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Steve Coogan, Shirley Henderson, Danny Cunningham, Sean Harris, John Simm ... see more see more... , Lennie James , Paddy Considine , Ralf Little , Andy Serkis , Christopher Coghill , Paul Popplewell , Keith Allen , Rob Brydon , Enzo Cilenti , Dave Gorman , Peter Kay , Kate Magowan , Kieran O'Brien , Simon Pegg , Rowetta , Paul Ryder , John Thomson , Raymond Waring , Jim Cartwright , Terri Seymour , Chris Coghill , Ron Cook , Keith Coogan

This digital-video biopic uses the life of journalist, record mogul and club owner Tony Wilson to frame the story of the Manchester, England, music scene from the heyday of punk through the late-'80s ... read more read more..."Madchester" era. As the founder of staunchly independent Factory Records, Wilson (Steve Coogan) shepherded the careers of doomed post-punk combo Joy Division, synth-pop superstars New Order and hedonistic louts the Happy Mondays. Along the way, he helped bring rave culture to Britain under the aegis of the legendary Hacienda nightclub. 24 Hour Party People follows Wilson from his conversion to punk at a seminal Sex Pistols concert through the suicide of Joy Division singer Ian Curtis, the overwhelming success of New Order and the eventual dissolution of the Factory empire thanks to bad business decisions, underworld ties and the hedonistic excess of the Happy Mondays. Directed by Michael Winterbottom and written by frequent collaborator Frank Cottrell Boyce, 24 Hour Party People features cameos from a large number of Manchester music luminaries. The supporting cast includes Shirley Henderson and John Simm, both of whom appeared in Winterbottom's Wonderland, while the film's title comes from a Happy Mondays song. ~ Brian J. Dillard, Rovi

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R, 1 hr. 53 min.

Directed by: Michael Winterbottom

Release Date: August 9, 2002

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DVD Release Date: January 21, 2003

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Andy Serkis and Paddy Considine 24 Hour Party People Andy Serkis as Martin Hannett As Martin Hannett The Hacienda Andy Serkis Tony Wilson 24 Hour Party People 24 Hour Party People
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Flixster Reviews (1,878)

  • matertenebraum
    February 10, 2011
    matertenebraum
    24 Hour Party People is the story of Factory Records, a defiantly eccentric independent record label based in Manchester, England, which discovered acts as influential and diverse as Joy Division and the Happy Mondays.

    The film is shot in mock-documentary style and narrated by T... read moreony Wilson (Steve Coogan), the founder of Factory. Coogan portrays Wilson's double life as music svengali and cheesy local TV reporter to brilliant comic effect. Although Brits will draw the inevitable parallels between Coogan's Wilson and his ultra-naff TV persona, Alan Partridge, Coogan actually has Wilson off to a tee. Arrogant and pompous, Cambridge-educated Wilson is master of the pseudish sound bite (when he realises they have no tickets for a concert in his nightclub, he retorts `Did they have tickets for the Sermon on the Mount? Of course they didn't, people just turned up because they knew it would be a great gig'). But he also has a perceptive eye for the zeitgeist and his vision to create the Hacienda club transformed Manchester into Madchester, for a brief time the music capital of the world.

    The story really starts with an early Sex Pistols gig in Manchester, attended by only 42 people, most of whom went on to have an influence on the Manchester music scene of the next 10 years. Wilson was in the audience, together with members of the band who went on to form the brilliant post-punk pioneers Joy Division. The first part of the film is really focussed on them and their manager, the aggressive and cantankerous Rob Gretton ( played by Paddy Considine), and their producer, the irascible acid-casualty Martin Hannett (another superb cameo by Andy Serkis) - both of whom are no longer alive. Joy Division's lead singer, Ian Curtis, is portrayed so accurately by Sean Harris that it's positively eerie, and the scenes of the band playing in rundown venues seem remarkably true to life and capture effectively the rawness and intensity of their live performances. The film also deals, rather insensitively, with the death of Curtis, who's feet we see swinging after he has strung himself up on a rope in his house. This segues uncomfortably into a town crier announcing his death to the world, and ends with scenes showing Curtis's body in a coffin at the crematorium.

