Movie · 2007 · Drama, Romance, Fantasy · 2h 13m · PG-13 · English
Curator score: 4.3/10 (234K ratings)
All you need is love.
Overview
When young dockworker Jude leaves Liverpool to find his estranged father in the United States, he is swept up by the waves of change that are re-shaping the nation. Jude falls in love with Lucy, who joins the growing anti-war movement. As the body count in Vietnam rises, political tensions at home spiral out of control and the star-crossed lovers find themselves in a psychedelic world gone mad.
Ratings
Curator score: 4.3/10
IMDb: 7.3/10
Letterboxd: 3.50/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 53%
Metacritic: 56
TMDB: 7.1/10
Director
Julie Taymor
Production
Revolution Studios, Team Todd, Gross Entertainment, Sound Films
Cast
Evan Rachel Wood, Jim Sturgess, Joe Anderson, Dana Fuchs, Martin Luther, T.V. Carpio, Spencer Liff, Lisa Dwyer Hogg, Nicholas Lumley, Michael Ryan, Angela Mounsey, Robert Clohessy, Christopher Tierney, Curtis Holbrook, Bill Buell, Ellen Hornberger, Dylan Baker, Linda Emond, Bill Irwin, Lynn Cohen
Curator Review
Verdict
A visually ambitious jukebox musical that turns Beatles songs into a psychedelic Vietnam-era romance. It’s inventive, emotionally earnest, and often thrilling in isolated sequences, but the narrative can feel overstuffed and uneven, with style occasionally outrunning character depth.
Best for
Beatles fans open to radical reinterpretation
Viewers who like bold, high-concept musicals
People drawn to 1960s counterculture and anti-war stories
Fans of lush production design and music-video aesthetics
Skip if
You want a tight, conventional romance
You dislike jukebox musicals or heavy stylization
You prefer historically grounded storytelling
You’re sensitive to uneven pacing and tonal whiplash
Overview
Across the Universe is less a standard musical than a fever dream built from Beatles songs, protest-era imagery, and romantic longing. Julie Taymor stages it with maximal visual invention, turning familiar tracks into elaborate set pieces that swing from playful to tragic almost without warning. When it works, the movie feels ecstatic and emotionally immediate.
Worth noting
The film’s biggest strength is its commitment to mood: it wants to make the 1960s feel both mythic and unstable, with love and politics colliding in a psychedelic haze. The performances are earnest, and the soundtrack concept gives the story a constant charge, even when the plotting becomes thin or the symbolism gets heavy-handed.
Bottom line
Its weaknesses are just as clear. The movie can feel overlong, and the emotional arcs sometimes get flattened by the need to reach the next big musical tableau. Still, for viewers who respond to bold visual storytelling and a romantic, anti-war pulse, it’s a distinctive and memorable swing.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Lucy (5★) · 2664 likes
the reveal that prudence is actually singing a love song to the beautiful cheerleader instead of one of the football players is one of the greatest twists in cinema history, so jot that down
emilia (5★) · 2621 likes
the best part about this movie is that you KNOW john lennon would have hated it with every single fiber of his being :)
Josh Lewis (2★) · 1810 likes
Certainly the most artfully photographed episode of Glee.
#1 gizmo fan (4.5★) · 1179 likes
THE I WANT TO HOLD YOUR HAND SCENE MADE ME GAY
justine ✨ (4★) · 988 likes
really cool that they got kurt cobain to star in this