A Complete Unknown Called ‘Riveting’, ‘Fascinating’ and ‘One of the Best Films of the Year’ in First Reviews

The first reviews are landing for James Mangold’s Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown, starring Timothée Chalamet, and they’re giving us a preview of why the film landed three Golden Globe nominations on Monday.

Debuting on Rotten Tomatoes with 76% with 38 reviews, which has since fallen to 74% from 66 reviews, A Complete Unknown is emerging as a hidden gem at the end of the year to slot into awards contention come 2025.

Releasing on Christmas Day, A Complete Unknown is adapted from and inspired by Elijah Wald’s book “Dylan Goes Electric” which details the controversial decision Dylan made in 1965 at Newport Folk Festival to plug in his electric guitar and debut his new rock single, “Like a Rolling Stone“.

Chalamet scored himself a nod in the Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama category at the Globes and is predicted by Variety to bag himself a second Oscar nomination come January.

James Mottram at South China Morning Post says Chalamet “gives one of the best performances of his career,” a sentiment echoed by Zach Pope at Zach Pope Reviews, who calls the film “A riveting, modest, and not afraid to showcase the mundane biopic that compelled [him] to no end with its journey through acoustic to electric.”

The consensus running through most reviews is that Chalamet is electric, and praise for the film surrounds it, with Tessa Smith at Mama’s Geeky calling it “undoubtedly one of the best films of the year” and USA Today’s Brian Truitt saying it’s “a fascinating exploration of a music scene reflecting the major social and political shifts of the early 1960s.”

As Dylan’s decision to go electric did, A Complete Unknown also garners critique, with indieWire’s David Ehrlich saying the film “would rather celebrate Dylan’s mystery than attempt to explain it” and Fred Topel at United Press International saying, “Viewers who did not live through the ’60s will have to take the film’s word that these songs inspired a counterculture revolution. The film does not show the songs making an impact on society other than making Dylan more wealthy and famous.”

Even the film’s critics have praise for Chalamet, however.

“The failure of this trivial and incurious Bob Dylan biopic is not the fault of the lead actor Timothée Chalamet,” says Kevin Maher at Times (UK)

“Timothée Chalamet deserves applause,” Robert Kojder at Flickering Myth begins, “and Monica Barbaro nearly upstages him; the rest of A Complete Unknown is a rolling stone all right, rolling downhill and dragging underwritten characters with it.”

So, it’s all praise for Chalamet, who has been one of the most exciting actors to watch over the last few years.

A Complete Unknown is in theaters December 25.