concert tour films

The 30 greatest concert films of all time, ranked

As taylor swift: the eras tour storms into theaters, we decided to take a look back at the best concert films ever seen on the big screen.

Concert films are suddenly back in the news in a big way, with Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour cranking up headlines and driving huge revenue at the box office, selling over $100 million in advance tickets before its October 13, 2023 premiere. Those are eye-popping numbers for a concert film, a niche traditionally reserved for titles that play only to hardcore fans of a particular act.

The best concert films—and Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour may wind up in this league—play beyond their respective target audiences by capturing the essence of either a specific time or artist. That’s true of the other concert film that’s been creating a lot of buzz this fall: the restored version of Stop Making Sense , the 1984 Jonathan Demme film that’s proven to be the definitive filmed document of Talking Heads. To some extent, the following 30 films all do something similar and they prove that a good concert film can be a transcendent experience, with music and images powerful enough to offer a bridge between bygone eras.

30. Concert For Bangladesh (1972)

The granddaddy of all benefit shows, The Concert For Bangladesh served to raise awareness for refugees from the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971. Alarmed by their plight, George Harrison first recorded a charity single (“Bangla Desh,” released in the summer of ’71), then teamed with his friend Ravi Shankar for a pair of star-studded shows at Madison Square Garden that August. There were problems during the filming, as perhaps should be expected for one of the first large-scale concert films, but seeing Harrison at his solo 1970s prime, performing with a band featuring Leon Russell, Billy Preston, Eric Clapton and Badfinger, makes The Concert For Bangladesh worth seeking out, as does the surprise four-song set by Bob Dylan.

29. Festival Express (2003)

Released over 30 years after the initial footage was shot, Festival Express documents a tour that, by that point, had been largely forgotten: a traveling festival featuring the Grateful Dead, the Band, Janis Joplin, and the Flying Burrito Brothers, who traversed three Canadian cities on a train during the summer of 1970. Director Bob Smeaton intersperses the original footage from director Frank Cvitanovich and cinematographer Peter Biziou with talking heads that tell the story. But the highlights are the candid, sometimes soused, jam sessions between a bunch of kindred spirits. The birth of jam rock can be heard here.

28. U2: Rattle And Hum (1988)

High on the massive breakthrough of The Joshua Tree , U2 wanted to document their journey through the heart of America during the supporting tour for the album in 1987, and decided to record a new album for good measure. That’s a lot to take on at once, so it’s little wonder that as an album and film U2: Rattle And Hum is a mess, but its sprawl is visceral and compelling. At a peak of their powers, U2 sounds mighty onstage, and hearing them navigate the distance between their continental post-punk heritage and American roots-rock is compelling, especially when the group chooses to collaborate with a musical titan like B.B. King on their original “When Love Comes To Town.”

27. Shut Up And Play the Hits (2012)

Long before they transformed into the millennial version of the Who, seizing every opportunity to reunite that came their way, LCD Soundsystem offered an ideal punctuation mark on their career with Shut Up And Play The Hits , a 2012 film preserving the band’s farewell gig at Madison Square Garden in 2011. There is a documentary aspect to the film, including interviews with the band’s leader, James Murphy, but it’s best seen as a document of the moment when LCD Soundsystem seemed invincible, a group who tapped into the empathy and anxieties of a new millennium flush with possibilities.

26. Michael Jackson’s This Is It (2009)

Never intended for public consumption, the footage that comprises Michael Jackson’s This Is It consists of behind-the-scenes film of Michael Jackson preparing for what was planned to be his 2009 comeback tour. Jackson died during these rehearsals, so this is less a concert film than a suggestion of what might’ve been. Turns out, that’s plenty exciting. Jackson may not move with the grace he did at the height of Thriller, but he’s still a magnetic performer and it’s fascinating to watch him at work.

