No shattering revelations dot this look at the pre-Beatles John Lennon growing up in working-class Liverpool. What conceptual-artist-turned-director Sam Taylor-Wood vividly creates, from a script by Matt Greenhalgh (adapting the memoir of Lennon's half sister), is an intimate love triangle involving John (Kick-Ass star Aaron Johnson), Julia (Anne-Marie Duff), the free-spirited mother who gave him up, and Mimi (Kristin Scott Thomas), the hard-nosed aunt who took him in. Johnson doesn't resemble, much less embody, Lennon, but he does catch his distinctive glint of mischief tinged with pain. Duff and Scott Thomas are both exceptional, revealing how John's relationship with these two clashing sisters marked his character. Nowhere Boy is smart enough not to spell it all out. You can hear it in Lennon's music, which plays in your head as the movie works its subtle magic.

“Tonight's the Night”

The lead cut and title track from this girl group's debut album, "Tonight's the Night" was written by 19-year-old bandmember Shirley Owens, who sings lead, and producer Luther Dixon. The band from Passaic, New Jersey met in high school, first calling themselves the Pequellos. The song's frank thoughts about sexual and emotional surrender was racy for the time, but that didn't stop the Chiffons from cutting a similar version immediately after the original came out. "We were the first female group to write some of our own material," band member Beverly Lee recalls. "We did have some say-so in our writing."