Performance (1970)

Cast

Ian McShane
as Noel - Black Musican
James Fox
as Chas
Mick Jagger
as Turner
Kenneth Colley
as Tony Farrell

Get more information about Performance (1970) on IMDb

Genres & Description

Action Crime Drama Romance

7.0 / 10

Chas, a violent and psychotic East London gangster needs a place to lie low after a hit that should never have been carried out. He finds the perfect cover in the form of guest house run by the mysterious Mr. Turner, a one-time rock superstar, who is looking for the right spark to rekindle his faded talent.

Similar Movies

Brokeback Mountain

7.7

(2005)

Tokyo Night Sky Is Always the Densest Shade of Blue

6.7

(2017)

Romans

5.1

(2017)

Felicity

5.3

(1978)

Comments on this trailer
Comments may include spoiler!

unfortunatebeam

So is the head gangster supposed to be gay in this? Or at least an MSM (Man who has Sex with Men)? It seems to be strongly implied but never outright stated as such. The weird thing is he doesn't seem to hide this from the other gangsters. Must be a British camp thing, American gangsters would never get away with exhibiting homosexual traits lol. Well I guess Omar from The Wire might be an exception, but he's more a freelancer. - @Wednesday, August 29, 2018 11:26 AM

Rob Rix

Seeing Mick and the lads later this week. How does he keep rocking + stay so well ? - @Sunday, June 10, 2018 1:54 PM

LYNN & ANIKO HOOVER

I think its about a young sexy long haired boy - @Friday, April 6, 2018 9:55 AM

Batta Beru

Almost fifty years and "there's nothing wrong with me I'm normal" "let's have a look" .........Performance far and away still the best psychedelic film ever. On the large screen with emphatic sound system and a little help it would change your life. We saw it over and over again during the weeks it ran. - @Friday, July 7, 2017 6:19 PM

xpinkusx

RIP Anita Pallenberg. - @Wednesday, June 14, 2017 12:21 AM

Malcolm Boyle

Best film ever made. No contest. - @Friday, December 23, 2016 12:16 PM

trev moffatt

Performance like Blow Up - is a film that seems to have something radical to say - but you still struggle to understand what it is; a conundrum which of course is more generally true of the sixties counter culture. But the 60s certainly don't feel new in Performance - as if the hopes of the summer of love immediately ossified due to the time expanding drugs imbibed on an industrial scale. But in a sense the sixties HAD been around for centuries, given they marked the last gasp of the Romantic era. Performance being one of those films that come on the cusp of old world's dying and new ones emerging - as romanticism's death rattle gave way to the hard corporate brutalism of the seventies - as the whirling electronic sounds throughout the film seem to anticipate. In that sense Chaz is definitely the future - a Thatcherite aspirational prole. - like a young Albert Spica. So it's fitting he shoud kill the romantic hero living out a life of inertia in his Lewis Carrol looking-glass milieu. So in killing Turner - surely not an accidental choice of name - Chaz not only symbolically kills the sixties - but Romanticism itself - @Saturday, September 10, 2016 10:07 AM

bunnyhead71

incredible movie, hands down. - @Wednesday, May 11, 2016 12:45 AM

vinylrules

for a top review of this classic check out the stuart gyseman (aka harryflowersobe) blog on Sabotage Times - @Tuesday, January 26, 2016 10:27 AM

wheatpuff

Wow, what the hell is this. ??? Thanks for uploading. - @Sunday, September 20, 2015 5:59 AM

richard obbard

I would love to see all the footage that was cut out .. - @Saturday, May 30, 2015 10:09 PM

3rk4u

mick jones in his big audio dynamite days,wrote a tune abt watching this at the pic,s,thats how i came to watch it glad i did golden classic,love alot of these east end villain film,s long good friday is another classic with Bob hoskins. - @Tuesday, March 3, 2015 1:25 PM

Dorian Steel

Such a great cinema masterpiece that will continue to please many for years to come - @Thursday, January 22, 2015 8:25 PM

Wat DeFuq

"I am a BULLET!" Well, I guess it beats being a cog in an organ.. :D - @Wednesday, August 27, 2014 11:59 PM