25. David Byrne: American Utopia (2020)

A sequel of sorts to Stop Making Sense , David Byrne: American Utopia is Spike Lee’s document of Byrne’s Broadway show, which itself was an adaptation of the supporting tour for his 2018 album, American Utopia . Designed so the musicians showed no apparent connecting cords to amplifiers—everything was transmitted wirelessly, allowing the performers full freedom of movement on stage— American Utopia is fluid and electric in its flow, a quality Lee captures by staying focused on the intimacy of the performance. Few concert films feel as complete as American Utopia : the thought and craft from stage to screen is evident.

24. Shine A Light (2008)

Shine A Light offers something a bit different from the standard Rolling Stones concert film, of which there are many. Where Gimme Shelter and Let’s Spend The Night Together capture extravaganzas, this Martin Scorsese-directed film documents a performance at the Beacon Theatre in 2006. A smaller venue doesn’t mean there’s not a sense of spectacle. The crowd is filled with famous people, as is the stage: Jack White, Buddy Guy, and Christina Aguilera all have guest spots. While Scorsese’s roving camera gives the film a sense of kineticism, what resonates is not the flash but the intimacy. And now that drummer Charlie Watts is gone, it’s poignant to see him drive the Stones through a set as no-nonsense as this.

23. Leon Russell: A Poem As A Naked Person (1974; 2015)

Completed in 1974 and largely unseen until 2015, when it received a release after the death of its director, Les Blank, A Poem Is A Naked Person documents roots music maverick Leon Russell at his peak. Filmed between 1972 and 1974, Blank’s movie captures Russell just as he eased from the wings into the spotlight, thanks to the hit single “Tight Rope.” Blank surrounds Russell with freewheeling footage of Oklahoma and its residents, but the concert footage and live-in-the-studio performances are astonishing, preserving the power of Russell’s careening worldview in a way his records do not.

22. Dave Chappelle’s Block Party (2005)

A vivid portrait of another time and place, Dave Chappelle’s Block Party captures a concert Dave Chappelle threw in Brooklyn’s Clinton Hill neighborhood on September 18, 2004. At the time, the comedian was riding high on the success of his Comedy Central hit Chappelle’s Show, and he chose another hot commodity of the time as his director: Michel Gondry, who was fresh from Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind . In the nearly two decades since the film’s release, their careers have waned, Clinton Hill has changed, and the warm, inclusive R&B and hip-hop of the Roots, Erykah Badu, Mos Def, Jill Scott and a reunited Fugees have fallen out of fashion, but a viewing of Dave Chappelle’s Block Party makes this moment seem as alive as ever.

21. The Grateful Dead Movie (1977)

Designed to preserve the entire carnival surrounding the Grateful Dead in 1974, The Grateful Dead Movie draws from five shows the band held at San Francisco’s Winterland in October 1974. With the Dead planning an extensive hiatus in the mid-1970s, the film was intended to satiate the needs of Deadheads jonesing for a long, strange trip. The immense cost of the film, especially its opening animated sequence, forced the group to return to the road in 1976, a year before The Grateful Dead Movie ’s release. By that point, the group had changed so much—drummer Mickey Hart had returned to the fold, the overwhelming “Wall of Sound” PA system had been replaced—that the film already seemed like a tantalizing artifact from another time, which is how it plays today: a suitably mind-bending voyage back to one of the Dead’s weird, wooly peaks.

20. Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars (1983)

Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars captures the moment David Bowie surprised the public and his band by claiming at the end of his July 3, 1973 show at London’s Hammersmith Odeon that this was “the last show we’ll ever do.” Whether director D.A. Pennebaker had knowledge of this proclamation is unclear. There’s some suggestion that Pennebaker’s very presence means Bowie and his label realized this would be a show worth preserving, but the footage has a decidedly DIY spirit that suggests the filmmaker was working on the fly. The result is a gritty, exciting film that seems designed to be shown at midnight movies: it’s simultaneously grand and grimy.

