Music
25 music documentaries you should watch right now
Learn as you listen with these essential deep dives into music culture and history.
You don't need to know the full context to a classic record to fall in love with it – but as any music geek will tell you, a bit of backstory certainly helps. That's why we've compiled a list of some of the finest music documentaries of the last few decades – from longform pieces shedding light on the defining artists, groups and labels of our time to fly-on-the-wall pieces capturing freaks, outsiders and wanabees clinging onto the rock'n'roll dream.
What Happened, Miss Simone? (2015)
Awards: Emmy for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special
Length: 101 minutes
Watch on: Netflix
Why it’s important: Nina Simone was a revolutionary. She was one of the most gifted singers, pianists and songwriters seen for a generation, a powerful performer and fervent civil rights activist both on and off the stage. But among her soaring successes were personal struggles: years of abuse, mental health problems and the oppression she fought against as a black woman in 20th century America. What Happened, Miss Simone? goes behind her peerless music and attempts to answer that very question, tracing the life and legacy of the remarkable ‘High Priestess of Soul’.
It’s a fairly conventional documentary by style; talking head interviews with those close to her are woven into rare archival footage and diary entries by Simone herself. But it’s the brilliance of her music that lifts the film to higher planes. Half a decade later and the power of her voice is as compelling as ever.
Anvil! The Story Of Anvil (2008)
Awards: Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary; Evening Standard British Film Award for Best Documentary
Length: 90 minutes
Watch on: Amazon Prime
Why it’s important: So there was a real Spinal Tap. They weren’t British. They were Canadian. And at one point in the mid-1980s, they provided the runway for future metal mega stars Metallica, Anthrax and Slayer. The Story of Anvil catches up with the band 30 years after that prime, which lasted only a couple of years and led nowhere. They are back in their hometown, Toronto, where their emotional lead singer, known as Lips, now 50, delivers school lunches and fruit for a catering company.
But Anvil are still at it. They are seen playing in teeny tiny clubs around the city. The band tries several different strategies to kickstart their careers, from a budget tour across Europe, organized by an Eastern European woman who solicited them through the Internet to borrowing money from a relative to record their 13th album, ‘This Is Thirteen,’ in England to cold-calling record executives. Much of what keeps the band going is the drive of its frontman Lips, and the friendship between him and his drummer Robb Reiner, which provides the emotional heart of the film.
Everybody In The Place: An Incomplete History Of Britain 1984-1992 (2019)
Length: 60 minutes
Watch on: BBC iPlayer
Why it’s important: Trust Jeremy Deller to flip the documentary on its head. The Turner Prize-winning artist schools us, the viewer, on how acid house and rave took hold in the UK – and he does this by sitting us down with an A-level politics class, alongside whom we learn how this explosive rave culture is situated at the centre of a wider history of social change.
The film shifts between fascinating rare archival footage and Deller presenting to the classroom, where he has students messing around with Roland gear and reading quotes by Derrick May, Juan Atkins, even Karl Marx. It travels from Detroit to the clubs, warehouses, and other rave spaces across the UK, around the M25, into protest movements, and the social panics that ensued in the 1980s. Even if you consider yourself pretty clued up on the emergence of rave in Britain, Deller gently presents this incomplete history in new ways.
A Life In Waves (2017)
Length: 74 minutes
Watch on: YouTube Movies
Why it’s important: If you’ve not heard the name Suzanne Ciani before, you’ve almost certainly heard her work. A Life In Waves takes an essential look into the life and legacy of an early synth pioneer who took both electronic music and the advertising world by storm. We follow Ciani as she looks back on her 50-year-long career – from first falling in love with the Buchla synthesisers at college, to her five-time Grammy-nominated, worldwide touring present day – and explores just how many different paths she blazed down along the way. Hollywood soundtracks? The Coca Cola ‘pop and pour’ sound effect? Five Grammy nominations for Best New Age Album? She did it all. Though A Life In Waves sometimes gets lost among these various strands of her career, it is a warming, enriching tribute to a woman who was completely ahead of her time.
Blue Note Records: Beyond The Notes (2018)
Length: 85 minutes
Watch on: iTunes
Why it’s important: Digesting 80 years of one of the most prolific jazz labels into a feature length film is no mean feat, but Sophie Huber makes a sublime attempt. Blue Note Records: Beyond the Notes traces the long legacy of the New York-born imprint with a mightily impressive roster of names: Thelonious Monk, Art Blakey, Miles Davis, Lee Morgan and Herbie Hancock to name a few.
