Sid and Nancy (1986) User Reviews (159)

Sickeningly awesome tale of sex, drugs, and rock n roll

[KnightsofNi11 · 8/10 · 31 July 2011]

Some films tend to glorify rock and roll by showing off its glamorous side full of adventure and wonder. Sid and Nancy does no such thing. Instead it exposes the dirty, grimy, seedy underbelly of punk rock which is full of violence and drugs. Gary Oldman plays Sid Vicious, the bassist for British punk rock group the Sex Pistols. The film chronicles his life from when he meets his junky girlfriend, Nancy Spungen, to the tragic demise of that relationship. It is a loud, mean, ugly, and crass film that perfectly captures all that the Sex Pistols stood for... anarchy. Filled with all sorts of sex, drugs, and rock and roll, Sid and Nancy is a seriously wild ride.

If there's anything that makes this film, it's Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb. These two are incredible, Oldman more so. Oldman captures the self destructive tendencies of Sid excellently and takes it to a frighteningly believable extreme. It is a terrifying and shocking experience to watch him run amuck in this film, spray painting walls, nonstop drinking, shooting heroin every chance he gets, burning houses, etc. He is the true essence of anarchy, and yet somehow we feel sympathy for him. This is solely because of Nancy, the girlfriend. She is a character you love to hate. She is a pathetic excuse for a human being, always whining to get her way and her drugs, never contributing anything positive to Sid's life, and always screaming about her own problems. It is sickening and it makes the film all the more twisted and engrossing as we watch such self destruction unfold on screen.

It's not easy to tell a story where your two main characters are so easily hateable, but somehow this film does it. I think it is because of the balance between Nancy and Sid that we feel compelled to pity Sid and despise Nancy, making the film engaging in an offbeat and slightly deranged way. Their story is so backwards and so wretchedly obscene that we have to be interested in it somehow. It starts off simply enough. The Sex Pistols are all about anarchy and they go around beating people up, cursing, drinking, and all that sort of thing. But it isn't until Sid meets Nancy that things really start to explode as the story falls deeper and deeper into a twisted fit of depravity. Thing get worse and worse for the two as the film progresses and Sid's life slowly crumbles around him, with him too drunk or too high to even notice. The film does lag a little bit towards the middle as the conversations between Nancy and Sid begin to get a little repetitive, but we are then hit by an expected yet still powerful ending that closes out the film at just the right tone and atmosphere.

There is really nothing sane or reasonable about Sid and Nancy. It envelopes true chaos and discourse through the life of one man and his ridiculous girlfriend. It is a chore to watch this film as it does chronicle a life full of the most horrible habits and attitudes imaginable, but if you can stomach it all then Sid and Nancy is a fantastic film to experience. I loved this film and was truly fascinated by it. It displays a lifestyle a would never want to live. Instead, I only want to learn about it in vulgar detail from a great film like Sid and Nancy.

Sid and Nancy (1986) , honest look at self destruction.

[hitchcockthelegend · 8/10 · 4 March 2008]

Finally upgraded from VHS to the special edition DVD of this Alex Cox film about the ill fated Sid Vicious & his honey Nancy Spungen.

Watched it twice in fact , just had to hear the commentary from Cox because he is a director who I admire for trying to tap into the conscious of the subject he tackles.

As an old punk myself it would be easy for me to be biased and lean with a nostalgic slant with the film, but truth is this film doesn't glamorise the duo because they are portrayed as the pathetic self destructive couple they were. The film perfectly captures the time frame of what is indisputably the music and cultural phenomenon known as Punk Rock, the only blight on this great piece of work is the ending, which as Cox agrees is far too romanticised after the harshness the viewer has just sat thru. Yet this film ranks as one of the most honest and frank music biography movies out on the market, and I urge anyone who stays away from it because of an aversion to Punk and it's offshoots to seek it out ASAP.

The acting from Gary Oldman & Chloe Webb is nothing short of amazing, the photography from Roger Deakins is very impressive......

...witness a scene as Vicious leaves a New Jersey prison and walks across a deserted scrap heap with New York prominent in the background, the twin towers cloaked in cloud . The direction is smart, funny, and handled perfectly {till that ending }, and the music arrangement is done adroitly by all involved, but I have to say that viewing it now and hearing Joe Strummer sing Love Kills at the closing credits gives me an added emotional kicker {SO YES A LITTLE BIAS HERE FROM ME }.

8/10

Not Romeo and Juliet

[gsygsy · 7/10 · 3 January 2014]

I missed SID & NANCY when it was first released. I wasn't expecting much when settling down to watch the DVD. I was pleasantly surprised to find a coherent, energetic but ultimately melancholy study of co-dependency, with two terrific central performances.

We get to know Chloe Webb's child-woman Nancy to a greater extent than we do Gary Oldman's wild-man Sid. Not the actors' fault. In fact it's not a fault at all. There is something inexplicable there. Whatever forces were at play in forming the young man who became Sid Vicious, it's to the credit of Alex Cox and his team that they don't waste time speculating upon them or trying to analyse them. Instead, the film lives up to its title, starting just before the relationship starts and ending just after Nancy's death.

