Now that the grace of film is slavishly based in parody, the movie is an explosion of original inspiration. [Full review in Spanish]

| Jan 18, 2024

I Wanna Hold Your Hand captures the essence of Beatlemania...

| Feb 9, 2021

It's hardly a masterpiece, but there is a scrappy, inventive sort of energy that becomes infectious.

| Dec 5, 2020

A marvelously punchy film, one that builds energy fast and keeps it up, even in the most prosaic scenes.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jul 25, 2019

It's a celebration of this once in a lifetime moment, the emergence of a pop culture phenomenon as these characters are on the verge of exiting adolescence and entering adulthood into a world that will be come increasingly fractured and cynical.

| Original Score: 4/5 | May 1, 2019

...a strong first effort from a filmmaker who would go onto much bigger and better things.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 21, 2019

Zemeckis never condescends to those gripped by Beatlemania, preferring to play up each person's inventiveness, exuberance, and wide-eyed innocence (well, OK, the latter maybe not when Allen's character starts licking that guitar while it gently sleeps).

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 16, 2019

Robert Zemeckis' "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" was a box office bomb, despite being a perfectly delightful and effervescent comedy that doesn't dwell on Beatlemania as much as surf on it for laughs.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 2, 2019

If you're a fan of 1970s cinema like me, Criterion's Blu-ray release of I Wanna Hold Your Hand is one that you'll wanna hang on to.

| Mar 26, 2019

A pretty okay nostalgia musical comedy for early Robert Zemeckis with some great Beatles music, and some solid slapstick.

| Jan 1, 2019

"I Wanna Hold Your Hand" is a pellmell slapstick impression of what some of those fans went through to order to get near their idols.

| Apr 30, 2018

A film about the joy of being young and a little bit crazy, ruled by the organizing principle of all Zemeckis and Gale's early work: barely controlled chaos.

| Dec 3, 2016

The maiden voyage in Zemeckis' sarcastic time machine

| Oct 7, 2015

I Wanna Hold Your Hand re-creates precisely the excitement the Beatles let loose 14 years ago; it transports the audience back to the eye of a phenomenal social hurricane.

| Jun 1, 2011

An engaging, slapstick look at the effect the Beatles had on the US when they crossed the Atlantic.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 6, 2007

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 29, 2007

Delightful sleeper pic about obsessed Beatles fans

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Dec 7, 2006

In the best scenes, Zemeckis suggests how the Beatles' blend of irreverence, romance and innocence encouraged a kind of youthful rebellion that was almost completely sanctioned.

| Feb 9, 2006

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 16, 2005

If there's a tray full of food within camera range, rest assured that somebody will knock it over. If a stuck-in-the-elevator-on-the-eve-of-an-important-event routine presents itself, rest assured that its staging will be tried and true.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | May 9, 2005