A Hard Day’s Night

How did a film made to capture a pop phenomenon become an enduring cinematic classic?
With warmth, wit and precision, Samira Ahmed reveals how the Beatles’ first film changed both the band themselves and pop music’s relationship with the screen.

In a vivid and personal exploration, she shows how this black-and-white gem, shot in a documentary style and brimming with youthful energy, captured Britain at a moment of social transformation, with a portrayal of celebrity, camaraderie and media frenzy that still resonates today. Drawing on her own experience of first discovering the film as a child and going on to work in the television industry, Ahmed shines a spotlight on the craft behind its enduring appeal. With insights from members of the cast and crew, including her own new interviews, Ahmed highlights A Hard Day’s Night’s class and sexual politics, and adds a delightfully original analysis of the women in the film.

In these pages you will be transported to a time when four young men from Liverpool, via the mass medium of television, changed the way Britain saw itself and the way the world saw Britain, revealing how, and why, A Hard Day’s Night has become a landmark of modern cinema.

Samira Ahmed is a journalist, writer, and BBC broadcaster. She presents Front Row on BBC Radio 4, Newswatch on BBC One, and has made acclaimed documentaries including Art of Persia (BBC Four), Disgusted, MaryWhitehouse, and I Dressed Ziggy Stardust (BBC Radio 4).
In 2020, she was named Audio Presenter of the Year by the Broadcasting Press Guild. Her writing has appeared in The Guardian, The Observer, and New Humanist, where she also writes a regular column. She is President of the Twentieth Century Society, which campaigns to preserve modern architecture and design.
In 2023, Samira made global headlines when she uncovered the earliest known complete concert recording of the Beatles, captured at Stowe School in April 1963. A Hard Day’s Night is her first book.