Annie Kauppila

Down right strange... £%¥€ it ! - @Sunday, March 30, 2014 2:55 PM

Mad Cyril

Cool as fuck No1 british gangster film. - @Saturday, January 25, 2014 8:10 PM

Sally smackface

This film is a masterwork. No other film unifies the lightness/darkness of the counter culture generation so effectively. BTW it contains some of the most beautiful images you will ever see in a feature film. - @Sunday, November 17, 2013 10:58 AM

IndependentGeorge76

True - That lead to Keith Richards writing Gimme Shelter (inspired by how he felt about Jagger/Pallenburg). For my money the greatest song of the 1960s - @Tuesday, September 24, 2013 10:31 AM

IndependentGeorge76

I think there's a lot of good stuff out there, but British film-making dumbed itself down to appease to a global (ie american) market. The French makes films for the French. Our industry chases the money, which means films like Performance will never get outside funding. Juxtapose Performance with the film Notting Hill, set in the same area... Fuck me that's depressing... But there is still good stuff out there... - @Tuesday, September 24, 2013 10:27 AM

Glenn Cumbria

Or Notting Bloody Hill, where most of this film was made. The late 60s/early 70s were when British cinema was at its edgiest, same as society in general. Now it's all fucking X Factor rubbish, zeleb culture, football on every night, where the man with one brain cell is king. Britain is a dumbed down place now where the death of a fuckwit like Kerry Katona, who has as much talent as a dead goldfish, would lead to a week of national mourning. - @Monday, September 23, 2013 10:23 PM

villaparis2

Made in 1968 I hear but wasn't released until 1970 because of problems with the censorship board. - @Thursday, September 12, 2013 2:28 PM

Marty Chamberlain

Do You!? - @Sunday, July 7, 2013 11:37 AM

Sylerak SA

karelys granda es mi hija.. respondi a traves de su medio soy alicia andrade ok - @Wednesday, December 5, 2012 2:34 PM

Sylerak SA

genial!.un poco grotesco para mi gusto. me gusta mas las peliculas de romance misterio o ciencia ficcion. pero esta bien los efectos y el collage la idea super. un abrazo thomas! :D :D - @Wednesday, December 5, 2012 2:33 PM

3replybiz

I think I saw this film on TV back in the 80s, liked the gangster film opening but couldn't understand the rest of it. I recently watched it again, buy it on DVD, and thought it highly creative, atmospheric and inventive. It is so rare today to see a film that leaves unanswered questions and is ambiguous. Not the greatest film ever but you do think about it for a long time after. Memo from Turner is a great little pop video in itself. There's real talent at work. Shame Cammell killed himself. - @Tuesday, December 4, 2012 9:38 PM

kasioszek

I dream of it even though I'm hetero and woman. - @Saturday, November 10, 2012 5:44 PM

Glenn Cumbria

Takes a bit of getting into, but as a film it's worth it in the end. Ever fancied being seduced by the younger Anita Pallenberg? - @Saturday, November 10, 2012 12:27 PM

kasioszek

I need more similar movies, one is not enough. I've never in my short live seen as magnificent movie as Performance. - @Friday, November 9, 2012 10:55 PM

Glenn Cumbria

It's like Get Carter on acid, or how Get Carter would have evolved with Mick and Anita in it. - @Saturday, October 13, 2012 6:08 PM

Glenn Cumbria

Not Keith Richards favourite film as the sex scenes between Jagger and Anita Pallenberg weren't faked. - @Monday, October 1, 2012 7:44 PM

Emily Crock

I cried watching this movie because Mick was so beautiful in it. - @Tuesday, August 21, 2012 2:00 PM

sauquoit13456

On this day in 1970 {August 3rd} Mick Jagger's second movie "Performance" had its world premier in New York City... Earlier in 1970 his first movie, "Ned Kelly", had its world premier in Australia on June 15th and its N.Y.C. premier on October 7th... - @Friday, August 3, 2012 5:46 PM

asubjectiveopinion

"I like a bit of a cavort." - @Thursday, July 26, 2012 7:35 PM

wk4max

''YOUR JACK THE LAD!"" - @Sunday, July 8, 2012 2:40 AM

DoctorChibi740

Pain in the butt to find at a decent price. - @Tuesday, April 3, 2012 3:36 AM

René O'Deay

from this emerged their Satanic Majesties of lore ...... - @Sunday, March 4, 2012 5:58 AM