19. Homecoming: A Film By Beyoncé (2019)

Homecoming: A Film By Beyoncé documents Beyonce’s triumphant headlining spot at the 2018 Coachella Festival. Those concerts happened a year later than originally planned: she was slated to perform in 2017, not long after the release of Lemonade , but doctors advised her not to perform until after the birth of her twins that summer. When she appeared in 2018, there was a sense that a pin had been removed from a grenade. What impresses about Beyonce: Homecoming isn’t only the energy, but its sense of personal and public history. She shared the stage with her husband Jay-Z and sister Solange, as well as her former Destiny’s Child bandmates Michelle Williams and Kelly Rowland, their presence conveying the scope of Beyonce’s career. But her emphasis on Black culture and feminism is what gives the film not only its depth but its kinetic power.

18. The Kids Are Alright (1979)

Not quite a concert, not quite a documentary, The Kids Are Alright offers an astonishing array of live performances from the Who, all recorded between 1964 and 1978. A long-time collector of vintage Who footage at a time it was not so easy to amass a library of rare clips, director Jeff Stein assembled a film that demands to be played loud. Opening with a clip of the Who destroying the set at the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, the film swiftly ping-pongs between eras, offering the last live (in the studio) film of original drummer Keith Moon, along with such classic Who moments as their spot at Woodstock and their mini-rock opera “A Quick One, While He’s Away,” delivered during The Rolling Stones Rock And Roll Circus, a performance so good that the Stones pulled the plug on their own project so they wouldn’t be upstaged by their guests. Taken in total, it’s a glorious testament to the Who’s sheer power.

17. Awesome: I Fuckin’ Shot That (2006)

Shot at Madison Square Garden in the middle of the Beastie Boys’ supporting tour for 2004’s To the 5 Boroughs , Awesome: I Fuckin’ Shot That is comprised of footage entirely shot by audience members. Fifty attendees were given a camcorder and instructions to shoot the entire show, then director Adam Yauch—operating under his nom de plume Nathaniel Hornblower; in the film, the character is personified by David Cross—stitched together the clips into an unusually exciting concert film. Where most concert films rightly showcase the performer on stage, this replicates the feeling of being part of the crowd.

16. The Song Remains The Same (1976)

A staple of midnight movies and late-night viewing for decades, The Song Remains The Same is anchored by footage shot during Led Zeppelin’s three-night residency at Madison Square Garden in 1973. While the flights of fantasy sequences surrounding the basic concert footage can be absurd, the live performances—including a handful re-created in the studio—go a long way in preserving the might and majesty of Zeppelin at the peak of their powers.

15. Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story By Martin Scorsese (2019)

Using outtakes from Bob Dylan’s four-hour film Renaldo And Clara along with the film itself, Martin Scorsese conjured the mischievous Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story out of a mess of live footage, play acting, and documentary footage. Scorsese extended Dylan’s impish humor with a series of new interviews, and while these jokes and japes are amusing what astounds is the full roar of the careening Rolling Thunder Revue , an ungainly outfit that barely could be contained on stage and seems even wilder on film.

14. Summer Of Soul (2021)

The Summer Of Soul refers to the six Sundays of arts and culture that comprised the Harlem Cultural Festival, held at Mount Morris Park between June and August 1969. Television producer Hal Tulchin filmed hours of footage of the event but after an initial airing in 1969, the recordings sat unseen until a team of producers approached Questlove with the idea of turning it into a colorful celebration of a point in time when pop singers the 5th Dimension, funk pioneers Sly & the Family Stone, blues guitarist B.B. King, rockers the Chambers Brothers, uptown soul singers Gladys Knight & the Pips, and jazz musicians Max Roach and Nina Simone converged to illustrate the depth and range of Black culture at the end of the 1960s.

13. Pink Floyd: Live At Pompeii (1972)

Director Adrian Maben approached Pink Floyd with a distinct idea: he wanted to make a film that concentrated entirely on the band, not their interaction with the crowd. After some brainstorming, Floyd and Maben decided to stage a concert at an ancient Roman amphitheater in Pompeii, a setting that proved to be an ideal showcase for the spacey, searching material from Meddle , the newest record from the group that October 1971. Supplementing the Pompeii footage with live studio performances, stock film, and visual art, Maben wound up conveying the mind-altering aspects of Floyd’s music while also capturing the band’s peculiar chemistry.