The era in which the film was made is a significant factor in appreciating it. It was, in the UK at any rate, a time when the welfare state that had been so painstakingly put into place began to be systematically unravelled, a land where the notion of Society was belittled, in which hyper-individualism was lauded, where any sense of community was being abandoned, and the search for it becoming a joke. WALL ST, the'hero' of which was to famously declare Greed to be good, was released the year after SID AND NANCY. I remember all that only too well. And of course it's not over yet: the unravelling continues.

Sid and Nancy meet in a frenzy and finish in a fog. In between they shore each other up as best they can, two bits of flotsam on an indifferent sea. We're shown only a little of where Sid came from, mercifully not enough to help us theorise about how he came to be the embodiment of anarchy. Instead, through Oldman's bravura, we see his unmitigated charisma, at which the film's unctuous Malcolm McClaren (played by David Hayman) smiles knowingly and which he merrily exploits. We do see Nancy in the context of her family, but again, instead of attempting to use this encounter to explaining her, Cox gives us a sense of how pleased the family was to get rid of her. If Romeo and Juliet had been like Sid and Nancy, the Montagues and the Capulets would have paid to get them married and out of Verona altogether.

Intense and well acted but ultimately depressing and unrevealing look at the infamous punk rock couple.

[lordguano · 7/10 · 3 August 2000]

The brilliant performances of Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb in the title roles propel this bleak and depressing look into the calamitous relationship between Sex Pistols bass player Sid Vicious and American punk rock groupie Nancy Spungen. The characters are introduced to us in tragedy right from the opening scene, casting the rest of the film with a fatalistic sense of impending doom. These are two tortured souls in communion who seem at odds with just about every facet of society -- even the extreme punk rock counter-culture to which they both ostensibly belong.

A major problem with the film (and all the more reason to tip our hats to the two leads) is that Sid and Nancy are written as such abrasive and disagreeable characters, one is hard pressed to relate to them on any meaningful level.

And while the re-creation of their reckless and volatile rebelliousness is quite detailed and credible, we never get a sense of how they came to be so angry and tortured to begin with. Even the smallest glimpse at their inner turmoil would have gone a long way in creating sympathy and concern from the audience. Instead, director Cox relies on the pureness of their genuine love for each other to provide that hook. That strategy succeeds to the extent it does ONLY because of Oldman's and Webb's amazing transformation into these parts.

If you own a DVD player, try to get a hold of the Criterion Collection edition of this film. That disc contains some excellent, revealing footage of the REAL Sid and Nancy that was shot for a contemporary documentary on the Sex Pistols ill-fated 1978 tour of the USA. If nothing else, the footage will increase your appreciation for these two splendid performances.

Convincing portrait of the wasted and the talentless.

[Pedro_H · 7/10 · 18 May 2003]

Recent social history is very hard to capture through drama and Alex Cox must be grateful to have such a good plot device (a far from standard love story) to carry us through this difficult and much misunderstood period of history.

Punk rock was born to be a cult. Through all the headlines and publicity the central music barely scrapped the US charts: The Sex Pistols one studio album only just crept in to the American top 100 and they were viewed more as a novelty act than the next big thing. Only when the whole thing was tamed and popified did the thing take off, by then renamed "new wave" to differentiate between the new and old school.

(By this time the Pistols had long since self-destructed.)

In the beginning, the Sex Pistols were more a private party than a band, indeed they often played them instead of more normal gigs. The original punks were anti fashion and anti everything, attracting misfits of all kinds and colours; although art and fashion students made up the majority. This really was an open house with prostitutes, homosexuals and exhibtionists being equally welcome.

(This is accurately depicted in the movie.)

Sid and Nancy were from this hanging-on group and although joining the group as bassist and groupie respectively (Nancy tried to get it on with most of the band) they were never more than window dressing. The Pistol sound was Lydon/Rotten's voice and Steve Jones's power chords. Sid never even played on the records.

It is notable that many icons manage to have an icon haircut (Elvis, Rolling Stones, Beatles all set hair fashions) and amazingly SV even managed one himself with his perfect spikes. His look, his life and his early death made him a cult, but he didn't leave a legacy behind other than a series of half-hearted drunken rants.

Hard to see how Oldman could do more to be Vicious other than lose a few years. SV died at 21 and Oldman is clearly older (28 at the time of filming), but that is my only quibble. Chloe Webb (as Nancy) is also good, but annoying, like a dog that won't shut up barking and chewing the furniture, until you just accept it. A life consisting of drugs, sex and TV - often consumed all at the same time.

Alex Cox's direction (possibly because he knew the punk movement first hand rather than through the papers) is first rate - like Quentin Tarantino lite - but he is just as much a flash-in-the-pan as Sid and Nancy himself. He can't make a mainstream movie, because all he is interested in is man's ugly underbelly and without major acting talent these things look self-indulgent and even amateurish.

