Movies
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
Wide Releases
Now In Theaters
76
(500) Days of Summer
60
9
17
All About Steve
37
Amelia
53
Astro Boy
66
Bandslam
45
Box, The
61
Capitalism: A Love Story
55
Christmas Carol, A
43
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant
66
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
29
Collector, The
23
Couples Retreat
80
District 9
61
Extract
39
Fame
30
Final Destination, The
34
Fourth Kind, The
60
Funny People
32
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
27
Gamer
41
G-Force
39
Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard, The
46
Halloween II
73
Hangover, The
78
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
55
I Can Do Bad All By Myself
66
Informant!, The
69
Inglourious Basterds
58
Invention of Lying, The
47
Jennifer's Body
66
Julie & Julia
34
Law Abiding Citizen
33
Love Happens
54
Men Who Stare At Goats, The
67
Michael Jackson's This Is It
51
My Sister's Keeper
42
Orphan
28
Pandorum
63
Perfect Getaway, A
86
Ponyo
35
Post Grad
48
Proposal, The
30
Saw VI
53
Shorts
24
Sorority Row
83
Star Trek
33
Stepfather, The
45
Surrogates
55
Taking Woodstock
47
Time Traveler's Wife
96
Toy Story/Toy Story 2 3D
35
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
28
Ugly Truth, The
88
Up
71
Where the Wild Things Are
67
Whip It
28
Whiteout
73
Zombieland
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Limited Releases
Now In Theaters
58
(Untitled)
96
35 Shots of Rum
56
Adam
72
Adela
39
Adventures of Power
78
Afghan Star
61
After the Storm
66
Afterschool
xx
All the Best
58
American Casino
72
Amreeka
48
Antichrist
73
Araya
62
Art & Copy
55
As Seen Through These Eyes
76
Baader Meinhof Complex, The
86
Beaches of Agnes, The
13
Beautiful Life, A
70
Beeswax
35
Beyond a Reasonable Doubt
71
Big Fan
66
Black Dynamite
51
Blind Date
xx
Blind Pig Who Wants to Fly
76
Bliss
35
Blue Tooth Virgin, The
26
Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, The
57
Boys Are Back, The
45
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
81
Bright Star
70
Bronson
45
Burning Plain, The
xx
Carriers
55
Casi Divas
57
Chelsea on the Rocks
62
Cloud 9
65
Coco Before Chanel
69
Cold Souls
59
Collapse
44
Confessionsofa Ex-Doofus-ItchyFooted Mutha
82
Cove, The
75
Crude
82
Damned United, The
67
Departures
xx
Dil Bole Hadippa
71
Disgrace
xx
Do Knot Disturb
70
Earth Days
24
Eating Out 3: All You Can Eat
85
Education, An
55
Endgame
xx
Eulogy for a Vampire
xx
Everyone Else
xx
Fatal Promises
56
Fifty Dead Men Walking
62
Five Minutes of Heaven
74
Flame & Citron
49
Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution
80
Food, Inc.
28
Free Style
xx
From Mexico with Love
50
Fuel
25
Gentlemen Broncos
50
Give Me Your Hand
58
Gogol Bordello Non-Stop
72
Good Hair
89
Goodbye Solo
52
Grace
64
Harmony and Me
81
Headless Woman, The
xx
Heretics, The
63
Horse Boy, The
73
House of the Devil, The
xx
How to Seduce Difficult Women
74
Humpday
94
Hurt Locker, The
29
I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
16
If One Thing Matters: A Film About Wolfgang Tillmans
75
In Search of Beethoven
83
In the Loop
61
Intimate Enemies
42
Irene in Time
70
It Might Get Loud
46
Killing Kasztner
19
Labor Day
xx
Laila's Birthday
41
Little Ashes
41
Little Traitor, The
66
Liverpool
34
Looking for Palladin
80
Lorna's Silence
83
Maid, The
xx
Ministers, The
59
More Than a Game
67
Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, The
34
Motherhood
62
My One and Only
xx
Mystery Team
48
New York, I Love You
73
Night and Day
66
No Impact Man
47
Ong Bak 2: The Beginning
34
Other Man, The
xx
Painter Sam Francis, The
54
Paper Heart
xx
Paradise
68
Paranormal Activity
68
Paris
44
Peter and Vandy
35
Play the Game
77
Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire
xx
Pretty Ugly People
65
Providence Effect, The
76
Rembrandt's J'accuse
69
September Issue, The
79
Serious Man, A
40
Shrink
61
Skin
77
Skin Too Few: The Days of Nick Drake, A
xx
Skiptracers
46
Splinterheads
39
St. Trinian's
89
Still Walking
50
Stoning of Soraya M., The
55
Storm
65
Tetro
70
That Evening Sun
72
Thirst
xx
Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas 3D (re-release)
61
Trucker
xx
Turning Green
83
U2 3D
66
Unmade Beds
66
Unmistaken Child
70
Visual Acoustics
55
Walt & El Grupo
67
Way We Get By, The
69
We Live in Public
64
Wedding Song, The
64
Where is Where?
