There are many different Bob Dylans in voice and image adding to his mystique, but I bet the first one that comes to mind for many is the Dylan appearing in this documentary.

| Feb 26, 2025

Probably the most accurate depiction ever of the tensions and tedium of life on the road.

| Jan 24, 2025

With the success of the Bob Dylan biopic "A Complete Unknown," it's time to take a look at D. A. Pennebaker's essential film, the original 'rockumentary.'

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 6, 2025

What Pennebaker records is not Bob Dylan as he really is, whatever that means, but rather how Bob Dylan responds to the role imposed on him by the camera. Compared to most public figures of his time, Dylan responds very well indeed.

| May 9, 2022

The movie has limitless appeal for Dylan fans. It's also an eye-opening bit of filmmaking for the uninitiated.

| May 9, 2022

What does this film of his tour of Britain, this journey with Bob to and from concerts, tell us about him? Do I have to tell you, do I need to explain, that it's so very little, but so very much.

| May 9, 2022

Don't Look Back, a rambling hodge-podge of cinematic documentary focusing (usually) on the enigmatic troubadour Bob Dylan, should be seen by anyone either Involved with, or trying to fathom, the generation just arriving at their majority.

| May 9, 2022

Whatever you think about Bob Dylan will probably be confirmed by [Don't Look Back]. It is a fascinating progress which stays just far enough away from idolatry to preserve a reasonably clear vision.

| May 9, 2022

It is artistic, uncomplicated, honest and asks no apologies. Its "actors" (perhaps because of the type of people they are, or maybe because the camera chased them around for so long) are not the least bit self-conscious.

| May 9, 2022

The questioners spend much of the 90 minutes trying to get Dylan to come up with some quotable philosophy-of-life statements in keeping with his lyrics, but the answers, my friend, are blowin' in the wind.

| May 9, 2022

For better or worse, It carries the pungency of reality.

| May 9, 2022

Pennebaker has presented the many sides of Bob Dylan within a rather hazy focus... Those searching for some explanation of the Dylan mystique, especially now that a motorcycle accident has turned him into a hermit, will be disappointed.

| May 9, 2022

Next to the good-humored, extroverted, easy grace and intelligence of Joan Baez, Dylan appears often catatonic rather than a catalyst and the most influential folk-poet of his generation.

| May 9, 2022

[Dylan's] milieu and its hangers-on are by no means uniformly attractive. But after this skillful and exhaustive piece of film reportage, no one need ask what it and they arid he are really like. The camera has become an X-ray.

| May 9, 2022

With its faults the film still remains a brilliant po-trait of a moody and rather mysterious young man.

Full Review | May 9, 2022

Despite an innate distrust of cinema-verite techniques, where those wobbling, prying cameras often tell more lies than truth, I find this a fascinating film, mainly because Dylan's personality continually bursts through its rather narrow limits.

| May 9, 2022

No new fans will be made or old ones disaffected by this film, but audiences will find understanding here -- and entertainment.

| May 9, 2022

Like all such films where the hand-held camera hangs around waiting for things to happen, the waits are long -- but some of the rewards are a treat.

| May 9, 2022

Pennebaker is the real hero of this movie. I don't know who he is or whence he comes, but he labors hard, and he seems to be the only member of the concert tour who knows why he's there.

| May 9, 2022

By this time we’ve got to know Dylan on whom the film concentrates pretty well -- on the concert platform on the road and in hotels and we’ve come I think to respect him for his unpretentious view of himself as a plain pop singer.

| May 9, 2022