best music biography documentaries

The 10 Best Music Documentaries Ever Made

From rock to soul, these films celebrate the icons that shaped music forever

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From stage to screen, directors and storytellers have peeled back the curtain on the music that changed our lives. They've gone on to share performances, insights, interviews, and archival footage in film form, immortalizing poignant moments that defined these artists. Our favorite music documentaries offer a rare glimpse into the minds and creative process of icons, from triumphs to struggles.

Whether you're a die-hard music aficionado or simply curious about the magic behind the melodies, these documentaries offer a treasure trove of entertainment and inspiration. Embark on a journey of melody-in-movie with this roundup of the best music documentaries ever made. From the electrifying backstage scenes of Madonna's "Truth or Dare" to the deep dive into Amy Winehouse's tragic life in "Amy," these films offer an intimate look at the lives and legacies of the greats.

"Madonna: Truth Or Dare"

Released in 1991, this documentary chronicles Madonna's infamous "Blond Ambition" tour in 1990. Directed by Alek Keshishian, fans got a behind-the-scenes look at the pop icon’s life on the road with dancers, crew, and family amidst her performances on stage. Throughout, Madonna also shares her personal reflections and thoughts, which were met with some controversy.

In addition to seeing Madonna interact intimately with her dancers in the film, she also discussed sex, religion, and topics surrounding homosexuality, which were considered provocative topics at the time by some critics and audiences.

Today, this film and Madonna herself are highly regarded for pushing boundaries, supporting the LGBTQ+ community, and self-expression.

"Eight Days A Week – The Touring Years"

Directed by Ron Howard and released in 2016, this documentary film brings you back to the early years of The Beatles . In it, we are transported to the iconic band’s touring years from 1962 to 1966, which is also when they took America by storm.

The movie explores the band's rise to fame, their experiences on the road, their relationship with their fans, and the cultural impact of their music. Viewers will appreciate the archival footage, interviews, and behind-the-scenes glimpses into the journey of Paul McCartney , John Lennon , George Harrison , and Ringo Starr .

In 2015, years after Amy Winehouse’s death , the documentary film "Amy" gave the world a glimpse into the life and career of the troubled British singer-songwriter. In it, you can watch Winehouse’s incredible rise to fame , in addition to her struggles with addiction and her eventual tragic death at the age of 27.

Archival footage, personal videos, and interviews with friends, family, and collaborators serve as a backdrop to the heartbreaking end to the singer’s journey while also highlighting her extraordinary talent.

This movie, directed by Asif Kapadia, sheds light on the complexities of fame, mental health issues, and the devastating impact of addiction. Proceed with caution if you feel that you may be triggered by any of those sensitive topics.

"Don't Look Back"

No one can deny the cultural impact singer-songwriter Bob Dylan had on the world. This documentary, directed by D.A. Pennebaker and released in 1967, follows the iconic musician during his 1965 concert tour in the United Kingdom.

The movie provides an intimate and candid look at Dylan's life on the road, his interactions with fans and the media, and his legendary performances that remain unmatched today by any artist. The film captures Dylan's enigmatic personality, his creative process, and his influence on the music industry during this pivotal period in his career.

"Amazing Grace"

Directed by Sydney Pollack and Alan Elliott, "Amazing Grace" captures the recording of Aretha Franklin's live gospel album by the same title. Many would say it’s one of the greatest performances in music history, and you’d be robbing yourself not to witness it.

While the documentary was released in 2018, archival footage from the two-day recording session occurred in 1972 set at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles.

No one can deny Franklin's powerful voice , and this film will give you a first-class seat to her electrifying experience at the church. Throughout, you’ll also be immersed in Franklin's unparalleled talent and the impact her music has had on the world.

"Montage Of Heck"

Released in 2015, "Montage of Heck" unlocks the life and career of Kurt Cobain , the lead singer and guitarist of iconic alternative rock band Nirvana. The documentary, directed by Brett Morgen, gives an intimate and raw portrayal of Cobain's struggles, in addition to his creative process and rise to fame.

Get a glimpse into Cobain’s complex psyche through archival footage, home videos, interviews, and animated sequences.

Trigger warning: The film explores Cobain’s troubled childhood, struggles with addiction, and mental health challenges. While his profound impact on music and popular culture remains strong today, he lost his battle with depression in 1994 when he took his own life .

"Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace and Music, the Director's Cut"

You can't appreciate music today without having learned about the Woodstock music festival of 1969 . The historic event that took place on a dairy farm in Bethel, New York has been highly regarded as a pivotal moment in music history. The musicians of that era who took the stage — Jimi Hendrix , Janis Joplin , The Who, Joan Baez , Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, just to name a few — celebrated the counterculture movement of that decade.

Attracting roughly 400,000 attendees and becoming synonymous with peace, love, and the spirit of the hippie movement, the music documentary "Woodstock" captures the essence of the three-day music festival.

The film, directed by Michael Wadleigh, vividly portrays musical performances, atmosphere, and cultural significance through interviews with attendees, footage of the crowd, and glimpses into the social and political context of the time.

"The Day The Music Died: The Story of Don McLean's American Pie"

You're all too familiar with the song that goes, "A long, long time ago, I can still remember how that music used to make me smile... But something touched me deep inside the day the music died ..." This documentary exploring the story behind the Don McLean song, "American Pie" is a must-see.

Directed by Chris Cowey, the significance of the iconic song released in 1971 is unpacked by music historians, journalists, other artists, and Don McLean himself in this film.

You'll gain insights into the song's composition, the lyrics, its connection to American history, and its enduring legacy in the world of music.

"Tina Turner: Simply The Best"

You’ll love how beautifully this documentary celebrates the life and career of iconic singer Tina Turner . Released in 1991 and directed by David Mallet, you’ll get a comprehensive overview of her remarkable journey from her humble beginnings in the rural town of Nutbush, Tennessee to becoming one of the greatest performers in music history .

Complete with archival footage of Turner's electrifying performances, insights from friends, collaborators, and industry insiders, and interviews with Turner herself, "Simply the Best" highlights Turner's resilience, talent, and undeniable charisma.

"Soul Power"

Be transported to 1974 with the documentary film "Soul Power," which chronicles the three-day Zaire 74 music festival in Kinshasa, Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). Directed by Jeffrey Levy-Hinte and released in 2008, the movie features incredible performances by legendary soul, funk, and R&B artists — James Brown , B.B. King , Bill Withers, Celia Cruz , The Spinners, and more.

In addition, the highly anticipated boxing match, which would later be called "Rumble in the Jungle" between reigning heavyweight champion George Foreman and challenger Muhammad Ali , also happened in conjunction with the music festival.

Both events drew global attention to Zaire as planned, playing a pivotal role in shaping the cultural landscape and celebrating African-American sports and music.

Ysolt Usigan is a lifestyle writer and editor who has created share-worthy content for publishers like Shape , What To Expect , Cafe Mom , TODAY , CBS News , HuffPo , The Bump , Health , Ask Men , and BestGifts . A working mom of two, her editorial expertise in shopping, parenting, and home are rooted in her everyday life. Her passion is hunting for the best products and sharing them with the masses, so others don't have to waste time and money.

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70 Greatest Music Documentaries of All Time

The movies have always loved giving actors the chance to play rock star or impersonate an iconic musician/singer, recreating those famous “Eureka!” studio moments and greatest-hits shows for any number of music biopics. When it comes to historical musical moments, however, there’s nothing like seeing the real thing. A number of documentarians saw the advantage of capturing a number of legendary artists and bands in their heyday and/or once-in-a-lifetime performances — partially for posterity, partially for plain old reportage and partially for the second-hand high of it all. And thanks to new access to archives and updated technology, a whole generation of filmmakers have come up learning the art of docu-portraits and genre breakdowns that run the gamut from sub-subgenres to broad stem-to-stern histories of rock, jazz and country-and-western. It’s never been easier to make a music documentary these days. Not all of them, of course, are created equal.

So in honor of Peter Jackson’s Get Back — a new six-episode look back at the Beatles putting together the album Let It Be even as they were beginning to fall apart — we’ve compiled a list of the 70 greatest music documentaries of all time: the concert films, fly-on-the-wall tour chronicles, punk and hip-hop and jazz time capsules, and career assessments of everyone from Amy Winehouse to the Who that have set the standard and stood the test of time. The last time we did this was in 2014, and to say that the form has produced a number of classics since then would be an understatement. Play this list loud.

‘U2: Rattle and Hum’ (1988)

At the time of its release, this documentary of U2’s Joshua Tree tour was lambasted for its overly reverent, self-important tone. Now with hindsight, Rattle and Hum can be seen properly as a honest portrait of the Irish quartet, whose holy quest was to change the world through rock & roll. Allow the band’s piousness and Americana obsessions to turn you off, and you’ll miss an intriguing look at a band adjusting to a global superstar status they haven’t relinquished since. And goddamn, is that Bono is one charming sonuvabitch! TG

‘It Might Get Loud’ (2008)

Filmmaker Davis Guggenheim ( An Inconvenient Truth ) hangs out with three generations of innovative guitarists — Jimmy Page, the Edge, Jack White — to discuss their instrument and, more crucially, their approach to it. The jam session at the end is enjoyable enough, but It Might Get Loud ‘s greatest pleasure is its awestruck, probing curiosity about how only six strings and a handful of chords can become so endlessly liberating and cathartic in the right hands. — T.G.

‘American Hardcore’ (2006)

Machine-gun drumming, warp-speed guitar strumming, screamed lyrics about politics, punk ethics and personal alienation — this is hardcore, and Paul Rachman’s doc traces the underground movement’s ebbs and flows in places like D.C., L.A. and N.Y.C. throughout the Eighties. More than just a musical idea of stripping rock down to its bare necessities and brutalizing what was left, hardcore midwifed positive lifestyle templates (see straight-edge), a strong sense of community and an alpha-thug notion that violence was an inherent part of the show/scene; to his credit, Rachman looks at the good, the bad and the ugly of it all, as well as getting major players (Ian MacKaye, Keith Morris, Greg Ginn) to weigh in. It’s worth its weight in old Xeroxed gig flyers. — D.F.

‘Heavy Metal Parking Lot’ (1986)

A sociological study of headbangers, this 17-minute short consists of interviews with Judas Priest fans tailgating outside a Maryland show. Directors John Heyn and Jeff Krulik emphasize their subjects’ party-hearty, shit-faced shenanigans, but while it’s tempting to mock these mullet-afflicted metalheads, there’s an undeniable sweetness that permeates this mini-documentary. These kids may occasionally be inarticulate, sexist and obnoxious, but their innocent quest for rock & roll kicks is unfiltered youth personified. — T.G.

‘1991: The Year That Punk Broke’ (1992)

Filmmaker Dave Markey’s tour diary opens with an image of Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore freestyling bad poetry as his then-wife and bandmate Kim Gordon and Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain do a windmill dance on a railroad track — not a bad metaphor for indie-rock’s then-precarious, soon-to-be-apocalyptic arrival into the pop mainstream. The Year That Punk Broke follows Sonic Youth, Nirvana, the Ramones, Dinosaur Jr., Babes in Toyland and Gumball on a 1991 festival tour across Europe, capturing fantastic performances before rapturous outdoor crowds, with Moore’s self-shot video footage offering a revealing, funny, and sometimes kinda gross glimpse of their European vacation. It started as a sort of extended home movie, and ended up capturing a specific moment right before everything changed forever. —J.D.

‘End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones’ (2003)

The Ramones may be one of the most important punk bands in history, but as Jim Fields and Michael Gramaglia’s 2003 documentary reveals, they didn’t have many happy moments throughout their two-decade saga. That’s because they never had anything resembling a hit single, they never managed to rise above the dingy club circuit, and they absolutely despised each other. End of the Century delves into all of the drama, including Dee Dee’s heroin addiction, Joey’s battle with OCD, Johnny marrying Joey’s ex-girlfriend Linda, and their inability to make peace even when Joey was dying of lymphoma. All four original Ramones sat for new interviews, and it adds a layer of sorrow to a film that’s already built around frustration and acrimony to note that all four original members have passed on. Thanks to this, however, we are left with the definitive account of their story. —A.G.

‘Matangi/Maya/M.I.A.’ (2018)

Mathangi “Maya” Arulpragasam and director Steven Loveridge go way back to their art-school days, long before world tours and boom-boom-boom-take-your-mon-eyyy choruses (both of them wanted to be filmmakers, in fact). So when he pitched the idea of doing a movie about her, the Tamil immigrant-turned-global rap-pop juggernaut said yes. She gave him some tapes. He disappeared for five years. And when he finally premiered the end result, it was something completely different than your usual tour bus confessional or highlight reel of in-studio “Eureka! moments and live performances. Delving into the singer’s past, her political belief and trying to hold on to her identity while the pop-music media machine kicks into high gear (yes, there will be a mention of truffle fries), Matangi/Maya/M.I.A. focuses less on the musician behind hits like “Paper Planes” and “Galang” and more on the person who found herself in the middle of a maelstrom. It’s rough, raw and endlessly fascinating. —D.F.

‘The Concert for Bangladesh’ (1972)

On August 1st, 1971, George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Ringo Starr, Ravi Shankar, Billy Preston, Leon Russell, and Badfinger came together for a pair of shows at Madison Square Garden to raise money for the people of Bangladesh, who were facing a devastating humanitarian crisis due to the Bangladesh Liberation War and the aftermath of a brutal cyclone. The shows were packed with historic moments, like Bob Dylan’s first major public performance since his 1966 motorcycle accident and Harrison breaking out Beatles classics like “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” and “Here Comes The Sun” to a live audience for the very first time. Bigger benefits like Live Aid would come years later, but this initial melding of music, activism and charity was what set the template — and fortunately, director Saul Swimmer captured all of it for this documentary. Despite technical mishaps that made some of the original footage unusable, it’s still a stunning, you-are-there testament to the spirit of those days.  —A.G.

‘Rust Never Sleeps’ (1979)

By 1978, punk rock, new wave and disco were ascendant, and most Sixties rock icons were acts were already coasting on nostalgia. One very large exception: Neil Young. He’d just recorded a near-perfect collection of new songs called Rust Never Sleeps that raged against the idea of growing old gracefully, and even lashed out at his former CSNY bandmates for trying to hold him back. (“So I got bored and left them there,” he sings on “Thrasher.” “They were just dead weight to me.”) He took the music on the road with Crazy Horse and filmed a gig at San Francisco’s Cow Palace for this concert movie. It captures Young at the peak of his live powers as he thrashes out porto-grunge tunes like “Welfare Mothers, ‘”Sedan Delivery,” and “Hey Hey, My My (Into The Black).” In between songs, stage announcements from Woodstock are played, and roadies come onto the stage dressed like Jawas from Star Wars. It’s weird, wonderful, and a the documentation of a moment in Young’s career that he’s never been quite able to repeat. —A.G.

‘Leonard Cohen: Bird on a Wire’ (1974)

Leonard Cohen super fans were aware that a documentary was shot on his 1972 European tour, but for decades it was only seen via low-fi bootlegs taken from a German television broadcast in the Seventies.The raw footage sat in the vaults until 2009, when director Tony Palmer was given the opportunity to cut it into the movie he’d always envisioned. It begins with a riot during a gig in Tel Aviv at the end of the tour, before winding its way through a number of unforgettable fly-on-the-backstage-wall moments: Cohen dealing with extremely pushy fans, a litany of technical problems nearly shutting down one show, an exchange with a female fan that seems extremely eager to get to know him on a more intimate level. Throughout it all, Cohen remains stoic, wise, and the coolest person in any room he enters. —A.G.

‘Let’s Get Lost’ (1988)

His name was Chesney Henry Baker, though some called him the James Dean of jazz or the “Prince of Cool,” thanks to the clean, relaxed, hipper-than-hip sound he helped pioneer on his 1950s records. Mostly, this movie-star handsome trumpeter answered to “Chet,” and his life was a mixture of musical highs, lowlife company, late nights and a serious heroin habit that ended up derailing his career. Photographer-turned-documentarian Bruce Weber’s black-and-white look at the cool-jazz legend is almost as gorgeous as the subject himself, lending a throwback sheen to the proceedings that makes it feel like you’re watching a William Claxton album cover come to life. Claxton is, in fact, one of the various folks attesting to Baker’s greatness here, while Weber’s pals Chris Isaak, Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers and model Lisa Marie hang out to keep Chet company. The movie toggles between vintage clips of the man in his prime and the beautiful wreck he was in the late 1980s, after years of addiction and hard living had aged him. It’s a portrait of artist as a self-destructive supernova. —D.F.

‘The Punk Singer’ (2013)

When Kathleen Hanna went to a workshop held by playwright/novelist Kathy Acker, she declared that she wanted to be a writer because she had so many things to say, but no one ever listened to her. You should be in a band then, the author told her — so Hanna took her advice, started the legendary punk group Bikini Kill, and the rest is rebel-girl-you’re-the-queen-of-my-world history. Sini Anderson’s doc deservedly gives the singer-songwriter-activist-icon the spotlight, starting with those early, confrontational shows challenging the sexist status quo and moving into Hanna’s part in the seminal D.I.Y. Riot Grrrl movement, the formation of electroclash provocateurs Le Tigre and how she’s influenced generations of women to speak and/or scream their truth. It also gets into the way that she became a hate-magnet for neanderthals threatened by her ability to stand up for herself and her fellow females, and how health problems in 2006 essentially sidelined her from performing for years. Nevertheless, Hanna persisted. This is what a revolutionary looks like. —D.F.

‘A Poem Is a Naked Person’ (1974)

For decades after it was filmed, Leon Russell expressed displeasure with Les Blank’s documentary, which caught the singer-songwriter at the peak of his carnival-showman powers and popularity in the early Seventies. As a result of Russell’s reaction, as well as music clearance issues, A Poem Is a Naked Person wasn’t officially released until 41 years after it was finished. But other than a scene in which Russell gets annoyed when someone ventures to guess his age, it’s hard to see why he might have objected. The 89-minute doc puts you right in the middle of Leon’s rock-the-gospel live shows as well as casual recording sessions singing country songs, and its depictions of life on the rock road are revealing of its time (drugs, hangers-on) without being too unsavory. —D.B.

‘Festival’ (1967)

When filmmaker Murray Lerner showed up at the 1963 Newport Folk Festival, he had no idea he’d be capturing Bob Dylan at the very moment he emerged as a superstar. And when the documentarian returned two years later, he was equally unaware that he was about to witness the very moment when Dylan betray his folk audience by plugging in and playing loud rock and roll. And while the shadow of one of the greatest songwriters in history looms very large over Lerner’s 1967 film on the Newport Folk Festival (not to mention the legacy of the festival itself), the movie also features stunning performances by everybody from Johnny Cash and the Paul Butterfield Blues Band to Son House, Howlin’ Wolf, and Mississippi John Hurt. Lerner and his team caught every last moment of it, making Festival both a priceless historic artifact and one of the great music docs of its day.  —A.G.

’20 Feet From Stardom’ (2013)

Meet the voices behind the voices: Morgan Neville’s doc on backup singers shines the spotlight on those golden-throated goddesses who too often get left out of the story. Listening to legends like Darlene Love and Lisa Fischer (between the two of them, they’ve graced hits by everyone from the Ronettes to Sinatra and Sting) talk of their experiences adding textures and harmonies, you feel like a secret chapter of rock history has been unlocked. The highlight is Merry Clayton recounting the recording “Gimme Shelter” ; the sound of her voice breaking over an isolated vocal track will still make your hair stand on end. —D.F.

‘History of the Eagles’ (2013)

When Fred Armisen, Seth Meyers, and Bill Hader were looking for parody fodder for their TV show Documentary Now, Allison Ellwood’s two-part look back at the tempestuous band behind “Take It Easy” was an obvious early choice. “What sort of delighted us about that film was that you have this really soft sound,” Meyers told Rolling Stone in 2015 , “and then you have these aggressive alpha males talking about the journey to get that soft sound.” That journey involved no shortage of physical altercations, drug busts, firings, and bruising lawsuits — and thankfully all seven past-and-present Eagles aren’t shy about re-living it on camera. It culminates with Glen Frey and Don Felder actually threatening each other during a 1980 fundraising concert for California senator Alan Cranston (“I’m going to kick your ass when we get off the stage”), and then breaking up for the next 14 years. Most sanctioned documentaries shy away from unflattering scenes like that confrontation, but the Eagles wanted a warts-and-all documentary…and that’s what exactly Ellwood gave them. It’s no wonder the Go-Go’s hired her a few years later to make their doc. —A.G.

‘The Carter’ (2009)

Hip-hop’s reliance on artifice and bullshit is lifted in a profile so honest, its subject tried to prevent the film’s release. Ostensibly a movie about Lil Wayne’s rise from New Orleans teenage rapper to one of the world’s most popular MCs, The Carter shuns hagiography, showing Weezy’s hostile interviews with journalists and imbibing copious amounts of sizzurp right before the release of Tha Carter III. The rapper initially agreed to the project, but after seeing how much actual vérité the cinéma vérité-styled film had, he filed a lawsuit to prevent its distribution. A judge threw out the case, providing fans with a rare peek behind the curtain of life as a hip-hop superstar. — J.N.

‘Shine a Light’ (2008)

Most Rolling Stones concerts over the past 40 years have taken place at arenas, stadiums and festivals — and it’s nearly impossible to make shows of that magnitude work without creating somewhat of a spectacle and playing mainly the hits. But in the fall of 2006, the Stones played a couple of gigs at New York’s 2,894-seat Beacon Theater that allowed them to create a very different kind of magic. They brought out deeper cuts like “Far Away Eyes,” “Some Girls” and “All Down The Line,” as well as inviting Jack White, Buddy Guy, and Christina Aguilera to join them for a few tunes. And lucky for us, longtime superfan Martin Scorsese was in the house, with his cameras rolling. There are many Rolling Stones concert films, but none make you feel like you’re there quite like this one. —A.G.

‘Long Strange Trip’ (2017)

From psychedelic experimentalists to neo-Americana troubadours, San Francisco cult band to Rock Inc. touring entity — the free-form jam cosmonauts known as the Grateful Dead turned the Sixties notion of tuning in, turning on and dropping out into both a musical ideology and a decade-long business model. Amir Bar-Lev’s marathon-length look back (it’s nearly four hours or, to put it in Deadhead parlance, about six versions of “Dark Star”) at Jerry Garcia & Co. dives into the Dead’s history and unearths some deep cuts about their lives, their career and their demise after the frontman’s passing. It more than earns its title. —D.F.

‘Jazz on a Summer’s Day’ (1959)

Years before Dylan made the Newport Folk Festival famous by going electric, photographer Bert Stern traveled up to the Rhode Island city for its equally lauded jazz festival, and managed to capture a murderer’s row of musicians — Louis Armstrong, Chuck Berry, Mahalia Jackson, Thelonious Monk, Dinah Washington, Anita O’Day (whose 120mph rendition of “Tea For Two” breaks landspeed records in terms of song covers) — thrilling an outdoor audience of hipsters, hepcats, jazzbos and curious locals. Co-directed by Stern and editor Aram Avakian, Jazz on a Summer’s Day is a hell of a late ’50s time capsule. But it’s also a prototype for the modern concert film, alternating between performances, audience reactions and the ambience of the setting in an attempt to capture not just songs and sets but an entire experience. Invaluable. —D.F.

‘Hype!’ (1996)

This history of Seattle grunge might be the best portrait ever of the rock and roll boom-and-bust cycle, following the rise of the city’s indigenous rock scene from hopeful nascence in the form of bands like Green River, the Melvins, Tad and Seven Year Bitch, to the Nevermind -engorged corporate/mass media feeding frenzy that came later, as well as the confused, tragic fallout. The music still sounds violently alive, and the conflicted kvetching about selling out — expressed by stars like Eddie Vedder and Soundgarden’s Kim Thayill — now has an almost prelapsarian quaintness about it (one local talks about People magazine coming to town they way one might discuss a cancer diagnosis). Few rock docs do such a good job of capturing not just the music, but the ethos behind it. —J.D.

‘Meeting People Is Easy’ (1998)

The perfect visual embodiment of alternative rock’s “success = sucks eggs” mantra, Grant Gee’s Radiohead doc turns arena stardom into a psychological horror movie. Covering the band’s whirlwind OK Computer tour, director Grant Gee offers an impressionistic snapshot of the group (especially singer Thom Yorke) slowly losing their shit as interviews, shows, traveling and tedium wear them down. Many concert films come across as non-threatening fan items; this one is as jagged and honest about its alienation as the album that spawned it. — T.G.

‘Shut Up and Play the Hits’ (2012)

This farewell to LCD Soundsystem — via capturing their final live show at Madison Square Garden in 2011 — is an excellent primer on the band’s witty, transcendent dance music. But Shut Up and Play the Hits also works as an exploration of one of pop music’s greatest challenges: knowing when it’s time to call it quits. Burly, self-deprecating singer/LCD braintrust James Murphy was always an unlikely rock star, but his thoughts on aging and fame prove that he may also be one of our sanest. — T.G.

‘I Am Trying to Break Your Heart’ (2002)

Band records seminal album; a film captures the behind-the-scenes proceedings; everybody ends up happy. Well, two out of three ain’t bad: Wilco’s lauded Yankee Hotel Foxtrot remains the group’s bestselling album and artistic highmark, but video director Sam Jones’ movie illustrates how hard it was for Jeff Tweedy to reach the finish line. Feuding with bandmate Jay Bennett and battling label executives who didn’t like Wilco’s sonic curveball, Tweedy became an indie-rock hero, albeit one whose frequent migraines made his life hell. — T.G.

‘George Harrison: Living in the Material World’ (2011)

Martin Scorsese and his team spent over five years creating this look back at the life of “the Quiet Beatle” — quite a feat, considering that Harrison lived the least public life of any of the four Beatles, by a wide margin. It proved to be a monumental task that involved combing through stacks of private photos and countless hours of unseen film from his personal archives, as well as interviewing everyone from Paul McCartney and Eric Clapton to Eric Idle, Tom Petty, and even Phil Spector. That result, however, was wroth it: This two-part, 208-minute epic doesn’t just the story of the Beatles from Harrison’s vantage point — it also covers his long spiritual journey, his solo career, his home life at the British estate Friar Park, the story behind his pioneering benefit concert for Bangladesh, the evolution of Monty Python’s film career and the 1999 home invasion attack that nearly killed him. It may be too much for a casual fan, but hardcore Beatlemaniacs rightfully recognize this as the best account of Harrison’s life. —A.G.

‘Dave Chappelle’s Block Party’ (2005)

An embarrassment of musical riches, Michel Gondry’s chronicle of Dave Chappelle’s “surprise” get-together in Brooklyn watches as the TV star uses his clout to coax acts like Dead Prez, Jill Scott, Erykah Badu and a reunited Fugees to perform. It’s also a nonchalant portrait of a gifted comedian on the cusp of reaching a career-defining crossroads (he would abandon his influential Chappelle’s Show the following year), but in terms of a hip-hop/neo-soul revue circa 2004, this documentary is damn near peerless. Six words: Kanye West and a marching band. — T.G.