xx
White on Rice
74
Woman in Berlin, A
69
World's Greatest Dad
70
Yes Men Fix the World
69
Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg
xx
You, the Living
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
American Hardcore
EMAILPRINTSony Pictures Classics
Generally favorable reviews
Based on 21 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 15 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Documentary | Musical
Written by: Steven Blush
Directed by: Paul Rachman
Release Date:
Theatrical: September 22, 2006
DVD: February 20, 2007
Running Time: 100 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: R for pervasive language including sex and drug references
Starring Adolescents, Bad Brains, Black Flag, Circle Jerks, D.O.A., and The Replacements
Generally unheralded at the time, the early 1980s hardcore punk rock scene gave birth to much of the rock music and culture that followed. Hardcore was more than music -- it was a social movement created by Reagan-era misfit kids. The participants constituted a tribe unto themselves -- some finding a voiced, others an escape in the hard-edged music. Ans while some sought a better world, others were just angry and wanted to raise hell. American Hardcore traces this lost subculture, from its early roots in 1980 to its initial flameout in 1986. (Sony Pictures Classics)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Variety Dennis Harvey
Excellent documentary American Hardcore chronicles the short-lived but influential musical moment when a defiantly anti-commercial underground put a distinctive U.S. stamp on the hitherto Brit-driven punk movement.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
The triumph of American Hardcore is that it convinces general audiences that there were vast underground reservoirs of angst and anguish to be tapped.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Ann Hornaday
Stands as a valuable chronicle of a brief and snarling musical movement.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Rob Nelson
The story of American punk rock (1980–1986) isn't a lot easier to summarize than that of any other major war, but it's quite a bit funnier, as this belated documentary overview--based on Steven Blush's like-titled tome--proves in each of its 90 exuberantly irritable minutes.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Messed up as it is, you can't tear your eyes away from this explosion of brutal sounds and images.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Gregory Kirshling
Illuminating nostalgia, stuffed with all the right tattooed talking heads (like Black Flag's Henry Rollins), plus grim-looking concert footage of wailing skinny guys.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray
A raucous, relevant documentary, capturing the mood of the times and the participants' best anecdotes.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer Bill White
Hardcore remains, in the words of Minor Threat's Ian MacKaye, the voice of "kids who refuse to be slotted into generic kids roles," so fans of current groups such as Disturbed may feel shortchanged by allegations that it was all over by 1986.
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
A first-rate documentary on this subgenre of punk rock, which flourished roughly between 1982 and 1986 as an anarchistic response to Ronald Reagan and the disco era.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Scott Martelle
The documentary is an enlightening journey to a dark corner of contemporary punk's dank little basement. It also will surprise some to hear how articulately some of the former performers explain the dark impulses that propelled them.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir
Some of American Hardcore is amusing -- many of the aging punks Rachman and Blush track down have turned into highly ordinary middle-aged Americans -- and some is profoundly disturbing.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Stephen Holden
A toned-down cinematic equivalent of the music: fast and loud, but not too loud. The movie scrambles to cover so much territory that there is room only for musical shards and slivers; few complete songs are heard, and no signature anthems stand out.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Sally Foster
Not only documents a fascinating part of American history, but also leaves us wondering how (and if) this era's youth will manage to find a voice of their own.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
American Hardcore encapsulates a largely forgotten (by the mainstream, that is) moment in maximum rock & roll history.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
Hardcore might have been confused and crude, but it was never guilty of being tepid, like this film.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
A sloppy mosh note to the genre, with its own excesses and oversights. It's like a flier for a band you've never heard of: torn, soaked with beer, itchy with aggression.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Stephen Cole
In a better work, the filmmaker would talk to hardcore punks about their parents, affairs, regrets, dreams and day jobs in an effort to explore the fledgling movement. Here, however, we get little more than a marathon MTV rap session, as Rachman drives about North America, yakking with aging punk heroes about the good ol' bad ol' days.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
Fans will dig the abundant performance video and commentary from Henry Rollins and Ian MacKaye; everyone else should steer clear of the mosh pit.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Ken Fox
Twenty-five years on, hardcore continues to be the soundtrack of choice for extreme, white-supremacist groups hoping to tap into teenage rage. With no one on hand to counter the argument, this may go down as hardcore's lasting legacy.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Will Crain
There's a lot of interesting material here, but Rachman doesn't offer any real analysis of his own, and the film suffers from a lack of narrative focus.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 8.2 (out of 10) based on 15 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
caporegime gave it a10:
Perfectly explained and documented.