It is a compact and thorough journey into the many evolutions of Blue Note – from its conception in 1939 by two German Jewish refugees, Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff, to the label’s impact on hip-hop as told by A Tribe Called Quest’s Ali Shaheed Muhammad, right through to its enduring legacy felt in the present day. Through a rich patchwork of vintage footage and interviews captured across the ages, Huber explores the label’s philosophy and values through a particularly intimate lens. An essential watch for any jazz fan.
Beats, Rhymes and Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest (2011)
Length: 97 minutes
Why it's important: This isn’t a stuffy documentary. Director (and actor) Michael Rapaport isn’t interested in making acute critical realizations of one of the most celebrated hip-hop groups of all time. He’s just a fan of A Tribe Called Quest, and is eager to tell their story. It’s lively, honest, and full of good music – tracing the history of Tribe from humble Queens to the cornerstones of Rap 101. There are cameos by Pete Rock, Busta Rhymes, Dennis Miller, Talib Kweli, De La Soul, Common, Too $hort, The Roots, Beastie Boys, Mos Def, Ludacris, and more.
It also lets us know definitively that there probably won’t be another Tribe album. Too much drama, too much controversy, and too much time divides Phife and Q-Tip. Reunion tours only go so far. In fact, only a few months ago, Tribe announced their opening set for Kanye West would be their “ last show ever.” This is the real, unedited history. Beats, rhymes, and a whole lot of life.
Avicii: True Stories (2017)
Length: 97 minutes
Watch on: BBC iPlayer
Why it’s important: Avicii was one of the biggest artists of a generation, a spearhead of supersized EDM tracks who toured the world over and over. But behind the scenes, the Swedish producer, real name Tim Bergling, was suffering acutely from the stress of touring, addiction and the impact this was all having on his mental and physical health. Through intimate fly-on-the-wall footage and family archive, Avicii: True Stories sees director Levan Tsikurishvili follow the superstar DJ over a period of four years, spanning his earliest gigs, to chart domination, to his final show in 2016.
Avicii’s tragic death in April 2018 makes it an even tougher watch. Having formed a close relationship with Tsikurishvili, the film shows Avicii being unflinchingly honest about life on tour: at one point, he says starkly, “It will kill me.” With musicians like Wyclef Jean and Nile Rogers championing his unrivalled talent throughout, True Stories is a touching portrayal of a humble production prodigy gone too soon.
The Devil And Daniel Johnston (2005)
Awards: Sundance Film Festival's Documentary Directing Award
Length: 110 minutes
Watch it on: iTunes
Why it's important: Daniel Johnston was a known schizophrenic, manic depressive, who, according to legend, once ripped the keys out of a plane that he and his father were piloting. He’s someone who simply can’t look after himself, but he’s also responsible for some brilliant music, and some brilliant art. So there’s this nurturing quality, and a slight sense of humor to the doc, plus interviews with The Simpsons creator Matt Groening and Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore. And, through all of Johnston’s psychosis, there’s a whole world out there unanimously and unflinchingly in love with his artistry. That's reassuring.
Blur Starshaped (1993)
Length: 60 minutes
Watch on: Amazon Prime
Why It’s important: Before the Battle of Britpop, Blur were a wide-eyed band on the road. Their debut album Leisure had taken off in the UK, albeit not in America, and the four-piece were doing the rounds of tours and press as their audience grew bigger. Blur Starshaped captures the curious early years of what became one of Britain’s biggest bands, a scrapbook-style collection of backstage banter, electrifying live performances and life on tour between 1991 and 1993.
You don’t even have to be a Blur fanatic to be fascinated by the whole thing – being a fly on the wall for all the drunken antics and uninhibited chats is entertaining enough. But the live footage of their raw, furious energy onstage taken from scenes at Glastonbury in ’92 and the Heineken Music Festival in ’94, should convert you into one anyway.
DIG! (2004)
Awards: Sundance Film Festival's Documentary Grand Jury Prize
Length: 107 minutes
Watch on: iTunes
Why it's important: It would have been suitable for DIG! to be called EGO! Directed by Ondi Timoner, it follows two decent rock bands, The Brian Jonestown Massacre and The Dandy Warhols, as they try to make it, but don't. This never stops them from posing like Rock Gods, and stroking the self-created myths of their own genius, and being utterly flabbergasted when nobody else seems to care about their decent music. This is what rock music, or at least one version of it, is all about: pretending.