Seth Tyrssen

One of the heaviest films I ever saw. Caught it for the first couple times at a midnight showing in Detroit; later, got my own video. Very deep, very creative, very dangerous. No one makes 'em like this. - @Tuesday, February 21, 2012 4:18 PM

kevin zachary

@suchafool990 Your obviously not a fan of transgressive cinema. So why bother leaving a comment?. - @Sunday, January 8, 2012 12:04 AM

Norman gosney

best film ever about identity, london gangsters, drugs.......and james fox turns in the best performance of the era....blew his mind...and mine....favorite Brit film - @Tuesday, November 1, 2011 3:41 PM

PaoloVeneziano1958

At the very least, this is the best British gangster film ever made. - @Wednesday, September 21, 2011 10:01 PM

Alexandra Cameron

in the film there is a scene when anita pallenberg is fixing james fox back and mick jagger plays a bluesy song on guitar while singing and periodically pausing to talk to anita and james. does anyone know if that song already exists he plays a cover or is it just a song for the film? - @Thursday, July 14, 2011 1:29 AM

motioneccentrica

@tristanavakian Just finished watchin, I cant fucking agree more, this film was sheer Experimental BALLS out creative geniousity. Yes I just coined that shit. I love how both halves play out like almost separate movies but still merge so easily into one consistent piece of art. - @Saturday, April 9, 2011 3:49 AM

starlollie

Oh what the hell why was everyone always showing me crappy suposedly awesome movies when this existed??? I ony found out about this movie today. - @Tuesday, March 15, 2011 2:16 AM

blacksultan85

tthat's Marsha Hunt's baby daddy!!!!!!!!!!! - @Thursday, February 24, 2011 6:25 PM

dialF4flipit

@drwhofanclub Turner's Murder - @Wednesday, February 23, 2011 10:33 PM

CitySkin09

Looks too fuckin' heady for me. I likes. I likes very much. - @Sunday, January 30, 2011 3:14 AM

Mark Ramsden

A Masterpiece! Top birds. Hard men. Vice Versa. The Chaps. Bodybuilding. 'Dialogue coach' David Livitnoff, the insane intellectual hooligan whose conversation may have inspired Pinter, (BFI booklet essential for completists as is Keef's autobiog). Hallucinogenics. Transgender fannying about. What made London great. - @Wednesday, January 12, 2011 10:42 AM

Mark Ramsden

@ Richie: Donald Cammel spent twenty-something years getting a few films made in LA, butchered against his wishes. Anyway...A Masterpiece. Top birds. Hard men. Vice Versa. The Chaps. Bodybuilding. 'Dialogue coach' David Livitnoff, the insane intellectual hooligan whose conversation may have inspired Pinter, (BFI booklet essential for completists as is Keef's autobiog). Hallucinogenics. Transgender fannying about. What made London great. - @Wednesday, January 12, 2011 10:35 AM

GREG FREEMAN

ONE OF THE GREAT ODDITIES OF THE SIXITIES (EVEN THOUGH IT WAS NOT RELEASED UNTIL THE EARLY SEVENTIES) FROM THE VISIONARY FILMMAKER NICHOLAS ROEG.. IT CAME OUT OF PERIOD WHEN THERE WAS STILL GREAT FILMMAKERS MAKING CHANLEGING FILMS THAT WERE INFINATELY MORE INTERESTING THAN WHAT IS OUT TODAY. - @Wednesday, November 10, 2010 8:22 PM

George Elliott

My Top Film --as rash as such a claim can be--of all time...ie the most dense, chance-taking and re-watchable/listenable: DC gave Nitzsche carte blance ["Here's the footage minus sound---score it!"] on the latter's fave soundtrack gig of career - @Thursday, October 14, 2010 1:37 PM