Breaking Glass (1980)
An unknown young singer wrote and performed an album's worth of songs, then starred as a punk star chewed up and spat out by the music industry. Life imitated art in reverse: the movie is largely forgotten, and the album has outlived the film by decades. People who have never seen a frame of it still know the songs.
BREAKING GLASS (1980) is a New Wave version of A Star Is Born, set in the grey, strike-bound Britain of the Winter of Discontent, with the trash piling up in the streets and petrol rationed at the pumps. Hazel O'Connor is Kate, an angry, idealistic young singer who claws her way out of the London rock pubs to overnight stardom, and is then slowly rewritten, medicated, and burned out by the record-company machine that made her.
The band around her is a murderers' row of future greats caught young: Jonathan Pryce as a half-deaf junkie saxophonist, Phil Daniels fresh off Quadrophenia as her hustler manager, with Jim Broadbent and Richard Griffiths tucked into the crowd.
It was the first film by Brian Gibson, who would later direct the Tina Turner story What's Love Got to Do with It. The film itself is a rough, uneven, deeply of-its-moment thing. The music, and the vanished world it preserves, are why it endures.
About the Film
The rock n' roll dream that couldn't last.
- Directed By
- Brian Gibson
- Runtime
- 104 minutes
- Released
- October 1, 1980
- Certification
- PG
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Starring
- Hazel O'Connor, Phil Daniels, Jon Finch, Jonathan Pryce, Peter-Hugo Daly
More Credits
- Genres
- Music, Drama
- Language
- English
- Origin
- GB
- Studios
- Allied Stars
- Written By
- Brian Gibson
- Produced By
- Davina Belling
- Cinematography
- Stephen Goldblatt
- Also Starring
- Mark Wingett, Gary Tibbs, Charles Wegner, Mark Wing-Davey, Hugh Thomas
Where to Watch
Source: JustWatch
Physical Media
Fun City Editions Blu-ray (2025). The definitive release, from a new 4K restoration of the original 35mm elements, and a real event for fans: it is the worldwide Blu-ray premiere of the original, longer, bleaker UK cut, which North America had never had. Thoughtfully, the disc also preserves the alternate scenes from the slightly cheerier US version, including its different ending, so you get both.
Blu-ray2025
Adam added 9/21/2026
Great album and a heartbreaking movie
I wonder if Blade Runner took the look for Pris.
Keith Gayler I’ve actually heard that before – I wonder.
Glad I’m not the only one to see it.
“Down a tunnel, in a tube”…
And it was only rated PG!
Who Needs It is such a great anthem.
American edit (missing the final scene) ran repeatedly on HBO back in the days, helping to cement the film with younger viewers.
Just located my old VHS of this today!
The music is so damn good.
Didn’t Bowie have a hand in this? Also produced by Dodi Fayed who tragically died later with Princess Diana in that car accident in Paris.
I even like the cacophonous music by the pink mohawk gold painted clown who failed every audition I was like I want to be in HIS band lol
Hazel O’Connor Still being talked about. Your legacy is strong.
Will You – is such a great song 🎵
I never forgot this film. I believe I saw it on USA’s Night Flight. I’ve always wanted to see it again.