Punk rock traces its early roots to the garage rock bands of the late '50s and '60s, which precursed the movement in attitude and philosophy, though not fully developing the sound and label of "punk" until the late '70s. While some would argue the Detroit band The Stooges were the first punk band, others would say that the movement hadn't coalesced until an English band called The Sex Pistols released their legendary album, Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols. New Yorkers, meanwhile, would argue that the first true punk bands were CBGB's acts like Television or The Ramones. Indeed, The Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren had borrowed the tattered shirts and clothespin earrings from a Television band member by the name of Richard Hell before introducing the style in his clothing boutique, SEX, on the King's Road in London and putting together The Sex Pistols band using that look.
No matter where its origins are traced to, the movement gained traction in the late '70s, when rock critic Lester Bangs labeled the movement "punk", pejoratively, thus creating a unified, reactionary movement among its mohawked purveyors. As the music movement became widespread, its talons reached into other mediums, including film. Early champions of the movement including Penelope Spheeris and Alex Cox created narrative and documentary films using the language of Punk, thus beginning an era of films that attempted to capture the essence of the reactionary and rebellious sound and bring it to a larger audience via celluloid strips.
While Punk waxed and waned in popularity and relevance throughout the '80s and '90s, filmmakers still felt compelled to use its language to design and execute movies that brought worldwide attention to the movement as it moved through several subgenres like Hardcore and Riot Grrrl. An anarchic ethos permeated these films and inspired generations to explore the counter-culture movement, burgeoning the scenes surrounding the music. The following are the 20 greatest films that were inspired by, and documented, all that is Punk Rock.
20 Glory Daze
It would likely cost a studio a high eight-figure sum to assemble all the acting talent in Glory Daze today. With a cast featuring Ben Affleck, Sam Rockwell, Matt Damon, Brendan Fraser and Matthew McConaughey, the oft-forgotten film tells the story of a group of recent UC Santa Cruz grads, and their attempts to preserve their undergraduate lifestyle to a soundtrack provided by The Vandals. Affleck does well in his first lead performance, and Sam Rockwell's role as Rob showed his early promise, leading to further roles in exceptional 90s films like The Green Mile and Galaxy Quest. Affleck followed the role with Good Will Hunting, vaulting to fame after establishing he could lead an entertaining film with Glory Daze.
19 SLC Punk!
James Merendino's love letter to his Salt Lake City upbringing, SLC Punk! gives a glimpse into how punks reacted to their time and place in Mormon-dominated Utah, with the ragtag group rebelling against everything from local "rednecks" to their Reagan-loving parents. The film shows the contrast between outsider punk lifestyles and the prosperous 1980s. With funny appearances from Jason Segal and Christopher McDonald, the movie was a refreshing response to the much tamer teen movies of the late 1990's.
18 What We Do is Secret
What We Do is Secret is a biopic about the life of Punk icon Darby Crash, lead singer of one of the great Punk bands to come out of Los Angeles, The Germs. While the movie didn't hit big with audiences and critics, it's an earnest look at the life of Crash and other band members like Pat Smear, who went on to fame as a member of Nirvana and the Foo Fighters. It's hard to capture all the gritty glory of a band like The Germs, but the movie's performances make for a good watch and the subject-matter is unmatched in the canon of Punk film.
17 CBGB
There is no more storied club in Punk's history than CBGB, Lower Manhattan's grimy, urine-stained Shangri La, that was the first regular venue for seminal punk bands like Television, The New York Dolls, and The Ramones. The club's infamous owner Hilly Krystal is played by the always-great Alan Rickman. The film attempts to capture one of the most creatively-fertile periods in Punk's history, and Rickman's performance, one of the last of his career, captures the iconic Hilly Kristal in all his grumpy glory as the ringleader of the only place that welcomed the Punk movement with open arms at a time when the music was still largely underground.
16 The Runaways
One of Kristen Stewart's most underrated performances, as Joan Jett, The Runaways tells the origin story of the eponymous band, with Dakota Fanning bringing more acting talent to the role of Cherrie Currie. The band was extremely influential for female punks, even though Jett's later fame overshadowed their pervasive effect on the movement's West Coast origins. Michael Shannon is a nice addition to the film as the band's over-bearing producer Kim Fowley.