    From then on, the story continues with Joy Division's reincarnation as New Order and the building of the Hacienda nightclub, and the sometimes disastrous business decisions made by Wilson and Factory. When New Order released Blue Monday, the record sleeve was so expensive to produce they lost money on every copy sold. The single went on to become the biggest-selling 12' of all time, paradoxically crippling Factory in the process. The first nights at the Hacienda were also calamitous, with bands playing in front of single-figure audiences. Eventually however, the druggy indie dance kings Happy Mondays arrived on the scene, and acid house was born. Suddenly the Hacienda was the place to be and the Madchester rave scene became famous all over the world. The scenes of drugs-and-sex-excess on the Monday's tour bus and the re-creation of the Hacienda club nights are superbly portrayed.

    The final part of the film tells how gang violence led to the closure of the club and the drug-riddled misadventures of the Mondays, especially their singer Shaun Ryder, led to their downfall and had severe financial implications for Factory Records (Wilson had inexplicably sent them to Barbados to record their last Factory album). Eventually, Factory was sold, lock, stock and barrel, to another label (who were perturbed to find Wilson had not signed any contracts with any of the Factory bands, effectively giving the artists total creative freedom).

    24 Hour Party People is a real rollercoaster ride. There are some brilliant acting performances, punctuated by cameos from real members of the Manchester music scene (such as Howard Devoto and Mark E. Smith). The merging of legend and reality may make it difficult for people unfamiliar with events to work out what actually happened. But this is no accurate, austere documentary, but a touching, sometimes surreal, and often very, very funny, anarchic portrayal of a time and a place and it's music. Oh, and of course, the soundtrack is fantastic.
  • danperry17
    December 13, 2010
    danperry17
    Brilliant film. Sharp and clever, lively and irreverent, Steve Coogan's break-out film portrays the Madchester scene, very specifically 1976-1992, when a new music was freeing the city and the nation around it. Watching this, it was so authentic I was sure that it was older. Ther... read moree's a special feature on the DVD where one of the actors talks about various films being "[city name]: The Movie" (e.g. Trainspotting = Edinburgh: The Movie). This is Manchester.

    But on top of its ability to capture a moment, we have a love letter to New Wave music and a biopic that's definitely outside the box. In the narrator's words, "I'm a minor character in my own story." Creative, fun and dramatic movie, perhaps one of the most relevant in recent British film history.
  • stevenecarrier
    July 8, 2010
    stevenecarrier
    Michael Winterbottom is always doing something interesting with his films- even though most of the time it never works, his ambition is remarkable. With his metafilm, "24 Hour Party People", he delves into the history of new wave 80s punk in Manchester England. While the film is ... read morevisually inventive and colorful and the performances are vibrant, he never goes deep enough into the places that would really flesh out the story.
  • MizturY0da
    April 25, 2010
    MizturY0da
    If you are nostalgic for the British post-punk rock scene of the late 1970s and early 1980s and want to learn more about bands like Joy Division, Happy Mondays, and New Order, Michael Winterbottom's 24 Hour Party People is your ticket. Shot on digital video, Party People is a wil... read mored and often dizzying ride that has passion and energy, great music, and playful humor (along with the obligatory "f" words, drugs, and sex). The soundtrack features bands such as the Sex Pistols, Joy Division, the Clash, New Order, and A Certain Ration, music that keeps the energy popping from start to finish. Part documentary and part fiction, the film is narrated by impresario Tony Wilson (Steve Coogan) who was the driving force behind Factory Records, an indie label that played an important role in the spread of the new wave sound, overseeing early works of such bands as Big in Japan, Echo and the Bunnymen, and Cabaret Voltaire.

    The film is not a comprehensive look at the total Manchester scene that included such great bands as The Charlatans, Stone Roses, Inspiral Carpets, and The Smiths but concentrates solely on the impact of Wilson and Factory Records. It follows Wilson as he goes from promoting Friday night sessions at the Factory Club to opening the birthplace of rave, the famous Hacienda Dance Club, while keeping his day job as a TV reporter and host for a local TV station in Manchester. After a hilarious opening sequence showing journalist Wilson hang gliding, the film turns to a Sex Pistols concert in 1976 where actual footage of the Pistols is interspersed with actors performing the songs. Although only 40 people attended, Wilson had a vision of what was possible and the small number in attendance didn't faze him, "How many people", he asks, "were at the Last Supper"?

