Review by Glen Parkes – Jace Media Music
There are documentaries you watch, enjoy and move on from. Then there are films that drag you back into another time and make you feel as though you are standing in the middle of it. Anarchy! McLaren Westwood Gang belongs firmly in the second category. This is not simply another documentary about punk. It is a wild, fascinating and sometimes challenging journey into the people, ideas, fashion, politics and personalities that helped create one of the biggest cultural explosions Britain has ever produced.
Originally broadcast on Sky Arts in 2016 and 2017, Phil Strongman’s film is now getting a special limited-edition release through Cadiz Music on September 25, 2026, timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the legendary punk festival at the 100 Club. For anyone interested in how punk developed and, more importantly, why it mattered, this is a film that deserves attention.
Strongman was not an outsider looking in. He was there. As a teenage designer, he worked around the Kings Road, selling T-shirts through Acme Attractions and later BOY, attending gigs and experiencing the movement as it unfolded. He would go on to write Pretty Vacant – A History Of UK Punk, becoming one of the people who documented the era from close quarters.
That experience is all over this film.
At its centre is Malcolm McLaren, a figure who remains impossible to ignore when discussing the birth of British punk. Whether you see McLaren as the great architect of punk or as one important piece of a much bigger cultural puzzle, the film gives him plenty of room to make his case. The interviews conducted with McLaren in Paris and London are particularly compelling, with the late provocateur coming across as outrageous, thoughtful, amusing and, at times, surprisingly reflective.
The film also digs much deeper than the familiar Sex Pistols story. There is fascinating material concerning McLaren’s childhood, his 1960s student activism, his relationship with Vivienne Westwood and the development of the Kings Road shops. Fashion is treated as an essential part of the story rather than simply background decoration, showing how the clothes, attitude and music became intertwined.
And then there are the Sex Pistols.
Strongman takes the viewer behind the familiar headlines to examine the band’s emergence, while contributions from Glen Matlock and Paul Cook add first-hand perspective. The wider list of interviewees makes this feel much bigger than a conventional band documentary, with members and figures connected to The Clash, 101ers, Bow Wow Wow, Adam Ant, Boy George, Don Letts, Tony Wilson, Tracey Emin, Stuart Christie, Nick Egan, Marco Pirroni, Leigh Gorman, Fred Vermorel and Vivienne Westwood all helping build the picture.
In many ways, this is three documentaries rolled into one. There is the history of European anarchism, the biography of McLaren and an investigation into the real birth of the Sex Pistols. That ambitious approach gives the film plenty of layers and prevents it from becoming another greatest-hits package of old punk footage.
The unseen material is particularly valuable. There is something powerful about watching footage that has not been endlessly recycled, especially when placed alongside contemporary voices and Strongman’s own understanding of the period.
The new box set also turns the release into something of a collector’s piece. Limited to just 500 numbered copies, the 12-inch box features original artwork by Chris Musto and contains the DVD, a 12-inch vinyl soundtrack featuring music and dialogue, soundtrack CD, exclusive Jamie Reid print, Anarchy shot glass, tote bag, badge, posters, patches and photographs. Each set also includes a certificate signed and numbered by Strongman, alongside a booklet containing a chapter from his forthcoming Acme BOY book.
That is a serious package for a film that has spent too long being difficult to see.
Strongman’s reputation adds further weight. His work has stretched from journalism and books into film-making, including his recent documentaries on Ukraine, while he also worked as a consultant on Disney’s Pistol series. His passion for documenting outsiders, rebellion and cultural history is obvious here.
Anarchy! McLaren Westwood Gang remains an important document of a moment when music, fashion, politics and attitude collided and changed popular culture forever. Fifty years on, its questions and characters still have plenty to say.
For punk fans, music historians and anyone curious about what happened when a generation decided the rules needed rewriting, this is a fascinating trip back to where the trouble started.
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