Now Playing
Critics & Publications
Archives: A-Z Index
Advanced Search

Upcoming Release Calendar
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

sort by name

sort by score

38 12 Rounds
48 17 Again
76 Adventureland
48 Angels & Demons
54 Battle for Terra
xx Bruno
80 Coraline
40 Dance Flick
83 Drag Me to Hell
72 Earth
45 Fast & Furious
61 Fighting
34 Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
72 Gran Torino
73 Hangover, The
47 Hannah Montana: The Movie
51 Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
54 Imagine That
41 Knowing
32 Land of the Lost
56 Monsters vs. Aliens
34 My Life in Ruins
51 My Sister's Keeper
46 Next Day Air
42 Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
54 Observe and Report
25 Obsessed
48 Proposal, The
70 Public Enemies
61 Soloist, The
83 Star Trek
64 State of Play
55 Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, The
52 Terminator Salvation
35 Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
77 Under the Sea 3D
88 Up
43 X-Men Origins: Wolverine
34 Year One

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

sort by name

sort by score

67 $9.99
75 24 City
66 Adoration
74 Afghan Star
48 Alien Trespass
56 American Violet
82 Anvil! The Story of Anvil
57 Away We Go
81 Beaches of Agnes, The
62 Big Man Japan
28 Big Shot-Caller, The
78 Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, The
55 Brothers Bloom, The
82 Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
xx Call of the Wild
63 Cheri
62 Cherry Blossoms
63 Dead Snow
65 Departures
18 Downloading Nancy
58 Easy Virtue
70 End of the Line, The
77 Every Little Step
64 Examined Life
80 Food, Inc.
38 Gigantic
56 Girl from Monaco, The
67 Girlfriend Experience, The
87 Gomorrah
89 Goodbye Solo
63 Great Buck Howard, The
79 Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
xx Home
82 Hunger
91 Hurt Locker, The
16 I Hate Valentine's Day
81 Il Divo
54 Is Anybody There?
71 Jerichow
58 Julia
74 Lemon Tree
36 Life is Hot in Cracktown
40 Limits of Control, The
42 Little Ashes
64 Lymelife
50 Management
57 Merry Gentleman, The
66 Moon
35 New York
62 Not Forgotten
xx Offshore
78 O'Horten
64 Outrage
40 Paris 36
54 Pontypool
71 Pressure Cooker
52 Quiet Chaos
83 Revanche
67 Rudo y Cursi
86 Seraphine
65 Sex Positive
70 Shall We Kiss?
77 Sin Nombre
59 Sleep Dealer
74 Song of Sparrows, The
54 Stoning of Soraya M., The
82 Sugar
84 Summer Hours
61 Sunshine Cleaning
28 Surveillance
42 Tennessee
63 Tetro
64 Throw Down Your Heart
80 Tokyo Sonata
63 Tokyo!
70 Tony Manero
74 Treeless Mountain
88 Tulpan
74 Two Lovers
83 Tyson
83 U2 3D
60 Under Our Skin
69 Unmistaken Child
69 Valentino: The Last Emperor
22 What Goes Up
45 Whatever Works
57 Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Shine a Light
Paramount Vantage


6.9

based on 36 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 23 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: PG-13 for brief strong language, drug references and smoking

Starring Keith Richards, Mick Jagger, Bill Clinton, Ron Wood, and Charlie Watts

Martin Scorsese's concert documentary Shine a Light will show the world the Rolling Stones as they've never been seen before. Filming at the famed Beacon Theatre in New York City in fall 2006, Scorsese assembled a legendary team of cinematographers to capture the raw energy of the legendary band. (Paramount)

GENRE(S):	Documentary \| Musical
DIRECTED BY:	Martin Scorsese
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: July 29, 2008 Theatrical: April 4, 2008
RUNNING TIME:	122 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA / UK

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...

100

San Francisco Chronicle Joel Selvin

An exhilarating documentary.

100

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

May be the most intimate documentary ever made about a live rock 'n' roll concert. Certainly it has the best coverage of the performances onstage.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Shine a Light has two maestros, Martin Scorsese and Mick Jagger, and once they begin to mesh, around the third or fourth song, they put on a display of showmanship that erases the line between art and entertainment.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

An altogether astounding testimony to the band's longevity, vitality and verve.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

An exhilarating musical experience.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

As the director of the documentary Shine a Light, Martin Scorsese is a besotted rock ’n’ roll fan who wholeheartedly embraces its mythology.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Shine a Light may not be the last Rolling Stones movie, but it's likely to be the last one with a touch of the poet about it.