    Wilson persuades his station to televise a Sex Pistols performance, an event that led to Wilson being asked to manage several of Manchester's rock groups. We soon meet Ian Curtis (Sean Harris), lead singer for the band Joy Division, his producer Martin Hannett (Andy Serkis) and Happy Monday's singer Shaun Ryder (Danny Cunningham), bands that helped put Factory Records on the map. Harris conveys Curtis' electric energy and manic stage personality while performing great Joy Division songs such as "Love Will Tear us Apart" and "Atmosphere". Unable to come to terms with growing fame and faced with crippling epileptic seizures and an impending divorce, Curtis committed suicide on May 18, 1980 at age 23, a sad end for a consummate artist whose personal agony translated into music of sublime melancholy.

    Wilson is often exasperating, throwing around words like semiotics and postmodernism, but his good-natured humor asserts itself as when he talks directly to the camera saying "you won't see this scene now but it might turn up on the DVD outtakes". In spite of all the absurdity, Wilson comes across as a man of integrity who was offered a large sum of money for his empire but refused, explaining to the audience that he "avoided selling out by never acquiring anything worth selling". Personally, I would have liked to have less laughs and a bit more information about these musicians, what kept them going or, as in the case of Curtis, what drove them to an early death. 24 Hour Party People, however, is not an in-depth character study but a fast-paced, offbeat paean to rock 'n' roll history, the people who made it, and the music we still remember.
  • ScoopOnline
    December 17, 2009
    ScoopOnline
    The unbelievably true story of one man, one movement, the music and madness that was Manchester.
  • blacksheepboy
    October 23, 2009
    blacksheepboy
    As Tony Wilson (Coogan) states in this refreshing film, it is not a story about him, it is about the music - Manchester's music and those who have brought it alive.
  • SirPant
    September 24, 2009
    SirPant
    An interesting film based on Madchester in the early 90?s. Fact and fiction go hand in hand but the visualization of some of the industry?s best and funniest rumours make it worthwhile viewing. The suicide scene was also handled very tastefully.
  • binky013
    August 28, 2008
    binky013
    I've been cogitating on this little gem for a while, not quite sure how best to say what I want to say about it. If you surf reviews and comments about it, you'll notice that the word "comedy" crops up quite a bit. Granted, there are many very funny moments in the film, but ove... read morerall, I'd have to place this in the tragedy camp.

    First and foremost, the story of the protagonist, Tony Wilson, played brilliantly by Steve Coogan, and the whole blazing birth and soaring decline of the punk rock movement, follows the arc of classic tragedy. Wilson begins as a Manchester TV personality, fosters the Punk Rock era, enjoying incredible wealth and fame, and then ends as he began, the Manchester TV personality. Along the way there is excess -- drinking, drugs, sex -- and we are left with a man a bit more drug infused and enthused than he appears to have been at the start. The very last line of the film is a comment on the great quality of the marijuana being smoked. Coogan, in one of many meta-moments sprinkled throughout, lays it out for us near the very beginning: It's the flight of Icarus. An archetypal tragic trajectory, both figuratively and literally. As Coogan says, need he say more.

    Trust me, I am no puritan, and I've lived my share of 24-hour partying. But there is a difference in the kind of indulgence level exhibited by many of the characters here. Either it is recreational and you walk away from it as you choose, or it becomes an ingrained lifestyle that lends itself, as it does here, to deaths along the way.

    And therein lies the tragedy. Forget just the punk rock scene. Think of the music you love most. Whatever it may be. Or just think of movie stars. How many of these talented people must we lose to drugs? Will it ever end? Probably not. And there goes another Jimi Hendrix, another Janis Joplin, or another River Phoenix. Why?

    For me, this story is one that is told too often time and again. It's a neverending tragedy that can't seem to be stopped. Either a drug-related or at least a drug-complicated death juggernaut.

