Film Threat by Alan Ng

The Beach Boys documentary has everything you’d want in a music documentary— a compelling story behind the nostalgia, the main figures being open and honest about the rise and fall, interesting conversations, and great music.

NME by Mark Beaumont

The Beach Boys makes up for its narrative familiarity by exploring some of the lesser-known behind-the-scenes tidbits.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Brad Wheeler

The film is a level-headed look at artists who promoted joy but lost their own.

Rolling Stone by Joseph Hudak

In the end, The Beach Boys is part an exploration of a family dynamic and a top view of one of America’s most important bands, with a soundtrack that is undeniably superb (a collection of songs released alongside the film is a must-listen).

Los Angeles Times by Robert Lloyd

Running less than two hours at a time when four-hour rock docs are not unusual, this is a swift, compact telling, with surprisingly little in the way of music and whole swaths of recording history skated over. But it looks fantastic, with a bounty of archival photographs and home movies, many of which are new to me, even as a veteran of these things.

Collider by Nate Richard

While hardcore fans won't learn anything they didn't already know, 'The Beach Boys' documentary is a perfectly entertaining love-letter to the SoCal band.

Movie Nation by Roger Moore

The film that emerges feels sanitized, much like the band’s overall reputation over the decades, Nancy Reagan-approved California kids who harmonized like angels.

The New York Times by Nicolas Rapold

Any deviations from the film’s obligatory timeline tour are very welcome, like a mortifying studio recording of Murry holding forth, and it’s a treat to hear the esteem for Brian among the Wrecking Crew, the storied group of session musicians.

The Guardian by Alexis Petridis

Perhaps the last 48 years are omitted for reasons of space. The film would need to be twice as long to cover them, and the second half would feel more like a particularly lurid soap opera than a music documentary. But it seems more likely it’s out of a desire to append a happy ending on to a story that doesn’t really have one.

San Francisco Chronicle by G. Allen Johnson

The Beach Boys is a breezy CliffsNotes version of the band’s ups and downs and cultural relevance and should interest established fans — even if they know it all already — and younger music enthusiasts who are looking for a window in.