‘Buena Vista Social Club’ (1999)

The Ry Cooder-produced 1997 album “Buena Vista Social Club” was an unexpected international sensation, introducing millions of listeners to Cuban music. Two years later, German filmmaker Wim Wenders’ appropriately (and uncharacteristically) straightforward film documented Cooder’s subsequent trip to Havana to record an album by 72-year-old singer Ibrahim Ferrer, as well as several Buena Vista Social Club concerts in New York and Amsterdam. The movie is politically hands off, letting images of a decaying Havana speak for themselves, while unpretentiously capturing wonderful performances by a multi-generational group of musicians — most memorably 77 year-old pianist Ruben Gonzales, who was playing as an accompaniment to ballet classes when Cooder found him. —J.D.

‘Sign ‘o’ the Times’ (1987)

If you’ve ever fast-forwarded past the familial psychodrama bits of Purple Rain to get to the performance footage, then this Prince concert film — directed by the mono-monikered man himself — is a dream come true. There are a few offstage scenes to buffer the musical numbers (a word-game contest between prostitutes and a john here, a writhing around a back alley there), but mostly, it’s simply the artist doing what he does best: ripping through numbers off the titular album that synthesize Hendrix’s guitar heroics, James Brown’s dance moves and Sly Stone’s social commentary into one white-hot funk-up. This is what a Prince show looked like in 1987, complete with lingerie-chic outfits, urban-blight set decor, cameos from Sheena Easton and a post-Revolution band that includes Sheila E. treating her drum set like it owed her money. — D.F.

‘The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years’ (1988)

Director Penelope Spheeris’ first Decline of Western Civilization captured the ragged desperation and willful poverty of L.A.’s hardcore bands in 1981, but The Metal Years showed what happens when the same types of musicians got a little money, a lot of drugs and gallons of hairspray. W.A.S.P. guitarist Chris Holmes steals the show by drunkenly floating in a swimming pool while arguing with his mom, but jaw-dropping scenes of Ozzy Osbourne cooking breakfast in a leopard-print robe and Kiss’ Paul Stanley flanked in bed with scantly clad women also help the film live up to its Decline title. — K.G.

‘I Called Him Morgan’ (2016)

With this portrait of the late trumpeter Lee Morgan, Swedish director Kasper Collin spliced two genres that shouldn’t make any kind of sense together — true crime and jazz documentary — and ended up with a moody, sui generis triumph. At the film’s heart is a haunting retelling of the 1972 shooting of Morgan at New York club Slugs’ Saloon by his common-law wife, Helen. Collin fleshes out that account with intimate recollections from his subject’s musical peers and a revelatory 1996 audio interview with Helen herself, crafting an impressively shaded story of how the woman who ultimately took his life had previously saved him from the throes of addiction. The film expertly captures the eerie pull that that night at Slugs’ still has for everyone in the Morgans’ orbit — and why the tragedy of the shooting runs deeper than the loss of one musical giant. —H.S.

‘Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage’ (2010)

Few bands have had such a divide between critical praise and fan adulation as Rush. Sam Dunn and Scot McFadyen’s straightforward doc chronicles the Canadian group from its beginnings as a high school band to the arena-filling prog behemoths they would become. Trent Reznor, Les Claypool, Jack Black, Kirk Hammett, Gene Simmons and Billy Corgan all appear to laud the group’s music and influence, but this one makes the list for the treasure trove of archival footage geared toward the Rush completist (including a teen Alex Lifeson fighting with his parents about not finishing school). When the film was released, the self-described “world’s most popular cult band” were still three years away from their Hall of Fame induction, but Stage functions as the cinematic accompaniment to that cherry-on-top honor. — J.N.

‘The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus’ (1966)

On December 11th, 1968, Mick Jagger — tired of conventional concert performances — assembled the Who, Eric Clapton, Jethro Tull, Mitch Mitchell, Marianne Faithfull and Yoko Ono inside an replicated big top, combining actual circus performers with one-off collaborations. Despite the historical importance — it was Brian Jones’ last public performance and the only time Black Sabbath’s Tony Iommi performed with Tull — the footage was shelved for nearly 30 years, reportedly due to the Stones’ unhappiness with their own set (and by being upstaged by Pete Townshend and Co.). Gimme Shelter and Shine a Light are better documents of the band, but nothing compares to the sheer lunacy and singularity of this doc that literalized the metaphorical circus that was both the Stones in 1968 and Swinging London. — J.N.

‘Marley’ (2012)

The best doc on reggae music’s No. 1 prophet touches on nearly everything you’d want from such a thorough look back at the gone-too-soon legend. With the help of just about every then-surviving Wailer and family member, we see and hear about: Marley’s upbringing (and his white father), his early recordings and brief period in Delaware (growing tall weed!), the evolution of reggae, the acrimonious departures of Wailers co-founders Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer, the 1976 assassination attempt, and his final days as he struggled to beat melanoma. Ample footage of him on stage and in the studio — Marley fully in thrall to his music — also captures his undeniable, simmering charisma. (The many smitten women in his life also attest to how potent that was too.) —D.B.

‘Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars’ (1973)

Doc legend D.A. Pennebaker knew little about David Bowie’s music before he captured what would be his last performance as glam god Ziggy Stardust — but he certainly knew a star when he saw one. Bathed in a red spotlight, and voguing via scarlet hair, dark raccoon eyes, and an assortment of feathers, knee highs, black mesh and bangles, the Thin White Duke’s a shimmering, intergalactic Dietrich. Pennebaker sticks to the stage to present a near-complete record of the show, witnessing several mind-melting solos by sideman Mick Ronson, not to mention Bowie’s formidably bare thighs.  EH

‘Rolling Thunder Revue’ (2019)

No, Sharon Stone wasn’t a teenage groupie on Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue tour of 1975/76. Congressman Jack Tanner — from Robert Altman’s 1988 campaign mockumentary Tanner ’88 — didn’t materialize from the fictional universe to attend a show in Niagara Falls. And Dylan wasn’t inspired to wear white makeup onstage after seeing a Kiss concert in Queens. Adding these fake elements into an otherwise straight account of the tour (which draws from a lot of previously-unseen outtakes from Renaldo and Clara ) is a typically perverse Dylan move that adds an element of mischief and confusion to the project. It’s also an acknowledgment that Napoleon was right when he said that history is a “set of lies that people have agreed upon.” In this case, the lies are quite entertaining. More importantly, the concert footage captures Dylan at one of his peaks as a live performer. —A.G.

‘Rhyme & Reason’ (1997)

Peter Spirer’s ambitious doc stands out both for its breadth of testimonials and skill in placing hip-hop as part of a broader contextual musical continuum. Eschewing flash for substance, the film interviews more than 80 rappers — including Chuck D, Lauryn Hill, Puff Daddy and Dr. Dre — to provide the most widespread examination of the form’s culture circa 1997 as well as its history. Anyone can find archival footage of a Bronx block party in the Seventies. It takes skill, though, to tie the genre back to its jazz and gospel roots without sounding didactic. — J.N.

‘Year of the Horse’ (1997)

While there’s no scarcity of films about or featuring Neil Young (he’s even directed a few, including the genuinely batshit Human Highway ), none capture his collaboration with longtime backing band Crazy Horse as uncannily as Jim Jarmusch’s 1996 tour diary. The director gets roasted on the bus for attempting to discover the essence of the Horse (“It’s gonna be some cutesy stuff like you’d use in some artsy film and make everybody think he’s cool,” Frank “Poncho” Sampredro predicts), but he comes damn close to embodying it through the movie’s lo-fi look and feel, which is a mash-up of fuzzed-out analog film and video, and thunderous, amp-blasting sound.  EH

‘Soul Power’ (2008)

Quite possibly the greatest outtakes-fueled rockumentary ever, Soul Power chronicles “Zaire ’74,” the largely forgotten concert that coincided with Muhammad Ali and George Foreman’s championship bout (a.k.a. the Rumble in the Jungle) in Kinshasa, Zaire. The fight formed the basis for the 1996 Oscar-winning documentary When We Were Kings, and 12 years later director Jeff Levy-Hinte compiled dynamite archival sets from the likes of the Spinners and Bill Withers. Spoiler alert: James Brown closes the film — and steals the show. — T.G.

‘Style Wars’ (1983)

In the early Eighties, before hip hop even had much of a national profile (let alone the global dominance it would eventually attain), this PBS-produced film chronicled the emergent culture in its infancy. Style Wars focused on the battle between graffiti writers and city officials, each side fighting to see who would determine the literal look of New York at the time. The city itself appears as an almost mythically gritty character in the film; its heroes are the young black and Latino kids trying to create their own identity while giving the drab urban spaces color and life; its villain is mayor Ed Koch, glibly patting himself on the back not giving these kids the death penalty. And the music on hand gives you a taste of the art form’s early landmarks, from Grandmaster Flash’s “The Message” to the Fearless Four’s “Rockin’ It.” —J.D.

‘Dig!’ (2004)

A real-life This Is Spinal Tap for the indie-rock generation, Dig! proved that, at least among musicians, douchey self-delusion knows no bounds. Captured over seven years and culled from thousands of hours of footage, Ondi Timoner’s Sundance winner tracked the diverging paths of retro-Sixties singers and frenemies Anton Newcombe of the Brian Jonestown Massacre and Courtney Taylor of the Dandy Warhols. While the pragmatic, preening Taylor finds some measure of success, the gifted but toxic Newcombe is a hot mess, battling addiction, mental illness, and everyone in his path. Following an onstage brawl, he even has a “these go to 11” moment, snarling “You fuckin’ broke my sitar, fucker,” without a trace of irony. — E.H.

‘The Devil and Daniel Johnston’ (2005)

Both a celebration and a cautionary tale, Jeff Feuerzeig’s portrait of the legendary outsider artist captures the heartbreaking simplicity of his songs without downplaying his mental-health issues — or glibly equating the two. The movie doesn’t condemn fans who take Johnston’s illness as proof of his authenticity, but neither does it spare exploring just how difficult it can make his life, or how much anguish it causes his loving and supportive parents. You’ll never hear “Speeding Motorcycle” the same way again. — S.A.

‘Urgh! A Music War’ (1981)

Capturing a song apiece from nearly three dozen acts, this scattershot doc’s lineup might have been chosen by throwing a handful of darts into the nearest college radio station. But if nothing holds its subjects together beyond a vague allegiance to the New Wave and the fact that they were touring in 1980, Urgh! is full of jaw-dropping performances from otherwise undocumented bands like the Au Pairs, whose “Come Again” dramatizes a man’s attempt to pleasure a female lover with uncomfortable hilarity — as well as ringers like the Police, the Go-Go’s and Devo.  SA

‘Message to Love: The Isle of Wight Festival’ (1997)

It’s a concise encapsulation of Age-of-Aquarius contradictions: An overhead shot of some 600,000 festivalgoers filling up the grounds of the East Afton Farm on England’s Isle of Wight — which immediately cuts to the festival’s M.C., Rikki Farr, telling the audience that they can go to hell for ruining a chance at rock & roll bliss. The community-versus-commerce argument over rock-fest admission fees runs throughout Murray Lerner’s doc on the ill-fated 1970 endeavor, in which disillusioned organizers and artists tussle with hippie entitlement (“We want the world, and we want it now!”), and both iron fences and utopian hopes come crashing down. In addition to 20/20 hindsight, however, Message also brims with amazing performance footage of the period: a blistering number from The Who; Hendrix, less than three weeks from shuffling off this mortal coil, doing “Voodoo Chile”; the Doors tearing into ‘The End”; a Bitches Brew era Miles Davis Group; and Joni Mitchell, playing (ironically) “Woodstock” and almost being attacked by a dead ringer for Charles Manson. —D.F.

‘No Direction Home’ (2005)

Bob Dylan’s life has been studied and analyzed more than almost any other artist of the 20th Century. But Martin Scorsese still managed to create a revelatory documentary about his early days by fusing together never-before-seen footage from the Dylan vault along with new interviews with Joan Baez, Allen Ginsberg, Liam Clancy, Pete Seeger, Mavis Staples, Suze Rotolo, Dave Van Ronk, and many other key figures from his past. Dylan himself even sat for a rare on-camera interview. “I had ambitions to set out and find…like an odyssey, going home somewhere,” Dylan says near at the beginning. “I was born very far from where I’m supposed to be, and so I’m on my way home.” The centerpiece of the film is thrilling footage from the 1966 tour with the Hawks where Dylan was booed most nights for playing electric music, including the fabled moment in Birmingham, England where a furious fan calls him “Judas.” —A.G.

‘Wattstax’ (1973)

In its first incarnation, Stax Records was a tribute to the creative force of racial integration, but after Martin Luther King’s murder rocked Memphis to its core, new co-owner Al Bell pushed the label to pursue African-American uplift. The culmination of his vision was a celebratory concert timed to the seventh anniversary of the Watts riots, featuring Jesse Jackson and Richard Pryor alongside Isaac Hayes and the Staples Singers. For all its inspirational moments, the show is stolen by prankster Rufus Thomas, who masters an unruly crowd with his rendition of “Do the Funky Chicken.”  SA

‘The Filth and the Fury’ (2000)

Two decades after director Julien Temple cut his teeth by making The Great Rock & Roll Swindle, the surrealistic and sarcastic Sex Pistols mockumentary guided by their former manager, he returned to his original subject, letting the band members tell the story of the punk revolution from their perspective. The band members are all shrouded in shadows – head agitator Johnny Rotten is just an orange paintbrush of hair rising from the dark – adding emphasis to gritty, never-before-seen Seventies-era footage of the band members and their peers. The best part was Temple had the good sense to cut the story before the band’s mid-Nineties Filthy Lucre reunion. — K.G.

‘Elvis: That’s the Way It Is’ (1970)

Like his 1968 comeback special, this record of the preparations for Elvis Presley’s first tour in 13 years is a tale of two Elvises. There’s the cocky country boy, whose studio performances with his crack band tap the primal energy of his best performances; and the stage entertainer, swaddled in foot-long fringe and buttressed by a small army of backing singers. (At one point, he jokes to the Vegas crowd that he’s filming a movie called “Elvis Loses His Excess.”) The 2001 recut, just released on Blu-ray, strips away footage of fans to provide more of the King in his domain. — S.A.

‘Depeche Mode 101’ (1989)

The gents from Essex may be a gloomy bunch on record, but this film about the final leg of the band’s 1988 American tour is positively buoyant. Rather than a straightforward concert film like his previous Ziggy Stardust, D.A. Pennebaker (along with partner Chris Hegedus) brings their fly-on-the-wall approach to the entire traveling circus — from nimble lighting technicians to giddy number-crunchers, and from pinball-obsessed Dave Gahan to equally charismatic fans en route to see the finale at the Rose Bowl. For once, rock & roll isn’t presented as a spectacle of Dionysian excess, but of good — if not entirely clean — fun. — E.H.

‘The T.A.M.I. Show’ (1964)

Justly celebrated  for its incandescent performances by James Brown and the Rolling Stones — who chose, unwisely, to play after him — The T.A.M.I. Show ‘s overview of “teenage music” circa 1964 serves as a primer in the tensions that would shortly rip the culture wide open. The variety-show staging and the goofy intros by emcees Jan and Dean act as a security blanket for anxious parents, assuring them that this rock & roll madness won’t get too out of hand. But by the time Brown and the Stones have worked their will on the crowd, you can feel a riot coming on.  SA

‘Awesome; I Fuckin’ Shot That!’ (2006)

Sure, the Beastie Boys could have hired D.A. Pennebaker or Jonathan Demme to film their Madison Square Garden concert on October 9th, 2004 — or they could just give 50 attendees digital cameras, let them shoot the show and then see what comes back. Subtitled “an authorized bootleg,” this crowd-sourced performance movie technically lists Nathaniel Hornblower (a.k.a. the lederhosen-wearing alter ego of baritoned Beastie Adam Yauch) as the director — but it really is a fans-eye view of a great show and the ultimate testament of the trio’s belief in D.I.Y. empowerment. Plus you get to see the Beastie Boys at the Garden, cold-kickin’ it live. Rest in peace, MCA. — D.F.

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The 50 best music documentaries of all time

Unmissable movies – and where to watch them

A collection of the greatest ever documentary films about music – from rock biogs and drug-fuelled histories to concert movies and underground accounts. Here is a must-watch list for all (in alphabetical order and with handy, UK-based streaming options).

Words by Mark Beaumont

20 Feet From Stardom (2013)

Those backing singers often have just as rollercoaster lives as the star they’re harmonising with, as Morgan Neville’s acclaimed film explores. Darlene Love, Judith Hill, Merry Clayton and Lisa Fischer are among the back-up singers granted a spotlight to unravel emotional, funny and revealing stories from life on the rearmost podium, sometimes flecked with sadness at their permanent bridesmaid status. When Neville isolates Clayton’s astonishing vocal on the Stones ’ ‘Gimme Shelter’ though, there’s only one star of this show.

Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video, Google Play (to rent)

20,000 Days On Earth (2014)

Picking up two awards at 2014’s Sundance festival, Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard’s 20,000 Days On Earth depicted a fictitious day in the life of Nick Cave as he worked on 2013’s ‘Push The Sky Away’. Staging scenes from therapy sessions, studio recording, performance and in-car conversations with Kylie or Ray Winstone – the very antithesis of Carpool Karaoke – its scripted construct doesn’t stop it being an artful and revealing insight into Cave’s life, or at least what Cave wants us to think his life is.

Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video (to rent)

Recommended

A Band Called Death (2012)

Punk could have come around a little sooner if David Hackney, prime mover of a trio of Detroit rock brothers credited with being one of the first bands of the genre, had given in to label pressures to change the name of his band to something more commercial than Death. Instead obscurity, alcoholism and next-gen rediscovery beckoned, as directors Mark Christopher Covino and Jeff Howlett explore here in a doc that’s equal parts tragedy and redemption.

Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video, YouTube (to rent)

Amazing Grace (2018)

Filmed by Sydney Pollack in 1972 but gathering dust on the shelf until three months after her death in 2018, Aretha Franklin ’s live recordings for her gospel album ‘Amazing Grace’ – shot over two nights in a church in LA – caught a heaven-sent voice at its most powerful and impassioned.

Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video and Virgin TV Go

From stars-in-her-eyes childhood home movies to final onstage meltdowns, the volatile, demon-plagued life of Amy Winehouse is laid bare in Asif Kapadia’s Oscar-winning Amy . Watching such a mercurial talent spiral into drink, drugs, bulimia and tragedy while a scandal-hungry media swarm greedily ogles the skidding car makes for a true slice of celluloid heartbreak.

Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV+ (to rent)

Anvil! The Story Of Anvil (2008)

‘The real-life Spinal Tap ’, went the hype. And this tale of two 1980s heavy metal coulda-beens refusing to give up on their dreams in the face of half-empty bars, embarking on an ill-fated European tour, breaking up, reuniting and forging on to semi-glory certainly takes the past-their-prime metal journeyman story up to eleven. Albeit with some touching pathos instead of tiny Stonehenges.

Where to watch: NOW and Virgin TV Go

Billie Eilish: The World’s A Little Blurry (2021)

Not yet old enough to have lived out the traditional music documentary narrative arc – hardship, big break, sing for President, stomach pump – Eilish ’s verité doc rather sets her monumental superstardom within a frame of domestic relatability. Director RJ Cutler is welcomed into the Eilish family between 2018 and 2020, capturing as much of Billie’s unmanufactured, homespun authenticity as the blur of the pop world spinning around her. Engrossing stuff.

Where to watch: Apple TV+

Beyoncé: Homecoming (2019)

Hailed as amongst the greatest concert films (which are, of course, still music documentaries) ever on release, this onstage and behind-the-scenes document of Beyoncé ’s dazzling set at Coachella 2018 marries the sheer spectacle of Beyoncé in full, eye-popping flow with incisive, intimate and politically charged offstage vignettes. Its Rotten Tomatoes critic consensus reads “Beychella forever”.

Where to watch: Netflix

Biggie & Tupac (2002)

Fresh from his equally contentious Kurt & Courtney , director Nick Broomfield delivered a similarly investigative study of the tragic end of rap’s most famous beef. His verdict? Suge Knight dun it, in an elaborate plot of revenge, control and diversion, abetted by hit men hired from the LAPD. His case had more holes than a Crips’ car door, but Broomfield’s manner of pulling his threads together in a film largely about his attempts to make it made for compelling viewing.

Where to watch: Subs

Bob Dylan: Don’t Look Back (1967)

The original fly-on-the-wall rock doc, DA Pennebaker’s document of Dylan’s infamous 1965 ‘Electric Judas’ tour caught the bleared bard at a pivotal watershed moment for folk and rock music, crossing over from protest folk favourite to mainstream rock rebel but blinded by the furore he caused simply by plugging in and letting rip. It’s a cornucopia of historic moments, from Dylan baiting the press to pioneering the music video in the ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’ cue card section.

Where to watch: A physical copy? Surely, not…

Bros: After The Screaming Stops (2018)

An accidental classic, thanks to Matt Goss’s timeless, and instantly viral philosophising on Rome, conkers, regal road sweepers and bulldogs drinking beer. A must-watch in 2018 just to keep up with what the internet was pissing itself over, and every bit as hilarious three years on since it remains, unbelievably, not scripted by Steve Coogan. So important because it personifies the word ‘WTF’.

Where to watch: BBC iPlayer

Buena Vista Social Club (1999)

When the titular Cuban ensemble – put together in 1996 by Ry Cooder – arrived in New York for their first American performances, German director Wim Wenders was on hand to capture the event on film, explore the history of Cuban music and delve into the players’ experiences of crossing the political divide between Cuba and the US.

Where to watch: BFI Player

Dave Chapelle’s Block Party (2005)

In which comic rocket Chappelle, struggling with the sort of guy a $50 million contract with Comedy Central makes you, decides to organise a free rap show in Brooklyn featuring Kanye West , Mos Def , The Fugees and Erykah Badu (among others), bussing in locals from his Ohio hometown. Come for the performances by rap legends and between-set monologues from one of America’s most celebrated comedians, stay for the existential wrestling; Chappelle would walk away from the contract soon after filming.

Where to watch: You’ll have to track down a copy of this one…

Dig! (2004)

Filmed over seven years and cut for drama (“it’s a movie, not a documentary,” claimed The Dandy Warhols ’ Courtney Taylor-Taylor), Ondi Timoner’s Dig! followed the differing fortunes and inter-personal rivalries of The Warhols and Anton Newcombe’s Brian Jonestown Massacre as major label opportunity knocked for the ‘90s Portland psych-pop scene. You’ve never seen bohemians like this…

Freestyle: The Art Of Rhyme (2000)

From the Baptist preacher to the reggae toaster and the rap battler, the art of freestyling seems an arcane magic. “The goal of freestyling,” rapper Juice tells filmmaker Kevin Fitzgerald (aka DJ Organic) in this enthusiastic history of the form, “is to throw something out once and you can never do it again. That’s what makes it free”, and Freestyle… itself lives by this fundamental tenet, including spontaneous raps captured during filming while also uncovering such fantastic footage as Biggie Smalls freestyling on street corners as a teenager.

Where to watch: Plex

George Harrison: Living In The Material World (2011)

Five years in the making, three-and-a-half hours in the watching, Martin Scorsese’s enthusiastic and lovingly compiled Harrison mega-documentary is inevitably a landmark of the form. Remaining Beatles , George Martin, Pythons, an elephant-dodging Eric Clapton and a cavalcade of rock greats turn out to explore the history, talent, spirituality and monumental influence of ‘the quietly iconic one’.

Where to watch: You’re going to have to buy this one on DVD

Gaga: Five Foot Two (2017)

A modern-day Madonna: Truth Or Dare (despite the beef with Madge touched on several times here) this 100-minute vérité-style glimpse into the life of Stefani Germanotta in the lead-up to 2016’s fifth album ‘Joanne’ and her Super Bowl half time show lifts the wig on a funny, tempestuous, vulnerable, driven and reflective woman behind the façade of the pop art persona.

Gimme Shelter (1970)

Chronicling the day the ‘60s died, The Rolling Stones’ doc Gimme Shelter followed their 1969 US tour up to Altamont, covering the fateful event’s chaotic organisation, violent run-up, fraught performance and tragic climax. Exhilarating and chilling by turns, it’s as much a record of the darkness that swallowed the counterculture as a band leaping the ‘60s/’70s divide.

Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart: A Film About Wilco (2002)

Sometimes a classic rockumentary falls in your lap, as with photographer Sam Jones, who began filming Wilco in 2001 just as the band began to fracture and split, their label dropped them and a seminal album, ‘Yankee Hotel Foxtrot’, rose from the wreckage. Art and commerce collide, sparks fly and Wilco end up getting paid twice for the album by the same label. Heartbreaking? Arguably. Riveting? Undeniably.

Where to watch: Vimeo (to rent)

Janis: Little Girl Blue (2015)

Fiercely independent, supremely talented, deeply troubled, tragically addicted; the Janis Joplin story is of a kind with that of most 27 Club members, but director Amy J. Berg does a fine job of unpicking the childhood bullying, narcotic dependence and raw-throated passion that made her one of the greatest and most fascinating figures of the ‘60s counterculture.

Where to watch: Apple TV, Google Play (to rent)

Kurt Cobain: Montage Of Heck (2015)

The first family-approved Cobain documentary set out to trace the full arc of his troubled life and expose the human being, husband and father behind the blank generation figurehead using home videos, unearthed demos and personal notebooks. Director Brett Morgen would be accused of falling for a lot of half-truths about Kurt, but his own mesmerising montages of Cobain’s music and art do full justice to the talent behind the tragedy.

Madonna: Truth Or Dare (1991)

Scandalising the world on her 1990 Blonde Ambition tour – banned by the Pope in Italy; threatened with arrest for lewd behaviour in Canada – Madonna allowed filmmaker Alek Keshishian behind the scenes to record her growing relationships (and mildly salacious drinking games) with her dancers, her attempted seductions of married stars and her encounters with famous backstage admirers. While profiling a powerful workaholic conquering a man’s world and delivering some of pop’s most memorable performances, Truth Or Dare marked the birth of the celebrity reality show.

Where to watch: Get that DVD ordered!

Meeting People Is Easy (1998)

It’s tough, alienating and tedious at the top, according to Grant Gee’s fly-on-the-wall doc about Radiohead ’s relentless promotional duties as ‘OK Computer’ took off worldwide in 1997. An endless churn of airports, hotels, flashbulbs, interviews and introspection – plus some memorable street hassle – it’s an unflinching look at the machinery behind the music at a superstardom level, and how easily it can chew up the fragile humans caught inside.

