Herald (Crystal Lake, IL)

It's a fine conglomeration of madcap clowning in the old Marx Brothers' style, and it is done with such a dazzling use of camera that it tickles the intellect and electrifies the nerves.

Full Review Source: New York Times | comment Comment
05/20/03
Bosley Crowther
Bosley Crowther
New York Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

The kind of timeless artifact that, decades after its making, still hits the senses like a burst of fresh air.

Full Review Source: Austin Chronicle | comment Comment
03/10/03
Marjorie Baumgarten
Marjorie Baumgarten
Austin Chronicle

Everything about this movie is a smile.

Full Review Source: Film Threat | comment Comment
12/08/02
Brad Laidman
Brad Laidman
Film Threat

The result still seems fresh and different decades later.

Full Review Source: Apollo Guide | comment Comment
11/30/02
Mike Gower
Mike Gower
Apollo Guide

...if you don’t like the Beatles, you don’t like rock ’n’ roll. And if you don’t like A Hard Day’s Night, you don’t like movies.

Full Review Source: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette | comment 2 Comments
10/30/02
Philip Martin
Philip Martin
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Captures the Beatles when they still looked like they were having fun, back before drugs and psychedelia and Yoko Ono took effect.

Full Review Source: Aisle Seat | comment Comment
10/30/02
Mike McGranaghan
Mike McGranaghan
Aisle Seat

A breezy slice of silliness that pretty much has the Beatles playing themselves.

Full Review Source: Montreal Film Journal | comment Comment
10/29/02
Kevin N. Laforest
Kevin N. Laforest
Montreal Film Journal

A love letter to innocence and euphoria and the sheer lifting joy of great pop music.

Full Review Source: Cincinnati Enquirer | comment Comment
10/15/02
Margaret A. McGurk
Margaret A. McGurk
Cincinnati Enquirer
 
 
1 - 20 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
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Latest News for A Hard Day's Night

September 12, 2007: Total Recall: Across the Universe And The Beatles On Film
This week, Across the Universe hits theaters. Julie Taymor's film, starring Evan Rachel Wood and Jim Sturgess as a young couple in the midst of the heady, chaotic 1960s,... More...

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