84
Metascore
15 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 100The A.V. ClubNathan RabinThe A.V. ClubNathan RabinDon't Look Back is a spellbinding portrayal of a gifted artist at the peak of his creative brilliance.
- 100CineVueChristopher MachellCineVueChristopher MachellThe total effect of these sequences is the feeling of hanging out with Dylan and his entourage. This is perhaps Don’t Look Back‘s greatest trick – convincing its audience that the Dylan we see here is anything other than a column of air: elusive, shifting and perpetually enigmatic.
- 100Chicago TribuneMichael WilmingtonChicago TribuneMichael WilmingtonBoth a great concert movie and an amazing documentary of mid-'60s cutting-edge pop culture, this cinema verite record of Bob Dylan's pre-electric, pre-Band 1965 British tour was such a candid and unsparing look at stardom's inner sanctums and Dylan's caustic personality, audiences were shocked. [29 Oct 1999, p.M]
- 88San Francisco ExaminerSan Francisco ExaminerEasily one of the best documentaries on any subject ever made. It is also one of the most cinematically influential.
- 88Slant MagazineCarson LundSlant MagazineCarson LundEven 48 years after its release, and well into Dylan’s current phase of relative transparency, D.A. Pennebaker’s Dont Look Back retains something of a forbidden quality, a feeling that we shouldn’t be privy to the things it shows us.
- It is an absorbing film. Whether one is a member of the under-30 set that regards Mr. Dylan as a spokesman, or one of the vanishing Americans over that age, this look into the life of a folk hero is likely to be both entertaining and occasionally disturbing.
- 75Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertChicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertThe movie is like a low-rent version of the rock concert documentaries that would follow.
- 75TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonaghTV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonaghThe film's greatest incidental pleasures are images of a time when outlaw musicians wore suit jackets and the craggy Dylan was a delicate, unconventionally handsome young man.
- 70Chicago ReaderJonathan RosenbaumChicago ReaderJonathan RosenbaumThe music is great, and the film would be memorable for its goofy, syncopated opening sequence alone.
- 50Time OutTime OutThe abiding memories of Don't Look Back are lack of privacy, dull cliques, stumble-drunkenness, very insecure British artists (Price, Donovan), and Dylan's bored, amused sparring with anyone trying to point him in the direction of Damascus.