Synopsis
January 1978. After their success in England, the punk rock band Sex Pistols venture out on their tour of the southern United States. Temperamental bassist Sid Vicious is forced by his band mates to travel without his troubled girlfriend, Nancy Spungen, who will meet him in New York. When the band breaks up and Sid begins his solo career in a hostile city, the turbulent couple definitely falls into the depths of drug addiction.
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Cast
- Gary OldmanSid Vicious
- Chloe WebbNancy Spungen
- David HaymanMalcolm McLaren
- Debby BishopPhoebe
- Andrew SchofieldJohnny Rotten
- Xander BerkeleyBowery Snax
- Perry BensonPaul
- Tony LondonSteve
- Sandy BaronHotelier USA
- Sy RichardsonMethadone Caseworker
Recommendations
- 100
Chicago Sun-Times
Why should anyone care about a movie about two scabrous vulgarians? Because the subject of a really good movie is sometimes not that important. It's the acting, writing, and direction that count. - 100
The Guardian
Tremendously acted by Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb with exactly the right absence of sympathy, although Cox arguably loses his nerve on this score in the film’s dying moments. - 100
Rolling Stone
What makes the film a classic is the skill with which the leads are so believable as heroin addicts, pivoting from intense love to hatred and dope sickness, all while maintaining the couple's signature snarl. - 80
Empire
Alex Cox’s retelling of the Sex Pistols’ story from the point of view of Sid (Gary Oldman) and girlfriend Nancy Spungen (Chloe Webb) works as both spirited punk biopic and tragically touching love story. It’s a hard film to watch at times, as Vicious plunges deeper into his heroin-induced slump, but told with skill and compassion, which make up for the onscreen squalor. - 75
The A.V. Club
For a while, the tension powers the film. And when it doesn’t, the lead performances by Oldman and Webb pick up the slack. - 60
Time Out London
A film that never feels remotely real, content to wallow in dead-rock-star mythology and tedious druggie indulgences. - 60
CineVue
Sid and Nancy rages with a vitriolic fury which eventually becomes tiresome. - 60
The New York Times
Sid and Nancy doesn't try to win its audience's sympathy in any conventional way, which is just as well, since that would have been a losing battle. But it does succeed in offering bleak, nasty and sometimes hilarious glimpses of life in the punk demimonde.
