Let It Be

In many ways, Let it Be is the best Beatles film of all since they are not playing the Beatles but rather are being themselves.

Time has been kind to Lindsay-Hogg’s film. I felt like I was viewing the period through a fresh perspective, perhaps simply because his editing style and choices (made contemporaneously, without benefit of hindsight or a deeply nostalgic agenda) felt quite radically different to Jackson’s. [2024 Restored Version]

Neither an overlooked masterpiece nor the disaster the Beatles and the critics thought, it’s finally getting a fair shake. [2024 Restored Version]

It’s fascinating to return to this movie after many years. [2024 Restored Version]

Filmed as the Beatles were crumbling under the weight of their own legend, LET IT BE is a milder film than its reputation suggests.

At the very least it’s a fascinating historical document. However, the fly on the wall songbook approach is draggy and repetitive – this remains a flawed and slightly frustrating music documentary. [2024 Restored Version]

The film is a bore. It's supposed to show how the Beatles work, but it doesn't. Shot without any design, clumsily edited, uninformative and naive, it would have destroyed a lesser group.