The movie takes audiences from loud, sexy, music videos to the quietness of two people falling in love over a box of old song lyrics, all without missing a beat.

| Mar 31, 2020

It's not enough to compel cynics like myself, but it will likely touch the heart of romantics everywhere.

| Original Score: C+ | Sep 1, 2017

You'll walk away from this film lighthearted and wanting to hold someone's hand.

| Mar 21, 2017

In every scene here, Prince-Bythewood calmly and sensitively melts our resistance to the outlandish, outsized quality of her plot and stays true to the message she wants to deliver without ever getting pious or preachy.

| Jan 5, 2015

Given its pedigree, its roster of talent, Beyond the Lights is disappointing.

| Jan 5, 2015

Has the elements of a classic backstage story, but they don't quite crystallize into an integral drama.

| Dec 1, 2014

After an onslaught of overly moralistic, melodramatic love stories from the likes of Nicholas Sparks and Tyler Perry, the relative restraint of Beyond the Lights is practically a godsend.

| Nov 20, 2014

It's a movie about a rising superstar that features two of them-Mbatha-Raw and Parker, both enormously appealing, impossibly attractive performers with big futures ahead of them.

| Nov 14, 2014

"Beyond the Lights" is a faint shadow of 1992's "The Bodyguard," without the star power of Whitney Houston or Kevin Costner.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Nov 14, 2014

Director Prince-Bythewood, who made the move from television to the big-screen in 2000 with the terrific romance Love and Basketball has a way with actors.

Full Review | Nov 14, 2014

Unfortunately for a film about the importance of keeping it real, the drama here is largely formulaic, and the finish line crosses into the realm of artistic fantasy.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 14, 2014

How bracing today to have a film that's at once fun, patient, romantic, and real.

| Nov 14, 2014

Prince-Bythewood is stingingly astute at what fame does to objectify women. And Gugu Mbatha-Raw, so good this year in Belle, is a shining new star.

| Original Score: 3/3 | Nov 14, 2014

Beyond the Lights is hardly a masterpiece by any stretch - this is big, dumb Hollywood. But good luck finding a single sequence devoid of pleasures.

| Nov 14, 2014

It strikes a risky, though successful balancing act between being immensely entertaining as a musical feature and making dramatic, important statements about depression, self-worth and female empowerment.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Nov 14, 2014

A formulaic, often melodramatic crowd-pleaser with thoughts on celebrity-driven culture and the ravenous appetite of fans, followers and the media.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Nov 14, 2014

"Beyond the Lights" doesn't have much insight into the world of modern celebrity, but as a romance, its actors make it sing.

| Original Score: B | Nov 14, 2014

Along the way, Mbatha-Raw looks, sounds and moves like an A-lister. If "Belle" put the actress on Hollywood's radar, "Beyond the Lights" heralds her superstardom.

| Nov 14, 2014

Glamorous but never soapy, with subtle, moving performances by Mbatha Raw and Parker, and a script that respects the characters, with thoughtful details and easy humor.

| Original Score: B+ | Nov 13, 2014

While melodramatic in the vein of A Star Is Born, Beyond the Lights is also a wise and open-hearted look at the price of fame upon personal identity.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 13, 2014