Shine a Light
Paramount Vantage | Release Date: April 4, 2008 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
76
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 36 Critic Reviews
Positive:
30
Mixed:
6
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
San Francisco ChronicleJoel Selvin
An exhilarating documentary. Read full review
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger 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. Read full review
91
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
An exhilarating musical experience. Read full review
91
Portland OregonianShawn Levy
An altogether astounding testimony to the band's longevity, vitality and verve. Read full review
91
Baltimore SunMichael 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. Read full review
90
The New York TimesStephen Holden
As the director of the documentary Shine a Light, Martin Scorsese is a besotted rock ’n’ roll fan who wholeheartedly embraces its mythology. Read full review
90
Los Angeles TimesKenneth 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. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleRaoul 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. Read full review
88
Rolling StonePeter Travers
This you-are-there spellbinder is a master director shining his light on the best rock band on the planet. Read full review
88
Chicago TribuneMichael 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. Read full review
88
USA TodayElysa 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. Read full review
88
Miami HeraldRene 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. Read full review
88
Boston GlobeTy Burr
Shine a Light did something I didn't think was possible. It got me caring about the Rolling Stones again. Read full review
83
Entertainment WeeklyOwen 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. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
Shine A Light pays tribute to the band's essential agelessness. Read full review
83
Christian Science MonitorPeter Rainer
Shine A Light is essentially just an expertly made concert film. But what a concert! (And what a camera team.) Read full review
80
NewsweekDavid 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. Read full review
80
Washington PostDesson Thomson
Vibrant and engaging documentary. Read full review
80
TimeRichard 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. Read full review
80
EmpireWill 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. Read full review
75
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
Scorsese's canny use of archival footage makes it more than a mere concert film. Read full review
75
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. Read full review
75
New York PostKyle 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." Read full review
75
PremiereGlenn 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. Read full review
75
New York Daily NewsJoe 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. Read full review
70
VarietyTodd 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. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)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. Read full review
70
L.A. WeeklyScott 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. Read full review
70
Wall Street JournalJoanne Kaufman
Feast for Rolling Stones fans. Read full review
63
Philadelphia InquirerSteven 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. Read full review
60
Village VoiceCamille 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. Read full review
60
The New YorkerAnthony 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. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterKirk 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. Read full review
50
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
Outdated before it opened today. Read full review
50
Chicago ReaderJ.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. Read full review
50
SalonStephanie 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. Read full review
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