Purple Rain became a generational manifesto, while providing the largest megaphone yet for one of the greatest geniuses in pop music.

| Nov 28, 2019

Even those who aren't Prince fans are likely to be captivated by its energy, enamored with its simple, often poignant storyline.

| Aug 7, 2018

Catharsis on the cheap; there's no reason to accept the pretense that the hero has suffered much and changed for the better unless you're predisposed to get swoony over Prince himself.

| Apr 23, 2018

The film is a love letter to collaboration, to passion, and to the power of music: this is Prince's legacy, brought to life nowhere more memorably than in Purple Rain.

| Original Score: 5/5 | May 11, 2017

Rock star Prince makes an impressive feature film debut in Purple Rain, a rousing contemporary addition to the classic backstage musical genre.

| Apr 21, 2016

Prince's 1984 movie debut seems more like his deification, with an aggressively stupid plot line that serves only to set him up as a paragon of artistic integrity, sexual prowess, and superhuman sensitivity.

| Apr 21, 2016

A hokey but mesmerizing rock-video psychodrama.

| Original Score: A- | Sep 7, 2011

It's probably best to think of the film as an extended music video, a watershed moment for movie sound tracks, and not much more.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 29, 2009

[The plot] is all no more than fancy padding around the film's heart, which only starts to really pump when Prince is up on stage: a teasing, hot amalgam of Marc Bolan, Nijinsky and the Scarlet Pimpernel, as electric as his guitar.

| Jun 24, 2006

[Prince] just comes across as a petulant brat, rather than the symbolically tortured artist. The music, however, is divine.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 6, 2004

[Purple Rain] is probably the flashiest album cover ever to be released as a movie. However, like many album covers, Purple Rain, though sometimes arresting to look at, is a cardboard come-on to the record it contains.

Full Review | Aug 30, 2004

Purple Rain's gazillion-selling soundtrack album has more or less eclipsed the film in pop culture history books.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 24, 2004

It does what musicals are supposed to do: It rides the underlying currents of its moment and renders them glorious.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 1, 2000