Where to watch: Another one you’ll have to seek out for yourself…

Metallica: Some Kind Of Monster (2004)

At the other end of the scale from Anvil! , Metallica ’s Some Kind Of Monster gets inside the room as a mid-life rock behemoth collapses under its own weight. Alcohol rehab, indecision, band fights and group therapy with a “performance enhancement coach” during the troubled genesis of 2003’s ‘St Anger’ album make for an (unwittingly comical) insight into the workings of a major league rock act big on ego but short on ideas.

Miss Americana (2020)

Following Taylor Swift over several years and covering her 2018 ‘Reputation’ tour and the making of 2019’s ‘Lover’, Lana Wilson’s Miss Americana became the highest rated Netflix original music documentary thanks to Swift’s candid discussions on her body dysmorphia, the pressures of media scrutiny and internet toxicity and her sexual assault trial.

Oasis: Supersonic (2016)

Starting and ending at Knebworth, Mat Whitecross’s Oasis doc focuses on their stratospheric rise over the first two albums, before everything went sodden and sour. Unmissable thanks to the hilarious love/hate comic interplay between its two principals – in archive footage and new voiceovers – a dash of childhood soul searching, and some of the ‘90s most momentous tunes.

Where to watch: Netflix and Virgin TV Go

Poly Styrene: I Am A Cliché (2021)

Inspiration, flash-in-pan genius, success, depression, bipolar disorder, drugs, later-period shift into eastern mysticism – the story of X-Ray Spex ’s Poly Styrene might contain rock doc cliches by the dozen. But Paul Sng and (Poly’s daughter) Celeste Bell’s portrait of this confrontational punk driving force and champion of personal liberation – be it over identity issues or one’s love of BDSM – paints her as utterly unique.

Where to watch: NOW

Risky Roadz 0121 (2021)

After 15 years away, iconic grime filmmaker Risky Roadz is back to document Birmingham’s long history with the genre. Featuring interviews from the likes of Mist, Lady Leshurr, Jaykae and more Brummie rappers.

Rhyme & Reason (1997)

Over 80 major artists contributed to this significant origin story of rap, from pioneers like Kurtis Blow, KRS-One and Chuck D to ‘90s greats such as Wu-Tang Clan , Tupac and Biggie , interviewed here just four days before his death. Essentially hip-hop 101 for the ‘90s newcomers, it’s virtually a historical primer for modern audiences, digging deep into the foundations of the scene right back to jazz, gospel and blues.

Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video and Chili (to rent)

Searching For Sugar Man (2012)

Ever picked up a needle-worn album from your collection and wondered what happened to the act? Then picked up a Super 8 camera and tracked them down across continents? This was the story of Searching For Sugar Man , a BAFTA and Oscar winner in which South African record store owner Stephen Segerman and director Malik Bendjelloul hunt down forgotten ‘70s Detroit singer Sixto Rodriguez after his records become surprise anthems of the anti-apartheid movement.

Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video, NOW and Virgin TV Go

Shut Up And Play The Hits (2012)

What happens when you quit at the top? It’s a question Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace’s document of LCD Soundsystem ’s final pre-split show at Madison Square Garden in 2011, tries to answer, intercutting one of the finest concert films put to celluloid with footage of James Murphy wandering around his flat the following day or in conversation-cum-interview therapy with pop culture writer Chuck Klosterman.

Sisters With Transistors (2021)

Narrated by Laurie Anderson, Sisters With Transistors is director Lisa Rovner ’s deep dive into the female pioneers of electronic music: drawing out the stories of figures such as experimental theremin maestro Clara Rockmore, Moog developer Wendy Carlos and Delia Derbyshire, co-writer of the Doctor Who theme. Art school rockers such as Sonic Youth and early Silicon Valley tech-heads line up to pay their respects.

Sound City (2013)

Before he set out across America to tell the tales of legendary studios for 2014’s Sonic Highways series, Dave Grohl delved into the history of LA’s Sound City Studios, where ‘Rumours’-era Fleetwood Mac were formed and Nirvana ’s ‘ Nevermind ’ roared into life. As visual love letters to mixing desks go, they rarely come so funny, affectionate and brilliantly soundtracked.

Stop Making Sense (1984)

When David Byrne walked onto an empty stage with a guitar, a boombox and a casual “hi, I got a tape I wanna play”, Talking Heads and director Jonathan Demme upturned the conceit of the ‘authentic’ concert film and began building the band and the stage spectacle around him as a visual art statement. Film and live music performance fused right there, and Byrne’s recent American Utopia movie would later repeat the seemingly unrepeatable.

Summer Of Soul (…Or When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised) (2021)

In the wake of the summer of love, Black music had its own celebratory season at the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, where Stevie Wonder , Nina Simone, Sly And The Family Stone , Mahalia Jackson and others put on quite possibly the greatest musical event you’ve never heard of. In what Mark Kermode called “one of the best concert movies [again, still a music doc] of all time”, Ahmir ‘Questlove’ Thompson restores footage that has been gathering dust for decades, nails it to the now with incisive interviews with artists, crowd members and civil rights activists, and unpicks why the event has gone largely unrecognised. Soul power indeed.

Where to watch: Disney+

The Decline Of Western Civilisation Pt II: The Metal Years (1988)

Sequel to Penelope Spheeris’ excellent 1981 cinematic dive into the US post-punk hardcore scene, here she turned her lens to the LA glam metal scene with even more salacious results. Endless tales of excess, ambition and overdose; vodka showers in swimming pools; Kiss ‘ Paul Stanley interviewed in a bed full of lingerie-clad models; Ozzy spilling his orange juice from (faked) alcohol withdrawal and Steven Tyler admitting to blowing millions of dollars on gak – the film was both ridiculously entertaining and so repugnant to the next generation of American rock that it reportedly helped kickstart grunge.

Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video and Microsoft (to rent)

The Devil and Daniel Johnston (2005)

The line between creative genius and mental illness is often painted thin, and never thinner than in Jeff Feuerzeig’s portrait of bipolar DIY folk singer and Kurt Cobain favourite Daniel Johnston. Johnston’s illnesses fuel life-threatening accidents, violent episodes, stints in psychiatric institutions and demonic obsessions but, nonetheless, his talent shines through the murk.

Where to watch: Arrow

The Filth And The Fury (2000)

Twenty years after 1980’s Malcom McLaren-dominated The Great Rock And Roll Swindle , the Sex Pistols themselves get a say on their turbulent rise, two-year rampage and messy implosion – and the seismic cultural after-effect – in Julien Temple’s second Pistols doc. In-band battles, peak-era poverty, establishment oppression, tabloid outrage and blood-stained collapse: ever get the feeling you’re finally getting your money’s worth?

Where to watch: Let us know when you find it!

The Girls In The Band (2011)

The side-lining of talented women in music is a story at least as old as the jazz era of the ‘30s and ‘40s, when the unsung players spotlighted in The Girls In The Band came up against racism and sexism aplenty, often having to join girl bands as male groups believed they didn’t have the physical capabilities to blow horns. Spirited stuff.

Where to watch: BroadwayHD

The Go-Go’s (2020)

As fiery and effervescent as its subject matter, Alison Ellwood’s The Go-Go’s wowed last year’s Sundance, going deep – and often emotional – on the biggest all-female band in rock history. The point where the LA punk scene met The Shangri-Las, The Go-Go’s partied harder than most of their contemporaries – the story of drinking all day before playing a frankly wankered Saturday Night Live gig is legendary, as is guitarist Charlotte Caffey’s secret heroin habit – and crashed just as hard too, all captured here and topped off with a touching reunion.

The Kids Are Alright (1979)

Exploding drumkits on US TV. Stripping on the Russell Harty show. Destroying Woodstock and the Monterey Pop festival. The final glimpses of Keith Moon; at home with Ringo Starr or playing his last ever performances. Using archive footage – sometimes rescued from trash dumps – and fresh recordings, Jeff Stein’s The Kids Are Alright epitomised the kit-trashing anarchy of The Who’s Moon era mayhem.

Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video and IMDb TV

The Last Waltz (1978)

“This film should be played loud!” reads a title card, and Martin Scorsese’s film of The Band ’s farewell show at San Francisco’s Winterland Ballroom has certainly made some noise down the years. Featuring guests including Ringo Starr , Neil Diamond , Eric Clapton, Neil Young , Joni Mitchell , Muddy Waters and The Band’s most famous frontman Bob Dylan , the gig was an astounding send-off for the road-and-drugs-ravaged Americana pioneers, and the movie a masterclass in artfully and sensitively capturing live music on film.

The Punk Singer: A Film About Kathleen Hanna (2013)

An icon of riot grrrl and figurehead of fem-punk activism, Hanna’s story leaps off the screen in Sini Anderson’s documentary, whether she’s destroying stages with Bikini Kill and Le Tigre , inventing the phrase “smells like Teen Spirit” for Kurt Cobain or battling Lyme disease over the latter part of her career.

Where to watch: Apple TV, YouTube (to rent)

The Wrecking Crew (2008)

The daddy of the unsung-backroom-stars seam of music documentaries, Denny Tedesco’s celebrated The Wrecking Crew pulls back the Oz-like curtain on the team of largely uncredited LA session musicians who were actually playing all those hits by ‘60s greats such as The Beach Boys , the Monkees and The Byrds , and on Phil Spector’s Wall Of Sound recordings. Vibrations are kept good, that lovin’ feeling strong, but there are touches of tragedy on show for some, once music moves on.

Where to watch: Apple TV+ (to rent)

TINA (2021)

A key release in the new golden age of music docs, TINA traces the rags-to-riches tale of Tina Turner from abandoned child to beaten superstar wife of Ike to the comeback queen of the ‘80s and beyond. With Turner involved in the film, her traumas are de-emphasised in favour of scintillating live footage of a performer who was, in her prime, better than all the rest.

Wattstax (1973)

In 1972, Stax records held a seven-hour benefit concert to commemorate the 1965 Watts Uprising in LA, featuring The Staple Singers , Albert King, Carla Thomas and Isaac Hayes. Combined with show-stealing monologues from comedian Richard Pryor, the initial 1973 release was magnificent and moving enough – particularly Jesse Jackson leading the entire LA Memorial Coliseum in a defiant chant of ‘I Am Somebody’ – but a 2003 remake restoring Hayes’ previously cut Shaft songs elevated the film to something akin to the soul Woodstock.

Where to watch: Google Play, YouTube (to buy)

What Happened, Miss Simone? (2015)

Showered with award nominations, Liz Garbus’ What Happened, Miss Simone? let the talent do the talking, peppering colourful and mesmerising archive performances – her ‘I Love You, Porgy’ is worth the subs fee alone – with details of the blues legend’s abusive marriage, pill addiction, civil rights activism and notorious bipolar volatility.

White Riot (2019)

Purposely fast-cut and DIY in aesthetic, Rubika Shah’s history of the birth of Rock Against Racism in the late ‘70s brims with the punk ire of the age, tracing the movement from its initial east London activist uprising to 1978’s Carnival Against The Nazis which saw 100,000 people march across London to a festival in Victoria Park headlined by The Clash . A visual handbook, perhaps, for tackling today’s right-wing resurgence.

Whitney 
 (2018)

As much detective story as biography, Kevin Macdonald’s Whitney Houston doc delves into the roots of her unravelling from ‘80s pop stardom to her death in 2012, uncovering issues of identity, addiction and abuse. Yet her talent shines through in rare and archival footage juxtaposing her pop star life against her personal troubles.

Woodstock (1970)

Not just a record of the biggest countercultural event of the ‘60s but also the most evocative insight into the mindset of the movement ever filmed. Even without The Who tearing through ‘See Me, Feel Me’ or Jimi Hendrix shredding ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’, the hippie culture displayed in Woodstock’s split-screen sequences – dancing, skinny-dipping, feeding each other, grooving through the storm – seemed like a vision from a more humane, caring, mud-spattered utopia.

Where to watch: Amazon Prime Video, Google Play, YouTube (to buy)

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• Jimi Hendrix
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• Kurt Cobain
• Kylie Minogue
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The 50 Best Music Documentaries of All Time

This story was originally published in 2015 and has been updated to reflect recent releases.

The past few years have been something of a golden age for music documentaries — with the Oscar-winning success of Searching for Sugar Man and 20 Feet From Stardom opening up the field for films about less-obvious stars. Lately, there have been a flood of movies about cult bands, forgotten local acts, and background players — and even a few docs, like Amy and Moonage Daydream , that have found new ways to approach some of the most popular musicians of the past half-century. Netflix has done so well with music-themed films that it commissioned some of its own, such as What Happened, Miss Simone? Thanks in part to art-house patrons, Blu-ray buyers, and premium-cable subscribers, the market for movies about musicians has become lucrative enough that even long-shelved projects like Amazing Grace and the arty Leon Russell sketch A Poem Is a Naked Person have seen the light of day. It’s a marvelous time to be a music buff.

The list of 50 documentaries below features old classics, new favorites, and a few films that deserve a wider audience. It touches on pop, hip-hop, rock, punk, R&B, jazz, country, and folk; collectively, it tells a story of art forms, cultures, and business models in transition. Most important, these documentaries (and exceptional concert films, in case you were wondering) contain performances that are as essential to understanding these artists as any of their records. Think of these 50 titles as a time capsule, ready to be opened today, next year, or decades from now.

50. Tom Dowd & the Language of Music (2003)

Recording engineer Tom Dowd started at Atlantic Records in the 1950s, and gained a reputation within the music business as a technical wizard, who could solve the logistical challenges of miking-up artists as disparate as John Coltrane and Ray Charles. Mark Moormann’s documentary covers the heights of Dowd’s career, which means it’s really a mini-history of popular music between 1950 and 1980. But the film is an introduction the art of recording, portrayed more spectacularly in a show-stopping scene of Dowd walking Moormann through each isolated track of Derek and the Dominos’ “Layla” — with his own dexterity on display as much as Eric Clapton and Duane Allman’s.

49. Who Is Harry Nilsson (and Why Is Everybody Talkin’ About Him)? (2012)

A party animal and a musical genius — with an angelic voice and a devilish nature — Harry Nilsson was viewed by the music industry and by many critics as someone who rarely realized his potential. And while John Scheinfeld’s documentary Who Is Harry Nilsson buys too much into that phony “isn’t a pity?” narrative (especially in the way it downplays Nilsson’s more experimental, frequently brilliant mid-1970s albums), for the most part the director has enough convincing eyewitness interviews and archival footage to argue that Nilsson was more than just a guy with a couple of fluke hits and a reputation for dragging his famous friends into the boozy muck. If nothing else, Who Is Harry Nilsson makes its subject look like a true original: a pop craftsman who was too impish to cruise through life.

48.   Little Richard: I Am Everything (2023)

Although Little Richard’s fiery performances, flamboyant style , sexual frankness, and gender fluidity directly influenced the likes of Prince, Janelle Monáe, and Lil Nas X, Lisa Cortés’s Little Richard: I Am Everything begins by toting up all of the gospel and roadhouse pioneers (some of whom performed in makeup and androgynous clothing) that inspired him . With that out of the way, this film gives Richard Wayne Penniman the due that the music industry rarely did, documenting how an effeminate kid from Macon, Georgia, became a once-in-a-generation superstar . Cortés doesn’t ignore the confounding contradictions of Little Richard’s career: like how he was both openly gay and, at his most religious, hurtfully homophobic. But, as the film acknowledges, that unwillingness to choose definitively between the spiritual and the secular is what made his music so dangerous — and so thrilling.

47. Heartworn Highways (1976)

Around the same time that Robert Altman spoofed the slick, celebrity side of Music City U.S.A. in his masterpiece Nashville , James Szalapski was hanging around the town — and in Austin, Texas, too — filming the new breed of politicized, rootsy singer-songwriters who’d come to be known as the backbone of the “outlaw country” movement. In semi-free-form, verité style, Heartworn Highways presents the casual jams and bull-sessions that bound together Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt, David Allan Coe, Charlie Daniels, and the very young Steve Earle and Rodney Crowell. These artists were working outside the established country-music star factory, but writing songs so pure and true that Nashville had to pay attention. Heartworn Highways catches the offhand magic that they conjured, alone and together.

46. Dig! (2004)

As fans of any music scene know, it’s not always easy to predict — or even to understand — why some acts cross over to the mainstream while others languish. Ondi Timoner’s Dig! examines this phenomenon via the diverging fortunes of two 1990s West Coast alt-rock groups: The Dandy Warhols and the Brian Jonestown Massacre. Members of both bands have said that Timoner exaggerated conflicts to make a more dramatic documentary, but there’s still a lot of truth to what Dig! has to say about commercial compromises and prickly personalities. Overblown or not, the warts-and-all clips help illustrate why the artists who endure are often the ones who’ve figured out how to satisfy their backers and their muse.

45. Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage (2010)

During Rush’s heyday, the Canadian trio was fiercely beloved by their fans and largely dismissed by rock critics; and while adoring Rush long ago ceased to be a guilty pleasure, the band still has a bit of a chip on their collective shoulder in Sam Dunn and Scot Mcfadyen’s Beyond the Lighted Stage . But that works to the doc’s advantage, because Geddy Lee, Neil Peart, and Alex Lifeson don’t just tell their own story in the film — they defend it, dismissing charges that they started out too pretentious, then became too political, then turned too soft. They come across as intelligent, honest, decent guys, who’ve always headed off in whatever direction seemed most fruitful and exciting, whether or not any of their followers wanted to come along. It’s that kind of artistic integrity onscreen that could make even non-fans into Rush lifers.

44. The Punk Singer: A Film About Kathleen Hanna (2013)

Riot grrrl leader Kathleen Hanna has led such an interesting life that it would be possible to make a film just about her as an activist, as a musician, or as someone whose career has been sidetracked by hard-to-classify health problems. Sini Anderson’s The Punk Singer tackles it all, showing the little-known health struggles behind a living icon who craves constant creation, while peppering in some of the debate over whether Hanna’s marriage to Beastie Boy Adam Horowitz has undercut her feminism. Anderson cuts frequently to fantastic footage of Bikini Kill, Le Tigre, and the Julie Ruin in action, making the case that however the audience feels about Hanna’s politics, her contributions to modern music have been undervalued.

43. The Go-Go’s (2020)

Director Alison Ellwood may not be a household name among movie or music buffs, but she has directed some of the best music docs and docuseries of recent years — including History of the Eagles and Laurel Canyon . The Go-Go’s is Ellwood’s best so far — and the most necessary. An in-depth look at the hit-making Los Angeles pop act , this film tells a story most rock critics and reporters glossed over in the 1980s , when these five women were often dismissed as cute but insubstantial. With the help of some brutally honest interviews, Ellwood tracks how a band born from the L.A. punk scene went on to craft some of the catchiest music of their era — before interpersonal conflict, drug abuse, and an exhausting amount of industry sexism made the ride to the top less fun.

42. David Crosby: Remember My Name (2019)

Shortly before pioneering folk-rocker David Crosby died , he finally started getting some proper respect from all of the critics and cultural commentators who for decades paid more attention to his arrests, drug abuse and cranky attitude than to his haunting, exploratory songs. A.J. Eaton’s documentary, Remember My Name, was part of that rep-boosting process, even though the film doesn’t shy away from the hippie icon’s biggest scandals. Veteran rock journalist and filmmaker Cameron Crowe handles the interviews with Crosby and gets disarmingly honest and reflective answers to questions about the controversies. But Eaton and Crowe are ultimately more interested in recalling the fertile Southern California scene that produced the Byrds and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young — and appreciating how Crosby’s talent, intensity, and creativity inspired his peers and moved his fans.

41. Good Ol’ Freda (2013)

The Beatles have inspired a number of documentaries and fictionalized feature films, but none with the sweetness and insight of Ryan White’s look at the life of Freda Kelly, the band’s secretary. While the rest of the world got to know John, Paul, George, and Ringo as musical geniuses and style icons, Freda was the one who helped take care of their ordinary daily business, and made sure that their fan mail got answered. She was the Rosencrantz (or perhaps Guildenstern) to their Hamlet, watching them go through creative and personal changes from her little desk, back at an office that kept humming until the boys somewhat callously shut the party down.

40. Sign o’ the Times  (1987)

Prince’s rise to fame in the late ’70s and early ’80s had a lot to do with his live act, which impressed crowds and critics alike with its eclecticism, relentless energy, and subversive sexuality. Yet until Prince made the concert film Sign o’ the Times (a nearly track-by-track re-creation of the album of the same name), fans who couldn’t get tickets to his shows could only see fleeting glimpses of what he was like onstage: via music videos and his occasional TV and movie performances. The Artist even tried to make Sign o’ the Times hard to watch, keeping it out of circulation after its initial limited theatrical run and VHS release. Since Prince’s death, the film has finally become more widely available, belatedly boosting its reputation. And it’s a good thing, too: This is an invaluable document of a revolutionary American musician in his heyday, inviting audiences into his intense, at-times-surreal world of funk, rock, gospel, and bump-and-grind.

39. Buena Vista Social Club (1999)

When the United States cut off most of its cultural and economic exchange with Cuba in the early 1960s, many Cuban entertainers lost the international audience they’d enjoyed during the heyday of Havana nightlife. American guitarist and roots-music aficionado Ry Cooder brought some of those musicians into the studio to record an album, then over to Europe and the United States for a few concerts — all caught on film by accomplished German director Wim Wenders. The resulting Oscar-nominated documentary reveals a lot about life in Cuba under Castro, showing how being isolated from the global community led these artists to hone their craft while remaining beguilingly stuck in time.

38. Jimi Hendrix (1973)

Hendrix had only been dead for a few years when a trio of filmmakers (including legendary folk producer Joe Boyd and future Saturday Night Live contributor Gary Weis) gave the guitarist a proper eulogy, via this collection of memories and key live performances. After a while the stories and songs start to complement each other, until a long anecdote about Hendrix doing a show in Harlem becomes just as exciting as him playing a 12-minute version of “Machine Gun.” Jimi Hendrix doesn’t often get its due as one of the great rock docs, because it emerged in an era when the genre was still nascent. But anyone who wants to know who Hendrix was and why he mattered is better off starting here than with any of the bland biopics about him.

37. Hype! (1996)

At one point in Doug Pray’s documentary about the early 1990s Seattle grunge scene, a local journalist sums up the movie’s entire thesis, saying, “When you see a pop-culture revolution from the inside, you realize how stupid the whole thing is.” Because the alt-rock boom of 25 years ago coincided with the rise of the irony-attuned Generation X, the participants had a hard time taking their own success seriously — which may be why the truly creative artists of that time only had brief moments at the top before corporate copycats came for their sound. Hype! gets all of that on film, explaining how Seattle’s cultural guardians built up international excitement for what was going on in their city, then quickly regretted all the attention that they themselves had demanded. Hype! has plenty of great rock and roll, proving that bands like Mudhoney, Pearl Jam, and Nirvana were the real deal.

36. Scott Walker: 30th Century Man (2008)

There are few musicians who’ve had stranger careers than Scott Walker: an Ohio-born one-time teen idol who moved to the U.K., became a phenomenon in the 1960s fronting the moody pop act the Walker Brothers, drifted into country-rock in the early 1970s, and has leaned toward ever-more avant-garde music from the late 1970s to now. Stephen Kijak’s 30th Century Man shifts between archival footage and new clips of Walker at work, painting a portrait of a man who can’t even explain himself why he’s done everything he’s done, but who is still driven to realize the grand sounds inside his head.

35. A Band Called Death (2012)

Proving once again that sometimes it’s the relative unknowns who make the best subjects for a music doc, A Band Called Death is a satisfying, almost epic saga, recounting what happened when three African-American brothers started a proto-punk band in early 1970s Detroit. The film covers the various kinds of discrimination that Bobby, Dannis, and David Hackney faced — both from people who expected black musicians to play R&B and from industry types who found their sound too raw — and gets into the personal problems that ensued after Death died. There’s even a redemptive third act, as the Hackneys’ records are rediscovered by the new generation of musical archivists who go looking for the unjustly forgotten. A Band Called Death should reassure every talented but struggling group that if they’re original and passionate enough, there’s always a chance that their work will eventually be appreciated; it just may take a few decades.

34. The Velvet Underground (2021)

Despite being backed initially by the world-famous Andy Warhol, the Velvet Underground were so obscure during their late-1960s heyday that very little footage exists of the band in action. So for this documentary, director Todd Haynes leans heavily on beautifully shot, portraitlike interviews with some of the people who ran in the same circles as the band’s Lou Reed and John Cale . Haynes then illustrates those conversations with clips from some of the avant-garde films emerging from the New York art world at the time. The images match the VU sound, which melds primitivist garage rock, avant-garde noise, and poetic explorations of the demimonde. This movie tells a fascinating story about artists toiling in the shadows and finding beauty in darkness, but it also attempts to re-create what it was like to be alive and adventurous in a heady era of New York decadence and creativity.

33. Say Amen, Somebody (1982)

Gospel music has a subculture all its own, with a performing and recording circuit that largely exists outside the mainstream. George Nierenberg’s Say Amen, Somebody treats these lesser-known histories and personalities with the same seriousness with which other filmmakers have treated the stories of big-time bands or iconic music scenes. More importantly, Nierenberg revels in the rapturous performances of veteran singers, making it clear why this chapter in American musical history matters. Roger Ebert nailed the spirit of Say Amen, Somebody when he called it “one of the most joyful movies I’ve ever seen.”

32. A Poem Is a Naked Person (1974)

It took 40 years for Les Blank’s documentary about Leon Russell to get a theatrical release, reportedly because the subject initially hated what the director did with the footage he’d compiled over two years of shooting. As much an impressionistic study of life in Oklahoma and Nashville as it is a film about the roots-rock cult favorite, A Poem Is a Naked Person paints Russell as a somewhat obnoxious, materialistic embodiment of the music business. But the movie contains some smoking-hot performances by Russell and some of his peers, and overall it’s a sensitive and artful sketch of America in the early 1970s. Thank goodness Russell eventually decided to allow it to be seen — even if he did wait until after Blank’s death.

31. Elvis: That’s the Way It Is (1970)

After languishing in bad movies throughout most of the 1960s — during an era when rock music as a whole was becoming the sound of the times — Elvis Presley had a commercial and critical comeback at the end of the decade, then immediately cashed in by becoming one of the highest-paid performers in Las Vegas. The reputation of Vegas Elvis isn’t the highest, so the fly-on-the-wall doc That’s the Way It Is makes for a necessary corrective to the conventional wisdom, showing that the “back to basics” country-rock sound that Presley started pursuing circa 1968 continued when settled in Nevada. This is a winning portrait of the more down-to-earth King of Rock ’n’ Roll who emerged in the 1970s: one who was looser, funnier, and more flawed, but still capable of raising hell with some of the fiercest backing musicians ever assembled.

