Salon by Andrew O'Hehir

The most powerful documentary I've seen all year, and one of the two or three best films ever made about an artist or musician.

Portland Oregonian by Shawn Levy

That rarest of movie biographies: a warts-and-all exploration of the life and times of its subject.

The New York Times by A.O. Scott

The film is much more than a biography of the Clash’s guitarist and lead singer: It’s history, criticism, philosophy and politics, played fast and loud.

Chicago Reader by J.R. Jones

By focusing on Strummer and giving a fair amount of screen time to his years in the wilderness before and after the Clash, Temple arrives at a more poignant and mature statement of what this committed band was all about.

Philadelphia Inquirer by Dan DeLuca

Julian Temple, the British music-documentary director who helmed the 2000 Pistols' flick "The Filth and the Fury," has done such cinematic justice to the punk humanist born John Graham Mellor, who died of a congenital heart defect in 2002.

Boston Globe by Ty Burr

The triumph of this fond, uncontainable documentary is that it lets you hear that voice again loud and clear.

The A.V. Club by Noel Murray

Temple introduces viewers to Strummer the punster, Strummer the womanizer, and Strummer the poseur, whom his mates could only really talk to when no one else was around.

Entertainment Weekly by Owen Gleiberman

Captures the Joe Strummer who, in the late 1970s, just about firebombed the rock establishment with his fury.

Los Angeles Times by Carina Chocano

The film is a rigorously thorough biography and an impassioned accolade. Temple spends as much time on Strummer's life before and after the Clash as he does charting the band's powerful musical and political influence.

Washington Post by Desson Thomson

One artist's moving tribute to another.

New York Post by V.A. Musetto

Compelling viewing, even for people who don't care a bit for the punk scene.

Premiere by Glenn Kenny

At its best, it throbs with immediacy, just as Strummer did.

Village Voice

Temple's engrossing portrait of the Clash's late frontman uses endlessly suggestive montage to show how he kept punk's precepts alive, even after he left the music and eventually the earth itself.

New York Magazine (Vulture) by David Edelstein

At least the movie never bogs down. But you only get a taste of what made the Clash for a brief period the most exciting band on that side of the Atlantic.

TV Guide Magazine by Ken Fox

Thirty years down the line, not everyone looks as they once did, so even fans will have trouble putting names to aged faces. Newcomers, meanwhile, will feel hopelessly shut out.