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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Filth and the Fury, The

Universal acclaim
Based on 28 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 3 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Musical
Written by:
Directed by: Julien Temple
Release Date:
Theatrical: April 7, 2000
DVD: October 10, 2000
Running Time: 108 minutes, Color
Origin: UK / USA
Summary
RATING: R for pervasive strong language, drugs and sexual content
Starring Paul Cook, Stephen Phillip Jones, Steve Jones, John Lydon, Sid Vicious, Malcolm McLaren, Glen Matlock, and Nancy Spungen
An English documentary by Julien Temple which details the short but tempestuous life of the punk rock band the Sex Pistols from the perspective of the band members themselves, unlike the 20-year-old Temple film "The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle" which focuses instead on the perspective of Malcolm McLaren, the band's controversial manager.
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Glastonbury Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten Pandaemonium
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database
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...
Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
A great, searching, incendiary chronicle of the Sex Pistols, the razor-hearted visionaries of punk anarchy.
Read Full Review >Film.com Peter Brunette
Temple's wonderfully entertaining film brings the era back in all its confused and tentatively revolutionary glory, and bracingly demonstrates that the Pistols still have the power to shock.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
A kickass documentary.
Austin Chronicle Russell Smith
Anyone who can watch this film and deny that the Sex Pistols were one of the four or five most exciting and indelibly brilliant rock groups ever is pumping formaldehyde, not blood, through his veins.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Examiner Wesley Morris
If nothing else, The Filth and the Fury is a searing, forceful, entertainingly biased reminder only that the English group mattered - as musicians and as anti-social curs.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune John Petrakis
The concerts are hypnotic, the music is swell, and the entire package moves along at just the right pace.
New York Post Jonathan Foreman
This bizarre, original and brilliantly crafted documentary about the Sex Pistols is funny and at times moving -- despite all the ugliness and stupidity it depicts.
Boston Globe Jim Sullivan
This is a warts 'n' all portrayal - there's no dodging the feelings of both disgust and amusement.
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
To see this film's footage from the '70s is to see the beginning of much of pop and fashion iconography for the next two decades.
Read Full Review >Mr. Showbiz Kevin Maynard
There are only a handful of great music documentaries ... but Temple's film deserves a place in the canon.
Film.com Ernest Hardy
Stays with you, though, not because of its political content, but because of the unexpected emotional punch that's thrown near the end.
Read Full Review >TNT RoughCut Don Kaye
The electrifying jolt that they gave to a moribund music scene, and British society in particular, is still riveting to watch.
Village Voice J. Hoberman
The filmmaker might be accused of preaching to the choir were the story not so compelling and the performances so strong.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Ken Fox
This loud and exhilarating documentary from director Julien Temple brings it all back in a vitriolic spray of spite, spittle and raw rock and roll that still hits like a heart attack.
Read Full Review >USA Today Mike Clark
Irritates in the early going when many of the current-day interviews are so intentionally underlighted that we can't see what the group members look like.
Baltimore Sun Ann Hornaday
An absorbing glimpse not only at the phenomenon of punk rock but also at British social history and the rock star mystique.
Miami Herald Curtis Morgan
It's just as voyeuristically enjoyable as those VH-1 has-been bios but without the soft-focus star shots and with far more edge, energy and originality.
San Francisco Chronicle James Sullivan
Above all, it makes one thing clear: This group was wickedly funny.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
A documentary that's as chaotic, rude and funny as the band could be.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
The period ambience (call it funk) is irresistible, but the main points of interest here are sociological rather than musical.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
A film as arresting and at times as frustrating as the Pistols themselves.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jack Mathews
It's just twice as much as we need to know about the Sex Pistols.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 8.3 (out of 10) based on 3 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
m taylor gave it a9:
Great, great documentary which really captures a mood and feel of a unique moment of culture, they really were shocking and took abuse for it, if your face is pierced now your more normal than not, they were original a quality lost too money men, and yes i love pearl jam too!
Erwin K. gave it an 8:
Great film! The pistols upset the establishment and endulged in pure stupidity, that seems so revolting and impure but utterly necessary given the lameness of the times. Pure madness.
Chad S. gave it an 8:
Context is everything. The Sex Pistols hadn't sounded dangerous to me in years. Marilyn Manson and any number of modern rockers make Johnny Rotten's whine almost sound cute. But in "The Filth and the Fury", you see the pictures of packed clubs and who their contemporaries were. Next to Kansas, "God Save the Queen" sounds like a blowtorch. Like Elvis before them, we understand why the latest youth music scared the bejesus out of the establishment. It's fascinating to see how the original punks lost their music to the johnny-come-latelys, much like how the guys you worked with at your part-time job started listening to Nirvana and Pearl Jam.