Austin Chronicle Raoul Hernandez

Dedicated to Atlantic Records fountainhead Ahmet Ertegun, whose complications from injuries sustained in a tumble backstage at the Beacon resulted in his death, let the record show that a lifetime of musical innovation concluded with dying not at but FROM a Rolling Stones concert.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

This you-are-there spellbinder is a master director shining his light on the best rock band on the planet.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

Shine a Light is one of those lions-in-winter affairs, and Jagger, who has a body fat count of negative 67, can still dance like a maniacal popinjay, and Richards still looks like a satyr who has stayed up all night every night of his adult life.

USA Today Elysa Gardner

The genius of Scorsese's film, which is being shown in IMAX in 93 theaters, is that it reveals the Stones' mortality while celebrating all that makes them more than mere mortals.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Shine a Light did something I didn't think was possible. It got me caring about the Rolling Stones again.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Shine a Light provides the clearest and most intimate viewing experience of the band to date. It is also a happy circumstance that the group, now in their mid-60s, have rarely sounded tighter.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

Shine A Light is essentially just an expertly made concert film. But what a concert! (And what a camera team.)

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

Shine A Light pays tribute to the band's essential agelessness.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

In Shine a Light, a crackling concert movie directed by Martin Scorsese, the Rolling Stones are now so old that they seem new again.

Newsweek David Ansen

This movie is about giving us a privileged glimpse of the Stones in action. It's a record of an astonishing musical chemistry that has been evolving, with no signs of calcification, for nearly five decades. As a bonus, there are delicious guest appearances by Buddy Guy and Jack White.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Vibrant and engaging documentary.

Time Richard Corliss

Shine a Light isn't the record of a unique event, so it's not on the exalted level of "The Last Waltz." But it has its own fascination. The film is less about the music than about the dedication of show-biz troupers--about doing your job, year after year, as if it's your joy.

Empire Will Lawrence

A triumph for Scorsese and a document for the band, Shine A Light is a five-star experience for Stones fans. For those less enamoured with the ageing rockers, it goes a long way to explaining their longevity.

New York Daily News Joe Neumaier

Jagger is often shot straight-on, veiny arms outstretched, white-hot lights illuminating his skinny form (and, um, bared belly). Suddenly, Scorsese turns what seemed familiar into genuinely iconic. From then on, the movie is on fire.

Premiere Glenn Kenny

It's kind of amusing to see slinky Christina Aguilera sing the "Live With Me" line about a score of harebrained children, as she clearly hasn't got the faintest idea of what that means.

New York Post Kyle Smith

Martin Scorsese's Rolling Stones "documentary" (i.e. concert film) is a first: the only Scorsese film that does not feature the Stones' "Gimme Shelter." Really. I think the Dalai Lama even hummed the guitar solo in "Kundun."

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Scorsese's canny use of archival footage makes it more than a mere concert film.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

Ultimately, Shine a Light is illuminating indeed, even fascinating, but not in the way Scorsese intended. What he has created, inadvertently, is an invaluable documentation of semi-fossilized Stones – musicologists may like it, sociologists should love it and, some distant day, anthropologists will treasure it.

Wall Street Journal Joanne Kaufman

Feast for Rolling Stones fans.

Variety Todd McCarthy

Martin Scorsese’s energetic account of a Stones concert at Gotham’s Beacon Theater in fall 2006 takes full advantage of heavy camera coverage and top-notch sound to create an invigorating musical trip down memory lane, as well as to provoke gentle musings on the wages of aging and the passage of time.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

My favorite rock-concert movies, Jonathan Demme’s "Stop Making Sense" and "Neil Young: Heart of Gold," are organic: They chart a miraculous path from sound to soul. Scorsese stays on the outside, as befits his temperament and his subject. Yet there is, amid the whirligig spectacle, a spark of connection.

LA Weekly Scott Foundas

To call Shine a Light a documentary doesn’t quite nail it; it’s more of a macro-mentary, shot in such tight close-up that you can see the fillings in Mick’s teeth and the sweat stains in the armpits of his sequined magenta top.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Despite Scorsese's efforts to pump up some drama - the director, with his signature glasses and Groucho brows, gets huffy about not receiving a set list - drama is sorely lacking. This is just a concert film.