However this is a moral look at drug taking - not the "fun before it gets serious" moral - the "its never a good idea full stop" one. Sid is a child, Nancy is barely any more than a child, but more street-wise. Too lazy for work she used oral sex like most people use a credit card.

I like this film because it has something to say about undeserved fame, what you do (or the few choices you have) after your fifteen minutes is up and how empty headed people with no agenda get treated in this big bad world. Whether you want to spend time learning all this is up to you, but it is very well done if you do.

Eaugh

[mls4182 · 6/10 · 3 July 2022]

Good lord. What a story. What creatures.

I pity anyone who had to spend more than ten seconds within 100 feet of these cretins.

I think it is merciful what they called a life was short.

Masterful performances by Oldman and Webb

[saska-3 · 9/10 · 23 June 2003]

When I was 15, I loved this movie because I loved the Sex Pistols and everything punk. Now that I am twice that age, I love this film for its unflinching portrayal of two people's lives, despite how uncomfortable it makes us, how little we sympathize with them as people, or how hard it is for us to comprehend the choices they made. I personally believe at least part of the discomfort comes from the fact that at some level, we DO understand Sid and Nancy, their love for each other, and the choices they make beneath the haze of addiction.

I realize, seeing it with adult eyes, why my parents were so shocked I was watching this film in 1987. But ironically, it was the best anti-drug message I could have seen in my teenage years. In performances so masterful they make me wince, fight off nausea, and weep for their misfortune, Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb constructed characters no one would ever want to be. The supporting cast deserves accolades as well - in particular, Andrew Schofield turns in a seamless portrayal of Johnny Rotten, who, unlike Sid, knows full well Malcolm MacLaren created him.

Having read "And I Don't Want To Live This Life" by Debora Spungen, and having seen more than a handful of documentaries with live footage of the band throughout the years, what impressed me most was the consistency of tone that Oldman and Webb bring to their performances. They are spot-on, not just in stupor and excess, but in tenderness and rare moments of clarity. The movie's ending was unique among biopics where the truth is in dispute, in that it did not profess to know the answer to that burning question (did Sid kill Nancy?) any more than Sid knew himself.

Why watch a film about a couple of junkies who came from unremarkable backgrounds and disappeared into the bleakness of drug addiction? We seem to want our films to be about something loftier than ourselves. I view "Sid and Nancy" more as a play than a movie - we allow our plays to be about uncomfortable subjects and unhappy people, but seem to think that celluloid must be as bright as the projector light behind it. This film is a study in love and dysfunction; its characters are painfully imperfect but perfectly portrayed and we cannot help but respond, even if our response is the deep, squirming discomfort that leads us to say we disliked the whole experience.

I rated this film a very rare 9.

Cox's intelligence and potential are evident in an uncompromising film

[Nazi_Fighter_David · 7/10 · 18 December 2005]

Given the discipline of a strong director, Alex Cox has revealed overwhelming ambition, and a ferocious imagination in his films…

"Sid and Nancy" was impressive, turning the dirty and depressing true story of Sid Vicious and his lover Nancy Spungen into a surprisingly moving romance…

Clear-eyed in his cautious celebration of the punk movement's rebellion against the oppressive realities of Thatcher's Britain, and similarly lucid about the difficulties of sudden fame, Cox never glamorized his drug-addict protagonists; nor, even more remarkably, did he condemn them for their idiotic, anti-social, frequently pathetic odyssey towards self-destruction in New York's Chelsea Hotel…

Sadly, the film's tense, gripping authenticity of atmosphere and performance was to be repeated neither in the indulgent, unfunny spaghetti Western spoof "Straight to Hell," nor in "Walker," an uneven, allegorical satire on American imperialism in the form of a l9th-century colonialist who sets himself up as tyrant of Nicaragua

Love Kills

[foolforlove25 · 10/10 · 8 February 2006]

This movie is not historically accurate. Let's get that out of the way right off the bat. This is not about the history of the Sex Pistols. Details don't matter, this movie is about feeling. Two misguided, deluded outcasts who are so completely, desperately in love, that they won't leave each other, even though they are probably the worst people in the world for each other. They spiral into heroin addiction, (which is NOT glamorized. Some of the scenes with them bunkered down in the Chelsea Hotel are downright disgusting) and one of them is killed, although no one knows how exactly how. Punks are usually the unsentimental type, so they tend to give this film the two-finger salute. Well, screw them. It is a beautiful film, which speaks more honestly about love and addiction than any Oscar-grabbing shite that I can find in the New Release section. Gary Oldman and and Chole Webb are excellent, inhabiting their characters right down to marrow. The era is evoked wonderfully, and the film is littered with gorgeous, iconic images, the best of which being Sid and Nancy kissing in an alleyway while garbage rains down on them from above like rice at a wedding. Also, most people ignore how FUNNY this movie is, despite it's heartbreaking subject matter. This is an enjoyable movie, not a punishment, or a slog through the mud. After seeing this movie, a friend of mine was so moved, she packed up everything she had and moved to London, where she lived on the streets for a year, trying to form a punk band. I'd recommend this movie to anyone, not just punks or Sex Pistols fans. It's appeal is much more universal than that. To me, this movie exemplifies my idea of true love. It isn't always pretty. It can drag you over glass, lead you to your grave, debase, humiliate, and destroy you. But it's a connection so strong that you can't deny it. And it's so beautiful that you really don't care if it kills you.

