Director Michael Winterbottom’s sprawling, jagged film is happily, even willfully unreliable as history and it embraces the tug-of-war between factual events and the stories and legends that have around them.

| Apr 6, 2024

24 Hour Party People takes the same punk approach to storytelling as its subjects did to music, playfully throwing off the dull constraints that often make based-on-a-true-story movies feel like uninspired celluloid translations of a Wikipedia page.

| Nov 25, 2023

It may not be all true, necessarily, but it's super entertaining, and that's what matters in the end, right?

| Jan 18, 2020

Full Review | Original Score: B | Jan 3, 2013

Tony Wilson's and "24-Hour Party People's" tossed-off philosophy was that the worst of times, like the best, pass away - never truer than in the fickle music industry. A free-form view of a freefall where artifice and artistry tumbled head over heels.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Sep 25, 2010

Excellent movie about punk's origins; older teens only.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 26, 2010

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 6, 2005

Those wishing for a full-on, comprehensive look at the era will be disappointed, but Winterbottom, Coogan, and Boyce serve up a vivid and lively thumbnail sketch.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 7, 2005

When it comes to capturing music in a visual medium, 24 Hour Party People ranks right up there with Martin Scorsese's 1978 rock documentary, The Last Waltz.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 25, 2004

24 Hour Party People is a frenzied, metafilmic, postmodern splatter of a homage to a music movement . . . a jolting, raucous ride into the celluloid distance.'

Full Review | Dec 1, 2003

Those who can't tell their Johnny Rotten's from their Right Said Fred's will be entertained by Coogan's charmingly relaxed turn and Frank Cottrell Boyce's ardent script.

| Original Score: B | Jan 31, 2003

A light and playful look at the Manchester music scene which spans from the punk explosion to the dawn of acid house.

| Jan 31, 2003

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 23, 2002

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Dec 23, 2002

It is probably entertaining if you are at least remotely interested in, or knowledgeable about, punk music or the rave scene. If not, forget it.

| Original Score: C | Dec 22, 2002

From a pure structure standpoint, 24 Hour Party People is extremely interesting and original. Surprisingly slow moving, however.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Dec 18, 2002

This is Cult Movie Central -- and there's no livelier tour guide than Michael Winterbottom.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 8, 2002

Steve Coogan makes a likeable enough narrator, and director Michael Winterbottom uses enough cinematic tricks to keep things interesting. Still, for those not in the know, 24 Hour Party People can seem 24 hours long.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5 / 5 | Dec 4, 2002

Director Michael Winterbottom has pulled off an inspired act of self-referencing, post-modern filmmaking that does these people, their attitude, their home, their music, and their legacy proud.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Dec 4, 2002

Brilliantly realised and hilariously funny.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 4, 2002