This rousing foot-tapper from the pioneering American film-maker Luis Valdez is the definitive Eighties music biopic.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 27, 2024

The film feels curiously devoid of passion and lacking in curiosity as it hits every predictable beat from start to finish.

| Oct 16, 2023

The movie paints a respectful portrait of the clean-cut kid while providing much of the dramatic conflict through the character of his hot-headed brother.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Sep 27, 2023

Valdez gives La Bamba a specificity that seems missing from today’s music biopic that feels more concerned with hitting the beats of a famous musician, rather than filling a life with family, shortcomings, and joy.

| Sep 26, 2023

Lively, enjoyable but superficial...

| Nov 18, 2022

An outstanding examination of the unheralded Ritchie Valens, featuring first-rate musical numbers and a fine performance by Lou Diamond Phillips (35th anniversary)

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

It is Lou Diamond Phillips' sympathetic performance as Ritchie that makes La Bamba work so well.

| Original Score: B | Aug 10, 2021

The film entertains and disquiets... its tragic and troubled course is enjoyed like gentle waves. [Full review in Spanish]

| Aug 10, 2021

La Bamba is a movie with a few rough edges, but it has so much vitality you can't help being grabbed and held by it.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 10, 2021

[Esai Morales] gives Bob the range and believability that provides this film with its edge.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Aug 10, 2021

Sweet and serious, a fine little movie that accomplishes just what it sets out to do.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Aug 10, 2021

More than being true to the time and place, Valdez's script and direction ring true to the heart.

| Aug 10, 2021

For all its Hollywood bombast, the poignant story of Valens' quick fame and premature death is still moving.

| Aug 10, 2021

Writer-director Luis Valdez has deftly and movingly turned Valens' life into a meaningful cultural document.

| Aug 10, 2021

I've seen it twice and expect to see it several more times.

| Aug 10, 2021

Almost everyone in La Bamba is perfectly cast, but none more so than De Soto, who plays Ritchie and Bob's mother with the vitality and ferocity usually associated with lionesses. Equally good is Elizabeth Pena.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 10, 2021

This is too staid, too sluggish an effort. It is too reverent.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 10, 2021

The movie really leaps to life when Ritchie performs: Valdez is very good at capturing the excitement of a live performance or recording session.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 10, 2021

The best part of La Bamba, fittingly, is the music, most of It performed by Los Lobos.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 10, 2021

Ritchie Valens may be the focus of La Bamba, but Rosana De Soto is the film's standout.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 10, 2021