12. Chuck Berry: Hail Hail Rock ‘N’ Roll (1987)

Chuck Berry’s 60th birthday was no small affair. Stars descended into St. Louis to play a pair of tribute concerts at the Fox Theatre, with a band led by Keith Richards and featuring pianist Johnnie Johnson, who played on most of Chuck’s original hits for Chess. Taylor Hackford’s Hail Hail Rock ‘N’ Roll contains not only highlights from the concerts but interviews with Berry, his peers, and acolytes, plus rehearsals where the tension between Chuck and Keith is evident. All this footage hints at the complexities of Berry’s personality while the film itself is a showcase for his consummate skills as a showman.

11. Elvis: That’s The Way It Is (1970)

Elvis Presley made his return to live performances late in 1969 with a series of concerts at the International Hotel in Las Vegas. Those went so well that Presley’s camp decided not only to extend his run at the International Hotel but to take it on the road, documenting the whole shebang as a feature film. The resulting Elvis: That’s the Way It Is shows that the jumpsuited Presley was hardly a joke at the dawn of the 1970s: he was a fiery, charismatic performer who clearly thrived being in front of a crowd after a long, long time away from a stage.

10. Madonna: Truth Or Dare (1991)

A document of Madonna at the absolute zenith of her popularity, Madonna: Truth Or Dare combines footage shot by director Alek Keshishian during the 1990 Blond Ambition World Tour. Initially conceived as a strict concert film, Keshishian expanded the scope to capture the madness backstage, including memorable cameos from Kevin Costner and Warren Beatty. Those sequences, all shot in black and white, crackle with barbed humor, but the color concert footage also dazzles: the staging is inventive and the performances are passionate.

9. Wattstax (1973)

Stax Records held their Wattstax festival at the Los Angeles Coliseum on August 20, 1972, pegging the event to the 30th birthday of their biggest star, Isaac Hayes, while also nodding to the seventh anniversary of the Watts Riots. Later dubbed the “Black Woodstock,” Wattstax wasn’t quite as freewheeling as the three-day blast at Bethel, New York, but it nevertheless was a triumphant expression of Black Power, made all the more impressive by the fact that it showcased the roster of one particular record. Stax had gospel, jazz, blues, harmony soul groups, funk and, in Isaac Hayes, a figure that tied all those strands together. Seeing all this diversity in one film remains stunning.

8. Gimme Shelter (1970)

Intended as a triumphant event to close the Rolling Stones’ 1969 American tour, the Altamont Free Concert turned into a historical disaster culminating with the death of concertgoer Meredith Hunter at the hands of Hell’s Angels. Gimme Shelter —a film directed by Albert and David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin—captures the acute bad vibes of the show, a sense of menace that permeates the Stones’ set, culminating in the attack on Hunter during “Under My Thumb.” Watching Gimme Shelter build to this moment, it becomes evident that the movie is why the sentiment that Altamont represented the end of the 1960s became an axiom: it conveys a sense of apocalyptic finality.

7. Amazing Grace (2018)

It was an event for Aretha Franklin to return to gospel music in 1972, so it’s little wonder that she intended to accompany the release of her double-live-album Amazing Grace with a film documenting its recording. As initially directed by Sydney Pollack, the film never materialized due to technical issues with the audio. It sat in the vault until producer/director Alan Elliott purchased the footage in 2007. He finally brought it to the silver screen 11 years later, after Franklin’s estate agreed to have the film receive a public release. At that point, the power of Amazing Grace quickly became one of the great concert films, a document of one of the finest gospel and soul singers of the 20th Century at full flight.

