50 years since the release of The Harder They Come, Jamaica’s first feature film is still a brilliant take on its people’s struggles – with one of the best soundtracks of all time.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 25, 2024

It’s a simple film shot on a shoestring, rough and sometimes ragged but vital and explosive and filled with a superb reggae soundtrack that brought Cliff’s music to the world.

| Apr 8, 2023

With a sensational soundtrack, a terrific central performance from reggae master Jimmy Cliff, and violence as unvarnished as Mean Streets, The Harder They Come has lost none of its excitement.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 5, 2022

An epic character arc, wall-to-wall reggae standards and a suitably strutting turn from star Jimmy Cliff are the hallmarks of this Jamaican crime classic.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 5, 2022

[Henzell conjures] Kingston’s bristle and chaos with a diamond-hard vérité, spiced with wit and lyricism.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Aug 5, 2022

The reggae soundtrack throbs and crunches and shudders in concert with the raw energy of Henzell’s storytelling and Cliff’s performance, but this doesn’t preclude a shrewdly self-aware debate about representation.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Aug 3, 2022

The movie turns into a feverish social-protest fantasy, and infectious charm and social convulsions mix badly.

| Dec 15, 2021

Perry Henzell has such a lot to say about Jamaica, about life, and he's given us quite a chunk of this, his first film. I look forward to his second.

| Sep 20, 2021

'The Harder They Come' will be a film that's easy to watch for the years to come. Maybe one day we'll fix up the cracks it so expertly exposed a half a century ago

| Original Score: GOAT | May 27, 2021

You should by all means see The Harder They Come. There's not even the slightest chance you'll be disappointed.

| Dec 31, 2019

The Harder They Come is a landmark work of cinema, a film that helped expand understanding about a corner of the world often ignored.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Aug 30, 2019

A rough, raw and realistic work that became a box office sensation in its homeland and a cult favorite stateside.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 24, 2019

The themes present in the film remain particularly relevant in today's climate.

| Aug 22, 2019

The movie showcases the development and subsequent frustration of the Jamaican version of the "American Dream." [Full Review in Spanish]

| Aug 13, 2019

The Harder They Come for all its populist appeal, though, forces the audience to confront our idea of respectability politics and the value of art in a Caribbean society.

| May 22, 2019

The Harder They Come is always exuberant, and sometimes strong, as casually surprising and effortlessly sinister as the blade sliding out of a gravity knife.

| Oct 2, 2015

With this 1972 cult hit, Jamaican filmmaker Perry Henzell produced a proud, forthright indictment of national and personal corruption.

| Oct 2, 2015

Whatever the film's shortcomings, though, the music is superb.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 2, 2015

Rough 'n' ready but also rather wonderful.

| Oct 2, 2015

A gritty, realistic view of urban Jamaica that reveals the squalor of shantytowns tourists never see.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Sep 30, 2015