The movie centers on 'The Kid', a talented but troubled frontman of his Minneapolis-based band, The Revolution. Tormented by an abusive situation at home, he must contend with a rival singer, a burgeoning romance and his own dissatisfied band as his star begins to rise.
1962, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
13 December 1957, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
8 September 1961
20 April 1947, Athens, Greece
26 January 1964, Los Angeles, California, USA
1957 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
1957, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
1956, Chicago, Illinois, USA
7 June 1958, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
21 August 1939, New York City, New York, USA
29 May 1960, Rock Island, Illinois, USA
17 August 1960, Los Angeles, California, USA
7 August 1955, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
October 6, 1962 in Falcon Heights, Minnesota, USA
1958, Inner Hebrides, Scotland, UK
1941
May 11, 2017
The film is a love letter to collaboration, to passion, and to the power of music: this is Prince's legacy, brought to life nowhere more memorably than in Purple Rain.
September 07, 2011
A hokey but mesmerizing rock-video psychodrama.
July 29, 2009
It's probably best to think of the film as an extended music video, a watershed moment for movie sound tracks, and not much more.
April 21, 2016
Rock star Prince makes an impressive feature film debut in Purple Rain, a rousing contemporary addition to the classic backstage musical genre.
June 24, 2006
[The plot] is all no more than fancy padding around the film's heart, which only starts to really pump when Prince is up on stage: a teasing, hot amalgam of Marc Bolan, Nijinsky and the Scarlet Pimpernel, as electric as his guitar.
April 21, 2016
A viewer's response to the movie will probably relate directly to how much the viewer likes Prince to begin with.
April 21, 2016
The music is lively, loud, often powerful, sometimes raunchy, yet full of unexpected subtleties and nuances. The staging is frenetic but as perfect as the machines of the art can produce. This is first class music video.
June 28, 2016
Prince's rock musical-drama has lots of sex, profanity.
February 22, 2017
As a debut and a savvy statement of personal enterprise, Purple Rain is quite an accomplishment. As a film, moreover, it is precisely the sort of vehicle one would have wished for Elvis in his Hollywood heyday.
April 21, 2016
Prince's 1984 movie debut seems more like his deification, with an aggressively stupid plot line that serves only to set him up as a paragon of artistic integrity, sexual prowess, and superhuman sensitivity.
August 30, 2004
[Purple Rain] is probably the flashiest album cover ever to be released as a movie. However, like many album covers, Purple Rain, though sometimes arresting to look at, is a cardboard come-on to the record it contains.