6. Monterey Pop (1968)

The Monterey International Pop Festival was essentially ground zero for the modern rock festival, the event that invented the idea of an eclectic, multi-day festival that wasn’t constricted by genre. Thanks to ABC’s intention to air highlights as part of its Movie of the Week series, director D.A. Pennebaker was there to chronicle the commotion onstage. When ABC pulled the plug, Pennebaker shaped it into a film titled Monterey Pop featuring the Who, Simon & Garfunkel, Jefferson Airplane, Otis Redding, the Mamas & the Papas, and the Jimi Hendrix Experience, turning it into a definitive document about the emerging American counter-culture at the time.

5. The T.A.M.I. Show (1964)

There had been plenty of cheapo rock and roll movies in the 1960s but The T.A.M.I. Show exists at an entirely different level than other early concert films. Shot over two days at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in late October 1964, The T.A.M.I. Show captures the rise of both Motown and the British Invasion—Marvin Gaye, the Supremes and the Rolling Stones are all on the bill—while also making space for acts like Lesley Gore, Chuck Berry and the Beach Boys. There’s something captivating about every act, but James Brown’s set is so fiery he seems nearly superhuman.

4. Sign ‘O’ the Times (1987)

Sign ‘O’ The Times might now be considered Prince’s greatest album, but it didn’t necessarily tear up the charts upon its release. Because of this, he decided to send out a concert film shot in Europe in June 1987 as a way to muster up enthusiasm for the project. The gambit didn’t work: the film barely made a dent at the box office. But while it wasn’t a hit at the time, the movie, like the album it accompanies, is now seen as a definitive document of Prince at his prime.

3. Woodstock (1970)

The granddaddy of all concert films, Michael Wadleigh’s 1970 documentary, Woodstock ,   chronicled the 1969 Woodstock festival, playing a little fast and loose with the timeline of the multi-day concert itself. Bands were presented out of order, some acts chose not to be captured on film, and Wadleigh wound up emphasizing Crosby, Stills & Nash, Richie Havens, and Jimi Hendrix, perhaps to the detriment of others on the bill. The historical record was preserved on Rhino’s 38-disc box Back To The Garden , leaving the film to be what it always has been: an expert exercise in myth-making that helped turn a mud-soaked weekend into a legend.

2. The Last Waltz (1978)

Tired of the road, the Band decided to deliver a farewell concert at San Francisco’s Winterland Ballroom on Thanksgiving day in 1976. Initially planned as a simple goodbye by the Band, they quickly had the idea of inviting their mentors Ronnie Hawkins and Bob Dylan and, from there, they decided to deliver a grand parting gesture touching upon every aspect of their music. Close to the concert, leader Robbie Robertson asked director Martin Scorsese to film the show and they wound up with the lavish spectacle The Last Waltz , a film that romanticized the Band’s idiosyncratic interplay while also letting such guests as Dylan, Van Morrison, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young and Muddy Waters shine. It winds up not only as a tribute to the Band but the times they inhabited.

1. Stop Making Sense (1984)

Stop Making Sense is the greatest concert film ever made because director Jonathan Demme focused on one particular concert, never breaking away from Talking Heads onstage. Boasting an extended lineup, including the legendary funk keyboardist Bernie Worrell, Talking Heads take advantage of the extra manpower and large canvas by playing a concert that has a genuine narrative thrust. Opening with David Byrne wandering onstage with a boombox, the concert stage fills out, first with bassist Tina Weymouth, then drummer Chris Frantz, and finally guitarist/keyboardist Jerry Harrison, each additional member helping to flesh out Byrne’s songs. Then the auxiliary musicians are added as the staging grows increasingly ambitious. The proceedings become artier but never lose their intimate passion, a combination that somehow grows more thrilling over the years.

Honorable mentions

While our top 30 list provides a comprehensive look at the finest concert films ever made, there are plenty of other films that landed just outside our ranking. Here then, in no particular order, are 10 more concert films that are well worth exploring.