15 Times Square
Times Square is a look at the New York City Punk scene of the early 80s, using it to backdrop a story about the way teenagers who suffer from mental illness are attracted to Punk Rock because of its alternative lifestyles and rebellious music. Tim Curry, of The Rocky Horror Picture Show gives an impressive performance as Johnny LaGuardia, a radio DJ who soundtracks the film from his Times Square studio. Director Allan Moyle went on to direct another important music-based film, Pump Up the Volume, a decade later.
14 Rock 'n' Roll High School
Part musical comedy, part documentary and all fun, Rock 'n' Roll High School caught The Ramones at the peak of their powers. They had become one of the biggest bands in America, and despite their genre, embodied an Old School New York City vibe at a time when Wall of Sound inventor Phil Spector (himself the subject of several films and series) was producing the band. Spector highlighted the influence of old New York acts like Dion and The Ronettes on the band, and B-Movie legend Roger Corman created an endearing film to capture The Ramones as the voice of late-70s youth culture.
13 Gimme Danger
The Godfather of Punk, Iggy Pop helped found The Stooges, Punk's most important (and arguably earliest) band. Indie film legend Jim Jarmusch produced the documentary Gimme Danger to call attention to the under-sung band that, despite their enormous influence saw an early end thanks to the heroin-addled lifestyles of Iggy Pop and the Asheton brothers. Jarmusch delves in great detail into the bleak Detroit setting that led the band's unique sound, and Pop remains one of the great talking heads ever in a documentary, with his outsized personality and wisdom tracing many revelations about the band's untimely demise.
12 Suburbia
No director has contributed more to documenting the music movements of the 80s and 90s than Penelope Spheeris, whose incredible documentaries make a nice companion to her first narrative film, Suburbia (also produced by Roger Corman, one of the few producers of the time to recognize Punk's importance). Spheeris' film is most remembered for its authentic style and tone, and the director gained widespread fame ten years later when she directed Wayne's World. The Vandals play a large role in this film, as well, providing a plot device for the film's dejected, outsider characters.
11 The Filth and the Fury
Julien Temple's 2000 film, The Filth and the Fury, is an effective document of The Sex Pistols meteoric rise to fame. Essentially a punk rock boy band, assembled by Malcolm McLaren to imbue the movement's style and attitudes, The Sex Pistols' bold criticism of the British government and monarchy and searing sound served as a high point for Punk. The band flamed out after recording just one album and an infamously disastrous U.S. Tour, at a time when American live audiences weren't ready to digest the band's brash, cacophonous sound and the bratty persona of lead singer Johnny Rotten. Bassist Sid Vicious' eventual murder of his girlfriend Nancy Spungen was one of many shocking events that led to the band's downfall, as described by Rotten and guitarist Steve Jones in the film.
10 Valley Girl
While we use the term Punk loosely in describing its incorporation into Valley Girl, the film did introduce Nicolas Cage to a wide audience, making him a rising star after a bit part in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. The film also features one of the great 80s soundtracks, crossing Punk and New Wave with amazing bands like The Clash, The Psychedelic Furs and Modern English's memorable "I Melt With You" track. The movie has some hilarious moments too, serving to document the 80s rise of the Valley Girl phenomenon coming out of Southern California's San Fernando Valley.
9 Control
No band has had a more profound effect and influence on Indie Rock than Joy Division, and the band's Punk origins are portrayed in black and white detail in the biopic Control. The band seemed destined for stardom, but lead singer Ian Curtis struggled with epilepsy and depression, leading to his suicide at age 23. The band found fame later, reincorporating as New Order after Curtis' untimely death and becoming one of the U.K.'s most beloved and profitable bands as part of the 80s British New Wave. The film captures the bleak grit of industrial Manchester, England and how it influenced the band, and a memorable performance by Samantha Morton as Curtis' wife highlights the otherwise dark film.
8 A Band Called Death
A documentary about a culturally-important Punk band from Detroit, A Band Called Death tells the tragic story of Death, a band composed of three African-American brothers who may have been too ahead of their time for their own good. Their controversial name and eclectic influences led to little recognition during the life off the band, which rocked Detroit at the same time as The Stooges and MC5, before the genre had coalesced into what is now known as Punk, something that may have help the band achieve their due appreciation, which came much later with the release of this film.