Mildly Interesting

[socrates4 · 6/10 · 14 May 2019]

SID AND NANCY tells the true story of a young rock musician's rise to fame and his downfall, along with his girlfriend. The real story is very interesting, but unfortunately that doesn't always translate well into narrative form.

I feel like this could have been done better as a documentary. I'm sure there is a documentary or five about it, so you might be better of checking out one of those. At least the acting is decent. But overall, this was a bit of a disappointment, despite having a few good bits in there. Do not recommend.

love in the gutter

[mjneu59 · 8/10 · 3 January 2011]

This vivid recreation of the last, not quite desperate days of Sex Pistol Sid Vicious and his junkie/lover Nancy Spungen celebrates all the pathetic excesses of punk rock anarchy, but without the overwrought clichés Oliver Stone would later use to embalm kindred rock martyr Jim Morrison. It would be hard to find a more honest and unsettling portrait of show biz degradation, and yet the two lovers shared an almost tender (if self-destructive) affection for each other, conveyed by director Alex Cox with a gritty, forthright lyricism (their silhouetted embrace amidst a hail of garbage provides the film's most telling image). If nothing else, the pair were certainly more loyal to the nihilistic punk aesthetic than their contemporaries, and the film chronicles their slow, co-dependent suicide from the gutters of swinging London to the alleys of New York City, with an ill-conceived detour to Nancy's white-bread Middle America homestead. Gary Oldman brilliantly captures the ignorant anger (and sometimes disarming innocence) of the man described by Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren as a "fabulous disaster", and Chloe Webb is equally fine as the ugly duckling drug addict Nancy.

A Punk Rock Romeo and Juliet? I Guess.

[gavin6942 · 7/10 · 21 December 2006]

The true story of Sid Vicious and his girlfriend. The Sex Pistols, Courtney Love and Gary Oldman featured.

That Courtney Love appears in this film is so strange considering that eight years later her husband would die partially due to a heroin overdose. Love, to my knowledge, had not yet met Kurt Cobain when this film was made. Love and Cobain would end up being one of those tragic couples like Sid and Nacy, and John and Yoko.

Gary Oldman stars as Sid Vicious. Is there anything this man cannot do? Lee Harvey Oswald, a Russian terrorist, and now a punk rocker. And he nails the performance square on the head. One scene has Sid performing Frank Sinatra's "My Way" for a music video. Watching this scene alongside the actual video will show you that Oldman was inside the character and could out-Sid the Sid.

Nancy was the most annoying person on the face of the earth. I heard she was the same way in real life. But all she did in this movie was whine and scream and make inhuman guttural noises. Can't a rock star do better than this? I enjoyed this film. Many have called it a punk rock Romeo and Juliet. I can see this, except this version has heroin and the lovers beat each other up. And their families don't want each other killed (although Nancy's parents seem to dislike Sid greatly). So, I guess, I can't really see it.

Any interest in the Sex Pistols, or music history, violent relationships, drug addiction? Watch this. Or, admit that Gary Oldman is the best actor on earth and watch him breeze through this on the way to another Oscar.

Tries Hard, but Ultimately Fails

[snazel · 5/10 · 11 September 2013]

You really need to ask yourself if you love the Pistols and the general era of the late 70's. If you do, the film will fall flat for you.

The details are all wrong, the key incidents of the band and Sid's involvement with them are way off. The personalities of key people are wrong, some characters just made up, rather sloppily too.

So we can forgive it for being a wholly inaccurate of Sid Vicious' life. Fine, but so then what we are left with is a basic love story. It fails at this too, mostly because Nancy is written out pure spite and misogyny. She is therefore not only unlikable but wholly uninteresting.

You never believe the love story, because quite frankly Nancy isn't really written as a human being, just a series of tropes about junkies and that awful idea that women are shrews that stifle men's creativity.

The truth is Nancy was much more physically beautiful than this film wishes to admit. She was also quite charming, in fact, if you know junkie culture, you know that charm, deadly psychotic charm is a key way to survive and support your habit. None of that is shown here, so that ability for junkies to convince others they are clean, or kind or honest is obliterated.

Nancy was smarter than this film gives credit for (yes even though she was a junkie), with more charisma too and if they had written her that way it would make for a better film.

The real Sid fell in love with a real human being, a flawed one to be sure, but the kind of junkie a lot of us could fall for. In this film she's just a very nasty series of dull, obvious tropes.

Just about everyone intimately involved with the Sex Pistols has disowned this film.

I think there are moments of visual poetry in this film, I think Gary Oldman's performance is excellent, but the script is a Hollywood hackneyed attempt to reduce the Sex Pistols to every stereotype and narrow prejudice those who were never punks have always harbored about the punk movement.