Chad S. gave it a7:
Punk rock never quite made it to Hawaii. We had Frank Orrall, whose first band was called Hat Makes the Man. Orrall, of course, is the brainchild behind Poi Dog Pondering, Hawaii's sole contribution to the "alternative" music scene during college radio's heyday. What Blue Oyster Cult did for the cowbell("Don't Fear the Reaper"), Poi Dog Pondering did for the tin whistle("Living with the Dreaming Body"). Needless to say, I was listening to Gary Numan at the start of the hardcore movement("Here in my car, I feel safest of all"), and moved on to China Crisis("Difficult Shapes and Passive Rhythms" is underrated, man!) when Black Flag called it quits. "American Hardcore" is only as good as the music they're covering, and since this documentary insists on being a comprehensive one, the film drags a bit when the film shines the spotlight on the midwest. Things pick up again when the film covers the advent of SST Records, because Henry Rollins and Ian McKaye are brought back as testifiers to this, yes, ancedotal, but entertaining oral history. On IFC, Rollins talks about his renewed love for ELO, and all things classic rock, but his contemporaries are diehards, apparently, still ragging on those dinosaur acts like Fleetwood Mac and The Eagles. Foghat? Why pick on Foghat? I'd love to hear Vic Bondi(Articles of Faith) comment about Jack Johnson. According to the British, hardcore never existed. After The Sex Pistols disbanded, the era between 1978-1984 is commonly labeled as post-punk. You can probably play "Holiday in the Sun" to a mixed audience with a minimal amount of agitation from the MOR-jetset, but that's not the case with Bad Brains' "Pay to Cum". So, is punk rock dead? Don't tell that to Les Savy Fav, who kicked everybody's ass on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" during the writers' strike. I've lived in Hawaii my entire life and I had no idea Dan Inouye's son played in Marginal Man.
Jesse O. gave it a9:
One of the best films of the 80's true punk evolution really liked the interviews of some of those most resposible for it all.
Remi S. gave it a4:
Lacks focus. They don't even try to explain "hardcore" let alone "american hardcore". Movie should have been titled "My life in the 80s". You are presented a loose collection of a narrow recollection of a select few of the "punk" music scene of the early 80s. No analysis, no introspection- just anecdotes.
Keith M. gave it a7:
I cant believe how out of touch some of the big media reviewers are.. This was first wave hardcore after punk hit the US. This film just scratched the surface on what many people consider an important part of their lives today or yesteryear.. Its interesting how few judgments were made.. either about sexist & rapist remarkst. Things were just stated and that was it. For better or for worse its an after math of decline of western civilization part 1.. Just not quite as psychoanalytic (unfortunately). I for one would've liked some more explanation of why people were so overtly violent.. "We were just f* ups" seems to be lacking. And who said the skinhead thing had anything to do with racists? Theres more variety in race of skinheads than their are white power skins.. but thats a whole other movie.
Alana gave it a7:
I wasn't particularly blown away by this documentary, more specifically after the first 45 minutes I was relatively disappointed. It's been mentioned that the misogynist message of hardcore was brought up... just barely. Roessler actually accuses black flag for hating women and this is never investigated further.. As for the criticism regarding white supremacy, yeah there was a lot of mix up of white skin head supremacists in the punk scene.. but the documentary seemed to draw a very fine line between the skin heads and the punks. I just felt like it should have dug in to punk culture a lot more.. it was a very superficial film, although it did improve towards the end. Yeah you got the shit kicked out of you at bad brains show in the early eighties, what difference does it make if henry rollins tells us about it or some misfit kid who broke his arm in the pit. I was anticipating more.
George W. gave it a9:
Though it dragged in spots, this was a helluva documentary for my wife and myself as we lived the SF hardcore scene in the early eighties. I kept expecting to see myself or her thrashing about or hanging in the audience. If there had been more from SF, this may have happened. I could forgive the lack of SF coverage as the main protaginists, the DKs are now at each other's throats. All in all an important work that I always wondered if anyone would make.