7 We Are the Best
The 2013 film We Are the Best is unique on this list for its European provenance and adaptation from a graphic novel. The film offers a glimpse into the early '80s punk scene in Stockholm from the outsiders' perspective of young teenage girls, who are bullied for their mohawks and embrace of Punk culture. The film's standout performances by adolescent actors Mira Barkhammar and Mira Grosin won it serious critical acclaim, including a 97% approval rating on aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.
6 1991: The Year Punk Broke
Dave Markey's theatrically-released live music film 1991: The Year Punk Broke was a melting pot of early '90s music talent, including Sonic Youth and Nirvana, shortly before both bands reached stratospheric popularity. It traces the roots of the growing scenes around Sub Pop Records in Seattle and shows how bands of the era incorporated Punk and Hardcore sounds to create new genres including Grunge. It also includes footage of The Ramones, by that point Godfathers of the Punk movement and revered by this group of bands, with whom they toured throughout the 90s.
5 Repo Man
Alex Cox's 1984 Punk science-fiction film Repo Man used the early Hardcore scene as it's backdrop, including bands like Suicidal Tendencies, Black Flag and The Circle Jerks on its soundtrack and in live performances, as Emilio Estevez gives his most badass performance as Otto Maddox, a repo man navigating his way through a supernatural minefield as he repossesses cars in burned out areas of Los Angeles. A memorable supporting performance by Harry Dean Stanton is one of the films highlights, as well as standing as a document of a transitional period in Punk's sound.
4 Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten
Another incredible Julien Temple documentary, Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten, chronicles the singer's rise a member of The Clash, considered by many British music critics to be just as important and influential an English band as The Beatles and The Kinks, and traces Strummer's eclectic international origins as the son of a diplomat. His politically adjacent upbringing also made him one of the most socially active musicians of the '70s and '80s, approaching issues like apartheid and domestic racism through songs like "Know Your Rights" and albums like Combat Rock. He was 30 years ahead of his time on wokeism, and incorporated elements of early Rap and Reggae music into The Clash's sound, championing artists from Jamaica and the South Bronx.
3 Sid and Nancy
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Another Alex Cox film, another authentic look at Punk Rock, this time through the prism of Punk's heroin-injected Romeo and Juliette, Sid and Nancy. The film stars Gary Oldman in his breakout performance as Sid Vicious, bassist of The Sex Pistols, whose turbulent romance with Nancy Spungen led to her murder in 1978 at New York's infamous Chelsea Hotel. The film is a document of how short-lived and explosive The Sex Pistols rise to fame became, and the bloody dissolution of the band, whose bassist embodied all the drug-addled excess of the early British Punk movement. Cox paints Sid Vicious as both hero and villain, showing how his untethered lifestyle and heroin use remained unchecked by bandmates and managers, who were unable to control the wild rock icon.
2 The Decline of Western Civilization
Penelope Spheeris, as talented a documentarian as a narrative filmmaker, broke ground with her documentary trilogy The Decline of Western Civilization, with a first installment about Los Angeles Punk bands like The Germs, Black Flag and X, released in 1980. The doc uses hilarious interviews to examine the rebellious lifestyles of young Punk bands who went on to become some of the most influential artists of the early '80s, with Black Flag helping invent the Hardcore genre and X using a rockabilly approach to create their own unique sound. Spheeris uses a warts-and-all approach to showing the anarchic lifestyles and ridiculously outlandish language of young LA punk fans alongside the bands featured, and was so popular it spawned two more films documenting other LA music scenes.
1 24 Hour Party People
No other city in Britain has had as influential an effect on music as Manchester, England which produced standout bands like New Order, Happy Mondays, and A Certain Ratio during its fervent '80s era. 24 Hour Party People shows how the movement was led by Factory Records, who used New Order's breakout albums created in the ashes of Ian Curtis' death to create a label that championed the growing Manchester sound. Its greatest purveyor was TV Host Tony Wilson, played hilariously by Steve Coogan. Coogan echoes Wilson's larger-than-life personality, a key cog in Factory Records' rise and the creation of The Hacienda nightclub, where Punk grew into New Wave, then late-80s British House music. Michael Winterbottom's film guides you effortlessly through the trend-setting experience of Factory Record's rise, concurrent to Wilson's, who's overspending and narcissism led to Factory Record's eventual downfall, but not before creating some of the most influential music of the '80s.