All Critics (74)
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Top Critics (22)
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Fresh (78)
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Rotten (0)
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DVD (23)
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.
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.
Not only has this film not dated, it may even look fresher than it did in 1964; the zigzag cutting and camera moves, the jaunty ironies and pop-celebrity playfulness, are all standard issue now on MTV and its offspring.
To watch the final concert segment is to look back decades and realize, as you do seeing vintage footage of Duke Ellington or Frank Sinatra or John Coltrane, that it's never really gotten any better.
Still feels brand spanking new, and way cool.
Younger fans can see what Beatlemania was really all about.
Richard Lester's inventive, humorous mockumentary of the Beatles had a huge impact, forever changing the definition and limits of the musical movie genre.
Beatles classic as fabulous as the Fab Four.
The best British film of the 1960s.
For fans this is a chance to enjoy The Beatles' legendary music and charisma with unprecedented clarity.
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.
The film moves with such joy, humor and fluidity that you can't help getting swept up in the frenzied action.
The mop-tops are likeably relaxed, with Lennon offering a few welcome moments of his dry, acerbic wit.
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.
See it for no other reason than it's all too rare you can spend 87 minutes smiling and feeling positive about life.
That Lester and the Beatles got away with the irreverent and superb Hard Day's Night is, by today's standards, a miracle.
The cinema has had many landmarks, but few have been as entertaining.
The kind of timeless artifact that, decades after its making, still hits the senses like a burst of fresh air.
Everything about this movie is a smile.
The result still seems fresh and different decades later.
...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.
Captures the Beatles when they still looked like they were having fun, back before drugs and psychedelia and Yoko Ono took effect.
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