    All this being said, there are great moments of comedy, as mentioned, most happily generated as Wilson's Cambridge educational background gives rise to clever comments about classic literature and philosophy coming up against a seemingly much less educated real world around him. Maybe we all should, as Wilson/Coogan quips, read more : )
  • paulsandberg
    August 8, 2008
    paulsandberg
    I had high hopes for an in depth look into the beginnings of the punk scene, but was left feeling disappointed, as though Winterbottom (dir) fell into the pathos of the punk movement himself and ended up selling his film short (as one of the films' high points - a fake Robinson C... read morearuso take of the writer and singer who is stuck on a island to "dry out" says so pointedly "I'm stuck here bored out me skull. guess I should write some lyrics, but then again, why should I?"

    I found the film's humour to be it's saving grace and the main charactor's humanity the only charactor I cared about at all - the rest were just degenerate slackers who to me had little real talent and were propped up by a hype machine - I guess as a dance vehicle (I remember the pogo) the songs work, and all the angst must have connected to someone - but I would sure have loved to have been given the opportunity to be recorded and pushed the way those bands were - and they could have cared less - which again I suppose is the crux of the entire movement.

    I noticed the lead actor from the BBC version of Life On Mars in a minor role as guitarist for one of the bands.
  • RCCLBC
    July 11, 2008
    RCCLBC
    It's funny...even if you are like me and your teen / early adult life was immersed in much of the music of this period and over the years you've heard about 'Factory Records" and 'The Hacienda'...you can't really appreciate ANY of it until you see a film like this and get a true ... read morefeeling for everything and everyone that was involved.

    Some say Tony Wilson was a fool...while others say he was brilliant. I tend to think he was a little of both (aren't most geniuses?).

    The thing that CAN NOT be denied is Tony Wilson's innovative and vital role, not only in the "Manchester Music Scene" but in the music industry as a whole.

    I can not help but think of how amazing the music industry might have become, if his "vision" had not been tainted by the harsh reality of human nature.

    Now-a-days it takes an artist "breaking free" and doing it ALL themselves (see NIN, Radiohead) to have true creative freedom. Tony was offering that years ago at Factory Records, but ironically it was one of his "artists" (and bad money management in general) that ultimately ended it all.

    But his "vision" was pure and his passion for music was genuine. A truely great story about a really amazing man.

View All 24 Hour Party People Reviews

Critic Reviews

Robert Denerstein
October 2, 2002
Robert Denerstein, Denver Rocky Mountain News

How much you enjoy 24 Hour Party People, director Michael Winterbottom's raucous look at the Manchester, England music scene of the '80s, probably depends on your background.

Joe Baltake
September 20, 2002
Joe Baltake, Sacramento Bee

Fun for a spell but becomes repetitive and monotonous. It leaves you in a haze. Full Review

Roger Moore
September 19, 2002
Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel

Coogan, as the consummate overeducated, overly-erudite opinion leader, is spot-on perfect.

Eleanor Ringel Gillespie
August 31, 2002
Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A real party, but it's hard to keep track of the guests. Full Review

Terry Lawson
August 30, 2002
Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press

Even if you have never heard of the Mondays, whose members swiftly self-destructed in Ecstasy and excess, or of Tony Wilson, the entrepreneur the film is about, you may find yourself drawn into the vo... Full Review

Eric Harrison
August 30, 2002
Eric Harrison, Houston Chronicle

Its wit and sense of fun open it up to people with only a passing interest in the music and the era. Full Review

Steven Rosen
August 30, 2002
Steven Rosen, Denver Post

With enough verve and energy, if a not an absolute devotion to truth, to keep you dancing and thinking for days. Full Review

Chris Vognar
August 29, 2002
Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News

Rave and dance music aficionados will be pleased to see an important chapter in their cultural history. Full Review

Peter Howell
August 23, 2002
Peter Howell, Toronto Star

Winterbottom captures the spirit of the times, although the film's camera shakes and psychedelic colour bursts may make many viewers feel like reaching for Gravol rather than Ecstasy. Full Review

Ray Conlogue
August 23, 2002
Ray Conlogue, Globe and Mail

So energized by the subject that it overflows with inventiveness. Full Review

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  • What movie features a semi-biographical look at the band Joy Division, and the club at which they started?  Answer »
  • Which actor did NOT feature in the film "24 Hour Party People" by michael Winterbottom?  Answer »
  • Which of these Manchester bands was NOT featured in "24 Hour Party People"?  Answer »
  • Who stars in all these films? -Football Factory -Outlaw -Severence -24 Hour Party People  Answer »
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