74
Metascore
12 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 80Village VoiceVillage VoiceLet It Be is a very lovely spectacle--a film to make you smile, and with its .16mm tawny colors and pastels, one that invites repeated viewings. [11 Jun 1970, p.55]
- Neither an overlooked masterpiece nor the disaster the Beatles and the critics thought, it’s finally getting a fair shake. [2024 Restored Version]
- 80There may not be a more punk rock bit of film on earth than George being told the police were on the roof to shut them down, and casually turning his amp back on. For that alone, for all its whitewashing and line-toeing, Let It Be remains a staggering watch. [2024 Restored Version]
- 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]
- Filmed as the Beatles were crumbling under the weight of their own legend, LET IT BE is a milder film than its reputation suggests.
- 75Chicago ReaderDave KehrChicago ReaderDave KehrSanitized it may well be, but agonizing nonetheless—it's a domestic squabble that somehow touches history.
- The very helter‐skelter, unstudied nature of the picture provides a revealing close‐up of the world's most famous quartet, playing, relaxing and chatting.
- 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.