Whether you're an aspiring musician or just an aspiring human, there is a nice message here: be humble. There are tons of laughs, too, like when BJM frontman (and genius!) Anton Newcombe starts a fight with his bandmate, onstage, while a label rep is supposedly in the building to scout the band, and then he brags about how his bandmate's blood is all over him, and he complains about how, in the kerfuffle, his sitar was broken. Poor genius. This is our music, this is our tragedy.
Don't Look Back (1967)
Length: 96 minutes
Watch on: iTunes
Why it's important: Directed by D.A. Pennebaker, this doc follows Bob Dylan on his 1965 tour of the United Kingdom. It opens with his now-famous Subterranean Homesick Blues video, and it shows early clips of Dylan's manic fans and his bizarre, toying relationship with them and the press.
Folk singer Joan Baez, then Dylan's one true love, was by his side throughout, and there are also appearances by John Mayall, Ginger Baker and Allen Ginsberg. The best cameo, however, is by Donovan. Dylan encounters the then-also-emerging-folkie at a hotel party, and they square off for one of the most brutal pass-the-acoustic, song-for-song battles ever. Dylan, of course, wins. And it wonderfully captures one of the most aggressive, menacing, magical moments of his life.
ReMastered: The Two Killings of Sam Cooke (2019)
Length: 74 minutes
Watch on: Netflix
Why it’s important: Hailed the father of modern soul music, Sam Cooke came up through gospel choirs to push new R&B and pop-inflected sounds to the masses with wildly popular tracks like You Send Me, Chain Gang and What A Wonderful World. He was also a leading civil rights activist, courageously pushing back against inequality within the music industry and society at large. Then, in 1964, he was shot dead in an LA hotel at the age of 33.
Netflix’s ReMastered: The Two Killings of Sam Cooke leaps off from the mysteries surrounding his death, but finds its stride as an exploration of the starry-eyed rise of its boundary-breaking subject. Footage of Cooke is sewn together with interviews of other ‘60s stars who knew him – Smokey Robinson, Dionne Warwick, Quincy Jones included – who colour in details of his life and the experiences of artist-activists in the time. It’ll draw you deep into mid-century America via the songs and story of one of the decade’s brightest stars.
Bros: After the Screaming Stops (2018)
Length: 98 minutes
Watch on: YouTube
Why it’s important: Twin brothers Matt and Luke Goss were two-thirds of Bros, the English boy band who took the late ‘80s by storm with their smash hit single, When Will I Be Famous. But who knew, over three decades later, they’d still be two captivating documentary subjects. Bros: After the Screaming Stops finds them aged 50-something, living in different US states, and follows them as they make their way back to England for a comeback show at London’s O2 Arena. Or, as it is otherwise known, “the biggest reunion in pop history.”
The result is an unwittingly gripping and, at many points, wincingly funny film that brings together two estranged brothers still grappling with the aftermath of stardom. It’s an instant hit: touching moments are offset by on-screen rows and the most meme-able of quotes delivered deadpan and sincerely – “Rome wasn’t built in a day … but we don’t have the time that Rome had,” being one favourite. The producers had really struck gold with the Goss twins. Watch it to understand why it’s been crowned ‘the real Spinal Tap.’
Gimme Shelter (1970)
Length: 91 minutes
Watch on: Amazon Prime, YouTube Movies
Why it’s important: Let’s start with these: A member of the audience is stabbed to death. Jefferson Airplane’s frontman gets knocked out by a Hell’s Angel. Mick Jagger gets punched in the face by a fan. Young Tina Turner. George Lucas shot some of the footage.
Gimme Shelter, which was directed by Albert and David Maysles, and Charlotte Zwerin, contains plenty of performances from two shows: one at Madison Square Garden and the Altamont Free Concert in Northern California. It’s the latter show that provides the drama and action behind the film, and in many ways, Gimme Shelter plays out like a thriller, with the ugly aftermath presented very early, and the rest of the film playing out in flashback.
The second half of Gimme Shelter focuses almost entirely on the Altamont show, where security was provided by the Hell’s Angels. There have probably been thousands of worse decisions made in rock‘n’roll history, but very few of them were captured on film.
Poo Bear: Afraid Of Forever (2017)
Length: 58 minutes
Watch on: Red Bull TV, YouTube
Why it's important: Jason "Poo Bear" Boyd is the man responsible for some of pop music’s biggest hits. In 2017, Boyd has a big challenge ahead of him as he fights to stay relevant while navigating an ever-changing music industry that is devoid of mercy.