It's sad because there is some real craft to this film, it had tremendous potential, but ultimately you can just never believe Sid would fall for this less-than-human harpy. Sad because there's a real reason Nancy swept Sid off his feet.

The truth, in this case, is not only stranger than fiction, it was also far more compelling.

A rather romanticized Hollywood-esque version of the story of Sid and Nancy.

[spanking_machine · 7/10 · 17 December 2018]

It's not difficult to argue that this movie has become one cult classic among audiences that have been aquainted with the punk rock movement, and it's not hard to see why it's considered to be one of the best in its genre.

It shows a pretty stunning cinematography as it creates a rather romantic atmosphere in the midst of contantly chaoting circumstances. It does not fail to channel that reckless and violent energy that characterizes punk rock so much, however it feels like its version of punk is a little devoid of political awareness and individualistic ideas. So we're left with a version that feels a bit like a caricature version of it.

The same can be said of Nancy Spungen's portrayal by Chloe Webb. Somehow they took a girl who was physically pretty and very attractive, a girl that spoke with a a certain purr in her voice, and they turned her into a lady that due to her constant squealing and screaming, was almost unbearable to watch or listen to. I mean, no offense, but two things Spungen will always be remembered for is her stunning beauty and those effortlessly sexy poses she so naturally produced. With the body she had she could have passed for a model. However none of that was captured by Chloe Webb who, in the movie, looked like she was much older than her co-star Gary Oldman. It made me wonder why didn't they get Courtney Love to play the role of Nancy, and I remembered that director Alex Cox explained once, it was due to her striking resemblance to real Nancy Spungen.

We don't know whether the movie's portrayal of the events surrounding the tragic couple is historically accurate, some people say it isn't. But we do know that this is Alex Cox's artistic interpretation of what happened. And thanks to him, we have this unique biopic that rather beautifully encapsulates a reflection of that raw love story. Also we should mention that Gary Oldman delivers what is probably one of his best performances in here. So with that I say, it's definitely worth a watch.

Powerful Biopic of Punk Rock's Doomed Pair

[ben83 · 19 April 2010]

This powerful and mesmerising biopic centred around the life and times, and general demise and downward spiral of The Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious and his drug addicted American girlfriend Nancy Spungen is nothing short of harrowing and moving in equal measure. This is mainly thanks in part to both the directorial eye of Alex Cox, but mainly the performances of the two leads Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb. Oldman portrays Vicious as he apparently really was, a stroppy, moody young man who was easily led, as is portrayed in the movie. Chloe Webb is equally as good, portraying Nancy as a volatile and often loose cannon on even more of a self destructive mission than her lover. According to former members of the Pistols she was the defining influence on Sid and was said to have introduced him to the class A drugs that eventually would lead to his death. This film is accurate to the times and events, and the scenes depicted here are based upon true memoirs. Sid and Nancy is primarily the story about the couple, with the Sex Pistols playing more of a sub story, although that's not to say that it doesn't show the events surrounding the band as well. There are excellent supporting performances, in particular from Andrew Schofield as lead singer Johnny Rotten, sneering out the words to 'Anarchy in the U.K', and a very accurate scene along the Thames where the band performed 'God Save The Queen'. A particular highlight is Sid Vicious's bizarre rendition of Frank Sinatra's 'My Way', performed almost identically by Gary Oldman to that of the real video. Overall a very good film that will definitely leave an unusual taste in the mouth after watching.

See "The Filth & The Fury" instead

[ericjg623 · 6/10 · 1 March 2002]

Anyone considering seeing this film would be, IMHO, much better served watching the Sex Pistols documentary "The Filth & the Fury". To be honest, the only thing that makes Sid Vicious' life interesting is the fact that he was the most notorious member of what was arguably the most notorious rock band in history. Remove that, and you're left with just another story about a junkie and his loser girlfriend. And that's the problem with this film. Most of it takes place after the Sex Pistols broke up, with Sid trying (and failing) to establish a solo career, while he and Nancy are caught up in a self destructive spiral of heroin abuse which ultimately leads to both of their deaths.

A big problem with this film is the lack of authenticity. While both Sid and Nancy seem real enough, the rest of the band (and their performances) look nothing like the real Sex Pistols. And then, after the band broke up following a show in San Francisco, we are left with little to keep us interested. It's easy to see why the rest of the band loathed Nancy, all she did was act as a Yoko Ono from hell, steering Sid away from the band and into the cesspool of heroin addiction. I suppose it could be seen as a tragic personal tale, but in truth, I'd much rather watch "The Filth & the Fury" and see the world's premier punk band in all their glory instead of watching one of its members embark on a one way ride to oblivion.

6/10

No one said Punk was Pretty

[callaway76 · 7/10 · 22 August 2003]

I don't know if it's called a "Spoiler" when the facts are known to the general public, I mean I hope I don't ruin it if I tell you the Titanic never made it to the U.S., regardless, I don't want to spoil what really is the purpose of this movie. So you are advised.

Based on facts well known by Pistols fans and music buffs, 'Sid & Nancy' recreates the building romantic tension between these two lovers that eventually erupted in murder.

