A Hard Day's Night (1964)
Tomatometer
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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.
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
Reviews for A Hard Day's Night
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For fans this is a chance to enjoy The Beatles' legendary music and charisma with unprecedented clarity. Full Review |
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The mop-tops are likeably relaxed, with Lennon offering a few welcome moments of his dry, acerbic wit. Full Review |
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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 |
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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 |
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Great band, great music, great film. Not only that, it remains a fascinating portrait of Britain on the cusp of change. Full Review |
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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 |
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The film moves with such joy, humor and fluidity that you can't help getting swept up in the frenzied action. Full Review |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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The cinema has had many landmarks, but few have been as entertaining. Full Review |
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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 |
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The kind of timeless artifact that, decades after its making, still hits the senses like a burst of fresh air. Full Review |
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Everything about this movie is a smile. Full Review |
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The result still seems fresh and different decades later. Full Review |
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...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 |
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Captures the Beatles when they still looked like they were having fun, back before drugs and psychedelia and Yoko Ono took effect. Full Review |
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A breezy slice of silliness that pretty much has the Beatles playing themselves. Full Review |
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A love letter to innocence and euphoria and the sheer lifting joy of great pop music. Full Review |
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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