The documentary takes us through Poo Bear's musical trajectory, from homelessness to hit-making. Featuring anecdotes and interviews from collaborators along the ranks of Robin Thicke, Scott Storch and DJ Skee, Afraid of Forever is a never-before-seen look at the people who write the hit songs that the world’s biggest artists perform.
58 min
Poo Bear: afraid of forever
From homeless to hit-maker, Poo Bear is the man behind some of pop music’s biggest smash hits.
Daft Punk Unchained (2015)
Length: 85 minutes
Watch on: Netflix
Why it’s important: With few interviews or public appearances to clinch onto, Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo have kept themselves under a sort of shroud of mystery. But the retro-futurist world they’ve built as Daft Punk remains like nothing else in electronic music. Daft Punk Unchained goes behind the masks of everybody’s favourite robots and the unprecedented rise of a pop culture phenomenon. Spanning their 30-year-long career, it excavates archive material, music videos, TV appearances and interview footage from close collaborators like Giorgio Moroder and Nile Rogers to build a rich tapestry of their influences and impact. No one sounds, looks or operates on the same level as this masked duo do.
The Last Waltz (1978)
Length: 117 minutes
Watch it on: YouTube Movies
Why it’s important: Because it’s a concert film directed by Martin Scorsese on the final performance by The Band, a roots rock group that started life as Bob Dylan’s backing band but then struck out on their own and became one of the most influential bands of the 1970s. The Last Waltz captures their break-up concert, held on November 25, 1976 at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco.
During the concert, The Band, anchored by Robbie Robertson in all of his suave, guitar virtuoso glory and a grizzled Levon Helm, who actually gives a solid impression of a large rock behind his drums, are joined on stage by a litany of legends, including Van Morrison, Joni Mitchell, Muddy Waters, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Ringo Starr, Neil Diamond, Eric Clapton and – and shall I go on?
There are interviews (with mostly Robertson), and the Winterland performances are edited with studio performances (ie, for The Weight, which was accompanied by the Staples Singers). But otherwise, Scorsese lets the music do the heavy lifting, and by the time you’re done, you’ll be on YouTube, watching every Levon Helm song you can find.
Amy (2015)
Length: 128 minutes
Watch it on: iTunes
Why It's important: Amy Winehouse was arguably one of the most important R&B/jazz vocalists of our time. Directed by Asif Kapadia, the film reveals the artist's rise to fame and subsequent struggle with mental illness and substance abuse before her death.
Over the span of her career, the singer/songwriter is responsible for numerous hits including Rehab and Valerie. A celebration of both her life and musical creativity, the film offers archival footage and personal testimonials that present an intimate portrait of the life.
Scott Walker: 30 Century Man (2006)
Length: 95 minutes
Watch it on: Amazon Prime
Why it's important: For the uninitiated, Scott Walker was a template trad-pop singer in the early-1960s. His career was destined for minor celebrity and the occasional Vegas gig for the rest of his life. Until 1967, when he went crazy. Well, not crazy – but he totally reshaped his career, and put out a series of some of the most unconventional, ubiquitous art-pop albums the world would ever hear. He worked until his death in 2019, releasing increasingly ambitious and unusual albums like 2012's Bish Bosch and 2014's mighty Soused, a collaboration with the avant-garde metal group Sunn0))).
30 Century Man captures a rare interview with Walker, where he talks about his work, his inspirations, and his bizarre creative process. It takes the ersatz anonymity away from him, and lets him speak from a place of down-to-earth passion. It’s always wonderful when we get to hear who our heroes really are. Plus, there's an all-star cast of talking heads, including David Bowie, Brian Eno, Jarvis Cocker, and members of Radiohead.
Some Kind of Monster (2004)
Awards: Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary
Length: 141 minutes
Why it's important: Metallica's first five albums – Kill 'Em All, Ride The Lightning, Master Of Puppets, ...And Justice For All, and Metallica – were the soundtrack of many people's pre-teen years. To me, these guys were invincible, immortal, immovable, irreverent. So cool and so bad-ass. But nothing lasts forever, and there is something transcendentally beautiful about watching your idols fall from such great heights, and this is what's so great about Some Kind of Monster.
