A Complete Unknown

A Complete Unknown is a 2024 American biographical musical drama film directed by James Mangold, who co-wrote the screenplay with Jay Cocks, about American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. Loosely based on the 2015 book Dylan Goes Electric! by Elijah Wald, the film portrays Dylan through his earliest folk music success until the momentous controversy over his use of electric instruments. Timothée Chalamet (who also produces) stars as Dylan, with Edward Norton, Elle Fanning, Monica Barbaro, Boyd Holbrook, Dan Fogler, Norbert Leo Butz, Eriko Hatsune, Big Bill Morganfield, Will Harrison, and Scoot McNairy in supporting roles. The film's title is derived from the chorus of Dylan's 1965 single "Like a Rolling Stone".
A Complete Unknown premiered at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on December 10, 2024, and was released in the United States by Searchlight Pictures on December 25, 2024. The film has grossed $136.8 million worldwide and received generally positive reviews from critics. It was named one of the top-10 films of 2024 by the American Film Institute and the National Board of Review, the latter of which also awarded Fanning Best Supporting Actress.
The film earned eight nominations at the 97th Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Chalamet), Best Supporting Actor (Norton), and Best Supporting Actress (Barbaro). It also received three nominations at the 82nd Golden Globe Awards (including Best Motion Picture – Drama), four at the 31st Screen Actors Guild Awards (winning Best Actor for Chalamet), and six at the British Academy Film Awards (including Best Film).
In 1961, Bob Dylan hitchhikes to New York City, seeking to meet his music idol, Woody Guthrie, who is dying slowly from Huntington's disease. Dylan meets Guthrie in the hospital along with his close friend Pete Seeger. Dylan performs a song he wrote for Guthrie, impressing the two folk musicians. Pete invites Dylan to stay with his family, slowly introducing the newcomer into New York City's folk scene.
Following a performance by Joan Baez, Pete introduces Dylan at an open mic night attended by industry executives and manager Albert Grossman. Dylan flirts with Baez and impresses the crowd, prompting Grossman to take him on as a client on the spot. Dylan begins work on an album, but is forced by his label to record mostly covers. The record's sales are poor, frustrating Dylan.
Dylan meets Sylvie Russo at a concert, charming her with his contrarian opinions and tales of working at a carnival. The two begin a relationship and he moves into her apartment. Before leaving on a lengthy school trip to Europe, Sylvie has an argument with Dylan. She is upset by his aloof nature and deliberate attempt to conceal his past from her. Despite this, she encourages him to push for recording his original music. While she is away, Dylan capitalizes on political and social unrest to build a following for his socially conscious songwriting. This draws Baez's attention, and the two begin an affair and artistic collaboration. Sylvie becomes suspicious in seeing Dylan's professional closeness with Baez, and by 1965, Dylan and Sylvie have separated.
Having achieved stardom but not artistic freedom, Dylan laments that he is beholden to the expectations of the industry and the folk music community. A long-awaited tour with Baez ends in disaster; an argument over Dylan's ego, along with Baez's demands that they play his popular songs instead of new material, leads to Dylan walking off stage midperformance.
Dylan's desire to break free of expectations drives him to experiment with electric guitar and rock instruments, a controversial direction within the folk scene, who overwhelmingly prefer simple acoustic arrangements. Dylan pieces together his band and begins recording Highway 61 Revisited. Dylan's new direction is especially worrisome for the Newport Folk Festival planning committee, who have hired Dylan to headline the 1965 event, but fear he may debut his divisive new sound.
Dylan invites Sylvie along to the festival, hoping to rekindle his relationship with her in the process. She accepts, but upon watching a duet ("It Ain't Me Babe") between Baez and him, realizes she will never be comfortable in their relationship, becomes upset, and leaves. Dylan follows her, riding his Triumph to the dock from which she is leaving the island, but does not convince her to stay, and they say goodbye, sharing a last cigarette. The committee attempts to influence Dylan to not go electric, eventually resorting to an impassioned plea from Pete, who reminds Dylan that his own life's work is on the line. An intoxicated Johnny Cash encourages Dylan to play the electric show, and Dylan goes through with his plan. The crowd's reaction is vitriolic, throwing both invective and physical objects at the band. The committee, including Pete, attempts to cut the sound, but is thwarted by Grossman and Pete's wife Toshi. Dylan initially refuses a request from Pete and the festival organizers to perform a folk song as an encore, but relents when Cash offers him his acoustic guitar.
The next morning, on his way out from Newport, Baez catches Dylan and remarks that he "won", that he finally got the freedom from everyone else that he wanted. Dylan visits Guthrie one last time and listens to a record for one of Woody's songs before leaving town on his motorcycle.