30. Moonage Daydream (2022)

Brett Morgen’s music documentaries (including Crossfire Hurricane and Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck ) aren’t intended to offer a remedial education about their subjects. They’re meant to drop viewers deep inside of those artists’ experiences, showing the world through the eyes of geniuses. The sprawling and sensational cinematic experience Moonage Daydream makes great use of the David Bowie estate’s vast archive of audio and video and combines old interviews, performances, and news footage in a kaleidoscopic rock epic cranked up so loud that it becomes an almost overwhelming barrage of sound and vision. The film is rooted in Bowie’s many metamorphoses as a public figure , suggesting that, more than anything, he was a brilliant actor — sometimes disappearing into the role of the oddball rock star both to entertain his fans and to shield his real self from view.

29. 20 Feet From Stardom (2013)

There’s a lot going on in director Morgan Neville’s salute to backup singers. 20 Feet From Stardom is a history lesson, putting names to the voices who enlivened the likes of the Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter” and David Bowie’s “Young Americans.” It’s a slice of life, showing what it’s like to make a living on the side of the stage. Along the way, the movie asks questions about whether the music industry marginalizes talented women — and black women especially — using them for their “soul” and sex appeal but not letting them graduate to solo careers. 20 Feet From Stardom is feisty and insightful, and filled with classic songs. It’s no wonder that it became the rare music doc to win an Oscar.

28. I Am Trying to Break Your Heart (2002)

It’s not often that a documentarian embeds with a band that’s going through as much turmoil as Wilco did circa 2001, when frontman Jeff Tweedy fired one of his chief creative partners, Jay Bennett, at the same time that his major label, Reprise, him cut him loose for making so-called unmarketable music. Sam Jones’s visually striking black-and-white film features both the seeds and the flowering of all these various crises, while maintaining a nonjudgmental distance from the band and its process. The film’s satisfying relief comes when the band lands fourth LP Yankee Hotel Foxtrot at new label Nonesuch, one of Warner Music’s many subsidiaries including Reprise — which means Wilco was paid twice by the same company for the album, a masterpiece that cemented them as indie-rock royalty. But I Am Trying to Break Your Heart finds Tweedy & Co. at a time of great uncertainty, torn apart by too many potential musical directions and not enough support from the folks writing the checks.

27.   Long Strange Trip  (2017)

Accomplished documentarian Amir Bar-Lev gives the Grateful Dead the four-hour, career-spanning treatment, but makes the larger story easier to digest by breaking it into smaller pieces, each of which has its own winding narrative flow. In a way, Long Strange Trip is a movie about minutiae, with segments on seemingly minor details like the Dead’s massive amplifiers, the fans’ bootleg-trading community, and the competitive culture within the band’s road crew. Again and again, Long Strange Trip starts with what seems to be just some fun, fascinating aside, which Bar-Lev and his team of editors then gradually and gracefully plug back into the mythology of a hardworking band that tried — sometimes recklessly — to live up to its legend.

26. Let’s Get Lost (1988)

If nothing else, fashion photographer Bruce Weber’s documentary about troubled jazz great Chet Baker looks fantastic, with stark, stunningly composed shots of a desiccated Baker at the end of his life providing a contrast to the young, handsome fellow he once was. Let’s Get Lost is equally admiring and despairing, offering a fairly thorough overview of Baker’s spiky career — with friends and jazzophiles explaining the significance of his recordings of songs like “My Funny Valentine” and “But Not for Me” — while exposing what heroin addiction and a lingering inferiority complex did to the man. This is a rich, layered film, both in love with the image of the melancholy wastrel artist and aware of the reality behind the pretty picture.

25. The Devil and Daniel Johnston (2005)

The problem with championing broken, unstable artists as more “authentic” is that fans may be encouraging them to be more destructive than creative. Or at least that’s one of the points made by Jeff Feuerzeig’s complicated film about Daniel Johnston, a mentally ill singer-songwriter who’s created some strange and beautiful music, while being a burden to his family and a danger to his friends. Without discounting the wondrous songs that Johnston has created — catchy, childlike home recordings, with a crude charm — The Devil and Daniel Johnston considers the real toll that being “a mad genius” takes on those in the immediate vicinity.

24. The Decline of Western Civilization (1981)

Even though the sequel’s superior, that’s no knock against the first of Penelope Spheeris’s L.A.-set Decline films. The initial installment sets the tone for the series, balancing rough-hewn performances (by Black Flag, X, Circle Jerks, and Fear, among others) with frank fan interviews and somewhat sad offstage footage of the bands in their daily lives. Spheeris sees the connection between artist and audience, showing them as mutually, almost symbiotically, damaged. Historically speaking, this movie is important as a record of West Coast punk in its initial flowering. Cinematically, it’s a poignant expression of frustration and melancholy.

23. The Wrecking Crew (2008)

The best of the recent wave of “the unsung heroes behind the stars” docs, Danny Tedesco’s The Wrecking Crew honors the in-demand Los Angeles studio musicians who helped revolutionize the sound of pop and rock in the 1960s, bridging the gaps between Frank Sinatra and the Byrds. As the son of one of those grinders (Tommy), Tedesco has known these men (and one woman, bassist Carol Kaye) his entire life, and is able to get nearly everyone who matters to go on the record, from the unknown day-players who quietly made millions, to the artists like Leon Russell and Glen Campbell who soon moved toward center stage. Filled with great music and anecdotes — including some remarkable origin stories for songs like “A Taste of Honey,” “Wichita Lineman,” and “Good Vibrations” — The Wrecking Crew is a welcome reminder that even in an era when singer-songwriter-producer-genius was becoming a more common job title, music remained a collaborative art form.

22. A Great Day in Harlem (1994)

In 1958, Esquire photographer Art Kane gathered 57 of the era’s best-known jazz musicians in front of a Harlem brownstone for a photograph that encapsulated the past and future of a great American art form. Jean Bach’s Oscar-nominated documentary A Great Day in Harlem uses home-movie footage and interviews to tell the story of how the picture came together, and to convey both the sense of community and the complex personalities that bound the jazz community. Mostly, the movie lets its audience take a good long look at the likes of Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Gerry Mulligan, Sonny Rollins, Charles Mingus, Gene Krupa, and Marian McPartland, all dressed up in their finest and representing decades of phenomenal music.

21. The Filth and the Fury (2000)

Julien Temple atoned for his messy, myth-shredding 1980 Sex Pistols film The Great Rock and Roll Swindle by revisiting the band’s story with a greater sense of perspective and awe 20 years later. The Filth and the Fury still acknowledges the central contradiction of the Pistols — bomb-throwing nihilists who knew they’d invalidate everything they stood for if they lasted long enough to leave a real legacy — but Temple’s second stab at telling the group’s story says more about the dystopian Britain that nurtured them, and is more generally admiring of both their flipping off of the Establishment and their actual music. There’s no way to trace the evolution of rock in the 1970s (and beyond) without understanding the Sex Pistols; The Filth and the Fury is a fine way to get that education.

20. Amy (2015)

Amy Winehouse died way too soon, leaving behind one of the best albums of the 2000s ( Back to Black ) and lingering questions about what might’ve been. Asia Kapadia’s documentary celebrates Winehouse’s chops and her ability to make old-school R&B relevant today; but more than anything, Amy is an inquiry. By examining the singer’s drug abuse — coupled with the intense demands that the media and the music business make on young stars — the film asks whether this particular tragedy was the result of a perfect storm of sickness, on both sides of the microphone. What’s most heartbreaking about Amy is that all its previously unseen footage shows a complex young woman that the public never really got to know, because it was easier both for the singer and the tabloids to sell a simpler story of reckless self-indulgence.

19. Madonna: Truth or Dare (1991)

It’s Madonna Louise Ciccone’s sublime self-awareness that makes Truth or Dare such a kick. Knowing that everything she’d do in front of director Alek Keshishian’s cameras would be scrutinized by fans and critics alike, Madonna put on a show, obliterating the line between her private life and her public persona. She does a provocative bump-and-grind onstage, then backstage fellates an Evian bottle in between explicit conversations about sex with her gay backup dancers. She lets Keshishian keep in her guarded boyfriend Warren Beatty’s criticism of her exhibitionism, and her own snide remarks about Kevin Costner and Oprah Winfrey. She has awkward encounters with old friends and family who remember her as a working-class kid from Detroit. The entire movie seems designed — by Madonna herself — to force the audience to question who “Madonna” is. The line between performance art and brand-building has never been so thin.

18. The Clash: Westway to the World (2000)

There have been several good documentaries about “the only band that mattered,” including The Rise and Fall of the Clash and Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten . But the best of the bunch is the most concise. Don Letts’s Westway to the World rockets through the quartet’s brief history, beginning with their origins in the working-class, politicized wing of 1970s British punk, then showing how the eclectic, musically ambitious Strummer and the pop-savvy Mick Jones quickly expanded the Clash’s sound to encompass their own distinctive combination of reggae, world beat, rockabilly, and U.K. pub rowdiness. In addition to telling the tale of punk’s greatest export, Westway to the World captures the sense of regret from all concerned — that they couldn’t step back far enough to see what an amazing thing they had going, and instead let petty personal squabbles and a general exhaustion destroy a fruitful artistic endeavor.

17. Anvil! The Story of Anvil (2009)

Because it’s about a briefly semi-popular heavy-metal band hanging on to their rock-star dreams a few years too long, Anvil! has been called “a real-life Spinal Tap .” But while the movie can be funny — and Anvil front man Steve “Lips” Kudlow can come across as comically naive and hopeful — director Sacha Gervasi aims for something a little more thoughtful here. Seen one way, this is a movie about a couple of lifelong friends who’ve talked themselves into delusions of grandeur, and keep throwing their money away on promoters and producers who can’t really do much for them. But spun more positively, Anvil! follows musicians who keep scrounging enough cash to make records and tour the world, playing for a small but devoted group of fans. Their stick-to-itiveness is pathetic — and poignant.

16. Style Wars (1983)

The main focus of Tony Silver’s landmark documentary is the rise of graffiti artists in New York City circa 1980, and their ongoing battles with the authorities and with each other. But in order to put the graffiti into a larger perspective, Silver looks at street-corner break-dancers and the burgeoning hip-hop scene, showing how it all fits together into something positive: young, poor, inner-city New Yorkers using their limited resources to express themselves. When Style Wars started airing on TV in 1983, kids of varying backgrounds around the country were inspired by the dancing and rapping to try it themselves.

15. Homecoming: A Film by Beyoncé (2019)

Few modern pop stars have been as conscious of what to do with their popularity as Beyoncé, who’s repaid her fans’ faith by delivering inspiring feminist empowerment anthems, intensely personal heartbreak songs, and music that both synthesizes and celebrates diverse aspects of the black experience. Beyoncé’s sublime self-awareness and her understanding of the power of identity reached its peak (so far) with her 2018 Coachella performance, which she spent over a month rehearsing, working with a marching band and dozens of dancers. While running through her formidable lineup of hits, Queen Bey creates an experience akin to halftime at HBCU sporting events, filled with propulsive percussion, dazzling patterned movement, and a sense of community.  Homecoming  isn’t just a professional recording of the concert. It’s a look behind the scenes at the massive effort it took to mount this one show. It’s a remarkable testament to the savvy and talent of this era’s greatest R&B idol.

14. Some Kind of Monster   (2004)

In recent years, Metallica has expressed some regret over letting filmmakers Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky document the long, torturous process that led to their 2003 album St. Anger . But the band’s openness was a gift to music buffs, who got some insight into how a heavy-metal band with millions of dollars at their disposal spends their time and cash. In Some Kind of Monster at least, a lot of Metallica’s daily agenda seems geared toward just keeping the machinery running, even if that means group-therapy sessions and long, contentious arguments over whether the drum sound on one song feels “stock.” Given the mixed reception to St. Anger , this movie serves as the record’s extended liner notes, explaining how near-impossible it can be to produce inspired work under enormous internal and external pressure.

13. Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser (1988)

Jazz pianist Thelonious Monk was deeply admired by his peers in large part because his sophisticated melodic sense and his feel for improvisation seemed inexplicable, given how foggy the man could be when he was away from his instrument. Charlotte Zwerin’s Straight, No Chaser is built around footage shot for a 1967 German TV special about Monk, and it has Monk in all his strange glory, onstage and off. Through the vintage film, old photos, and interviews with the pianist’s family and colleagues, the movie tries to get to the bottom of how someone who seemed so lost so much of the time could make music so on-target. Jazz musicians tend to inspire stories about inspiration, addiction, and eccentricity; but it’s rare to get such an intimate look at a troubled genius.

12. The Last Waltz (1978)

Because Martin Scorsese was palling around a lot with Robbie Robertson in the 1970s, he gave the Band’s chief songwriter and spokesman a lot of screen time in The Last Waltz , letting him wax world-weary about how hard it is to be a touring musician. But that’s a minor flaw in a major contribution to the rock-and-roll-documentary form. The Band did a lot of the work for Scorsese by calling up some of the most popular acts of the 1960s and 1970s, including Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Eric Clapton, Neil Young (and, um, Neil Diamond). But this still feels like a personal film for the iconic director, who lovingly shoots some of his musical heroes and positions the San Francisco concert hall (the Winterland Ballroom) where this so-called farewell concert took place as some kind of enchanted wonderland, safeguarding the best of an aging generation.

11. Searching for Sugar Man (2012)

The problem with documentaries about the Who or the Stones is that from the grandest legends to the tiniest anecdotes, those acts’ stories are well-known by fans. Malik Bendjelloul’s Searching for Sugar Man is a music doc aimed at people who prefer to find a magnificent old album in the dollar bin (then become desperate to figure out where it came from). It’s about the mystery of Rodriguez, a Detroit-based folk-soul singer-songwriter who couldn’t crack many radio playlists back in the 1970s, but inexplicably became a hero to anti-apartheid activists in South Africa — even though he’d never toured there. Bendjelloul collects the fan rumors about who Rodriguez was and what happened to him, then he and his collaborators go looking for the truth, unearthing a fascinating, moving tale about pop mythology, the vicissitudes of the recording industry, and how a great tune endures.

10. The Kids Are Alright (1979)

For hard-core fans of particular artists, the documentaries made about them can be frustrating, because they’re too heavy on the pontificating and too low on the music. That’s not a problem with The Kids Are Alright , Jeff Stein’s compilation of archival performances by the Who. The interview segments are short and generally amusing (and were later parodied in the mock-doc This Is Spinal Tap ), and the variety of material minimizes the monotony that can set in with a straight-up concert film. The film has such a simple, useful structure that it’s surprising that more music-themed nonfiction films don’t copy it. Stein mostly stays out of the way, and lets old footage of the most dynamic, visually oriented band in British rock speak for itself.

9. Freestyle: The Art of Rhyme (2000)

There have been several good documentaries made about the early days of hip-hop, and some about the lives and times of particular acts, but Kevin Fitzgerald’s Freestyle takes an interesting approach in that it’s about the raw material of rap: the rhyme itself. In between exciting footage of rap battles, Freestyle hears from dozens of artists (including the Roots, Jurassic 5, and Mos Def) with differing opinions about whether improvisation is essential to their music, or whether it’s more artful — and more respectful to the audience — to write lyrics down, then hone them. Through all the conversations about inspiration and attitude, Fitzgerald opens the genre up even for the non-connoisseur, explicating its nuances.

8. Don’t Look Back (1967)

Bob Dylan started out as one of the most stylistically distinctive and culturally plugged-in of the Greenwich Village folkies, but by the time D.A. Pennebaker followed him around Europe for the film Don’t Look Back , he’d become more of a mysterious, inscrutable character. Pennebaker shows him sparring with reporters, mocking his peers, and challenging audiences with his more abstract, poetic new musical direction. Pop and rock stars from Madonna to Bono have followed the lead of Dylan in Don’t Look Back — not with their songs, but with their public personas. This movie is like the blueprint on how to be a modern celebrity: at once arrogant and ironic.

7. Gimme Shelter (1970)

Though it’s famous as the movie that exposed the chaos of Altamont — and the murder that happened just in front of the festival stage — there’s more to Gimme Shelter than just one moment. Albert Maysles, David Maysles, and Charlotte Zwerin followed the Rolling Stones across an America that was descending into violence in 1969, and they filmed the surreal spectacle that surrounded a band of rich musicians who loved the music of poor folks. It’s the filmmakers’ meditation on how counterculture heroes were inspired by the madness of their times, but tried — and often failed — to keep it at arm’s length. Gimme Shelter includes some fiery Stones performances, woven into a picture that plays as much like a cinematic essay on the cultural sea change of the late 1960s as it does a rock doc on one of the era’s greats.

6. Amazing Grace  (1972/2018)

Originally shot in 1972, director Sydney Pollack’s film of Aretha Franklin’s two-night live recording session for her gospel album  Amazing Grace   sat on a shelf for decades , held up first by technical snafus, then by legal disputes. The finished version premiered three months after Franklin’s death, and is a wondrous, miraculous thing. Though it ostensibly just records about a dozen songs that Franklin belted out in a sweltering Los Angeles church — surrounded by a choir that both supported her and were transported by her —  Amazing Grace  is a document of a movie crew scrambling to figure out the best way to capture the magic happening right in front of their eyes, and it’s the story of the crowds that packed into the chapel on the second night once they heard about the electric performances happening inside. At the center of the hubbub is a stoic, silent Franklin, who says nary a word between numbers, even as others are stepping up to the microphone to sing her praises. She’s like a visitation from above, who could at any moment fade right back to from whence she came.

5. Scratch (2001)

Anyone who still somehow doubts that a turntable can be a musical instrument should watch Doug Pray’s brilliant deep dive into the culture of spinning and sampling. Beginning with the origins of hip-hop — and the way innovators like GrandMixer DXT, Jam Master Jay, and Double Dee & Steinski used record players as both percussion and hook-generating machines — Scratch proceeds to cover more sophisticated, almost avant-garde modern artists like DJ Shadow and DJ Qbert. The film is both a primer for those who know nothing about terms like “crate-digging,” and a thrilling collection of performances, with Pray’s lingering over scratchers’ hands to show that they’re as nimble and skilled as any guitarist’s. Ultimately, Scratch does what a great music documentary should do: it not only deeply understands the larger culture it’s chronicling, it covers it so well that even someone who knows nothing about it will come away feeling invested.

4. Summer of Soul (2021)

The 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival might’ve faded from memory if Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson hadn’t turned rarely seen performance footage from the summerlong event into this Oscar-winning documentary, which features electrifying music from the likes of Sly and the Family Stone, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Nina Simone, the Staple Singers, and the 5th Dimension alongside vintage news clips and new interviews. The boldest (and most divisive) creative choice that Questlove makes here is to weave freely and intuitively between these elements rather than partitioning the film into “musician performs,” followed by “talking heads comment,” and repeat. There’s still plenty of exciting live music here, but Summer of Soul makes the songs more meaningful both by creating a historical context around them and setting a reflective tone.

3. Stop Making Sense (1984)

Jonathan Demme’s concert film is devoid of interviews, and lacks any overt attempts to contextualize the music of Talking Heads, but it’s still a documentary in its way, because it has a narrative, and it frames a reality. Bandleader David Byrne came up with a highly conceptual stage show for the Heads’ 1983 tour, starting with just himself on the stage, then adding one more member for each song in the first set, and one prop or striking visual element per song for the second set. It was Demme’s job to make those changes noticeable, framing them up nicely to show how modern and innovative Byrne’s ideas and designs were, and keeping track of the effects the performance was having on the musicians. He treats the players like characters in one of his own fiction movies, noticing every time they smile or interject or give the gig a little extra oomph. Through music and movement alone, Stop Making Sense documents what it was like to be a member of Talking Heads — and a patron of cool — in the early 1980s. Stylistically, his techniques forever elevated the concert film genre.

2. The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years (1988)

Because heavy metal isn’t as “cool” as punk rock, the second installment of Penelope Spheeris’s Decline trilogy sometimes gets the short shrift from those who prefer the spikier first one. But The Metal Years is the more meaningful film: an at-times-painfully-honest portrait of the superstars and wannabes who shared space on the Sunset Strip in the late 1980s. Spheeris captures rich rockers mired in self-loathing (like W.A.S.P. guitarist Chris Holmes, who spends his scenes getting hammered in his pool), and up-and-comers who refuse to believe they won’t make it big someday. She talks to the fans who spread their allegiances between both camps. This is a movie about what happens when a materialistic culture meets a genre that promotes power fantasies, combining to create unrealistic expectations. It’s a damning inquiry into the lies that sustain rock culture.

1. Woodstock (1970)

It’s sometimes hard to think of Woodstock as anything other than the enshrinement (for better or worse) of the entire 1960s counterculture: its political idealism, its communal spirit, and its electrifying music. But director Michael Wadleigh always meant Woodstock to be a cinema verité report on an event, not a museum piece. As a result, this film looks better with each passing year, as the backlash against the boomer generation fades, and as Wadleigh’s footage ceases to be a lazy way for broadcast journalists and documentarians to sum up an entire decade. Seen as a whole, Woodstock tells a more complete story, weaving epochal performances by Jimi Hendrix, the Who, Sly & the Family Stone, and more into a movie about ridiculously young-looking kids realizing — with both pleasure and paranoia — that they have the power to create their own “Establishment,” taking the best of what their parents taught them and adding casual sex, clouds of pot smoke, and ear-splitting rock and roll.

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The 20 best music documentaries of all time

Get in tune with these essential portraits of backstage drama and sold-out-stadium euphoria

With a new documentary about glam rock superstar Marc Bolan hitting our screens, the celebratory  Angelheaded Hipster: The Songs of Marc Bolan & T. Rex , it's a good time to plug in the wah-wah pedals, check the rider (no brown M&Ms, yo) and fire up a few classic music docs. But where to start? Since DA Pennebaker followed Bob Dylan on his 1965 UK tour and turned it into the seminal  Dont Look Back , the unique cadence of musicians' lives has been turned into gold by a host of filmmakers. Some have majored on the tunes ( Woodstock ), some on life on the road (M eeting People is Easy ), and some have just embraced the madness of the whole being-a-rock-star business ( Kurt Cobain: A Montage of Heck,  Dig! ). Turn your TV up to 11 and tune into one of these. RECOMMENDED :

🎥  The 66 best documentaries ever made . 🤘   10 unforgettable concert films to watch from home .

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20.  Meeting People Is Easy (1998)

Not if you spend all day holed up in your room obsessively analyzing the lyrics of Radiohead’s OK Computer it isn’t. Fortunately, the band’s fans can use this hypnotic backstage-at-the-tour documentary as an excuse to get social.

19.  It Might Get Loud (2008)

Jack White, the Edge and Jimmy Page team up, trade licks and supply general awesomeness in Davis Guggenheim’s guitar documentary, also a primer on three essential bands.

18.  Soul Power (2009)

The place is Kinshasa, Zaire, 1974—a three-day celebration of black music tied to the mythic “Rumble in the Jungle” boxing match. Director Jeffrey Levy-Hinte probes the idea of black power from a fascinating variety of perspectives, not all of them utopian.

17.  The Filth and the Fury (1999)

• Documentaries

Juxtaposing archival band footage with everything from stop-motion dinosaur flicks to Laurence Olivier’s onscreen portrayal of Richard III, Julian Temple depicts the Pistols’ tempestuous two-year history via sensory assault, so that the movie often feels less like a documentary than like a prolonged, vaguely coherent soapbox rant. (That’s a compliment.)

16.  Dig! (2004)

A sprawling indie-rock tell-all swirled in trippy video fantasia and some rather stupefying naïveté: Even if you’re not savvy to Ondi Timoner’s dueling subjects—two rambunctious ’60s-obsessed acts called the Dandy Warhols and the Brian Jonestown Massacre—that’s okay. The bands are enormously charming.

15.  Madonna: Truth or Dare (1991)

If you had to pick a point where Madonna became Madonna, it would be the overripe Blonde Ambition tour, captured in this warts-and-all documentary featuring then-boyfriend Warren Beatty, wryly commenting from the wings.

14.  I Am Trying to Break Your Heart (2002)

Rock critics tossed breathless superlatives at Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot . Sam Jones’s account of that album's uncertain creation has an attribute that makes it well worth seeing by even nonfans: It's shot in black-and-white and charged by some iconically luscious images.

13.  Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage (2010)

“Led Zeppelin is overexplained; the Beatles are overexplained,” says the Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan. Instead, he and other superfans set the record straight about the revered (if deeply uncool) Canadian power trio. The result is an exhilarating career history, and also a testament to going your own way.

12.  The Last Waltz (1978)

Filmed over two nights and somehow cut together when he was making   The King of Comedy , Martin Scorsese captures the fondest of farewells for The Band – with a little help from some friends (Joni Mitchell, Muddy Waters, Neil Young  et al ).   It sounds great and looks as good as you'd expect from a doc shot by two legendary cinematographers, Laszlo Kovacs and Vilmos Zsigmond.

11.  Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1973)

A seminal time capsule of glam rock at its glammiest, D.A. Pennebaker’s documentary on the final concert of Bowie playing the leper messiah with the snow-white tan captures the performer in prime peacock mode.

10.  Awesome; I Fuckin’ Shot That! (2006)

For their October 2004 MSG concerts, the Beastie Boys circulated 50 Minicams among the bumptious crowd, resulting in a kinetic, undeniably sloppy testament to fan-idol collaboration.

9.  The Devil and Daniel Johnston (2005)

Patron saint of lo-fi music and home-recording enthusiast Daniel Johnston has written some of the most bizarrely sweet and catchy pop songs you’re ever likely to hear. As this documentary demonstrates, he’s got some pretty serious mental problems as well. A solid portrait of genius as filtered through insanity.

8.  Woodstock (1970)

Enjoy the legendary performances and casual nudity without having to wallow in mud or endure the random outbursts of acid casualties.

7.  Depeche Mode 101 (1989)

Everything counts in large amounts, and that includes concert footage of the Mode playing a number of their synth-pop hits. Meanwhile, a group of everyday suburban superfans follow the tour, making this documentary a massively important forerunner to reality TV.

6.  Moonage Daydream (2022)

This dazzling docu-odyssey through the life and music of David Bowie from  Montage of Heck  director Brett Morgen is an ultra-vivid collage of performances, personas and philosophies – all fuelled by the extraterrestrial energy of Bowie himself. Play it  really  loud. 

5.  Metallica: Some Kind of Monster (2004)

The world’s biggest metal band suffers through member defection, group therapy and rehab stints. This rockumentary may be the funniest, most daringly exposed profile of a music group ever captured on film.

4.  Monterey Pop (1968)

Woodstock, schmoodstock! Jimi Hendrix was in much better form at the first great ’60s rock festival, an event well captured by doc legend D.A. Pennebaker (with some help from Albert Maysles) in a film that also features performances by Janis Joplin, the Jefferson Airplane and the Who.

3.  Gimme Shelter (1970)

It’s the Stones in their prime, singing hits like “Sympathy for the Devil” and “Under My Thumb,” but it’s the way the directors captured the collapse of ’60s idealism—and a murder—that make this one of the best rock docs ever.

