Nowhere Boy Blu-ray Review


“Nowhere Boy” is brought to us via Sony Home Entertainment, and features Aaron Johnson as the younger John Lennon. The film is a well defined chronological record of events covering the years leading up to the formation of the Beatles. Aaron is a surprisingly good John Lennon, bringing both emotion and happiness to a role that is very complicated. The film has little to do with the Beatles that we’re all accustomed to, but does show John as he discovers his passion for music and fame.

After being abandoned as a youth by his mother Julia, John lives with his Aunt Mimi and Uncle George. As a young man John reunites with his mother after seeing her at the funeral of his deceased uncle. She ends up teaching him about rock music, and introduces him to many of the artists that influenced his musical career.

After buying a guitar and learning to play it, John starts a band and eventually runs into future Beatle member Paul McCartney. The two play in various bands doing shows around their local area, until they’re eventually sent off to Germany to record their first CD. It’s at this time that the film comes to an end, and the rest of Beatlemania is history.


Nowhere Boy arrives on Blu-ray with a beautiful 1080p transfer that you’ve come to expect from a Sony title. This film is high in detail and textures. The faces, houses, clothing; everything is so beautifully captured and transferred.

The blacks are nice, noticeably deep and inky as with most Sony releases. The skin tones in the film are spot on, but sometimes have a sort of halo effect that plays well into the visuals of the period. Other colors in the film are rich and deep, but a lot of the scenes appear to have been tinted during the filming process with either a blue or red filter. It’s not extremely noticeable and doesn’t distract from the film, but it’s there.


Nowhere Boy’s audio track strums along with a really nice DTS-HD MA 5.1 lossless soundtrack that has become pretty standard with most Sony releases. Everything from the music to the dialogue is crisp, clear and well defined. The music, both the underscore, and that played by the bands, flow perfectly into the scenes and are never jarring to listen to. There are a lot of mid-level sounds, with the bass rarely, if ever rumbling, which is expected from a film with no explosions and very little noise outside the occasional performance number.


  • Deleted Scenes
  • The Making of Nowhere Boy
  • Nowhere Boy: The Untold Story of John Lennon and the Creation of the Beatles
  • Previews of Additional Sony titles
  • BD-Live.


Nowhere Boy is certainly a great film, not one just for fans of the Beatles. It’s really is a great dramatical film for any viewer. I had a hard time rating it a 3.5 based solely on the fact that there are almost no supplements. If special features aren’t your thing, but a quality movie with exceptional PQ and AQ is, then I’d most certainly recommend this movie (seeing that it would be rated 4.5 if special features weren’t taken into account.)