Plot: A frighteningly realistic portrayal of the 'Romeo & Juliet' love affair between the Sex Pistols' Bassist/Gimmick, Sid Vicious, and Nancy Spungen which ended tragically in late '78. Then Gary Oldman happens.

The night in question is slightly obscure since the only people who really knew what happened are dead. However, I found the films version of it the most appealing, sincere, and more than likely exact. Many people think Sid violently assaulted Nancy, others still believe in conspiracies that he didn't even do it. But in the film we are given every ounce of their demented junkie/punk rock lifestyle, unveiling the true horrors behind Sex, Drugs and Rock n' Roll. David Hayman as Malcolm McLaren was perfect, though Andrew Schofield plays a horrible Johnny Rotten (with the exception of the singing). The true kudos go to Gary Oldman though. Probably one of the most challenging roles to play, he executes Sid's immaturity and obnoxious behavior honorably. The majority of the film is accurate though it tends to drag when they move to New York. Then again this movie is about the couple, not the Sex Pistols (check out 'The Great Rock & Roll Swindle if you want a movie on them).

Bottom Line: A must for die-hard Sex Pistols fans, psychotic lovers and punk rockers in general. For the rest of the public I would advise discretion, it might seem offensive and crude, but then again this is Sid Vicious we're talking about and the only woman insane enough to get to his heart.

An Indie Surprise

[OutsideHollywoodLand · 8/10 · 2 February 2010]

Sid and Nancy is a movie about the tortured relationship between Sid Vicious and his whiny girlfriend, Nancy. Please, somebody turn down the volume on this one, simply because her voice is just too irritating on this critic's last nerve! (Did she really talk like that, or was Ms. Webb in serious need of a voice coach? We may never know.) Most of Sid and Nancy revolves around the two titled post-teen's attempt to maintain some semblance of a real relationship in the midst of a lot of drugs and self-induced violence. What stopped me from turning off this sad statement of a generation was the performance of Gary Oldman. His sneering imitation of Sid's contempt for almost everyone around him masked a touching vulnerability when it came to Nancy and – yep, even their pet kitty.

And I've got to give the truly unforgettable award to Sid and Nancy, based on one single cinematic moment in the film--- you know what that moment is, don't you? Yeppers - Sid belting out a searing rendition of Old Blue Eye's favorite, "My Way". Set against a backdrop of stairs (that call to mind every high school assembly), Oldman scratches and claws at this song with such a ferocious intensity I'd give him the gold statue right now.

Because that's what a cinematic moment really is, the sum total of the character, presented to the audience in a kernel of truth. Gary Oldman – an actor whose gold statuette is long overdue — captures the twin torments of a twisted teen that really just wants to be loved and doesn't know how to get past his own angry angst.

Sex, Drugs & Rock'n'Roll (Punk-Rocker Style)

[strong-122-478885 · 6/10 · 5 August 2015]

(Favourite movie quote) - "Never trust a junkie."

If you ask me, I think that director Alex Cox did a bloody fine job of thoroughly mocking the punk-rocker scene as it stood in Britain during the mid-1970s.

And, I don't think that Cox could've chosen a better band to ridicule than that of the all-mighty "Sex Pistols", who were headlined by such talentless slime as Johnny Rotten and sleazy Sid Vicious.

In this grungy, greasy, gooey "Romeo & Juliet" story (punk-rocker style) it seems that everyone (and, I do mean "everyone") goes out, in one way or another, in a literal "blaze-of-glory".

One of this film's biggest and most comical highlights (and there were certainly others) was Sid Vicious (during his "solo" career) performing "I Did It My Way!" for an outrageously over-the-top MTV video.

With its depressingly graphic depiction of low-life, drug addiction and its incessant use of the vilest profanity imaginable, Sid & Nancy certainly isn't a film for everyone's enjoyment. But, if nothing else, it definitely does give the viewer quite a revealing (though not totally accurate) look at a particularly peculiar era in the history of pop music.

He did it his way...

[mattaspin · 8/10 · 15 November 2005]

An often romanticised look back on the life of Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious. Regarded as unreliable by Lydon, Alex Cox's homage to the era in which he spent his teenage years does offer an interesting and enthralling interpretation on one of the theories regarding the deaths of Sid and Nancy, though it may never truly come to light about what really happened. Oldman, Webb and Schofield are fantastic as Sid, Nancy and Rotten alike and it's invigorating to watch the cast sing, spit and curse their way through the Pistols back catalogue. Unappreciated by many people, but well worth a look even if you never listened to the Pistols.

"Sid and Nancy":Deep Dysfunction, Not Love, Kills

[lacyeire · 6/10 · 3 July 2005]

Sid Vicious, aka John Simon Ritchie, was doomed practically from the start of his life... so it seems. He was raised in the desperate lower end of the working class in England, by a single mother whose heroin addiction foreshadowed his own. Sid was full of anger and aimlessness, and was ultimately done in at age 21 by the poison of drugs and an equally poisonous romance. His story is not unlike so many other troubled youths in this world. He would have long ago faded into complete oblivion and obscurity were it not for two things: rock and roll and homicide.