This doc catches up with our metal heroes over a decade after they have made any relevant music (i.e. 1991's Metallica), just as they're working on St. Anger. Bassist Jason Newsted's leaving the band and frontman James Hetfield's checking into rehab. They're old, tired and cranky, and the film follows the metal-grumps as a "performance-enhancing coach," pretty much a therapist, tries to put them back together again because they are broken. Beyond broken? There are petty power struggles and childish fights by grown men, and even an appearance by ex-Metallica, Megadeth founder Dave Mustaine, who's still pretty pissed. It gets ugly, it gets sad, it gets pathetic. But it's real.
20 Feet from Stardom (2013)
Awards: Academy Award for Best Documentary
Length: 91 minutes
Watch on: Netflix
Why it’s important: You could name countless records where backing singers come to the fore, but how many singers could you name yourself? 20 Feet from Stardom puts these women – and in the film, it is mostly women – firmly into the spotlight, telling the trials and tribulations of some of “the most incredible artists you’ve never heard of.”
It’s a feel-good 90-minutes that bursts with the raw talent of artists like Darlene Love, Lisa Fischer, Tata Vega and Judith Hill, all of whom tell their own stories of the hardship, drive and dedication to singing backup. It’s not without its heartbreak; bad luck and prejudice kept many of the musicians in the shadows as they tried to break out into their own solo careers. But with cameos from the likes of Bruce Springsteen and Mick Jagger all paying their dues and providing insights into the dynamic between those with whom they harmonise, it makes for a truly joyful watch.
Style Wars (1983)
Awards: Sundance Film Festival's Grand Jury Documentary Prize
Length: 70 minutes
Watch it: Amazon Prime
Why it’s important: No film since Style Wars has captured the early days of hip-hop culture quite the same way. And no film really needs to because Style Wars did it so well. It effortlessly revealed the relationship between graffiti, rap and breakdancing. While it may be less noticeable these days, the three were heavily intertwined from the beginning. KASE 2, one of the charismatic graffiti writers that director Tony Silver focuses on, raps about his art. B-boys dance to those beats. And the cycle goes round and round.
Style Wars doesn’t feel like an archival film. The cinematography is fresh. The filmmakers provide responsible reporting and one of the best elements of Style Wars is its tremendous access to graffiti artists and breakdancers and the New York government, including interviews with Mayor Ed Koch and head of the MTA Richard Ravitch. And there's music by The Sugarhill Gang, Fearless Four, Grandmaster Flash, Rammellzee, and more.
Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey (1993)
Awards: Sundance Film Festival's Documentary Filmmakers Trophy
Length: 82 minutes
Watch it: DVD
Why it’s important: Hipster infatuation with lost objects – and the Internet – has meant that the theremin is no longer the obscure musical instrument it once was. But it’s still among the oddest -- and comes with an equally odd history. That history is relished and told in Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey.
The theremin was invented by accident (by Leon Theremin, a Russian scientist) and did not catch on. You could say it’s still on the fringe, but the instrument does have its place, and has appealed to a variety of geniuses, ranging from synth pioneer Robert Moog to the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson, who are both interviewed in the film. And any interview with Brian Wilson is always worth the price of admission.
Wattstax (1973)
Length: 98 minutes
Watch it: DVD
Why it's important: On August 20, 1972, a huge music festival called Wattstax was held at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. It was organized by famed Memphis record label Stax to honor the seventh anniversary of the Watts riots. Tickets cost $1, and the performers included The Dramatics, The Staple Singers, The Bar-Kays, Albert King, Little Milton, Luther Ingram, and Isaac Hayes. Some called it the "Black Woodstock."
Directed by Mel Stuart -- the same guy who did Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory -- Wattstax documents the day-long festival through spectacular live concert footage and interviews with musicians, festival-goers, and up-and-coming celebs like comedian Richard Pryor and actor/director Ted Lange. It's a snapshot of a great moment in American history, where excellent music, radical politics and joy were briefly united.
You’re Gonna Miss Me (2005)
Length: 95 minutes
Watch it: Netflix
Why it's important: Roky Erickson’s 13th Floor Elevators were one of the premiere psych bands of the 1960s, before Erickson – who passed away in 2019 – burnt his brain with too much LSD, struggled immensely with schizophrenia, and bounced around a few mental wards in various degrees of competency.
In fact, You’re Gonna Miss Me, the Keven McAlester Roky doc that features interviews with Thurston Moore (who's in pretty much every rock doc there is), Patti Smith, and ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons, opens on Erikson in reclusive squalor, apparently living alone for 10 years. It is an amazing portrait of perhaps the greatest saga in pop music history. The triumph, tragedy, recovery, and second triumph of a great singer who fell through the cracks of society.
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