Neil Young: Heart Of Gold

Ladies And Gentlemen: The Rolling Stones

The Secret Policeman’s Other Ball

Jay-Z: Fade To Black

The White Stripes: Under Great White Northern Lights

Rust Never Sleeps

Katy Perry: Part Of Me

Metallica: Through The Never

Jazz On A Summer’s Day

The 40+ Best Concert Movies

Embarking on an exploration of the best concert films invites audiences to experience the mesmerizing allure of live music at its finest. These cinematic treasures not only present legendary artists in their prime but also reveal the sheer power of music and its ability to unite people across generations. From iconic rock bands to groundbreaking pop sensations, concert films capture the magic, energy, and soul-stirring emotions inherent in every captivating live show.

The pantheon of the best concert films celebrates the marriage of outstanding music and evocative storytelling as lively concerts are brilliantly showcased on film. These films often encapsulate defining moments in music history, capturing artists in rare, transformative performances that are etched into the annals of time. The combination of mesmerizing visuals, exceptional audio quality, and unparalleled on-stage chemistry elevates these films to the level of artistic masterpieces in their own right.

For instance, Stop Making Sense revolutionized the concert film genre with its innovative approach to documenting Talking Heads' unforgettable live act. Directed by the legendary Jonathan Demme, this groundbreaking film masterfully amalgamates music, theatrics, and captivating storytelling. Another iconic example is The Last Waltz , which immortalizes The Band's farewell concert as an unforgettable ode to one of rock 'n' roll's most influential groups. Martin Scorsese's documentary prowess shines through as he weaves together interviews, behind-the-scenes footage, and breathtaking performances to create an unparalleled cinematic experience. Lastly, Monterey Pop epitomizes the spirit of the 1960s counterculture movement, capturing the essence of the iconic Monterey International Pop Music Festival. The film features legendary performances from the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Otis Redding, eternally preserving their influence on the musical landscape. These movies represent just a handful of awe-inspiring concert films that resonate across generations.

The best concert films of all time illuminate the rich tapestry of live music performances, ensuring these remarkable moments continue to resonate across ages and cultures. As both visual and auditory feasts, these movies transport audiences to unforgettable moments in music history, encapsulating the raw emotions and sheer talent of the artists who graced the stage. This extraordinary collection of concert films is sure to captivate music enthusiasts and cinephiles alike, leaving them with a profound appreciation for the artistry and dedication that goes into creating these remarkable live experiences.

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Beyoncé’s ‘Renaissance’ Cracks Top 5 on List of Top Music Concert Films of All Time: Here’s the Top 10

Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour leads the list.

By Paul Grein

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Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé grossed $1.9 million in its third weekend in U.S. theaters, according to boxofficemojo.com , bringing its total to $30.8 million. That makes it one of the top five grossing concert films in history.

It is far behind the all-time leader, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour , which grossed $179.2 million in a nine-week run following its release in October. Swift’s film is No. 11 among all films for 2023. Beyoncé’s film is No. 60. That isn’t meant to take the shine off Bey’s film, it just goes to show what a phenomenon Swift’s film was. ( Beyoncé and Taylor Swift attended each other’s premieres, a show of mutual respect and support that was heartening to see.)

Beyoncé’s film ranked No. 1 at the weekly boxoffice two weeks ago, becoming the fourth concert film to achieve that feat. Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert and Michael Jackson’s This Is It  each logged one week on top of the domestic boxoffice. Swift’s film became the first concert film to top the domestic box office for two weeks. 

Beyoncé wrote, directed and produced Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé , which chronicles the development and execution of the Renaissance World Tour, Beyoncé’s 2023 stadium tour in support of her Grammy-winning album  Renaissance  (2022).

In a piece highlighting the seven best moments of Beyoncé’s film, Billboard ’s Kyle Denis noted: “The film provides a rare peek into Beyoncé’s behind-the-scenes process, namely how she runs her ship as the Mother of the House of Renaissance. Over nearly three hours, the documentary treats fans to pristine footage of several nights of the superstar’s record-breaking Renaissance World Tour. Seamless edits showcase the endless variety of haute couture costumes the ‘Break My Soul’ singer flaunted across her 56 sold-out shows, and intimate black-and-white scenes present the Beyoncé her family sees off stage.”