That just about tells Vicious's life story in a nutshell. However, the devil is in the details, as they say. The biopic "Sid and Nancy" gives us a more in-depth and inside look at Sid, his destructively dysfunctional and co-dependent relationship with Nancy Spungen, and the eroding effect it helped to foster in the ultimate dissolution of The Sex Pistols. While no biopic tells its tale without taking artistic license, we do get a feel for the gritty underbelly of punk. We also watch with discomfort the pathetic downward spiral of a young man who was a central member of the whole punk movement and ethic, and who could have had a lot to live for.

At the very least, his pop culture immortality is assured because he was part of the pioneering Brit Punk band, The Sex Pistols. The Sex Pistols were only together a couple of years or so, only did one album, and only made it halfway through their first American tour before they imploded onstage. However, the musical and cultural legacy they left behind was powerful, lasting and immeasurable. The other members of the band are still with us and have reunited onstage now and again since 1996; John "Johnny Rotten" Lydon also had his own post-Pistols' success with his group, PIL (Public Image Ltd.)

Unfortunately, Sid Vicious spiraled downward into a haze of drugs, drink and self-sabotage. This was only exacerbated by his draining relationship with Nancy Spungen, an American former prostitute and longtime addict. She was an overbearing person from all accounts, and the other members of the Pistols actually tried everything they knew to get Sid away from her. In the end, their romance ended in her death, and a drug-addled Sid Vicious being charged with murder. He did not last to see the inside of a courtroom, however; he succumbed to a heroin overdose four months later.

Sid and Nancy, like the Sex Pistols themselves, have been practically deified to the point where they are almost like cartoon characters. This biopic, while it does have its flaws, shows us just how human they really were. Kudos to Gary Oldman, who gives an outstanding performance as Sid Vicious. He's riveting to watch. Chloe Webb as Nancy Spungen is grating, overbearing, whiny and not terribly likable...if that portrayal is even reasonably accurate, it's no wonder she was nicknamed "Nauseating Nancy". Given that, I have a feeling Webb nailed it in her interpretation.

God Save the Sex Pistols, always.... and R.I.P. Sid and Nancy, two young people just too out of control to last in this world. Let this ill-fated couple not be idols, but warning signs, to restless youth everywhere.

A road accident

[mentalcritic · 8/10 · 6 November 2004]

People often use the description of a road accident to describe an event that is so ugly they don't normally want to look at it, but is in turn so fascinating that they simply cannot look away. Alex Cox's depiction of the relationship between Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen fits that description to a T. It consists of so much ugliness that nobody in their right mind would normally watch it for pleasure, but it is done in such a fascinating manner that one can't help being fascinated.

Sid Vicious was definitely not one of humanity's finer specimens. His name was a total misnomer, given that he apparently couldn't fight his way out of a wet paper bag. His musical skills were so close to non-existent that I could probably play a better song than he does, in spite of never having played in a band before. So it is hardly a surprise that much of his daily activity consisted of destroying himself. Nor is it surprising that the girlfriend who tries to exploit his total lack of talent is even more vapid and idiotic than he is.

The real John Lydon refers to this biopic as the "Peter Pan version", and I don't doubt that this is to some extent true. No film studio in its right mind is going to pay to have what really happened with Sid Vicious and the people around him depicted on film, especially not now that one cannot bring a period piece with a decent cast to completion without spending a good fifty million. Interestingly, John Lydon also describes himself as being the only talented member of the Sex Pistols, and this is borne out by his musical output after their breakup, so it would be interesting to see a biopic about him.

Not having seen any original footage or performances of the real Sid Vicious, I am not going to comment on whether Gary Oldman captures the character or not. What he does capture is the general obnoxiousness of the scene. It takes genuine talent as an actor to capture the performance element of a musician so terrible that a genre known for terrible musicianship considers him among the worst. One's instinct when putting a bass guitar in their hand is to do at least a halfway competent job of playing it, so it must have taken some effort to restrain that.

Alex Cox, having just come off the production of Repo Man, obviously wasn't willing to give up his ideas about non-obvious humour. While there aren't nearly as many sight gags here, there's enough sequences that make one laugh in spite of themselves that they cannot help but wonder if it was unintentional. Oldman's impersonation of Vicious doing My Way as only Vicious would will make you laugh, cry, and reminisce, even if you were a mere toddler at the time Vicious died.

I gave Sid And Nancy an eight out of ten. There are some films that one is inclined to respond with a well-emphasised "good" with when old cranks talk about how they don't make films "like this" anymore. When people tell me they don't make films like Sid And Nancy anymore, I think it's a damned shame.

a portrait of the two quite possibly most annoying people on the planet

[fruitbat319 · 7/10 · 7 November 2006]

I know everyone likes watching movies where young, hip, famous people die in gritty ways, and I'd be lying if I said that my own morbid curiosity didn't occasionally take me in the direction of movies like Sid & Nancy. Did people of the punk persuasion in the late 70s really all have speech impediments? because that's what this movie led me to believe. Gary Oldman played the part of Sid Vicious sounding drunk, toothless and mentally challenged--in other words, probably fairly accurate. Chloe Webb's constant hoarse shriek was capable of sucking all the sympathy out of her character that when she was stabbed, I couldn't help but think, "well, at least she won't yell anymore." The worst part of the movie was Sid's performance of "My Way." I suppose that's a subjective comment--I never could get into the Sex Pistols at all, let alone solo Sid. At least I was able to press fast forward.