Village Voice Camille Dodero

Shine a Light's only point seems to be: You try this at 60. One would hope that, after "The Last Waltz" and "No Direction Home," Scorsese might venture beyond making a glossy episode of "Ripley's Believe It or Not." Nope, and we're not supposed to question it: Like the Stones, Marty's earned the right to coast, especially in his senior years.

The New Yorker Anthony Lane

At times, the cutting shifts from the hasty to the impatient to the borderline epileptic, and, while never doubting Scorsese’s ardor for the Stones, I got the distinct impression of a style in search of a subject.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

It's a late-night infomercial masquerading as a concert movie, more an advertisement for vitality than a picture of vitality itself. There's something self-congratulatory, preening, about both the performance and the filmmaking.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Outdated before it opened today.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

The film does not stand up to the current crop of music/concert films like "U2 3D," which brilliantly uses 3-D to show the Irish band in concert so as to encapsulate its relationship to its fans, each other and their own music, and "CSNY: Deja Vu," which hones in on the political connection Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young have to their music.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

Naturally, age and infirmity are a major subtext of Shine a Light (and, really, any movie featuring Keith Richards). No matter how cadaverous the Stones appear, they keep climbing onstage, and I’ll miss them when they’re finally gone.

The average user rating for this movie is 6.9 (out of 10) based on 23 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Maya B gave it a2:
Shine a Light. Boring and totally overrated, just because of the pedigree involved. Scorsese filming a Rolling Stone´s concert, sounds ass kicking, right? Some dope forgot to tell us the show was a benefit hosted by the Clintons, and the Stones have to greet them and please them and their guests, including Hillary´s mom. Instead of a mosh pit you get yuppies and middleages. The raunchiest member of the audience is holding up a vanity plate, and Scorsese shows him repeatedly like he is a sight to behold. The movie is so boring he probably is. Meanwhile, Jagger, Richards, Watts and Wood do their thing with all the enthusiasm they can muster in their emasculated situation, politely giving out handshakes and guitar picks to the people in the first row. Keith even apologizes when he runs out of picks. All the songs sound somehow watered down to fit all tastes, and the movie, visually, can´t be described as visually stunning. It´s not like I want every Rolling Stone´s movie to be like Give me Shelter, or think a gang member should die every once in a while in a concert. It´s not that I believe every show should be a blow your head experience like it is in NIN´s case, or that every member of the audience should be crowd surfing and smoking pot, but watching the Stones and Scorsese acting their age is does nothing for no one.

Charlie S gave it a3:
Interesting begining and snapshots of early Stones life in the 60s, but really the the songs they played were awful.

BJ H gave it a10:
From a guitarist point of view, I loved this documentary. Keith has a very unique style, especially when he plays in open tuning and goes back and forth between rhythm and filling in with licks and leads. Ronnie Wood is no longer as sloppy as he was, probably because is not as strung out as he used to be when he played live. Same goes for Keith. Artiscally this band gave up a long time ago. But as far as a live band, they have never been better than they have the last 10-15 years. Much more sober which makes them a much tighter band. The cinematography is excellent. They cut to Keith's riffs at exactly the right time for example. They know where to focus the camera depending on where the band is at during the song. It really makes you understand the arrangements of the songs, and what made the Stones such terrific songwriters and arrangers back in the day and what makes them such great live performers today.

Brian D. gave it a4:
What a boring and sterile concert! Clean cut millionaires masquerading as rebel renegades. The sound was crystal clear and the photography's brilliant, but far too polished. Best part was "Champagne and Reefer".

Jay H. gave it a6:
Scorsese does a good job piecing the film together, and the older clips are excellent and give a great insite into who the Rolling Stones are. The concert footage is well done. My main gripe is it's too long.

Jp gave it a0:
Boring beyond belief. The Stones are about as much of a Rock N' Roll band as George Bush is presidential. In other words: They're a fraud. Too bad when a once great artist lose their creativity and just regurgitate a few once great songs. An utter disappointment.

Bill P. gave it a9:
Superb! My 1st IMAX experience--well worth the extra cost; better than I expected.

Shine a Light Paramount Vantage

Shine a Light
Paramount Vantage