Directed by Anton Corbijn • 2007 • United Kingdom, United States
Starring Sam Riley, Samantha Morton, Alexandra Maria Lara

With this bleakly beautiful immersion into the legendary 1970s Manchester postpunk scene, photographer-turned-filmmaker Anton Corbijn evokes the agony and ecstasy of Ian Curtis—the Joy Division frontman whose plaintive vocals and death by suicide at age twenty-three made him an icon of outsiderhood. In a fully embodied performance that transcends imitation, Sam Riley stars as the sensitive Curtis, who electrifies audiences with his intense, live-wire stage presence—even as a failing marriage and his increasingly troubling epileptic episodes send him spiraling towards oblivion.