In January 2020, James Mangold was announced to be writing and directing a biopic about Bob Dylan, specifically centered on the controversy surrounding his switch to electric guitars, with Timothée Chalamet cast as Dylan. At this time, the film was referred to as Going Electric. By October, cinematographer Phedon Papamichael stated that the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic had put the project into doubt. Nevertheless, Chalamet learned to play the guitar and harmonica, and spent time researching Dylan during the pandemic, visiting the former homes of Dylan in New York City and consulting director Joel Coen during this time. Mangold had also met with Dylan several times about the film, and stated that he annotated the script while also providing notes to Chalamet. The finished script was partly based on Elijah Wald's book Dylan Goes Electric! as well as on Mangold's talk with Dylan, and Dylan himself also added lines and a scene to the film. In an October 2023 interview, Chalamet stated he was working with the same team of vocal and movement coaches that worked with Austin Butler for his performance in Elvis (2022).
In November 2022, Chalamet stated he was still attached to the film and actively preparing for it, the project having gained momentum again after stalling. In February 2023, the film was officially titled A Complete Unknown and Mangold was to begin work on the project following his obligations to Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023). Monica Barbaro would enter final negotiations to portray Joan Baez in April. In May, Elle Fanning was cast to play Sylvie Russo, a character based on Suze Rotolo, with Mangold announcing Benedict Cumberbatch would be portraying Pete Seeger in the film. Barbaro would also be confirmed for her role, beginning singing and guitar lessons to prepare. Mangold stated in July that the film was not necessarily focused on being a Dylan biopic, but an ensemble drama in the vein of Robert Altman. Boyd Holbrook and Nick Offerman would also join the cast at that time, though Offerman was later replaced by Norbert Leo Butz. In October, P. J. Byrne was noted as being cast. Holbrook appeared as Johnny Cash, whose life story had previously been told by Mangold in Walk the Line (2005) with Joaquin Phoenix in the role; Mangold admitted to casting Holbrook due to their past collaborations and feeling the film could reveal another side of Cash's life, as his previous biopic focused on his origin story. In January 2024, Edward Norton was revealed to portray the role of Seeger, replacing Cumberbatch, who left due to scheduling issues. Additional casting was announced in March.
In April 2023, Mangold stated that principal photography would likely begin in August 2023 in New York City and Montreal, but filming was postponed in July due to the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. By early 2024, filming was scheduled to begin in late March 2024, and was expected to occur throughout New Jersey, with scenes set in New York City being filmed in Jersey City and Hoboken. Filming began on March 16. Production wrapped by late June 2024.
Norton said that during the three months of principal photography, Chalamet was "relentless" in staying immersed in his role as Dylan, not having contact with friends or visitors on set. Chalamet was often referred to as "Bob" on set by Mangold and was listed as "Bob Dylan" on the set call sheet. Chalamet abstained from cell phone use allowing him to fully engage in the character without modern distraction.
According to producer Fred Berger, Chalamet sang 40 Dylan songs in the film while also playing guitars and harmonicas. All performances were recorded live while filming; Barbaro, Norton, and Holbrook sang and played their own instruments. Sound engineer Tod Maitland revealed that recording was done with period-appropriate microphones and instruments and without the use of earpieces. Recording for the film occurred at The Village and Sunset Sound in Los Angeles. The music production team had access to almost 16 hours of unreleased Dylan recordings and old Columbia Records notes, which included lists of vintage microphones the artist used. The team collaborated with Gibson, which lent them archival guitars and made recreations, including two custom J-50's.
The soundtrack album for A Complete Unknown was released on December 20, 2024, through Columbia Records. It is scheduled for release on physical formats in 2025; a vinyl edition featuring 16 tracks was released on January 24, while the CD with 23 tracks is scheduled for February 28. Two songs from the soundtrack were released on December 4, 2024: "Like a Rolling Stone" by Chalamet and "Girl from the North Country" by Chalamet and Barbaro. "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall" has been confirmed as a track on the album, which also includes performances from Norton and Holbrook. The album's track listing also includes "Highway 61 Revisited", "Mr. Tambourine Man", "I Was Young When I Left Home", "Subterranean Homesick Blues", and "The Times They Are a-Changin'". The film additionally features a performance of "Song to Woody".
A Complete Unknown is a fictionalized account of Bob Dylan's life covering the period from the time of his arrival in New York in 1961 to the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. The timeline of events has been compressed or altered, events are transposed, amalgamated or simply invented, and individuals known to have been important to Dylan in this period including his future wife Sara Lownds have been omitted, while some characters are fictitious. Dylan himself was revealed to have added at least one unspecified "totally inaccurate" scene into the film.
A major character is introduced as Sylvie Russo, but who is actually based on Suze Rotolo as Dylan requested that the film not use her real identity. Angie Martoccio of Rolling Stone described the Russo character as "Rotolo in all but name." A number of scenes with her are not based on facts, for example Rotolo did not attend the 1965 Newport Folk Festival with Dylan as she had already long broken up with him. Similarly, a number of scenes depicting Dylan's relationship with Joan Baez are not factual; for example their relationship did not begin during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, but a year later. They also broke up just before the 1965 Newport Festival.