2.  Dont Look Back (1967)

It’s hard to say which is more riveting: scenes of Bob Dylan performing such classics as “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right,” or scenes in which Dylan unleashes his acid tongue on hapless reporters who just want a few good quotes.

1.  Stop Making Sense (1984)

And you may ask yourself, Why has nobody even come close to making a concert movie as invigorating as this? And you may tell yourself, My God, David Byrne looks so young.

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The 11 Best Music Documentaries Of All Time

Ever since the debut of "The Jazz Singer," the first feature-length movie with sound, filmmaking has always been closely associated with modern music. Musicals, many of which covered popular tunes of the day, were among the earliest blockbusters. Currently, the musician biopic genre is more popular than ever, thanks to the record-breaking box-office and awards success of films like "Straight Outta Compton" and "Bohemian Rhapsody." But in terms of accuracy and raw, visceral energy, the staged recreation of iconic musical numbers can't compare with a concert film or documentary.

Music documentaries can capture a musician's story as they occur, but they can also look back at historical events years later and provide additional insights. They have the power to shed new light on famous performers whose life has been frequently covered by the media, and can spotlight underseen musicians who aren't given the credit they deserve. Music documentaries are often major awards contenders — films like "Amy," "20 Feet from Stardom," and "Searching for Sugar Man" all took home the prize for best documentary feature.

The idiosyncratic "Tiny Tim: King for a Day" spotlighted one of Weird Al's predecessors, "Tina" showed groundbreaking footage of the voice of a generation, and "Billie" was more engaging than the Oscar-nominated biopic about the same subject. And those are just the docs from the past couple of years. A great music documentary appeals to both existing fans and new listeners, so whether you're looking for a new act to follow or want to check in with an old favorite, make sure to see the greatest music documentaries ever made.

The Last Waltz

Martin Scorsese is a phenomenal storyteller regardless of what medium he's working in, and he has the unparalleled ability to capture the essence of a specific place and time in history. Whether it's the modern vibe of New York City in "Mean Streets" and "Taxi Driver," the brutal vision of colonial Japan in "Silence," the fast-paced stockbroker culture of "The Wolf of Wall Street," or the epic sweep of the criminal underworld in "The Irishman," Scorsese shows how history intertwines with the men who shape it. Scorsese has used that skill to create a number of music documentaries. With "The Last Waltz" he faced the unique challenge of capturing a historic moment as it unfolded.

"The Last Waltz" details the final united performance of the pop folk group the Band, which had announced its separation. The group's last performance was held on Thanksgiving Day of 1976 in San Francisco, and Scorsese was granted unparalleled access to the group before, during, and after the concert. It's fascinating to see the members of the band reflect on their legacy ahead of actually playing; Scorsese gets guitarist Rick Danko, keyboardist Garth Hudson, drummer Richard Manuel, and frontman Robbie Robertson to seem relaxed and casual.

The music itself is famous for a reason, and Scorsese gets incredible coverage of numbers like "The Weight." His editing is subtle, and, in an interesting twist, keeps his camera trained on the Band even when it's accompanied by guests like Bob Dylan or Joni Mitchell.

Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)

Music documentaries have the power to spotlight underrepresented voices and shed light on history that the mainstream media and music critics have ignored. Simultaneous to the groundbreaking 1969 Woodstock music festival (the subject of its own Academy Award-winning documentary in 1970), the Harlem Cultural Festival was held at Mount Morris Park and gathered many of the leading Black artists of the era. Legendary performers such as Stevie Wonder, Mahalia Jackson, Nina Simone, the 5th Dimension, the Staple Singers, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Blinky Williams, Sly and the Family Stone and the Chambers Brothers all graced the show with performances.

Despite the incredible lineup, the festival was relegated to obscurity by pop culture media. The 2021 documentary "Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)" explores how the festival began and why it's been ignored. The film was directed by Questlove, the incredible drummer for the Roots, who is able to get the participants to speak frankly about their experiences. Questlove understands the minutiae of crafting an entertaining live performance, and as a result "Summer of Soul" features a musician's touch behind the camera that most music documentaries do not have.

"Summer of Soul" tackles the history of discrimination against Black artists, and in one powerful exchange Questlove himself reflects, "What would have happened if this was allowed a seat at the table?" Some of the discussions can get grim, but the performance footage has been lovingly restored.

No Direction Home: Bob Dylan

While "The Last Waltz" is essentially an extended concert movie that captures events as they occur, Scorsese's larger music documentary filmography has explored the entire lives of some legendary performers; he's covered figures such as the Rolling Stones, George Harrrison, and Muddy Waters. This list includes Bob Dylan, who appeared alongside the Band for several phenomenal numbers in "The Last Waltz"; with 2005's "No Direction Home: Bob Dylan," Scorsese explored Dylan's entire career, with some fascinating insights from Dylan himself.

The exhaustive 208-minute documentary is as meticulously packed with detail as Scorsese's similarly lengthy narrative films, but once again the long running time is warranted given the unparalleled influence of its subject. Dylan isn't always forthcoming with interviewers, but his friendship with Scorsese resulted in an intimate discussion about the challenges he faced throughout his career. The songs are iconic enough on their own, and Dylan explains how unexpectedly becoming the face of a progressive moment gave him anxiety during the '60s. Personal admissions about the impact that his breakup had on the composition of his 1975 masterwork "Blood on the Tracks" is handled with sensitivity; knowing their meaning makes Scorsese's inclusion of entire segments of "Idiot Wind" even more impactful.

Similarly, access to Dylan's personal vault leads to plenty of exclusive footage, including early childhood photos, screen tests for Andy Warhol, and a video of the controversial Manchester Free Trade Hall performance.

Bob Dylan: Don't Look Back

Scorsese was able to cover Dylan's comprehensive biography in "Don't Look Back," but the renowned documentarian D. A. Pennebaker had direct access to a pivotal period in Dylan's career as it unfolded. Dylan was already an established icon in 1965, and at the time it was rare for an artist to trust a filmmaker with 24-hour access and behind-the-scenes content during a major tour, particularly if that musician was one of the biggest in history. And yet, Pennebaker follows Dylan and his band during more or less the entirety of their 1965 tour of England.

Pennebaker deserves to be heralded as one of the great American filmmakers, as no director has ever showed his same dedication to capturing lionized musicians and performances; Pennebaker also covered figures like Otis Redding, David Bowie, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Alice Cooper. Here, Pennebaker follows Dylan as he hangs out in his apartment and tests new lyrics for what would become "Subterranean Homesick Blues." The film immortalized the image of Dylan discarding cue cards.

Pennebaker was also unafraid to capture moments when Dylan pushed the boundaries of his celebrity and became borderline unlikeable. A sequence in which Dylan teases Time Magazine writer Horace Freeland Judson begins as an amusing interaction, but the situation grows increasingly uncomfortable as it goes on. Pennebaker doesn't take a side, simply detailing the exchange and letting the viewer decide for themselves. A heated confrontation with Alan Prince, who Dylan asks about why he recently left the Animals, is treated with similar sensitivity.

The Sparks Brothers

Legendary British filmmaker Edgar Wright is known for his taste in music, as Wright often selects idiosyncratic soundtracks to compliment his fictional feature films. "Shaun of the Dead," "Hot Fuzz," and "The World's End" all feature eclectic music choices from multiple genres that make the film's comical storylines and shocking non sequiturs more interesting. With "Baby Driver," Wright meticulously coordinated his soundtrack with a series of densely choreographed car chase sequences. Wright's picks are unusual and diverse, and he clearly knows his music history. That makes him the perfect person to tell the story of an underappreciated duo that's been tirelessly working for decades.

Sparks may not be a household name, but their music has influenced some of the most famous names of today, as evidenced by the stacked lineup of celebrities, actors, artists, critics, and filmmakers that Wright assembles to provide insight on the duo's legacy. Ron and Russell Meal grew up together in California, and began developing a music style somewhere between pop and rock; like Wright, they're impossible to pin to just one genre. Sparks' music often includes clever lyrics, strange narratives, and references to pop culture and Shakespeare. The film features humorous insights from the duo themselves as they humbly detail their hard work.

The banter between Ron and Russell makes the film consistently engaging, and their discography is so extensive that the 140-minute run time doesn't drag. The film even includes recent work from the soundtrack of Leos Carax's "Annette."

Beastie Boys Story

Music documentaries often benefit from a personal touch by the filmmakers, and the perspective of "Beastie Boys Story" is very unique. The film was directed by Spike Jonze, an early music video director and lifelong friend of the Beastie Boys. Jonze would later go on to helm idiosyncratic, emotional narrative features like "Being John Malkovich," "Adaptation," and "Her." With "Beastie Boys Story," he merged these influences into a film that's part comprehensive biopic, part personal reflection, and part concert film.

"Beastie Boys Story" combines footage of surviving Beastie Boys members Adam Horovitz and Michael Diamond over the course of three live appearances at the King Theater in Brooklyn; the transitions between the three shows are never off-putting, as it feels like one cohesive work. On stage, Horovitz and Diamond discuss their careers and achievements, accompanied by a video presentation that shows early childhood photos, behind-the-scenes videos, and segments of some of their most famous tracks. Horovitz and Diamond are reading from a script, but often get off cue and banter with the audience. Jonze himself interacts with them throughout the show.

The environment is very light, as the crowd is filled with Beastie Boys fans who know their lyrics by heart. Although Horovitz and Diamond are controlling their own narrative, they address their misgivings about sexist remarks and lyrics from earlier in their careers. The moments when they reflect on the death of Adam Yauch are particularly emotional.

Justin Timberlake + The Tennessee Kids

The influence of an established filmmaker can elevate a concert movie experience into something more insightful, emotional, and multifaceted than they would be otherwise. Academy Award-winning filmmaker Jonathan Demme was renowned for his humanistic approach to storytelling, regardless of the genre he was working in. Demme knew how to capture characters' feelings, even if the horror classic "Silence of the Lambs," courtroom drama "Philadelphia," road trip comedy "Something Wild," and political thriller "The Manchurian Candidate" all seem quite distinct on paper. Demme's sensitivity extended to his music films, including the Talking Heads classic "Stop Making Sense."

Demme depicted the final performance of Justin Timberlake's 20/20 Experience World Tour in his Netflix film "Justin Timberlake + the Tennessee Kids." However, Demme also took the time to explore the moments leading up to the show itself, detailing the meticulous stage production and personal moments between Timberlake and the crew that followed him throughout the tour. Not only does "Justin Timberlake + the Tennessee Kids" give the viewer a greater appreciation for the actual performance, but it also shows a genuinely affectionate side to Timberlake as he expresses gratitude to those who've tirelessly supported him. Demme allows the audience to connect with Timberlake as an individual before unveiling him as a showman.

The performance itself is electrifying, and the energy level is consistent throughout the 17-song tracklist. The show grows particularly emotional at the end; Timberlake is overwhelmed at the conclusion of his most extensive tour, reducing him to tears. This was also Demme's last film.

Gimme Shelter

Great music documentaries can respond to shocking developments and end up serving as critical historical documents. 1970's "Gimme Shelter" was originally intended to be a concert film that showed the last weeks of the Rolling Stones' 1969 U.S. world tour. However, the shocking events at the Altamont Free Concert forced directors Albert and David Maysles to turn it into a true crime documentary.

During the massive outdoor counter-culture festival, chaos broke out amongst a rowdy crowd during the early performances by Santana, Jefferson Airplane, the Flying Burrito Brothers and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. When the Rolling Stones took the stage, the tensions escalated as crowd members attempted to rush the stage, prompting a clash with the Hells Angels working as security guards. Teenager Meredith Hunter was among a group that fought with the Angels during the Rolling Stones' performance of "Sympathy for the Devil," and was stabbed and killed. His death and the Stones' immediate reaction are shown in intimate detail.

In chronicling one of the darkest days in rock and roll history, "Gimme Shelter" is absolutely heartbreaking. The early moments show the Stones enthusiastically preparing for the performance and rehearsing early versions of "Brown Sugar" and "Wild Horses." They reveal Mick Jagger's charisma as he works with Tina Turner. The exhaustive planning of Altamont fades to a shot of Jagger watching the footage in retrospective, left in a stunned silence. The Maysles choose to open with these reflections, and close it on the immediate chaos that follows the tragedy.

Elvis: That's The Way It Is

The early '70s were a fascinating period in Elvis Presley's career. Elvis was obviously one of the most iconic performers of all-time, and topped his record-breaking success in the '50s with an expansion in the '60s, when he began starring in an increased number of Hollywood films. A brief decline in the mid-'60s saw Elvis holding fewer concerts and earning increasingly negative reviews for his performances, but the famous '68 comeback special was able to recapture his spirit. "Elvis: That's The Way It Is" became Elvis's first cinematic appearance in a non-narrative film in over a decade.

The 1971 documentary follows Elvis' preparations for a massive Las Vegas concert in which he performed some of his most iconic tracks. It's a loving tribute to his career, and Elvis had grown comfortable with the Vegas location; contrasting the luxurious grand halls with the smaller venues of his earlier career is fascinating. "That's the Way It Is" shows Elvis' playful interactions with his band as they rehearse; while repeating songs could have been a drag on the film's run time, it's interesting to see how Elvis tweaks his performance once he's on stage.

The show itself is a must-watch for Elvis fans, and rightfully ends with an energetic rendition of "Don't Be Cruel," followed by the more emotional note of "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me." Director Denis Sanders diversifies his loving tribute to the icon with footage of the Elvis Appreciation Society, fans performing their own covers, and the admiration of celebrity guests.

The Beatles: Eight Days a Week – The Touring Years

It's challenging for a documentary about the Beatles to stand out, as the influence of the Fab Four has been frequently explored onscreen in a wide variety of ways. The band themselves starred in the narrative feature films "A Hard Day's Night" and "Help!" They also appeared in the divisive documentary "Let it Be," which covered the production of their final album. Peter Jackson will explore the same period in his upcoming Disney+ docuseries , "The Beatles: Get Back." Beatles music has inspired many narrative films, including the historical musical "Across the Universe," the alternate reality rom-com "Yesterday," and the John Lennon biopic "Nowhere Boy."

Another Beatles film could have felt like a retread, but thankfully Ron Howard took a refreshingly old-fashioned approach with his 2016 film "The Beatles: Eight Days a Week — The Touring Years." Featuring a plethora of archive footage and exclusive interviews with Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, "Eight Days a Week" mostly focuses on the positive force that the Beatles led in music, and doesn't delve as deeply into their more controversial moments. After a beginning section that gives an engaging overview of the Beatles' origins, Howard focuses on the years they spent touring the United States.

The tours certainly take a toll on the band's relationship, as the stress of maintaining their celebrity personas under American media coverage proves to be quite taxing. Their final 1966 performance in San Francisco is particularly touching.

Monterey Pop

While many music documentaries succeed by narrowing their focus to a singular performer and deconstructing their influence, some of the best are able to detail the impact of multiple great performers. Another classic from the unparalleled documentarian D. A. Pennebaker, "Monterey Pop" details a 1967 rock and pop concert that featured an amazing lineup of musicians such as the Who, the Mamas and the Papas, Simon & Garfunkel, Jefferson Airplane, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Canned Heat, and Otis Redding, among others. Pennebaker is ambidextrous and gives each performance the same amount of respect and consideration, and balances the different music genres into a fluid experience.

Pennebaker connects the overarching similarities between the performers as they explore countercultural themes. Not all of the artists were established at the time, and "Monterey Pop" helped spotlight their work as the music movie itself was still evolving. It's the rare documentary that had real-world ramifications, as the electricity of seeing the performances on screen inspired some cinephiles to engage with music festivals. Among the film's supporters was French New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard , who famously was so moved that he decided to work with Pennebaker on an unfinished project that, unfortunately, never saw the light of day.

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15 of the best music documentaries to stream right now

By Alice Kemp-Habib and Lucy Ford

From Moonage Daydream to Framing Britney Spears , these music documentaries will inspire and enlighten in equal measure

It’s easy for music documentaries to descend into navel-gazing celebrity puff. But for our troubles, we have also been rewarded with an abundance of films that are insightful, creative and even – whispers – authentic.

From that agenda-setting Britney documentary that cracked the story on the secret trauma of the world's biggest popstar to the relics of the rock and roll heyday before people thought ‘Hey, maybe we shouldn’t film this and give it to the world,' the best docs out there interrogate the nature of celebrity, musicianship and what it means to be an artist at different points in history.

Music documentaries are as varied as music itself, weaving between introspective behind-the-scenes ‘human beneath the superstar’ stories and bombastic shows of artistic spectacle. There are forgotten histories unearthed, like in Summer Of Soul; generation-defining eras excavated, like in Homecoming and tragic catastrophes remembered, like in Gimme Shelter .

Scroll for GQ ’s pick of the best music documentaries you can stream right now – and thank us later.

The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years

Penelope Spheeris's original film, The Decline of Western Civilization in 1980, explored the LA punk scene. Seven years later, she turned her camera to the heavy metal club scene in the same city, exploring the hedonistic and excessive lives of the genre's biggest stars – like Ozzy Osbourne, Alice Cooper and Gene Simmons – alongside the underground figures trying to get a foot in the door. It's a snapshot in time, before our greatest hair metal rock legends sold out on their own nostalgia; before Ozzy Osbourne was the grumbling old man from the MTV reality show or KISS were selling cruise liner packages. Almost as soon as this film was released, the bubble of glam metal had burst, meaning its the last vestige of a dying empire. You can watch The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years on Amazon .

There was some sense when Homecoming was released in 2019 that we were watching history being made. In the years since, Beyoncé's hold over the world of music and culture has only boomed, meaning this deep exploration into her process and work ethic around her headline slot at Coachella feels like a sacred text – like we've been given a documentary into how Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel. She's replicated the formula since with her behind-the-scenes Renaissance tour film, but Homecoming feels like the true tip of the scales in Beyoncé being the most powerful pop culture icon we have. If there was any doubt that Beyoncé is a master of her craft – from actual skills to the logistical mindfucks behind putting a tour together – this film shatters it. You can watch Homecoming on Netflix .

Don’t Look Back

Some of the best music documentaries paint a picture of iconic eras now lost to time. Don't Look Back , the film dedicated to Bob Dylan 's 1965 England tour, is credited as the first real ‘rockumentary’. It lands us in the days of the counterculture, as artists, like Dylan, who rose to prominence on the fringes of the mainstream reckons with how his fame intersects with his art. It's not a pretty picture, most of the time, as it's never great to see our heroes in their messy, arrogant, human form. It's really a portrait of the final moments before Dylan went stratospheric, holding in it the last glimpses of a man not entirely consumed by status. You can watch Don’t Look Back on Amazon .

Gimme Shelter

It's rare that a music documentary feels like a horror film, but going into Gimme Shelter , The Rolling Stones' 1969 tour film, feels like you're preparing your body for a simmering build of dread. We all know what happened at the band's Altamont Free Concert – the crowds clashed with the Hells Angels, who were hired as security for the festival, in a drug-fuelled rage – which resulted in countless injuries and a handful of deaths as the Stones played their set. Gimme Shelter had been documenting the group's tour to that point, and there's something startling about having such a raw and firsthand account of before, during and after an unforeseen event from a time that's often relegated to spoken word accounts now. You can watch Gimme Shelter on Amazon .

What Happened, Miss Simone?

What Happened, Miss Simone? does the challenging job of trying to distil Nina Simone's essence into one film. The iconic singer – who has one of the most unique voices in history – was also a fierce civil rights activist and became the voice of a generation of black people fighting for equal rights against the backdrop of segregation and racism. The film weaves unseen archival footage with spellbinding performances and interviews with her friends family to create a full picture of one of our most historically significant, talented and complicated stars. You can watch What Happened, Miss Simone? on Netflix .

Trainwreck: Woodstock '99

What happened when the peace, love and unity of 1969's Woodstock festival attempted to be emulated 30 years later but with awful management and an abundance of 90s nihilism? Complete and utter chaos. Woodstock '99 promised a haven in the form of a music festival, but instead descended into three days of riots, lootings and sexual assaults. Not exactly peace signs and rainbows. This documentary looks into just how that all happened, from terrible top-down decisions that are infuriating to see whitewashed even today to reckless egging on from headliners. You can watch Woodstock '99 on Netflix .

Moonage Daydream

A maximalist fever dream of a performer like David Bowie deserves a maximalist fever dream like Moonage Daydream . The documentary is a cinematic odyssey of the iconic legend, splicing together previously unseen footage from the singer's private collection and historic moments from his career. There's no shortage of explorations of Bowie. As is often the case with icons taken too soon, we relish in excavating as much as possible from history to understand what we've lost. That task seems even more enormous with a figure like David Bowie. As the first documentary authorised by Bowie's estate, it's the defining archive of his life. You can watch Moonage Daydream on Netflix .

By Emma Carmichael

By Daniel Riley

By Adam Cheung

Wham is one of British music's crowning jewels, crystalising an 80s sound like no other and rocking some great feathered layers while they did it. Netflix's WHAM! looks at the advent of the duo, made up of the late George Michael and Andrew Ridgley, as they get set to record their debut album . It follows your classic Netflix documentary series formula, with a mix of archival footage, testimony from friends and fans and some really great jams throughout. It's always impactful to look back on stars before they reached the big time when you know how stratospheric they're about to be. You can watch WHAM! on Netflix .

Framing Britney Spears

Probably the most talked-about music documentary of the past few years, Framing Britney Spears ushered in a wave of films about what it means to be a woman in the music industry. From the New York Times , it sheds new light on the damaging effects of early-2000s paparazzi culture and delves into the conservatorship that has given Spears’ father control of her career and finances since 2008. Definitely worth a watch. You can watch Framing Britney Spears on Now TV.

Composed of present-day interviews and archive material, Tina takes a broad look at the life and career of Tina Turner, the undisputed Queen of Rock and Roll . Details about the abuse she suffered at the hands of Ike Turner make for the film’s darkest, most painful moments, but ones that deserve the most light, as time has sanded down that element of Tina's story into something more polished and inspirational. There is joy, though, not least in footage of her extraordinary comeback years. From Oscar winners Daniel Lindsay and TJ Martin, it is a fitting tribute to a late musical icon. You can watch Tina on Now TV.

Biggie: I Got A Story To Tell

One in a string of films and documentaries about The Notorious BIG, AKA Christopher Wallace, 2021's I Got A Story To Tell features rare footage shot by his best friend, Damion “D-Roc” Butler, as well as interviews with other close friends and musicians and, touchingly, Wallace’s mother. Together, they paint an intimate portrait of the rap icon. And unlike previous attempts to chronicle Biggie’s legacy, this film focuses on his life and work, rather than his tragic death. You can watch Biggie: I Got A Story To Tell on Netflix.

1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything

Nineteen seventy-one – the year of Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On , Carole King’s Tapestry , Gil Scott-Heron’s The Revolution Will Not Be Televised and George Harrison's Concert For Bangladesh – was also the year of the Vietnam War, the Attica Prison uprising and the Manson verdicts. Part music docuseries, part cultural anthology, Asif Kapadia’s The Year That Music Changed Everything is collage-like in structure. Relying on archive footage and voiceover, it makes for an immersive and wholly edifying watch. You can watch 1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything on Apple TV+.

Billie Eilish – The World’s A Little Blurry

Considerably less sombre than most of the music docs we’ve received in the past few years , The World’s A Little Blurry is a two hour 20 minute-long deep dive into the life of a teenage mega star. Director RJ Cutler spent two-and-a-half years filming Eilish in her family home, at rehearsals and on tour, making for a wonderfully unfiltered look at her rapid ascent to fame and the challenges that have come with it. The fact that, even since making this film, Eilish has gone on to even more stratospheric heights, fuels calls for a follow-up. You can watch Billie Eilish – The World’s A Little Blurry on Apple TV+.

Under The Volcano

During its short life in the 80s, George Martin’s Air studio – which was located under the shadow a volcano on the Caribbean island of Montserrat – hosted an array of music legends including Stevie Wonder, Paul McCartney, The Police and Duran Duran. With a pool on sight and lush greenery all around, it was a work-play paradise for all the artists who stayed there. Then a hurricane hit the island in 1989 and the studio was destroyed. Out in 2021, the documentary proved to be a deeply fascinating look at a small but significant slice of music history. You can watch Under The Volcano on YouTube.

Summer Of Soul

In 1969, the same year as Woodstock, another history-making concert took place. At least, it should have been history-making. Instead, footage of the Harlem Cultural Festival – a free event that included artists such as Stevie Wonder and Nina Simone – was left in a basement for 50 years. In Summer Of Soul , Questlove revives that footage, interspersing it with interviews and archive footage of civil unrest in the 1960s. The result is truly astonishing. You can watch Summer Of Soul on Disney+ .

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The Best Music Documentaries On Netflix

Unearthing the vibrant tapestry of music history, Netflix's collection of top-tier music documentaries lets you dive into the heart of electrifying concert performances, riveting artist biographies, and insightful behind-the-scenes tours. Crafted by master storytellers, these engrossing films straddle the crossroads of culture and sounds, delivering an immersive experience that’s nothing short of a symphony for your senses. 

Illuminating the power and passion inherent in the world of music, Netflix's music documentaries create a captivating ambiance that mesmerizes and uplifts audiences worldwide. By exploring different genres, eras, and artists, these films offer a panoramic view of music's transformative impact on societies and souls alike. Beyond being mere entertainment, they weave together narratives that reverberate the pulsating rhythms of human existence, making them some of the finest pieces of cinema available on streaming platforms. 

The kaleidoscope of options on offer includes gems such as the famed Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened , a gripping exposé that chronicles the disastrous unraveling of the Fyre Music Festival. Then there's If I Leave Here Tomorrow: A Film About Lynyrd Skynyrd , an intimate exploration of the Southern rock band’s tumultuous journey. Films like Echo in the Canyon delve into Los Angeles' rich musical heritage, while Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage paints an evocative portrait of the iconic Canadian rock band . Each entry comes equipped with streaming buttons for a seamless viewing experience across Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, Paramount+, Max, and Amazon Prime. 

The new and old music documentaries streaming now on Netflix provide a compelling blend of harmonious sounds and emotive storylines. They resonate with a universal appeal that transcends borders and generations. So, whether you're a seasoned music aficionado or a casual viewer eager to explore the sonorous landscape of this art form, these cinematic masterpieces beckon you toward a thrilling auditory adventure, proving why they stand as the best music documentaries on Netflix.

Echo in the Canyon

Watch This Show If You Love :  The Wrecking Crew, The History of Rock 'n' Roll: California Dreamin' (1966-1976), Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Runnin' Down a Dream, Laurel Canyon: A Place in Time, Sound City Why Should I Stream?  Explore the birthplace of folk-rock music with Echo in the Canyon , a documentary that reveals the fascinating history of Los Angeles' Laurel Canyon and its impact on modern music. With interviews from legendary artists such as Tom Petty, Brian Wilson, and Jackson Browne, this film provides an unparalleled glimpse into the evolution of a groundbreaking sound. Don't miss this opportunity to gain insight into a crucial turning point in pop culture.

