Rock ‘n’ Roll Movies presents an eclectic look at the many manifestations of rock in motion pictures, from teen-oriented B-movies to Hollywood blockbusters to avant-garde meditations to reverent biopics to animated shorts to performance documentaries. Acclaimed film critic David Sterritt considers the diverse ways that filmmakers have regarded rock ‘n’ roll, some cynically cashing in on its popularity and others responding to the music as sincere fans, some depicting rock as harmless fun and others representing it as an open challenge to mainstream norms. 

DAVID STERRITT is the editor-in-chief of Quarterly Review of Film and Video, a contributing writer at Cineaste, a film professor at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, a professor emeritus at Long Island University in New York, and past chair of the New York Film Critics Circle and the National Society of Film Critics. He is the author of numerous books including The Cinema of Clint Eastwood: Chronicles of America.

"The rock ‘n’ roll movie made its inauspicious debut in 1955 when a second-rate rockabilly record by Bill Haley and the Comets played ironically over the opening credits of the earnest melodrama, Blackboard Jungle. But as David Sterritt thoroughly and engagingly shows us, the movie industry soon produced a kaleidoscopic array of variations on the theme. Rock ‘n’ roll has dominated flashy fan pics, thoughtful documentaries, avant-garde obscurities, and bizarre animated films, but also monuments from auteurs like Martin Scorsese. They’re all here in this highly readable little book."

"Brandishing expert chops in the rhythms of rock and the grammar of cinema, film critic David Sterritt is uniquely qualified to illuminate the beautiful music made by the merging of two great American art forms.  Never less than fascinating, Rock ‘n’ Roll Movies offers an all-access backstage pass to the production backbeats and cultural meanings of a gleaming motion picture jukebox stacked with pop musicals, band biopics, star vehicles, concert films, rock docs, and mock-rock docs."