Early in the film, Dylan is shown to have first met Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie in a hospital in New York. This did not happen; Dylan first met Guthrie in New Jersey (but did later visit Guthrie many times at the hospital), and Seeger first met Dylan in Greenwich Village. Dylan also did not appear in Pete Seeger's TV show, and the bluesman Jesse Moffette is an invention. It is true that Johnny Cash and Dylan were long-time pen pals, although Cash was not present at the 1965 festival as depicted in the film, but he did give Dylan his guitar the previous year. The climactic scene of his controversial permanance at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival where someone in the audience shouted "Judas!" actually came from a concert in Manchester, England in 1966. The scene where Seeger became so angry over Dylan's performance that he considered using an ax to cut the microphone cables is a recognition of a legend and not an actual fact.
The director Mangold said that the film is "not a Wikipedia entry", indicating that he did not "feel a fealty to a documentary level of facts". Mangold also said that "It's not really a Bob Dylan biopic. It’s a kind of ensemble piece about this moment in time in the early ’60s in New York … and this wanderer who comes in from Minnesota with a fresh name and a fresh outlook on life [and] becomes a star."
The film premiered at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood on December 10, 2024. It was released by Searchlight Pictures in the United States on December 25, 2024, and was then released in the United Kingdom on January 17, 2025. During its first weekend in UK and Ireland, the film would top the box office. The film would also have a limited IMAX engagement beginning January 3, 2025.
It was featured in the Limelight section of the 54th International Film Festival Rotterdam to be screened in February 2025.
The film had its theatrical preview in Paris on January 15, 2025. It was released in the rest of France on January 29, 2025.
To promote the film, Levi's announced a capsule collection inspired by Dylan, who often wore the brand's garments during the period reflected in the film. Costume designer Arianne Phillips worked with design director Paul O'Neill on the research, and sourcing of Levi's pieces, to recreate the original outfits worn by Dylan. The guitar company Gibson, from which Dylan sourced most of his instruments, also announced a collection inspired by guitars placed in the movie.
As of March 30, 2025, A Complete Unknown has grossed $75 million in the United States and Canada, and $61.8 million in other territories, for a worldwide gross of $136.8 million.
In the United States and Canada, A Complete Unknown was released alongside Nosferatu, Babygirl, and The Fire Inside, and was projected to gross around $15 million from 2,835 theaters in its five-day opening weekend. The film made $7.2 million on its first day (including $1.4 million from Christmas Eve previews), and then $4.4 million on its second. It went on to debut to a total of $23.2 million over the five days (including $11.7 million in its three-day opening weekend), beating projections and finishing in sixth. In its second weekend, the film made $8.2 million, bringing its box office total to $41.8 million to surpass The Menu as the highest-grossing Searchlight title domestically after Disney's acquisition of 21st Century Fox in 2019. The film made a respective $5.1 million, $3.7 million, and $3.1 million in its third, fourth, and fifth weekends.
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 82% of 325 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.4/10. The website's consensus reads: "Charged up by Timothée Chalamet's electric performance, this ballad of Bob Dylan might not get under the enigmatic artist's skin, but will make you feel like you've spent time in his company." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 70 out of 100, based on 59 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale, while those surveyed by PostTrak gave it a 93% overall positive score, with 76% saying they would "definitely recommend" it.
In a review for RogerEbert.com, Brian Tallerico awarded the film 3-1/2 out of 4 stars. He praised the "solid performances, unshowy direction, and organic editing". Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian similarly praised the performances and gave the film 5 out of 5 stars, calling Chalamet "hypnotic" as Dylan. Writing for The Wall Street Journal, Kyle Smith also applauded Chalamet's ability to capture different facets of Dylan's personality, including the songwriter's "supercilious air" and his creative genius. Smith especially liked the duet of the song "It Ain't Me Babe" between Monica Barbaro (as Joan Baez) and Chalamet, describing it "as spectacular". Filmmakers Oliver Stone, William Goldenberg, and Paul Schrader also praised the film.
In a mixed review, John Nugent of Empire gave the film 3 out of 5 stars. While he praised the performances, Nugent disliked that the movie "plays it safe" and "struggles to find something fresh to say". A negative review from Richard Brody of The New Yorker viewed the movie as a hollow representation of Dylan's career, writing: "The movie offers answers that range from empty to artificial, leaving out the practicalities and manipulating dates and names in order to center the drama on a small number of personalities". In another negative review for The Forward, Seth Rogovoy expresses dislike for the film as a "conventional Hollywood biopic", criticizing the direction as a "mainstream route", "offering a superficial, simplified gloss on this remarkable story", as well as criticizing the historical inaccuracy and contrasting the film's approach with documentary films such as Dont Look Back in capturing Dylan's persona.