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A Hard Day's Night

A Hard Day's Night

Comedy · Music · 1964

Capturing John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr in their electrifying element, 'A Hard Day's Night' is a wildly irreverent journey through this pastiche of a day in the life of The Beatles during 1964. The band have to use all their guile and wit to avoid the pursuing fans and press to reach their scheduled television performance, in spite of Paul's troublemaking grandfather and Ringo's arrest.

Movie details

A Hard Day's Night

“The Beatles, starring in their first full-length, hilarious, action-packed film!”

1964 Comedy · Music 1h 28m

Critical arithmetic

The consensus, allegedly.

IMDb

7.5 / 10

50K votes

Rotten Tomatoes

98 %

Tomatometer

Metacritic

96 / 100

Metascore

TMDB

7.3 / 10

Community rating

External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.

Capturing John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr in their electrifying element, 'A Hard Day's Night' is a wildly irreverent journey through this pastiche of a day in the life of The Beatles during 1964. The band have to use all their guile and wit to avoid the pursuing fans and press to reach their scheduled television performance, in spite of Paul's troublemaking grandfather and Ringo's arrest.

CriticWise case file

What this film says about your taste.

Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.

The archetype split

Who fights over A Hard Day's Night?

The split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.

Taste neighbourhood

Nearby on the taste map.

TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.

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Where it lives

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Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

Richard Lester

Written by

Alun Owen

John Lennon

John Lennon

John

Paul McCartney

Paul McCartney

Paul

George Harrison

George Harrison

George

Ringo Starr

Ringo Starr

Ringo

Wilfrid Brambell

Wilfrid Brambell

Grandfather

Norman Rossington

Norman Rossington

Norm

John Junkin

John Junkin

Shake

Court is in session

Put A Hard Day's Night on trial.

Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.

The defence The Sentimental Softie

“Sincerity is not manipulation.”

The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.

The prosecution The Cool Ironist

“The strings are showing.”

Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.