A Hard Day's Night

United Kingdom, 1964

Musical, Comedy, Music

Synopsis

It’s 1964 and four young lads from Liverpool are about to change the world. John, Paul, George, and Ringo play cheeky comic versions of themselves in a film that captured the astonishing moment when they officially became the singular, irreverent idols of their generation and changed music forever.

Our take

Beatlemaniacs rejoice! Playful, imaginative and outstandingly influential, Lester’s exhilarating docu-fiction marks a watershed in the relationship between music and cinema. It’s also pure bliss! Ringo brilliantly sums up the spirit of the film when asked if he is a mod or a rocker: “I’m a mocker.”

A Hard Day's Night Directed by Richard Lester

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Awards & Festivals

Academy Awards

1965 | 2 nominations including: Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen

BAFTA Awards

1965 | Nominee: Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Roles

Viennale

2000

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Cast & Crew

Articles from the Notebook

Critics reviews

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A Hard Day’s Night turned me on to the Beatles as it did for countless others, and the opening sequence goes a long way in establishing why. There’s an instant rush in watching hordes of British youths rapt in Beatlemania chasing their idols, while the film’s title track adds to the joyous fervor of their pursuit. Every time I’ve watched this sequence I immediately get swept away by its momentum…

Kevin B. Lee

February 28, 2015

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The screaming fans . . . are the movie’s visible, beating heart — the literal manifestation of the awe and adoration that Richard Lester and his cinematographer Gilbert Taylor lavish on the Beatles. What makes A Hard Day’s Night more than an exhilarating, cinematically alive comedy, what makes it a profound statement of belief in the transcendent possibility of art, is looking at those screaming girls and thinking, "That’s me.

Charles Taylor

August 09, 2014

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United Artists hired him on the basis of his influential short “The Running, Jumping and Standing Still Film,” the intimate and gracefully surreal style of which will be recognizable to anyone who’s seen Lester’s Beatles pictures. . . . This was a scripted motion picture, but it was often scripted on the fly. Luckily for Lester the Beatles were witty with or without a script and had reserves of natural laid-back charisma.

Matt Zoller Seitz

July 11, 2014

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