No Direction Home: Bob Dylan

Baltimore SunDavid Zurawik

No Direction Home is not just another two nights in front of the tube. Even by the standards of PBS' American Masters -- the medium's finest biography series ever -- Scorsese's film is 3 1/2 hours of breathing air so rarefied compared to most television that it feels as if one is inhaling helium.

Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert

Creates a portrait that is deep, sympathetic, perceptive and yet finally leaves Dylan shrouded in mystery, which is where he properly lives.

New York Daily NewsDavid Hinckley

"No Direction Home" is so thoroughly captivating, with so much rare and new material - fresh interviews, as well as vintage film and TV footage - that it's frustrating that the focus is so narrow.

People WeeklyTom Gliatto

Scorsese crams in great performance scenes and interviews (Joan Baez is especially articulate, and acerbic) and one goose-bump moment: a montage of Kennedy-era footage as Dylan sings 1963's "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall," an anthem of disaster with the power to evoke atomic war, Katrina, everything. [3 Oct 2005, p.39]

Philadelphia InquirerJonathan Storm

Surpasses Scorsese's The Last Waltz as a masterpiece musical documentary.

VarietyPhil Gallo

Scorsese has created a document that will satiate Dylan fans over repeated viewings and should bring naysayers into the Dylan fold.

Entertainment WeeklyDavid Browne

You wish Scorsese hadn't stopped at 1966.... But the director's take on his subject (pop culture's first martyr, burnt out at 25) is valid and powerful. [30 Sep 2005, p.76]

Hollywood ReporterGlenn Abel

It's easy and satisfying to buy into Scorsese's view of Dylan as underdog. The slant and subjectivity give "No Direction Home" much of its drama and depth, especially in the final hour.

Los Angeles TimesRichard Cromelin

The achievement of "No Direction Home" is that it humanizes the enigma without demystifying the artist, and it gives us a person to care about.

Miami HeraldGlenn Garvin

The result is a testament to Scorsese's considerable story-telling skills. With no narration at all, No Direction Home is an intricate yet seamless account of an elusive subject whose own friends call him a shape-shifter.

NewsdayDiane Werts

While "No Direction Home" can't turn the American Mastery trick of telling us what makes a cultural titan tick, it probably gets deeper inside the Dylan mystery than any such portrait is likely to.

Orlando SentinelJim Abbott

Perhaps the most revealing look yet at an American pop-culture icon who has been mythologized, demonized and analyzed, all without help from the man himself.

PopMattersJohn G. Nettles

A powerful portrait, if not groundbreaking.

Wall Street JournalDorothy Rabinowitz

Fans of Bob Dylan and others ambitious enough to sit through "No Direction Home: Bob Dylan" will discover early on that it yields no revelatory light to speak of on its subject

New York MagazineJohn Leonard

The odd thing is that Scorsese closes up shop, after 210 minutes, in 1966--as if the motorcycle accident had killed instead of merely injured Dylan.