Clive Davis: The Soundtrack Of Our Lives

Watch This Show If You Love : The Defiant Ones, Mr. Saturday Night - The Life and Times of Sir Reuben Tishkoff, Hitmakers: The Changing Face of the Music Business, Muscle Shoals, Stax Records: Respect Yourself Why Should I Stream?  Get a front-row seat to the incredible career of one of the most influential figures in the music industry, Clive Davis , with this riveting documentary. Featuring exclusive interviews and rare performances from legendary musicians like Aretha Franklin, Bruce Springsteen, and Whitney Houston, this film truly showcases Davis's undeniable impact on popular music throughout his storied career. This is an essential watch for any fan of contemporary music.

If I Leave Here Tomorrow: A Film About Lynyrd Skynyrd

Watch This Show If You Love :  Freebird...The Movie, Allman Brothers Band - After the Crash, Sweet Home Alabama - The Southern Rock Saga, ZZ Top: That Little Ol' Band from Texas, Bad Company: Merchants of Cool Why Should I Stream?  Celebrate Southern rock royalty with If I Leave Here Tomorrow , which tells the story of Lynyrd Skynyrd's rise to fame and tragic fall through candid interviews and never-before-seen footage. Delving into their classic hits like "Sweet Home Alabama" and "Free Bird," this poignant documentary pays homage to a band whose legacy continues to reverberate through modern rock music . Stream it now for a touching tribute to these unforgettable musicians.

Remastered: Who Shot The Sheriff? A Bob Marley Story

Watch This Show If You Love :  Marley, Bob Marley and the Wailers Live at the Rainbow, Catch a Fire with Bob Marley and Chris Blackwell, Heartland Reggae featuring Bob Marley Live, Legend Why Should I Stream?  Immerse yourself in the fascinating world of reggae legend Bob Marley with this intriguing documentary that investigates an assassination attempt on his life. Remastered: Who Shot The Sheriff?  offers a deep dive into Jamaica's tumultuous political climate during the 1970s while exploring the true impact of Marley's revolutionary music. It is a must-watch for fans seeking to understand the man behind the iconic tunes and powerful messages.

Dolly Parton: A MusiCares Tribute

Watch This Show If You Love :  Dolly Parton: Here I Am, Coat of Many Colors, Christmas on the Square, Dolly Parton's Heartstrings, Pure & Simple with Dolly Parton Why Should I Stream?  Join a star-studded lineup as they celebrate country music legend Dolly Parton in Dolly Parton: A MusiCares Tribute . With performances by Miley Cyrus, Willie Nelson, Chris Stapleton, and more, this heartfelt celebration honors Parton's incredible career while also raising money for her favorite charity - MusiCares. Stream now for a night filled with fantastic tunes and touching tributes to one of music's most beloved figures.

John & Yoko: Above Us Only Sky

Watch This Show If You Love :  The U.S. vs John Lennon, Imagine: John Lennon, Living in the Material World, Good Ol' Freda, Beatles Stories Why Should I Stream?  Discover the intimate relationship between legendary Beatles musician John Lennon and avant-garde artist Yoko Ono in this revealing documentary. Featuring never-before-seen footage and interviews, John & Yoko: Above Us Only Sky  provides a candid look at one of popular culture's most intriguing love stories, set against the backdrop of their creative partnership and quest for peace. Watch now to witness an extraordinary bond that defined an era.

Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened

Watch This Show If You Love :  Fyre Fraud, Woodstock 99: Peace, Love, and Rage, TanaCon: What Really Happened?, Ja Rule - Follow the Rules, Internet Scamming in Ghana Why Should I Stream?  Dive headfirst into one of the biggest scandals in recent pop culture history with Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened , chronicling the disastrous Fyre Festival that humiliated organizers, deceived attendees, and shocked social media users worldwide. This captivating documentary exposes both human greed and naivety while offering valuable insight into our modern obsession with status symbols and influencer culture. Don't miss out on this cautionary tale that is as entertaining as it is enlightening.

Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese

Watch This Show If You Love :  No Direction Home: Bob Dylan, I'm Not There., Don't Look Back, Bob Dylan 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration, Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid Why Should I Stream?  The genius collaboration between two iconic artists - Bob Dylan, one of our time's greatest songwriters, and Martin Scorsese, a master filmmaker - results in Rolling Thunder Revue . This mesmerizing documentary offers rare glimpses into Dylan's enigmatic personality while showcasing electrifying concert footage from his controversial 1975 tour. It is an unmissable treat for any music lover, especially those who appreciate Dylan's poetic lyrics and enduring influence.

20 Feet from Stardom

Watch This Show If You Love :  Standing in the Shadows of Motown, Muscle Shoals, Searching for Sugar Man, Hired Gun, Twenty Feet From Stardom - Darlene Love's Story Why Should I Stream?  Step behind the scenes with 20 Feet from Stardom , an Academy Award-winning documentary spotlighting the unsung heroes who breathe life into our favorite songs - backup singers. With compelling stories from artists such as Darlene Love, Merry Clayton, and Lisa Fischer, this captivating film explores the struggles and triumphs of talented performers who often go uncredited for their essential contributions to music. Celebrate these hidden gems by streaming this must-watch documentary.

What Happened, Miss Simone?

Watch This Show If You Love :  Nina Simone Live at Montreux 1976, Nina Simone, Princess Noire, The Amazing Nina Simone, Four Women - The Nina Simone Philips Recordings, To Be Free: The Nina Simone Story Why Should I Stream?  Witness an intimate portrayal of singer, pianist, civil rights activist Nina Simone in this critically acclaimed Netflix documentary What Happened, Miss Simone?  Featuring previously unreleased footage and interviews with close friends and family members, this powerful film dives deeply into Simone's artistic brilliance and her unwavering commitment to social justice. Experience an emotional journey through the highs and lows of an iconoclastic artist who left an indelible mark on American culture.

The Black Godfather

Watch This Show If You Love :  Hitsville: The Making of Motown, Muscle Shoals, Stax Records: Respect Yourself, Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon, Clive Davis: The Soundtrack Of Our Lives Why Should I Stream?  Venture into the incredible story of entertainment industry titan Clarence Avant, known as The Black Godfather , with this enthralling Netflix documentary. With interviews featuring Bill Clinton, Quincy Jones, Snoop Dogg, and more, this film pays tribute to a man whose influence stretches far beyond the realms of music and film. Watch now for an inspiring look at a trailblazing figure who shattered barriers in Hollywood.

Keith Richards: Under the Influence

Watch This Show If You Love :  Keith Richards and The X-Pensive Winos Live at the Hollywood Palladium, Crossfire Hurricane, Sympathy for the Devil (Jean-Luc Godard film), Cocksucker Blues (Robert Frank film), Stones in Exile Why Should I Stream?  Gain unparalleled access into the life and creative process of Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards with Keith Richards: Under the Influence . This fascinating documentary delves into the sources of inspiration that fuel one of rock's most enduring legends, from blues icons to reggae masters. Don't pass up the chance to witness the inner workings of a true musical genius.

Biggie: I Got a Story to Tell

Watch This Show If You Love : Notorious (film), Tupac & Biggie (documentary), Murder Rap, Who Killed Tupac? (TV miniseries), City of Lies (film) Why Should I Stream?  Discover new perspectives on hip-hop legend Notorious B.I.G., aka Biggie Smalls, in Biggie: I Got a Story to Tell . Compiled from previously unseen home videos and exclusive interviews with friends and family members, this insightful documentary paints a vivid portrait of Biggie’s life beyond his storied career as one of rap's greatest MCs ever known.

Watch This Show If You Love : Quincy Jones - Listen Up! The Lives of Quincy Jones, In the Heat of the Night (TV series), Michael Jackson's Journey from Motown to Off the Wall, "Q" - An Evening with Quincy Jones and his Orchestra, Miles Ahead Why Should I Stream?  Celebrate the extraordinary life of iconic record producer Quincy Jones with Quincy , an intimate documentary co-directed by his daughter Rashida Jones. This loving tribute showcases Jones's immeasurable contributions to popular music through rare footage and heartfelt interviews with industry legends like Michael Jackson, Oprah Winfrey, and Barack Obama. Watch now for an inspiring look at a true creative genius who shaped countless careers.

• # 170 of 276 on The Greatest Documentaries of All Time
• # 33 of 129 on The Best Pop Music Documentaries
• # 19 of 129 on The Best Black Documentaries

The Other One: The Long, Strange Trip Of Bob Weir

Watch This Show If You Love :  Long Strange Trip: The Untold Story of the Grateful Dead, Festival Express, Sunshine Daydream, Grateful Dawg, Anthem to Beauty Why Should I Stream?  Embark on a psychedelic journey through the life of Grateful Dead co-founder Bob Weir in The Other One: The Long, Strange Trip Of Bob Weir . This insightful documentary provides a rare look at Weir's unique relationship with bandmate Jerry Garcia, as well as the countercultural legacy they created together. Don't miss the chance to explore this boundary-pushing musician's fascinating story.

Dolly Parton: Here I Am

Watch This Show If You Love :  Dolly Parton: A MusiCares Tribute, Coat of Many Colors, Christmas on the Square, Dolly Parton's Heartstrings, Pure & Simple with Dolly Parton Why Should I Stream?  Explore both sides - personal anecdotes and legendary music career - of the iconic country star Dolly Parton in Dolly Parton: Here I Am . Featuring exclusive interviews with Parton herself, as well as candid commentary from fellow artists like Jane Fonda, this entertaining and enlightening documentary offers a comprehensive glimpse into the life and work of a true American treasure.

Miss Americana

Watch This Show If You Love :  Taylor Swift - Journey to Fearless, The 1989 World Tour Live, Reputation Stadium Tour, City of Lover Concert, Speak Now World Tour Live Why Should I Stream?  Experience a revealing look into the life of global superstar Taylor Swift with Miss Americana , a documentary that showcases her journey from country music prodigy to pop culture icon. Through candid interviews and intimate moments, this film delves into Swift's personal growth and evolving perspective on fame, feminism, and creativity. It is an essential watch for anyone interested in understanding the complexities of modern celebrity.

• # 151 of 170 on The Best Movies About Music
• # 108 of 129 on The Best Pop Music Documentaries
• # 2 of 9 on Every Taylor Swift Documentary And Concert Film, Ranked By True Swifties

Remastered: Devil at the Crossroads

Watch This Show If You Love :  Can't You Hear the Wind Howl? The Life & Music of Robert Johnson, Deep Blues: A Musical Pilgrimage to the Crossroads, Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked The World, I Am the Blues, The Soul of a Man Why Should I Stream?  Uncover the enigmatic legacy of blues musician Robert Johnson in Remastered: Devil at the Crossroads . This captivating Netflix documentary explores Johnson's mysterious life and rumored deal with the devil that catapulted him to fame as one of history's most influential blues artists. Delve into this fascinating tale driven by evocative storytelling and stirring musical performances.

Remastered: Tricky Dick and the Man in Black

Watch This Show If You Love :  Johnny Cash at San Quentin, Walk the Line, Ring of Fire: The Emile Griffith Story, All the President's Men (1976 film), Frost/Nixon (2008 film) Why Should I Stream?  Explore the fascinating intersection between politics and music with Remastered: Tricky Dick and the Man in Black . This compelling documentary recounts Johnny Cash's 1970 White House performance during Richard Nixon's presidency, revealing how Cash used his platform to advocate for social justice issues despite political pressure. Don't miss this captivating examination of two American icons' complex relationship.

Homecoming: A Film by Beyoncé

Watch This Show If You Love :  Beyoncé: Life Is But a Dream, Lemonade Film, On The Run Tour: Beyoncé and Jay Z, Beyoncé Live at Roseland: Elements of 4, I Am... Yours: An Intimate Performance at Wynn Las Vegas Why Should I Stream?  Experience an electrifying concert spectacle with Homecoming: A Film by Beyoncé , which offers a behind-the-scenes look at her groundbreaking 2018 Coachella performance. Celebrating black culture and history while showcasing mesmerizing dance routines and powerful renditions of hit songs, this captivating documentary is essential viewing for both die-hard fans and casual admirers alike.

• # 131 of 170 on The Best Movies About Music
• # 237 of 276 on The Greatest Documentaries of All Time
• # 117 of 129 on The Best Pop Music Documentaries

I Called Him Morgan

Watch This Show If You Love :  Miles Ahead, Born to Be Blue, Chet Baker - Let's Get Lost, Mo' Better Blues (1990 film), Round Midnight (1986 film) Why Should I Stream?  Discover the tragic tale of jazz trumpeter Lee Morgan in I Called Him Morgan , which delves into his tumultuous marriage to Helen Morgan, who ultimately took his life during a snowy New York City night in 1972. Through poignant interviews and rare performance footage, this engrossing docu-drama illuminates the life and art of a musical genius.

Gaga: Five Foot Two

Watch This Show If You Love :  Lady Gaga Presents the Monster Ball Tour, Lady Gaga - One Sequin at a Time, Lady Gaga - Inside the Outside, Lady Gaga and the Muppets' Holiday Spectacular, A Star is Born (2018 film) Why Should I Stream?  Get up close and personal with pop superstar Lady Gaga in Gaga: Five Foot Two , an intimate documentary that follows her journey through the creation of her fifth studio album 'Joanne'. Revealing raw moments of vulnerability alongside triumphant performances, this compelling portrait offers unparalleled access to one of today's most dynamic artists.

• # 40 of 129 on The Best Pop Music Documentaries
• # 10 of 16 on 16 Celebrity Documentaries That Actually Reveal Something About Their Subjects
• # 56 of 326 on The 300+ Best Netflix Original Movies Of All Time

Strip Down, Rise Up

Watch This Show If You Love :  Blackfish City, Crazy Horse: Paris' Most Famous Cabaret, Magic Mike Live: London, Burlesque to Broadway, Feminists: What Were They Thinking? Why Should I Stream?  Witness the transformative power of pole dancing as a form of self-expression and empowerment in Strip Down, Rise Up . This inspiring documentary follows women from various backgrounds as they embark on a journey to reclaim their bodies and overcome personal challenges through this liberating art form. Stream now for an uplifting look at the healing potential found within movement and vulnerability.

I'll Sleep When I'm Dead

Watch This Show If You Love :  What We Started, The American Meme, Go-Go's Unsealed - The Go-Go's with DJ AM, We Are Your Friends (2015 film), Daft Punk Unchained Why Should I Stream?  Get a taste of the adrenaline-fueled world of DJ and electronic dance music pioneer Steve Aoki in I'll Sleep When I'm Dead . This captivating documentary follows Aoki's relentless work ethic, global touring schedule, and unwavering passion for his craft. Watch now for an exhilarating glimpse into the fast-paced lifestyle of one of EDM's most influential figures.

Who Killed Jam Master Jay?

Watch This Show If You Love :  Biggie & Tupac, Notorious B.I.G.: Bigger Than Life, Murder Rap, Inside Death Row with Trevor McDonald, Hip-Hop Evolution Why Should I Stream?  Investigate one of hip-hop's greatest unsolved mysteries with Who Killed Jam Master Jay? , delving into the enigmatic murder case involving Run-DMC DJ Jam Master Jay whose life was tragically cut short in 2002 inside a Queens recording studio. This gripping documentary unravels a tangled web of conspiracy theories and potential suspects, seeking justice for a beloved figure in the music community.

Britney vs Spears

Watch This Show If You Love :  Framing Britney Spears, Britney: For the Record, Britney's Dance Beat, Crossroads (2002 film), I Am Britney Jean Why Should I Stream?  Delve into the controversial conservatorship battle involving pop icon Britney Spears with Britney vs Spears , an eye-opening documentary that chronicles her ongoing legal struggles for personal autonomy. With exclusive interviews and never-before-seen footage, this film sheds new light on Spears's fight against exploitation while highlighting her enduring impact on popular culture.

ReMastered: The Two Killings of Sam Cooke

Watch This Show If You Love :  Lady You Shot Me: Life and Death of Sam Cooke, Mr. Dynamite: The Rise of James Brown, Otis Redding: Soul Ambassador, Standing in the Shadows of Motown, The Murder of Fred Hampton Why Should I Stream?  Examine the complicated legacy of soul singer Sam Cooke in ReMastered: The Two Killings of Sam Cooke . This provocative documentary delves into both his untimely death under mysterious circumstances and the assassination of his civil rights activism by powerful forces within the music industry. Watch now for a stirring tribute to one of history's most influential voices.

The Rolling Stones Olé Olé Olé!: A Trip Across Latin America

Watch This Show If You Love :  Shine a Light, Havana Moon, Stones in Exile, Charlie Is My Darling, Gimme Shelter Why Should I Stream?  Join rock legends The Rolling Stones on an epic journey through South America with The Rolling Stones Olé Olé Olé!: A Trip Across Latin America . This exhilarating tour documentary captures electrifying performances in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and more while offering rare insights into the band's enduring cultural impact. Don't miss this chance to witness the timeless magic of these iconic musicians.

Sample This

Watch This Show If You Love :  Copyright Criminals, Scratch, Our Vinyl Weighs a Ton, Something from Nothing: The Art of Rap, Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest Why Should I Stream?  Discover the fascinating world of music sampling with Sample This , a captivating documentary exploring how the Incredible Bongo Band's 1973 song "Apache" became one of the most sampled tracks in hip-hop history. Featuring interviews with prominent DJs, producers, and artists like Questlove and Grandmaster Flash, this insightful film offers an intriguing glimpse into the creative process behind some beloved tunes.

Blackpink: Light Up the Sky

Watch This Show If You Love :  BTS: Burn the Stage, Twice: Seize the Light, K-Pop Extreme Survival, Breakers, High School Musical (2006 film) Why Should I Stream?  Witness the meteoric rise of K-pop phenomenon BLACKPINK with Blackpink: Light Up the Sky , an intimate glimpse at their journey to global superstardom. Featuring behind-the-scenes footage, exclusive interviews, and thrilling performances, this captivating documentary showcases each member's unique talents while demonstrating their unwavering commitment to artistry amid intense pressure from fame.

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The 35 best music documentaries that you need to watch asap.

In the late 1960s, music documentaries started making their way onto the scene as the rock movement took off across both the United States and the world at large. Those first documentaries were a testament to their time: with light editing, scratchy film, and an overall more loose feel compared to the documentaries of today. Ever since then, the genre has rocketed up over the years with almost too many new and innovative films to catch up on. These next 35 music documentaries include the staple originals as well as newcomers who have taken the art into a completely new direction.

1. Gimme Shelter (1970)

An absolute classic rock documentary, Gimme Shelter follows The Rolling Stones on the last leg of their United States tour in 1969. There's also footage from the infamous Altamont Free Concert, which resulted in four deaths, including one brutal stabbing by a member of the Hells Angels.

2. Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck (2015)

Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck is probably one of the most well-executed and thorough music documentaries ever created. The film combines rare footage of Cobain's life with interviews from members of Nirvana, close family, and other friends, all tied together by a seamless, racing montage of Cobain's artwork animated to life. On top of the perfect music choices and timing, it focuses on the deep complexities of Cobain's mind, creating a precious, clear-yet-tangled look inside the musician.

3. Madonna: Truth or Dare (1991)

In  Madonna: Truth or Dare , we witness Madonna at arguably the height of her fame during the Blond Ambition Tour, which has long been deemed one of the best concert tours to have ever occurred. The documentary flips from concert footage to behind-the-scenes video, which sometimes acts as a confessional diary as Madonna narrates certain portions of the film.

4. Summer of Soul (2021)

Directed by Questlove of The Roots, Summer of Soul documents the Harlem Cultural Festival, a six-week festival that took place in 1969. At Marcus Garvey Park in Manhattan, a few of the many performers included Nina Simone, Stevie Wonder, and Sly and the Family Stone. Despite this, there was practically no mention of the festival within music history, which makes things all the more puzzling. The documentary dives into that question among many other topics, on top of screening footage of the events, a rare feat given the lack of coverage over the years.

5. Amy (2015)

Chronicling the journey leading up to her success, Amy shows the trajectory of Amy Winehouse's career, from the cheerful beginnings to the rough part of her fame. A specific moment that sticks out: in a room full of studio executives at Island Records, Winehouse is sitting down, playing the acoustic guitar, and singing "I Heard Love Is Blind." Just her and her guitar. The room quietly watches on and the man next to her smiles, probably realizing the gem that he's just stumbled upon.

6. Crossfire Hurricane (2012)

Whereas Gimme Shelter centered around a specific part of their 1969 tour, Crossfire Hurricane tells the early story of the Rolling Stones from the very beginning through 1981. The film places a big emphasis on the time leading right up to and after Brian Jones' death and how tremendously it affected the group. Tying in the Hyde Park show with Mick Taylor in the group, the documentary gives a feeling of hope to the band, which radiates through the rest of the film.

7. Janis: Little Girl Blue (2015)

Janis: Little Girl Blue gives a thorough look into the life of Janis Joplin, who—in only a very short amount of time—was able to create a lasting mark on the rock scene with her distinctive voice. You're really able to get to know her personality and the way she walked through life, which was in a carefree way but always with a purpose.

8. John & Yoko: Above Us Only Sky (2018)

Using archival footage from the early '70s, this documentary offers a rare look into the creation of John Lennon's album, Imagine . It's at times a very quiet process, but then suddenly, there's a ton of people crowded in the kitchen, like George Harrison who had stopped by to play both slide and electric guitar on quite a few tracks.

9. Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest (2011)

Focusing more so on the ins and outs of the group, Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest explores the dynamic of one of the most influential music groups of all time. Consisting of Q-Tip, Phife Dawg, Ali Shaheed Muhammad, and Jarobi White, the group had a number of differing personalities that played off each other both positively and negatively over the years, affecting both the music and overall vibe of the group.

10. Monterey Pop (1968)

Monterey Pop documents the music festival of the same name, including some backstage and crowd footage, on top of the filming of the festival itself. Helping launch Janis Joplin into the music stratosphere as she performed with Big Brother and the Holding Company, the festival had an incomparable roster of performers, including The Jimi Hendrix Experience, The Mamas, and the Papas, The Who, and Jefferson Airplane.

11. George Harrison: Living in the Material World (2011)

A lengthy documentary clocking in at 3.5 hours, George Harrison: Living in the Material World gives a deeper look into the musician's life, from his early life, time with The Beatles, and musical endeavors following that time. Directed by Martin Scorsese, the film went on to win two Emmy Awards.

12. Gaga: Five Foot Two (2017)

Less so a story about her life pre-Gaga, Gaga: Five Foot Two documents the creation of Lady Gaga's 2016 album, Joanne, as well as the time-consuming process leading up to her 2017 Super Bowl Halftime Show. Alongside producer Mark Ronson, Gaga methodically creates an album of a completely different sound than her fans are used to. The film also shows her sometimes-debilitating struggle with chronic pain, stemming from a broken hip on her tour, the Born This Way Ball.

13. Watch the Sound with Mark Ronson (2021)

This docuseries focuses on a different aspect of the music-making process on each episode: auto-tune, sampling, and reverb are three of the six parts Mark Ronson walks us through. Ronson brings in musicians and experts who have a great deal to say about each aspect, most of the time tying the part of music into a specific song or album that they created in the past. Just a few of the many guests he brings on are Paul McCartney, Charli XCX, Questlove, Beastie Boys, and King Princess.

14. Bad Reputation (2018)

The story of Joan Jett's success was quite an uphill battle and Bad Reputation documents it all. Songs that would later become her biggest hits, like "I Love Rock 'n' Roll" and "Bad Reputation"—as well as herself as an artist, were all dismissed by the largest record companies. It was only when she and her manager began to put out their own records that she achieved commercial success.

15. Laurel Canyon: A Place In Time (2020)

The setting for some of the hugest bands and songs in 1970s, California's Laurel Canyon, is covered in great detail through this two-part documentary. Featuring artists like Michelle Phillips, Joni Mitchell, Linda Ronstadt, and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, the area brought in tons of musicians all around the same period in time, creating both an exciting and inspiring atmosphere.

16. Don't Look Back (1967)

Don't Look Back chronicles Bob Dylan's 1965 tour in England with behind-the-scenes footage of Dylan, along with Joan Baez, Alan Price, and other close friends at the time. This film was one of the first mainstream music documentaries that achieved such success—it was even later selected to be added to the Library of Congress for its significance.

17. Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me (2013)

Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me is a mostly hilarious yet occasionally sad documentary about Elaine Stritch, one of the largest icons in Broadway history. The film centers around Stritch's new show at The Carlyle, where she resides, as she deals with a few medical and age-related issues, all the while considering leaving the industry for good. At 86, she's still in fine form as she rehearses for her show, though you can tell that the production as a whole is taking a bit of a toll on her. The documentary is very no-frills, offering a very honest look into the actress' life.

18. David Bowie: The Last Five Years (2017)

Playing off his song, "Five Years," this documentary focuses specifically on the last five years of David Bowie's life, especially on the production of his final two albums, The Next Day and Blackstar , and the off-Broadway production, Lazarus , of which he created the music for. With previously unseen footage of Bowie as well as interviews with the band he worked with on Blackstar , the documentary is a slightly somber look at a musician who was trying to use every last bit of his time to work.

19. The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart (2020)

Having written some of the biggest hits of all time, The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend a Broken Heart tracks Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb in their journey from just brothers to becoming a real force of nature on the music scene. Its release in 2020 was a massive hit among viewers, and understandably so, as the film hits a good balance between depicting them at their height, but also on the flip side, in showing them receiving backlash about disco music.

20. Whitney (2018)

Nominated for Best Music Film at the Grammys, Whitney takes a deep look into the life of one of the greatest voices of all time. Whitney Houston was both a tough and complex woman, and with interviews from close family and friends paired with rare footage, Whitney shows us the artist up-close, allowing us to see her as she was.

21. Oasis: Supersonic (2016)

With archival backstage and concert footage paired with interviews, Oasis: Supersonic paints a full picture of the '90s band, Oasis, along with the main force driving the band, brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher.

22. Keith Richards: Under the Influence (2015)

It almost feels weird focusing on Keith Richards without lumping him in with the rest of The Rolling Stones, but this documentary does a wonderful job of portraying Richards as his own entity. In Keith Richards: Under the Influence , he discusses his life, music influences, and work both within The Rolling Stones and the side projects he pursues outside of that.

23. Beastie Boys Story (2020)

Filmed at the King's Theatre in Brooklyn, this film is a part-live show, a part-classic documentary, with the surviving members, Michael Diamond ("Mike D") and Adam Horovitz ("Ad-Rock") introducing and narrating parts of the documentary on stage.

24. Tina (2021)

Telling the life of Tina Turner, Tina begins with her early days in the Ike & Tina Turner Revue, the duo she created with her husband, Ike. After the pair divorced in the late '70s, Turner forged ahead with a solo career, quickly establishing herself as a force to be reckoned with on the rock 'n' roll scene.

25. Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice (2019)

Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice follows the singer through her early life and career beginnings in Laurel Canyon, where she. In addition, the documentary also touches on her leaving of the music industry as a result of her diagnosis of Parkinson's Disease.

26. McCartney 3, 2, 1 (2021)

In this Hulu Original docuseries, Rick Rubin and Paul McCartney talk through a number of songs by The Beatles and Wings, breaking down how they arrived at certain chords, lyrics, and the overall sound. At one point, McCartney mentions that the idea of Sgt. Pepper arrived when he misheard one of the roadies ask him, "Can you pass the salt and pepper?" while eating lunch. Mistaking him for saying, "Sergeant Pepper," McCartney thought it sounded like a cool type of character, so he made it into an album and song.

27. When You're Strange (2009)

When You're Strange documents The Doors' early days, but especially focuses on the band's frontman, Jim Morrison, and his drug and alcohol use over his years in the band. The film shows up-close, rare footage of The Doors in their daily lives, rehearsal, and on stage—even video of Morrison's on-stage arrest. Overall, the documentary creates a feeling that matches that of the band's: one that's well-executed and a bit unpredictable.

28. Billie Eilish: The World's a Little Blurry (2021)

In this close-up documentary, we hang out in Billie Eilish's brother's bedroom as the pair create and record Eilish's multi-Grammy-winning album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? With her brother, FINNEAS, slightly leading the pack with producing and writing, Eilish is able to put out a thoroughly original album, one that will end up changing the trajectory of her career forever. Outside of the music aspect is the very emotional side of Eilish: how she mentally deals with the level of fame she's reached as well as the physically demanding part of her job.

29. Miss Americana (2020)

Combining backstage and concert footage from her Reputation Tour, Miss Americana follows Taylor Swift, offering a rare look into the singer-songwriter's inner thoughts and emotions. The film shows the unwarranted media attacks brought upon Swift and how she actually dealt with that kind of attention and abuse over the years. Swift really dives into the mental aspect of her journey and the beliefs she had to let go of to become the woman she is now.

30. What Drives Us (2021)

Directed by Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters, What Drives Us is an examination of the "rite of passage" aspect of being a touring musician, an idea that came to Grohl in thinking about the van life of touring. Just a few of the musicians who were interviewed in the film include Steven Tyler, St. Vincent, and Ringo Starr.

31. Billie (2019)

The result of over 200 hours of interviews is this documentary about Billie Holiday's life. After Linda Lipnack Kuehl, a journalist, decided that she wanted to write a biography of the singer's life, she was able to record and compile tons of interviews with Holiday's friends and family, as well as other musicians. However, when Kuehl never finished the book, those 200 hours of interviews ended up just sitting around until this documentary was put into production.

32. Woodstock: Three Days That Defined a Generation (2019)

Probably the most iconic event in music history, Woodstock was the defining moment at a pivotal point in American culture. Woodstock: Three Days That Defined a Generation explores the scene at the festival just prior to beginning, the festival itself, and the lasting impact of Woodstock over the years.

33. The Velvet Underground (2021)

Fairly new to Apple TV Plus, The Velvet Underground follows the band's first beginnings in New York as a lesser-known group to the level of recognition and fame that it would eventually reach. Andy Warhol plays a fairly prominent role in the film, as he was one of the main believers and sponsors of The Velvet Underground prior to their mainstream success.

34. 1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything (2021)

1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything offers a mostly comprehensive gathering of the most influential music of that specific year in time, although quite a few of the larger bands were left out, including Led Zeppelin and The Allman Brothers Band. Despite this, the docuseries does a great job of tying everything together and explaining the reasoning behind why this was such an influential year in music.

35. The Beatles: Get Back (2021)

In this upcoming three-part docuseries by Peter Jackson, The Beatles: Get Back documents the creation of their final album, Let It Be , using never-before-seen archival footage. The series is set to premiere on Disney Plus on November 25.

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From Nina Simone to Olivia Rodrigo, some of the world's most celebrated musicians have been the focus of deeply intimate documentaries. We handpicked a few for your pleasure and inspiration.

Every product was carefully curated by an Esquire editor. We may earn a commission from these links.

Homecoming: A Film By Beyoncé (2019)

Starting this list is perhaps one of the greatest music documentaries/concert movies of all time, Homecoming . As the first Black woman to headline Coachella, Beyoncé made a statement by advocating the importance of Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Beychella was a cultural reset that we have the pleasure of viewing again and again…and again.

Jazz On A Summer's Day (1959)

This concert showcasing performances from the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival is incredible. Originally premiering at the Venice Film Festival, and directed by legendary photographer Bert Stern, the film is full of cool vibes. Over 60 years later, Jazz on a Summer's Day remains as beautiful as ever. The film offers performances from a number of iconic jazz artists, including Louis Armstrong, Thelonious Monk, Chuck Berry, Mahalia Jackson and more.

Monatge of Heck (2015)

Just over 27 years ago, the world lost Kurt Cobain. But the skilled guitarist and songwriter has not been forgotten--partly because of incredible documentaries like Montage of Heck that memorialize the life and impact of the late Nirvana singer. A number of documentaries have been made detailing the life of Cobain and even conspiracy theories around his tragic death. But Montage of Heck this is the first to be supported by family and friends, including ex-wife Courtney Love. Through a series of archive materials, animated scenes and touching testimonies from those who knew him best, we see Cobain as we have never seen him before. The documentary gives us insight into his early battles with his mental health, his struggle with teenage homelessness and his drug use. Montage of Heck allows us to appreciate Cobain's music and life on earth.

Miss Americana (2020)

Not many have had the changes in public opinion that Taylor Swift has faced over the years. Throughout her 16-year career, Taylor has been the sweet girl next door, the psycho-ex, the popular girl and the B.I.T.C.H. She's either embraced or fought against these titles through her music. But Miss Americana tells another story of Swift, one where she has shed her dependence on the opinion of the public and instead demanded happiness on her own terms.

Bee Gees: How Can You Mend A Broken Heart

This Emmy award-winning documentary chronicles the life and career of one of the most famous families in music: The Bee Gees. The film, which was directed by Frank Marshall, includes several interviews with many notable names in music, including the last surviving member of The Bee Gees, Barry Gibb.

This A24 film on the life of the Amy Whinehouse is spectacular in its ability to tackle the enigma that was the late singer. The film is not an easy watch, as it bares all that was Whinehouse: from her difficult relationships to her struggles with self-harm, eating disorders and substance abuse. Amy is a heartbreaking watch about the life and demise of a talented singer. The film made quite the impact in its release, receiving several awards including the Grammy for Best Musical Film in 2015.

Summer of Soul (2021)

Questlove marked his film debut with this Oscar-winning documentary about the Harlem Cultural Festival of 1969. Despite tons of recorded footage and featured performances from Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, Gladys Knight & The Pips and so many more, this festival was largely forgotten. Now, through this documentary years later, we all have the chance to be transported back to the summer of '69 and celebrate the beauty and history of Black culture, music and fashion.

No Direction Home: Bob Dylan (2005)

This Martin Scorsese film chronicles the life and career of living American legend Bob Dylan all while showing viewers how he became, well... a living legend. The film, in which Scorsese won a Grammy for, is a collection of hundreds of hours of archival material, interviews with loved ones, fellow musicians and Dylan himself distilled into 208 minutes.

Jeen-Yus : A Kanye Trilogy (2022)

The three-part documentary by Coodie and Chike follows the life and rise of Kanye West from a small Chicago producer to global superstar and fashion mogul. Kanye West has remained a polarizing figure in pop culture in recent years, however, one uniting aspect in the opinions of West is that he an elite creative, one that has been plagued with personal tragedies and mental health struggles. Jeen-Yus is a heartbreaking retelling of how a starry-eyed young Kanye became the complicated, controversial Kanye we have all come to know.

Blackpink: Light Up The Sky (2020)

In the years since their debut, Blackpink have made the world their stage. The girl group has broken record after record, even in a market that wasn't exactly welcoming to foreigners to begin with. Under it all, however, Blackpink is a sisterhood that started out with a dream and the hunger to succeed. Watching their rise to stardom and humility through it all in this Netflix film is refreshing.

Biggie: I Got a Story to Tell (2021)

In many ways the memory of Biggie has been overshadowed by his rivalry with Tupac. When you hear one name you may think of the other and vice versa. But, with this documentary a new side to the story of Biggie is unlocked. Featuring unseen archival footage and heartfelt interviews from those who knew him best, including the rapper's mother, you finally begin to get to know not just Biggie, but also Christopher Wallace.

Billie Eilish: The World's A Little Blurry (2021)

From blessing the world with "Ocean Eyes," to becoming the youngest artist ever to sweep all four of the major Grammy categories, Billie Eilish saw all kinds of success at just 18-years-old. It's safe to say her debut album When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go did more than just put her on the map, it changed the trajectory of her life entirely. This documentary is a behind-the- scenes creation process of Eilish's rookie album. As her career continues to develop and progress, fans and Eilish alike will be able to look back at this documentary to see where it all began.

What Happened Miss Simone (2015)

This Oscar-nominated and Emmy-winning documentary directed by Liz Garbus is a nuanced tale of the tortured life of Nina Simone. The documentary includes unheard recordings, testimonials from family members and a voiceover from Simone herself to tell a story of all of the pain, ambition and grit that created the legendary musician and activist that we remember today as one of the greats.

Chasing Trane: The John Coltrane Documentary (2016)

Detailing the life and career of Jazz saxophonist and composer John Coltrane, Chasing Trane is a wonder of a documentary. The documentary is narrated by Denzel Washington and features several people who knew Coltrane. Through this Chasing Trane provides an inspiring, passionate and thought-provoking account of the saxophonist's life.

Nas: Time is Illmatic

Director One9 and writer Erik Parker joined forces with Nas to deliver the story behind Nas's legendary 1994 debut album, ILLmatic as well as Nasir's early life. The film also includes interviews with the likes of Busta Rhymes, Q-Tip, Alicia Keys and Pharrell Williams.

Jazz Fest: A New Orleans Story

Sometimes referred to as America's Greatest Festival, Jazz Fest takes place every Spring in New Orleans. The documentary captures the glory of the festival across its 50 year reign. Using interviews from prominent artists, concert footage and archived material, this documentary paints a full picture of a defining cultural festival for America.

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Following the life and career of singing, song-writing super star Sheryl Crow, Sheryl is an emotional ride. The documentary follows Crow through all of the most defining moments of her life, touching on sensitive topics like he singer's battle with depression, struggle with sexism and her 2006 cancer diagnosis. Through out it all, however, her music remained a beacon of light for her and for those around her.

Olivia Rodrigo: driving home to u (a Sour film)

Breakout star Olivia Rodrigo takes us on the journey of how she created one of the most memorable debut albums to date. Following her road trip from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles, Rodrigo recounts the emotions and process she went through while creating Sour . The documentary premiered on Disney+, where Rodrigo holds a special connection to, having been on the platforms High School Musical reboot. and just won its first award at the MTV Movie & TV Awards.

Look at Me: XXXTentacion

This documentary follows the story of Jahseh Onfroy or XXXTentacion, one of the most streamed artists on the planet.Using unseen footage, interviews with his loved ones and concert footage, through this documentary we get a full sense of just who the rapper was before his untimely death at 20 years old. In his time on this earth, he made quite the impact through his tackling of mental health in his music as well as his polarizing reputation. Now, we can see the inner-workings of the troubled star at the height of his fame.

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As the Queen biopic ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ proved, the best music biopics can have a cultural impact that goes far beyond devoted fans. Here are 30 must-sees.

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Technology may have impacted on the way we consume music in the 21st Century, but our love of the cinema remains undiminished. Indeed, as global smashes such as Bohemian Rhapsody, Judy, and Straight Outta Compton have shown, the best music biopics can account for some of the biggest draws in the movies. So grab some popcorn, dim the lights, and enjoy our list of the 30 best music biopics to grace screens both big and small. If we’ve missed any of your favorites, let us know in the comments section.

30: Jersey Boys

Directed by Clint Eastwood, Jersey Boys is adapted from the Tony Award-winning stage musical of the same name, which first debuted in 2005. In both cases, the subject is the story of New Jersey rock and pop troupe The Four Seasons, with original members Frankie Valli and Bob Gaudio serving as executive producers, and Gaudio composing the film’s music. The biopic was advertised as the story of four kids “from the wrong side of the tracks”, and thus drugs, excess, and The Four Seasons’ regular run-ins with mobsters are all part and parcel of one of 2014’s most memorable films.

29: Miles Ahead

First released in 2017, Miles Ahead was something of a labor of love for Don Cheadle, who co-wrote the script, and co-produced and made his directorial debut with the movie, not to mention while also playing the lead, the colossal jazz legend Miles Davis . Cheadle’s herculean efforts failed to win over some of the critics, but he did a great job capturing Davis’, attitude, drug-fuelled paranoia, and even his famous death-ray stare in this compelling and passionate biopic.

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28: Nowhere Boy

First released in the UK in 2009 and then granted a US cinema release to coincide with what should have been John Lennon ’s 70th birthday, on 9 October 2010, Nowhere Boy revisits the future Beatle’s early years in Liverpool, taking in the creation of his first band, The Quarrymen, and their gradual transition into The Beatles . Unlike Ian Hart in Backbeat , Aaron Taylor-Johnson bears little physical resemblance to the young Lennon, but he captures the wit of the adolescent future Beatle. There’s a strong supporting cast, too, with Anne Marie-Duff playing Lennon’s mother, Julia, and Kristin Scott-Thomas attempting to instill discipline as John’s stern yet dependable Aunt Mimi.

27: Get On Up

Tate Taylor’s James Brown biopic, Get On Up , is a rollercoaster ride for the viewer as the action jumps around from the 80s to the 60s and the 30s, connecting events through thematic links rather than chronology. If you can keep up, however, there’s plenty to savor here, not least because Chadwick Boseman puts in a superlative performance in the lead role, capturing Brown’s strutting, fireproof confidence in all its glory. Curiously, Get On Up struggled at the box office in 2014, but it’s a critical favorite (renowned US critic Robert Christgau wrote, “It’s great – better than The Help , which I quite admire, and Ray , which I love”) that’s well worth rediscovering.

26: Great Balls Of Fire!

Jerry Lee Lewis’ reputation as one of rock’n’roll’s greatest hellraisers will always precede him. However, Jim McBride’s 1989 biopic leans more towards the positive, concentrating on The Killer’s irresistible rise to rock’n’roll stardom, which may have seen him overtake Elvis Presley if it hadn’t been for his controversial marriage to his 13-year-old cousin, Myra Gale Brown, whose biography the film is partially based upon. Great Balls Of Fire! has its critics, but Alec Baldwin plays Jerry Lee’s infamous pastor cousin, Jimmy Swaggart, with aplomb, and Dennis Quaid – whose performance was praised by Lewis himself – is superb in the lead role.

25: The Doors

The Doors should perhaps simply have been titled The Jim Morrison Movie , as director Oliver Stone ( Midnight Express , Wall Street , Natural Born Killers ) homes in almost exclusively on the life and times of the band’s iconic frontman, often pushing the contributions of his bandmates off into the sidelines in this big-budget biopic from 1991. However, while hardcore fans, and The Doors themselves, voiced their disapproval, the critics disagreed, with Rolling Stone awarding it four stars. In retrospect, it’s fair to say Stone took some hefty liberties with the real story, but for all that, Val Kilmer is hypnotic as Morrison, and if you can overlook the more hackneyed Hollywood clichés, The Doors is well worth searching out.

24: 24 Hour Party People

Director Michael Winterbottom’s 24 Hour Party People follows the seismic – and sometimes surreal – career arc of Factory Records boss Tony Wilson through the decades. It takes in his work with Joy Division, including the memorable scene where Wilson (his dry-witted persona captured beautifully by Steve Coogan) inks their recording contract in his own blood, through to the opening of the iconic – if bank-breaking – Haçienda nightclub. Fiction sometimes makes a mockery of fact (though there is real-life footage of Sex Pistols ’ legendary gig at Manchester’s Lesser Free Trade Hall), but it’s still an enthusiastic and heartfelt tribute to both the late 80s Madchester era and one of the UK’s most singular independent record labels .

23: The Runaways

Based on lead singer Cherie Currie’s book, Neon Angel: A Memoir Of A Runaway , this self-explanatory 2010 biopic covers the rise and fall of groundbreaking all-girl 70s rock sensations The Runaways. Primarily centering around the relationship between the band’s two prime movers, Currie (played by Dakota Fanning) and Joan Jett (Kristen Stewart), but with Michael Shannon also doing a sterling job as their Svengali-esque manager/producer, Kim Fowley, The Runaways offers a fascinating behind-the-scenes insight. Jett herself told Interview magazine that the film perfectly captured “the glam and intensity” of Los Angeles in the mid-70s.

22: Love & Mercy

Director Bill Pohlad and writers Michael Alan Lerner and Oren Moverman cast The Beach Boys ’ Brian Wilson in an honest light in 2015’s Love & Mercy . The iconic singer-songwriter’s story is tailor-made for cinema, with Love & Mercy homing in on the pivotal mid-60s period during which the group created their masterpiece, Pet Sounds , and the struggles Wilson subsequently faced. Actors Paul Dano and John Cusack weigh in with astonishing dual performances as Wilson, in different stages of his career, and further kudos should be doled out for the film’s painstaking recreation of The Beach Boys’ recording methods.

You could argue that 8 Mile isn’t truly a biopic, as Eminem ’s Jimmy “B-Rabbit” Smith is a fictional character. However, you could just as easily feel it deserves a high ranking on any self-respecting list of the best music biopics for providing genuine insight into Detroit’s millennial hip-hop scene through the superstar rapper’s early career in the city. Further lifted by Eminem’s passionate and ultra-frank performance, 8 Mile significantly raised hip-hop’s global profile and, thanks to its Oscar-winning spin-off hit, “Lose Yourself,” it not only recouped its expensive budget ($40 million), but generated whopping box office receipts believed to have topped $240 million.

20: Backbeat

Director Iain Softley’s Backbeat (1994) delved into The Beatles’ pre-fame Hamburg era, when The Fab Four were The Fab Five with the ill-starred Stu Sutcliffe on bass. The Beatles’ songs were re-recorded for the film by an all-star alt.rock outfit including Dave Grohl , R.E.M. ’s Mike Mills, and Sonic Youth ’s Thurston Moore, while the script concentrated on the close friendship between Sutcliffe and John Lennon, played convincingly by Stephen Dorff and Ian Hart, respectively. Backbeat has since been praised by insiders including Julian Lennon and Pete Best, and it was adapted into a successful theatrical production in 2010.

1997’s Selena is the story of Selena Quintanilla-Perez, who transitions from precocious child talent to fast-rising pop star in both the US and her native Mexico, only to be murdered by Yolanda Saldivar, the president of her fan club, when she was just 23. In itself, it’s a sensational storyline, though the biopic’s appeal may have remained at cult level had Jennifer Lopez not been cast in the starring role. In fairness, J-Lo plays the part to perfection, earning earned widespread praise and a well-deserved Golden Globe nomination for her portrayal of the singer. Selena’s father, Abraham Quintanilla, Jr, meanwhile, served as producer and consultant to ensure the film avoided the worst Hollywood excesses.

18: Bound For Glory

Loosely adapted from his partly fictionalized 1943 autobiography of the same name, Bound For Glory is a beautifully framed portrait of the enigmatic Woody Guthrie. Luxuriously shot by director Hal Ashby, it features David Carradine in the lead role and follows the pioneering folk star on his Grapes Of Wrath -esque migration from his Dust Bowl Oklahoma home to the promised land of California during the height of the Great Depression. Carradine puts in a compelling performance as Guthrie, and may well have secured an Oscar had Bound For Glory not been up against the likes of All The President’s Men , Rocky, and Taxi Driver in 1976.

17: La Bamba

His tragic death alongside Buddy Holly and The Big Bopper in a plane crash on February 3, 1959 , inevitably overshadowed Richie Valens’ life prior to La Bamba . However, Luis Valdez’ heartfelt 1987 portrayal of the charismatic, Mexico-born rock’n’roll trailblazer helped redress the balance. Lou Diamond Phillips is electric in the lead role, but while the film is broadly chronological, it isn’t a straight depiction of Valens’ life, as it delves into how Valens’ professional success impacted on the lives of his half-brother, Bob Morales, his girlfriend Donna Ludwig and the rest of his family. The film did brisk business on both sides of the Atlantic, with Los Lobos’ version of the titular song topping the US and UK charts.

Produced and directed by Hollywood icon Clint Eastwood, Bird (1988) stars Forest Whitaker as the brilliant but mercurial jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker . The stuff of legend, Parker’s storied life struggles included battles with drug addiction, the death of his child, and a heart attack before his own premature death, aged 34, by which time he’d long since joined jazz’s pantheon of greats. Constructed as a montage of scenes from Parker’s life, Bird is riveting and it later yielded a Best Director Golden Globe for Eastwood and a Cannes Film Festival Best Actor gong for Whitaker.

15: Sid & Nancy

Sid & Nancy , Alex Cox’s retelling of punk icon Sid Vicious’ doomed love affair with Nancy Spungen, polarised opinion from the off. Sex Pistols frontman John Lydon later savaged it in his autobiography – and he has a point, because (as Malcolm McLaren did with The Great Rock’n’Roll Swindle ) the script takes major liberties with the band’s real story. Despite this – and the fact it was a financial failure upon release, in 1986 – Sid & Nancy has since been reappraised. Respected US critic Roger Ebert dubbed the late duo “punk rock’s Romeo and Juliet”, and the film’s leads, Gary Oldman ( Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy , Darkest Hour ) and Chloe Webb turn in passionate, poignant performances which have set Sid & Nancy ’s reputation as a cult classic in stone.

14: I’m Not There

The collective brainchild of Love & Mercy ’s Oren Moverman and Velvet Goldmine director Todd Haynes, the Bob Dylan biopic I’m Not There (2007) is often as enigmatic as its influential subject. On paper, the premise – on-screen stars Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Marcus Carl Franklin, Richard Gere, Ben Whishaw, and the much-missed Heath Ledger portray Dylan at different stages in his life – would seem ambitious to say the least, yet Haynes weaves the narrative together beautifully and the cast all play a blinder, ensuring that I’m Not There is a Bob Dylan biopic that even the casual fan should watch.

13: Behind The Candelabra

Directed by Steven Soderbergh ( Sex, Lies, And Videotape , Erin Brockovich ), the Liberace biopic Behind The Candelabra (2013) was in production for the best part of a decade and was originally a made-for-TV movie. After hitting the silver screen, however, the film won several Emmys and a Golden Globe. Based on Liberace’s latter-day lover Scott Thorson’s memoir of the same name, it details the flamboyant pianist’s final decade, with both Michael Douglas (Liberace) and Matt Damon (Thorson) turning in terrific performances. Moving and salacious, it’s an absorbing biopic that even the vaguely curious should check out.

Several directors have attempted to capture Elvis Presley ’s mercurial life since his premature death, in 1977, but John Carpenter’s made-for-TV Elvis (1979) remains the benchmark. The then little-known Kurt Russell received an Emmy nomination for his memorable portrayal of The King, capturing his brooding charisma without lapsing into parody. While Russell didn’t actually sing in the movie (he lip-synched to vocals recorded by country star Ronnie McDowell), he succeeded in channeling the raw power of Presley at his electrifying best onstage.

11: Control

Inevitably creating a myth and a lasting cult status, Joy Division singer Ian Curtis killed himself aged just 23, just as his Manchester-based band were on the cusp of mainstream success after two superb, critically-acclaimed albums. Anton Corbijn’s excellent 2007 biopic, Control , peels away much of the legend and hearsay to reveal Curtis the human being: a complex and flawed individual who ultimately can’t reconcile having an affair while being married with a young child. Both Sam Riley, as Curtis, and Samantha Morton, as his wife, Deborah, are highly compelling, and the director’s reliance on black-and-white footage vividly captures the starkness of the Mancunian landscape a decade before the city morphed into the epicenter of cool during the Madchester era.

10: What’s Love Got To Do With It?

Adapted from the book I, Tina , by Tina Turner and Kurt Loder, this popular biopic was big news at the box office in 1993, grossing almost $40 million in the US alone. Directed by Brian Gibson, it deals with the tempestuous relationship between Ike and Tina Turner, whose string of remarkable, Phil Spector-produced hits are unable to mask the fact Tina is suffering at the hands of her abusive spouse. Post-divorce, Tina would become a global superstar in her own right, and she’s portrayed sympathetically here by the Golden Globe-winning Angela Bassett, while Laurence Fishburne is equally inspired as the cruel, volatile Ike.

9: La Vie En Rose

French actress Marion Cotillard had already begun to prove herself on the global stage during the early 00s with roles in mainstream films such as Ridley Scott’s A Good Year , in which she played opposite Russell Crowe. However, few would have expected her to shine as brightly as she did while playing chanteuse extraordinaire Edith Piaf in Olivier Dahon’s La Vie En Rose . Indeed, Cotillard does a remarkable job of capturing The Little Sparrow’s vulnerability and volatility as she rises from the gutter to staging performances in France’s grandest music halls in this memorable 2007 biopic. The actress rightly received an Academy Award for the role, marking the first time an Oscar was awarded for a French-language role.

8: The Buddy Holly Story

Released in 1978, director Steve Rash’s Buddy Holly biopic features Gary Busey turning in an admirable portrayal of the Lubbock-born singer-songwriter who influenced iconic future names including The Beatles and The Rolling Stones . Still eminently watchable, it charts Holly’s life from teen rocker in Texas to global stardom with The Crickets, and his latter-day solo career, involving a heavy touring schedule that would prematurely claim his life in an ill-fated plane crash in February 1959. Busey rightly received an Oscar nomination for his performance and The Buddy Holly Story remains a consistently acclaimed entry in the best music biopics of all time.

7: Coal Miner’s Daughter

Reputedly hand-picked by the artist herself, Sissy Spacek turned in an arguable career-best performance in her portrayal of troubled country star Loretta Lynn in this much-acclaimed 1980 biopic. Based upon Lynn’s autobiography, and also featuring Tommy Lee Jones and The Band ’s Levon Helm, Coal Miner’s Daughter follows the legendary singer’s life, from her desperately poor childhood to superstardom, with Spacek’s inspirational performance yielding her an Academy Award. It remains a biopic with across-the-board appeal, and its spin-off soundtrack album also sold half a million copies and went gold.

Lavishly shot with no expense spared, 1984’s Amadeus is One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest director Miloš Forman’s fictionalized biography of the groundbreaking 18th-century composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with the plot homing in on the notorious rivalry between Mozart (played with ruthless intensity by Tom Hulce) and Italian composer Antonio Salieri (F Murray Abraham) at the court of Emperor Joseph II. Widely regarded as one of the greatest films of all time, it’s a grandiose epic in the best possible sense of the term and it went on to win a staggering eight Academy Awards, including an Oscar for Best Picture.

