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70 Greatest Music Documentaries of All Time

Burning guitars, big suits, meeting the Beatles — the concert films, rockumentaries and artist portraits that stand head and shoulders above the rest

Photo Illustration by @photoeditorjoe. Images used in illustration: Kevin Estrada/MediaPunch/IPx/AP Images; Parkwood Entertainment/NETFLIX; Chris Walter/WireImage; Matt Dunham/AP Images; Val Wilmer/Redferns; David Lee/HBO; Amazing Grace LLC.

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.

From Rolling Stone US

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6

‘The Decline of Western Civilization’ (1981)

Music documentaries tend to focus on the already-famous — why devote two hours to some band you never heard of? — but Penelope Spheeris’ document of the Los Angeles punk scene caught its subjects when they were still on the ground: At one point, X’s Exene Cervenka worries about the backlash that would ensue if they started charging $6 a ticket. (Black Flag’s Ron Reyes proudly shows off the sleeping quarters he paid $16 a month for: a utility closet in a crumbling deconsecrated church.) Although the songs are literally subtitled for the punk-impaired, Decline makes few concessions to delicate sensibilities: the movie dives into the mosh pit and lets you fend for yourself. —S.A.

5

‘Amazing Grace’ (2018)

It only took 46 years to see it, but this legendary concert film chronicling Aretha Franklin’s two-night stand at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church — the same 1972 shows that gave us Franklin’s classic live gospel album — was more than worth the wait. Sydney Pollack’s movie isn’t a document of a performance so much as a visual extension of the ecstasy that the singer, her collaborators and the crowd experienced; no matter how many times you’ve heard her interpretations of “Wholy Holy” or “Never Grow Old,” the sight of Franklin, eyes closed and head bowed, working her way through those numbers feels like a revelation. (Watching the choir jump up and egg Aretha on as she testifies during the title track is capable of reducing an entire theater to nothing but goosebumps and teardrops.) Witness the Queen of Soul do those stellar runs and work the audience, from everyday churchgoers to Mick Jagger, into a divine frenzy, and you’ll feel as if you’ve seen the face of God. —D.F.

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4

‘Stop Making Sense’ (1984)

What was Talking Heads’ strategy for their euphoric, propulsive 1984 concert film? “We didn’t want any of the bullshit,” drummer Chris Frantz told Rolling Stone. “We didn’t want the clichés.” Eschewing pandering audience shots and focusing instead on evocative lighting and imaginative set design, Jonathan Demme captures the band at their creative peak, rolling through songs from their then-latest LP, Speaking in Tongues, while brilliantly reimagining old favorites like “Once in a Lifetime” and a solo-David-Byrne-with-boom-box version of “Psycho Killer.” It’s 88 minutes of endless up — a joyous marriage of New Wave, funk and Byrne’s inspired, demented stagecraft. —T.G.

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3

‘Gimme Shelter’ (1970)

The beauty of the Rolling Stones came from their hedonistic embrace of rock’s sex-and-danger ethos. The horror of this documentary comes from its clear-eyed view of the band’s kinetic live power, which could be both hypnotic and terrifying in its intensity. Gimme Shelter is best remembered for its chilling finale — the death of concertgoer Meredith Hunter at the Stones’ free 1969 show at Altamont — but throughout, directors Albert Maysles, David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin craft a spellbinding sense of the band’s dark energy, which suggested liberation and nihilism. And Mick Jagger’s final reaction shot is haunting. —T.G.

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2

‘The Last Waltz’ (1978)

When the Band decided to hang it up with one last show in San Francisco on Thanksgiving Day 1976, they threw a wake rather than a funeral. Directed by Martin Scorsese right before he dove into Raging Bull, this concert film is, first and foremost, a celebration of the American-Canadian quintet who helped bring our nation’s musical past into the present. But it’s also a salute to their inspirations and peers, with performances from Neil Young and Muddy Waters intercut with interviews of individual Band members reminiscing about the sights they’ve seen and the lessons learned. Sure, The Last Waltz is nostalgic, but the richness of the music and the overpoweringly elegiac tone give the film a timelessness that’s transporting. Even Neil Diamond kills. —T.G.

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1

‘Don’t Look Back’ (1967)

Even if you’ve never seen Don’t Look Back, you know it by heart. The “Subterranean Homesick Blues” opener — nicked by everyone from INXS to Bob Roberts — is the most obvious cultural reference point, but in a larger sense this documentary of Bob Dylan’s 1965 U.K. tour is the permanent blueprint for the public’s image of mid-Sixties rock & roll. The glories and agonies of the road, the exuberance of a quicksilver new talent setting the world on fire, the clueless journalists: Director D.A. Pennebaker’s handheld camera captured it all. In the process, he made Dylan an icon, galvanized a generation and helped transform a singular moment in the evolution of “youth music” into riveting, indelible drama. —T.G.