While it was still your typical biopic, it was refreshing in the fact that neither Sid nor Nancy were glorified in any way. They were portrayed as spoiled, hedonistic, and none too bright. There was no inkling of the misunderstood genius character that plagues these sorts of movies. I felt sorry for them, I'll admit, even Nancy and her shriek, because of the way the characters were essentially responsible for their own destruction, and too dumb and strung out to see it coming.

Please don't think punk was like this...

[wadechurton · 1/10 · 10 February 2012]

I last saw this movie when it came out in the mid-1980s, and as a long-time aficionado of punk rock, one had to say that 'Sid and Nancy' was awful. Irredeemably awful. I saw it again just last night, and it was worse. Over the decades since Sid kicked Nancy's bucket and then his own, several documentaries, unearthed footage and books of reminiscences have strengthened our acquaintance with the 'punk rock' story and its myriad sub-plots. However, as the director and co-writer of 'Sid and Nancy', Alex Cox would have known the entire story back in the early 1980s. He just didn't want to film it. Instead we get a wildly inaccurate phantasmagoria starring two painfully overacting hams who look several years older than the historical characters they are meant to be portraying. The entire English punk scene is pulped down into a bunch of exaggeratedly lurching, moronic and pettily destructive idiots falling over repeatedly and making life difficult for themselves and others. What about the intelligence and originality of the Buzzcocks or the Banshees? What about the Clash's social conscience? What about the Sex Pistols' media-savvy and musical talent? Check 'The Punk Rock Movie'; Sid actually could play, albeit in a basic 'Dee Dee Ramone' manner, and if you'd like to listen to the live bootlegs, they bear little resemblance to the incompetent racket served up by the 'Sex Pistols' in 'S & N'. Moreover, couldn't Cox have staged the 'Pistols' English gigs with an audience who doesn't look like it was straight out of 1984? Check the half-mohawks and the 'positive punk' girls' puffed-up hair. Almost as bad as Spike Lee's 'Summer of Sam'. While we're at it, why are there no swastikas? So what if Alex Cox didn't want them in his precious movie; in 1976-77 they were right there in front of everybody. Again, check the footage. Sid Vicious made the swastika t-shirt an icon; he pretty much lived in one. You might as well try to do a bio-pic about the Grateful Dead and leave out the peace symbol. Look, as you can tell, I could easily spend 10,000 words telling you how insultingly bad, stupid and dishonest this movie is. Maybe one day I will, but suffice to say that with its focus on two of the most obnoxious, universally disliked and talent-free members of the 1970s punk movement it is a totally charm-free excursion into bio-pic territory. It is also intolerably bad history.

These people don't deserve a film of their own

[jxmakela · 19 June 2004]

First of all, I should say that director Alex Cox's first film "Repo Man", is nothing less than my ALL TIME favorite movie. So I was prepared to like this film, even cut it a little slack. But I just found frustrating.

I'd seen this before on television, about a decade ago. I guess at the time I was more suspectible to heroin glamour, because I at the the time I thought it was great. Not so anymore.

For losers with no identity of their own all over the world, Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen are a glamorous, doomed couple too beautiful for this world. In reality, Vicious was a totally useless idiot, left semi-retarded by his mother intravenous drug use during pregnancy. He had no musical talent or even technical ability (the bass tracks on The Sex Pistols only album were played by the previous bassist, whom Malcolm MacLaren fired for having a too clean-cut image) -- the only thing he was ever good at was destruction, especially self-destruction. Spungen herself was an equally self-destructive, co-dependent harpie who only wanted someone to drag down with her into her inevitable downward spiral.

I don't have a problem with anyone making a film about a love affair between two down-and-out junkies, but the heroin chic of some scenes (particularly the one where Sid&Nancy are kissing on some alley, while sickly-sweet sentimental music plays and garbage falls out of the sky) made me sick. Is taking heroin and throwing your life away really so cool and romantic?

The first half of the film is actually not that bad, but as soon as the Pistols break up and Nancy shows up and starts her screeching, all we are left with are with endless fighting and screaming, followed by tearful reconciliation and (god forbid) sex scenes. All of it set against a backdrop of incredible misery and squalor. Once again, I wouldn't mind it all if Cox hadnt made the mistake of making it all seem oh so romantic.

Nick Kent, the music writer that Vicious is depicted in this film as beating up in a club (in fact, Vicious hit him on the head with a rusty bicycle chain in a back alley, thus earning the name "vicious") concluded his piece of Sid & Nancy with the words "let them rot". I agree. Don't bother to wíth this one, see "The Great Rock'n'Roll Swindle" instead.