5: Lady Sings The Blues

One icon played another in 1972’s Lady Sings The Blues , with soul diva Diana Ross turning in a commanding performance as legendary jazz chanteuse Billie Holiday . Directed by Sidney J Furie of The Ipcress File fame, the film follows the jazz star from her traumatic youth through her rise to fame. While the storyline pulls few punches where Holiday’s personal demons are concerned, it ends on a high note, recreating her triumphant return to the stage at New York’s Carnegie Hall. Lady Sings The Blues received five Academy Award nominations, and even notoriously sniffy US film critic Roger Ebert admitted Ross’ portrayal of Holiday was “one of the great performances of 1972.”

4: Walk The Line

One of 2005’s most successful films, director James Mangold’s much-anticipated Johnny Cash biopic didn’t disappoint. Based upon two separate autobiographies penned by the iconic singer-songwriter, Walk The Line featured electrifying performances by Joaquin Phoenix as Cash and Reese Witherspoon as June Carter, and delves into the highs and lows of The Man In Black’s life, from his musical career and his romance with Carter through to his tussles with drugs and alcohol, and his legendary shows at America’s notorious Folsom Prison, in January 1968. Widely acclaimed, Walk The Line bagged five Oscar nominations, with Witherspoon taking home the Best Actress Award.

3: Straight Outta Compton

NWA biopic Straight Outta Compton (2015) was directed by F Gary Gray, but the influential hip-hop outfit’s surviving members were involved all the way down the line, with Ice Cube and Dr. Dre producing, and Ice Cube being played by his real-life son O’Shea Jackson, Jr. Consequently, this is a biopic which pulls few punches and strives to keep it real – at least from the group’s perspective. Highly absorbing throughout, Straight Outta Compton went on to scoop a truckload of industry awards, including an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, and it also inspired Dr. Dre’s widely-acclaimed solo album Compton .

Written, directed, and produced by Taylor Hackford, Ray (2004) focuses on 30 years in the life of pioneering soul music/R&B icon Ray Charles , tracing the arc of his career from his early years in the clubs on North America’s chitlin’ circuit through his crossover success with Atlantic Records, his commercial decline during the 70s and his remarkable latter-day comeback, winning a Grammy for his Chaka Khan collaboration “I’ll Be Good To You.” Jamie Foxx oozes charisma in the lead role and his career-defining performance earned him five industry awards, including an Oscar, a BAFTA, and a Golden Globe.

1: Bohemian Rhapsody

One of the biggest releases of 2018, Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody blew away the competition in the commercial sense, with Billboard dubbing it the highest-grossing music biopic of all time at the end of the year. Critically, however, it was also a phenomenon, attracting multiple industry awards, including the coveted Best Actor for Rami Malek’s magnificent portrayal of Freddie Mercury . It completely changed all expectations of what the best music biopics can achieve.

June 4, 2021 at 4:36 am

Dirt – Motley Crue

June 5, 2021 at 1:52 am

‘…then little-known Kurt Russell’?

The Real Thang

September 14, 2023 at 7:06 am

Bohemian Rhapsody was hot garbage and an obvious Hollywood controlled retelling. THE TEMPTATIONS for whatever is not in this list and should be top 10.

Daniel A Ribel

March 27, 2024 at 4:13 pm

Not including Baz Luhrmann’s ELVIS shows you have little attention span. It was nominated everywhere and Austin Butler made Kurt Russell look ridiculous. Butler was not only Oscar and SAG nominated, but won the Foreign Press Golden Globe,International Press Satellite,UK BAFTA Australia AACTA international,Irish IFTA International, Catalonia Spain Sant Jordi, South African Film Critics ect and actually made millions of new Elvis fans around the world

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The 20 best music documentaries – ranked!

We rate the best films on the music scene down the decades, from Bob Dylan to Blur, Anvil to Amy Winehouse

20. Big Fun in the Big Town (1986)

Charming Belgian TV presenter Marcel Vanthilt tries to get to grips with the New York rap scene. Interviewees include LL Cool J and Schoolly D, but this featurette is as alert to social nuances as musical ones.

19. Starshaped (1993)

This catches Blur on the brink of the Britpop explosion, looking keen but confused, and often the worse for wear. Car-crash highlights include Damon Albarn falling off a speaker and John Peel expressing amusing indifference to their music.

18. Oil City Confidential (2009)

Canvey Island pub-rock combo Dr Feelgood get the movie treatment from The Great Rock’n’Roll Swindle director Julien Temple.

17. Amy (2015)

Asif Kapadia’s Oscar-winning film about Amy Winehouse expertly stitches together everything from home movies brimming with hope to end-of-the-line concert appearances when the jig was truly up.

16. 20 Feet from Stardom (2013)

The unsung voices behind the stars finally get their due in this story of backup singers including Darlene Love and Judith Hill.

15. Buena Vista Social Club (1999)

Wim Wenders has always been drawn to misfits, from Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley in The American Friend to Harry Dean Stanton as the eternal wanderer in Paris, Texas . He brought his taste for the outsider experience to this film about the Cuban ensemble making its first trip to America.

14. I Am Trying to Break Your Heart: A Film About Wilco (2002)

Turmoil is a gift to the music documentary. Wilco were up to their eyes in it soon after the photographer Sam Jones started filming them: they shed two of their members and got dropped by their label. Out of the chaos, a great album (Yankee Hotel Foxtrot) and a revealing film emerged.

13. The Road to God Knows Where (1990)

The recent Nick Cave documentaries One More Time with Feeling and 20,000 Days on Earth showcase a mature and reflective artist. For unsparing grit and grime, there’s Uli M Schueppel’s black-and-white film of the Bad Seeds’ 1989 US tour, heavy on the boredom and frustrations of life on the road.

12. Dave Chappelle’s Block Party (2006)

Michel Gondry documents the on-and-off-stage sights of a 2004 Bed-Stuy bash thrown by Chappelle, who bussed in members of the public from his home town of Dayton, Ohio. Performers include Kanye West and Lauryn Hill; the political commentary is low-frequency but consistent, with Fred Hampton Jr, son of a murdered Black Panther and chairman of the Prisoners of Conscience Committee, telling the crowd: “Hands up, eyes open, fists clenched.”

11. The Devil and Daniel Johnston (2005)

The wild creativity of the folk musician Daniel Johnston turns out to be inseparable from his woes as he struggles with bipolar disorder. He sings! He preaches! He attacks his manager with a lead pipe! Through it all, the director Jeff Feuerzeig maintains a sympathetic eye.

10. Rude Boy (1980)

Part-documentary, part-staged reality (a technique that the film’s co-director, Jack Hazan, had pioneered in his David Hockney doc A Bigger Splash ), this inserts a fictional roadie into the real world of The Clash on tour. A scorching and often ugly portrait of a band at a full pelt and a country in decline.

9. Gimme Shelter (1970)

There is no shortage of Rolling Stones documentaries, from Godard’s One Plus One aka Sympathy For the Devil and Robert Frank’s little-seen Cocksucker Blues to Martin Scorsese’s more recent Shine a Light . But the cream of the crop, the absolute Exile on Main Street of the bunch, is the Maysles brothers’ account of the band before, during and after the horror of Altamont.

8. Lawrence of Belgravia (2011)

Lyrical filmmaker Paul Kelly finds Lawrence, lead singer of indie gods Felt, glam pasticheurs Denim and Casio-pop pioneers Go-Kart Mozart, somewhat on his uppers. He faces eviction from his council flat as he records a new album. Yet in his refusal to sell out, Lawrence is an enduring symbol of artistic purity. Explaining his resilience, he says: “No one else has got this far, and failed.”

7. Anvil! The Story of Anvil (2008)

Alongside Some Kind of Monster and DiG!, this is another slice of cringingly frank mid-noughties verité, the key difference being that the group in question, a Canadian metal outfit, came within sniffing distance of fame without ever quite making it big. A reunion tour provides a near-as-dammit real-life equivalent to Spinal Tap .

6. The Decline of Western Civili z ation Part I (1981)

Penelope Spheeris directed the first film about the American response to punk, with interviews and performances from Circle Jerks, X, Black Flag and Germs, the menace of the latter tempered by dumpy frontman Darby Crash, known to cover himself with peanut butter and dive through broken glass to disguise the fact that his band couldn’t play. Quality control stayed high for Spheeris’s follow-ups, Parts II (about metal) and III (homeless punks).

5. DOA: A Rite of Passage (198 0)

This film diary of the Sex Pistols’ fateful 1978 US tour zig-zags between the Stateside vaudeville and interviews from back home with establishment figures closing their ears to the yelps of punk (“I’m not going to listen to what they say until they learn to enunciate clearly and speak properly in the Queen’s English”). A grimly compelling highlight is the footage of Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen lolling in bed like the anti-John-and-Yoko.

4. DiG! (2004)

Two bands for the price of one: The Dandy Warhols take the fast train to fame and adulation while their brothers-in-psychedelia, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, languish in semi-obscurity, their integrity intact, their sanity perhaps less so. Ondi Timoner boiled down a staggering 1,500 hours of footage to create this study of luck and self-sabotage in rock’n’roll.

3. Metallica: Some Kind of Monster (2004)

Metal behemoths Metallica quietly fall apart in this long but spellbinding documentary which finds them plagued by indecision and uncertainty as they grapple with their incomparable success. With one band member gone and another entering rehab, the band members submit to a “performance enhancement coach” who insinuates himself creepily into the creative process.

2. Bob Dylan: Don’t Look Back (1967)

DA Pennebaker’s fingerprints are all over music cinema ( Monterey Pop , Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars ). But his masterpiece follows a restless, searching Bob Dylan as he tours Britain in 1965, confronting journalists, holding court among some peers (Joan Baez, Alan Price), sneering at others (sorry, Donovan) and, with the Subterranean Homesick Blues cue-cards sequence, helping to invent the pop promo.

1. In Bed with Madonna (aka Madonna: Truth or Dare) (1991)

Part of the alchemy of a great music documentary is catching the subject at exactly the right moment, and Alek Keshishian couldn’t have trained his cameras on Madonna at a better time. In the midst of the inventive and influential Blonde Ambition tour, he finds a self-possessed genius who is a magnet for controversy, as well as for other stars: Warren Beatty announces that Madonna “doesn’t want to live off-camera”, Antonio Banderas resists her advances, Kevin Costner gets roundly insulted. But this thrilling film, split between black-and-white for off-stage and colour for on, gives the lion’s share of screen time to the squabbling, excitable dancers who comprise the singer’s extended family.

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Screen Rant

16 best music documentaries on netflix.

The best music documentaries on Netflix show just how much the streaming service has to offer to music lovers.

Whether it's behind the scenes of a movie franchise or a famous musician, die-hard fans relish the opportunity to get a deeper look into the workings of an artist.  As one of the top streaming platforms, Netflix has created–and given viewers access to–riveting stories focussing on some of the music industry's top artists.

Viewers are captivated by the emotional and heartfelt struggles artists face in making names for themselves, and they love watching them share their stories through documentaries. A variety of music documentaries on Netflix show the rise and fall of Grammy-winning artists, their lives before fame, and how they adjust to life in the limelight.

Updated on June 30th, 2022, by Shawn S. Lealos: While they might not be as popular as a scripted drama series like Stranger Things or a superhero movie like Spider-Man: No Way Home , there is a lot to love about a good music documentary. While Netflix will always offer the mainstream releases like those above, the streaming giant also knows that one key to keeping its subscription totals from dropping is to offer niche things that a smaller, but an important, group of subscribers want to see. Music documentaries fit that description, with some offering concert footage, others offering a look at the lives and travels of the musicians, and others looking posthumously at the greats of yesteryear. Since the streaming service often switches out what they offer, this list removed those docs that left and added some more great music documentaries on Netflix.

No Direction Home: Bob Dylan (2005)

If there is one iconic and legendary filmmaker who loves to make music documentaries, it is Martin Scorsese. He created one of the most legendary music documentaries of all time in the 1970s with  The Last Waltz , with The Band's final concert. One singer at that show who performed was Bob Dylan and Scorsese has since made two documentaries about that legendary singer as well.

RELATED:  10 Best Songs In Martin Scorsese Movies

No Direction Home  is one of the best music documentaries on Netflix, released in 2005. It tells the story of Dylans' life from his arrival in New York in 1961 and his retirement from touring in 1966.

The Sparks Brothers (2021)

Edgar Wright had a great year in 2021 when it came to movies. He released the horror-thriller  Last Night in Soho and then followed that up with a documentary titled The Sparks Brothers , following the careers of the legendary and iconic indie music sensations.

The great news is that The Sparks Brothers is on Netflix now for all to see. For those unaware,  The Sparks Brothers spent their entire career overlooked and ahead of the curve, meaning they made music that would be popular a few years later, but never had a chance to enjoy the height of that surge because they always changed their styles to whatever they felt was next. This music documentary on Netflix is possibly even better for people who have never heard of the band.

The Show Must Go On: The Queen + Adam Lambert Story (2019)

One of the most iconic rock bands in history is Queen, and their performances and songs recorded with the late Freddy Mercury remain legendary. However, after Mercury died, the band mostly disappeared outside of some concerts with names like George Michael and Eddie Vedder taking the lead role.

That all changed when Queen hired American Idol finalist Adam Lambert to become their new lead singer. The Show Must Go On: The Queen + Adam Lambert Story is an original documentary on Netflix that tells the story of how the young singer helped bring the band back to the spotlight again.

ReMastered: The Two Killings Of Sam Cooke (2019)

Netflix has an original documentary series called ReMastered which tells the story in each doc about different musical artists. One of the best in the series hit in 2019 with  The Two Killings of Sam Cooke . The story is a hybrid mix of a music documentary and a true crime story as it focuses on the murder of Sam Cooke in 1964 at the age of 33.

Sam Cooke was a soul singer who was also outspoken on civil rights issues. The title refers to how Sam Cooke died twice - once literally and once was the death of his promising musical career, with part of the documentary showing how important his music was in spreading his message of equality. Fans might also remember the name Sam Cooke from the movie One Night in Miami .

If I Leave Here Tomorrow (2018)

When looking through the music documentaries on Netflix, there is one titled  If I Leave Here Tomorrow and it tells the story of the legendary southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd. It mostly focuses on lead singer Ronnie Van Zant and is put together with interviews and archival footage.

The band formed in 1964 and became major stars in the 1970s thanks to songs like "Sweet Home Alabama" and "Freebird." Sadly, a plane crash in 1977 killed Van Zant, Steve Gaines, and Cassie Gaines, and left the rest of the band members seriously injured. This documentary on Netflix looks at the band up to that point.

Shawn Mendes: In Wonder (2020)

Shawn Mendes has never shied away from sharing his life with his fans, as it gives him the ability to connect with them on a deeper level. In 2020, Netflix released Shawn Mendes: In Wonder,  which chronicles the past few years of his life and his journey to a bigger level of stardom.

The documentary showcases Mendes in a much more raw form, chronicling his struggles with anxiety and depression—even the nights where he feels the most alone. Among it all is his devotion to family, fans, and even his deep romance with fellow artist Camilla Cabello.

Keith Richards: Under The Influence (2015)

The notorious guitarist of the world-renown rock band The Rolling Stones, Netflix's 2015 documentary Keith Richards: Under The Influence offers a glimpse into the life of the aging rocker. Tracking his progress in the studio as he records a solo album while simultaneously recounting how he attained fame, it's a story all Stones fans need to hear.

RELATED:  10 Musicians-Turned-Actors Who Have Been Nominated For An Oscar

Borrowing a few elements from his autobiography Life , Under the Influence examines Richards' philosophies on everything from classic blues singers to the human condition. It's one of the most fascinating music documentaries on Netflix, even for those who may not be familiar with the musician.

What Happened, Miss Simone? (2015)

Many famed artists from generations gone by have helped define music history. One of these artists is American singer, Nina Simone, who not only awed with her vocals but also inspired others with her civil rights activism. The music documentary on Netflix,  What Happened, Miss Simone? features never-seen-before archival footage of the singer, as well as interviews with her daughter and family.

The music documentary is eye-opening, as it chronicles Simon's rise as one of the most profound jazz singers. Fans also get to see Simone's story of becoming an activist determined to take a stance.

Quincy (2018)

Simply titled  Quincy , this 2018 Netflix documentary is an intimate look into the life and career of Quincy Jones. The movie hit big and even won the Grammy for Best Music Film at the 2019 Grammy Awards. Co-directed by Jones' daughter Rashida Jones , the movie tells the immense story of the 27 Grammy award-winning industry giant.

From his early days in childhood to his rise in music, the movie tells it all. Viewers get to see the artist in his prime to his more personal battles with health issues and the industry. There are even heartwarming interviews and stories of Hollywood's and the music industry's finest, depicting him as one of the greatest of all time.

BLACKPINK: Light Up The Sky (2020)

Television, movies, and the music industry have been hit hard with a deep love and admiration for K-Pop and South Korean culture. K-Pop bands like BTS and BlackPink have taken over billboard charts and reached global stardom. In 2020, Netflix released the documentary  BLACKPINK: Light Up The Sky,  which focuses on the journey of Korea's top girl group BlackPink.

Fans of K-Pop and even newcomers can watch the personal stories of four young girls from different walks of life strive for the same dream. From their exhausting days as trainees to sold-out arenas around the world, BlackPink successfully became the top girl group in K-Pop music history.

Metallica: Some Kind of Monster (2004)

Originally released in 2004, Some Kind of Monster catalog's the development of Metallica's most reviled album, St. Anger, along with all of the difficulties and infighting that came with it. Considered by members of the band to be Metallica's darkest period , Some Kind of Monster highlights the bleak realities that sometimes come with fame.

With band co-founders James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich constantly at each other's throats, the world's most recognizable heavy metal band seems to be falling apart at the seams. Fortunately, they would endure these turmoils and come out on the other side with a hard-hitting and insightful piece of heavy metal media.

Biggie: I Got A Story To Tell (2021)

There are countless documentaries and specials about the life of rapper Christopher Wallace, A.K.A. The Notorious B.I.G, though many of them place a major emphasis on his mysterious death. The 2021 documentary Biggie: I Got A Story to Tell not only gives viewers rare footage of the rapper and in-depth interviews, but it's also a celebration of his life and career.

RELATED:  10 Best Hip-Hop Documentaries To Watch After Biggie: I Got A Story To Tell

Among the best music documentaries on Netflix, this one has it all, from Biggie's early years to his journey to becoming the rap icon he was destined to become. Told through interviews and stories from his family and friends, Biggie is showcased as a multi-dimensional artist and person whose life ended tragically at the height of his career.

Homecoming (2019)

Homecoming  is considered to be a concert film, but many see it as an inside look and documentary about Beyoncé's creative process and her impact on a cultural movement. Written and directed by Beyoncé herself, the movie centers around the events leading up to and the day of her performance at the 2018 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.

The movie received unanimous critical acclaim, with many praising it for its impactful moments, behind-the-scenes shots, and showing what makes Beyoncé the global icon that she is. There's so much more, as the documentary also details how Beyoncé is the first black woman to headline the festival and the impact of this.

Gaga: Five Foot Two (2017)

In 2017, Netflix released a cinéma vérité style documentary titled Gaga: Five Foot Two about the hit artist, Lady Gaga. The movie takes place over a year, showcasing the personal life of Gaga, from meeting her fans, working on new music, and even her battle with chronic pain caused by the onset of fibromyalgia.

The timeline of the movie is specific, as it takes place as Gaga is in the process of creating her fifth studio album, "Joanne." There's just about everything to explore here, from her Super Bowl performance and her emotional struggles to her guest role in American Horror Story .

ReMastered: Devil at the Crossroads

Posthumously dubbed the "King of the Delta Blues Singers," Robert Johnson is often considered to be one of the most influential guitarists of all time. Known for his uncanny skill, he lived an enigmatic and strange life, and it was rumored that he had sold his soul to the devil in exchange for his amazing abilities as a musician.

Over the decades, speculation and rumor melded into an urban legend, and Johnson's legacy is often treated as something akin to an American folktale. Haunted by either the Devil himself or demons of his own making, Robert Johnson was a fascinating musician whose tale demands attention .

Miss Americana (2020)

Just about everyone has heard of Taylor Swift at this point, and fans of the singer and even those who aren't will be moved and awe-struck by the story told in this, one of the best music documentaries on Netflix. It takes place as Swift begins her 2019 album" Lover."

Being in the limelight for so many years, Swift reveals her inner turmoil and struggles that she kept from the public. The movie uses interviews, camera footage, home videos, and more, as well as her own voice to tell her story of battling body dysmorphia, an eating disorder, and even the scrutiny she faces on the internet.

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Paul Simon, graceful poet and musical genius, gets his documentary due 'In Restless Dreams'

Paul Simon’s remarkable career , from poetic troubadour to architect of merging pop melodies with world beat, is ripe for mining.

But documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney didn’t want to reduce Simon’s accomplishments to a rote biopic. The goal, he says, was “to create a dreamscape of life both here and in the past. And they live simultaneously.”

The resulting film, “In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon,” is the result of a five-year odyssey that captures the sprawl of Simon’s seven decades in music through archival footage and unfettered access to current-day Simon, still vital and creative at 82.

The first of the two-part docuseries is now streaming on MGM+; the second is due at 9 EDT/PDT Sunday.

This is not the first time that Simon’s extraordinary career has been dissected. A 2018 biography, “Paul Simon: The Life,” written by renowned music reporter Robert Hilburn with Simon’s full participation, also detailed Simon’s history.

But in documentary form, seeing the magic of the 1981 Central Park concert when he reunited with Art Garfunkel; Simon’s solo return to that hallowed ground a decade later; the evolution of his landmark 1986 “Graceland” album; and Simon as he recorded last year’s “Seven Psalms” and struggled with hearing loss, is revelatory.

Gibney, who has directed award-winning documentaries about Scientology , Enron and the killing of an Afghan taxi driver, crafted the 3½-hour project with one of music’s headiest songbooks as its backbone.

“It’s not an information drop,” Gibney says. “It’s an emotional experience; of the moment, but full of memory.”

Here are some highlights from the film.

More: Star power of 'We are the World' remains unmatched: Inside the dramatic 1-night recording

Bathrooms and elevator shafts shaped Simon & Garfunkel hits

Much as the Beatles used unconventional recording methods – reverse guitar solos, double tracking of vocals – Simon and Garfunkel turned to some basic settings and rhythm makers for many of their timeless hits.

Producer Roy Halee's guidance was crucial on songs such as “Cecilia,” which features a tape loop of percussion created by banging pots and pans, and “The Boxer,” for which the drums were recorded at the bottom of an elevator shaft. (The song’s string section enjoyed a more stately recording setting: St. Paul’s Chapel at Columbia University.)  On “The Only Living Boy in New York,” Simon and Garfunkel repaired to an echo chamber to record their harmonies.

Even “Mrs. Robinson,” the perky ditty composed for the 1967 film “The Graduate,” has a fun backstory. In a TV talk-show clip, Simon recounts how many of the lyrics were made up on the spot once it was determined the song would be used for a chase scene. Simon recreates the moment as he noodles on his guitar.

Gibney also points to footage of the jam sessions during the recording of “Graceland” in Johannesburg as an indicator of Simon’s ability to create “musical crosscurrents.

“He was writing in a different way, in that he would record and integrate it into a larger vision rather than starting with a guitar and a notebook. He was coming from a different place, musically,” Gibney says.

Art Garfunkel declined to participate, but is still heard

Gibney says Garfunkel declined to be interviewed for the film. But Gibney was determined to include his voice , so he relied on archival interview clips with Simon’s former musical partner, who added irrefutable vocal beauty to classics including “Homeward Bound,” “The Boxer” and “The Sound of Silence.”

After the duo split in 1970, Garfunkel terms it “an uneven partnership” because Simon wrote all the songs. “We were best friends until ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ … but it began to be abrasive to be forced together,” he says in the old footage.

Gibney notes that it was important to him to present both sides of the pair’s relationship, because “It takes two sides to break up.”

Paul Simon’s hearing problems unfold in real time

While recording “Seven Psalms,” Simon is suddenly afflicted with a serious hearing problem. He complains about the sound being distorted when he puts on his headphones and is visibly frustrated.

Gibney says watching the problem unfold was “very poignant and powerful. To see one of the great songwriters of all time struggling with a key element of his skill … it was very poignant that he let us in while that was happening and he was in a vulnerable stage.”

In the film, Simon is granted some relief through the use of a mouthpiece that focuses on frequencies.

Simon also acquiesces to the reality of the situation : “Maybe we’re supposed to have an obstacle to give you insight into what you’re doing,” he says.

Paul Simon as seen by Wynton Marsalis, Edie Brickell

Gibney didn’t want to turn the film into a parade of talking heads espousing Simon’s greatness, but he did seek observations from a trio of people closest to him: wife Edie Brickell , fellow musician Wynton Marsalis and “Saturday Night Live” impresario Lorne Michaels, who tapped Simon as the first person to both host and perform as the musical guest in 1975, the year it premiered.

In the documentary, Marsalis is greeted with a warm hug from Simon and the pair immediately engages in deep conversation. Marsalis recalls their meeting at a 2002 benefit concert and a decade later, performing together at the Jazz at Lincoln Center series.

Marsalis also reels off a lengthy list of topics that the two frequently discuss, including the Bible and mysticism, leaving little doubt that they have more than musical genius in common. “I couldn’t believe he could come up with that list off the top of his head,” Gibney says with an incredulous laugh. “You can imagine the conversations they’ve had.”

Gibney also spent time with Simon and Brickell at their compound in Wimberley, Texas.

“She’s a really lovely person,” Gibney says. “She really grounds Paul and is a great musician in her own right. You can tell this magic in their relationship.”

In the film, Simon, sporting a flannel shirt and faded red baseball cap, with glasses dangling from his neck, greets Brickell with, “Hey, beautiful.”

She later provides perhaps the most succinct, thoughtful insight into Simon as a man and a musician. “Paul has a way of looking at everyday life and making it poetic,” she says. “But that also makes him misunderstood.”

• Cast & crew

Back to Black

The life and music of Amy Winehouse, through the journey of adolescence to adulthood and the creation of one of the best-selling albums of our time. The life and music of Amy Winehouse, through the journey of adolescence to adulthood and the creation of one of the best-selling albums of our time. The life and music of Amy Winehouse, through the journey of adolescence to adulthood and the creation of one of the best-selling albums of our time.

• Sam Taylor-Johnson
• Matt Greenhalgh
• Marisa Abela
• Eddie Marsan
• Jack O'Connell
• 1 Critic review

• Amy Winehouse

• Mitch Winehouse

• Blake Fielder-Civil

• Cynthia Winehouse

• Janis Winehouse

• Raye Cosbert

• Nick Shymansky

• A & R Manager

• Aunt Melody

• Perfume Paul

• CID Officer

• Uncle Harold

• Island Records Senior Executive

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