Here are the 10 highest-grossing music concert films, according to boxofficemojo.com. This list counts only domestic box-office receipts, which explains the absence of previous Swift projects such as the Netflix documentary  Miss Americana  (2020).

Note: Boxofficemojo.com’s list of top-grossing contemporary music concert films doesn’t include Renaissance , which is more of documentary than Swift’s film, which is a straight concert film. But since Renaissance is based on a concert, and since other films in their top 10 also include documentary material, we’re counting it.

Glee: The 3D Concert Movie

Release Date: Aug. 12, 2011

Domestic Gross: $11.9 million

Director: Kevin Tancharoen

Running Time: 1:24

Notes: This concert doc was shot during the Glee Live! In Concert! Tour stop in East Rutherford, N.J. Would fans pay to see Lea Michele, Chris Colfer, Cory Monteith, Dianna Agron and other Glee favorites when they could see them for free every week on TV? More than a few did. In addition to behind-the-scenes footage, the film portrays the series’ influence on teenagers, including a gay kid, one with Asperger syndrome and a cheerleader of short stature. The fan segments were created by documentary filmmaker Jennifer Arnold.

The accompanying soundtrack album, Glee: The 3D Concert Movie , didn’t do that well. It reached No. 16 on the Billboard 200, becoming the first Glee title to fall short of the top 10 on that chart .

Madonna: Truth or Dare

Release Date: May 10, 1991

Domestic Gross: $15 million

Director: Alek Keshishian

Running Time: 2:00

Notes:   The doc followed Madonna on her Blond Ambition world tour of 1990. The movie’s tag line: “The ultimate dare is to tell the truth.” Madonna: Truth or Dare  was known as  In Bed With Madonna  internationally. The film was initially intended to be a traditional concert film, but director Keshishian was so impressed with Madonna’s backstage life that he persuaded the star to make it the focus of the film. The film was edited to be in black-and-white, in order to emulate cinéma vérité, while the performance scenes are in color.

Madonna was nominated for a Razzie Award for worst actress for this film. The Razzies deserve a razzie for that really dumb move: This was a great music doc.

Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience

Release Date: Feb. 27, 2009

Domestic Gross: $19. 1 million

Director: Bruce Hendricks

Running Time: 1:16

Notes: Ah, youth. Nick Jonas was just 16 when this film came out. Joe was 19; Kevin was 21. This 3D concert film captured their 2008-09 The Burning Up concert tour. An accompanying album, Music From the 3D Concert Experience , was released three days before the film and entered the Billboard 200 at No. 3.

Katy Perry: Part of Me

Release Date: July 5, 2012

Domestic Gross: $25.3 million

Director: Dan Cutforth, Jane Lipsitz

Running Time: 1:33

Notes: This film followed Perry on her 2011-12 California Dreams world tour. The film was released less than a year after Perry’s Teenage Dream tied Michael Jackson’s Bad record for the most No. 1 singles from an album. (Never fear: He’s coming up on this list.) Part of Me took its title from the title of a then-recent Perry smash, which entered the Hot 100 at No. 1 on March 3, 2012. The film follows Perry through her tour, while providing insight into her relationship with stardom.

One Direction: This Is Us

Release Date: Aug. 30, 2013

Domestic Gross: $28.9 million

Director: Morgan Spurlock

Running Time: 1:32

Notes: This is the highest-grossing contemporary music concert film by a group. 1D released this film in between their albums Take Me Home and Midnight Memories , both of which entered the Billboard 200 at No.  1. Billed as an intimate, all-access look at life on the road for the global pop stars,  This Is Us  contains live concert footage from their Take Me Home Tour stop at London’s O2 Arena, and footage from their lives both pre- and post- X Factor .

Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé

Release Date: Dec. 1, 2023

Domestic Gross: $30.8 million (so far)

Director: Beyoncé

Running time: 2:49

Notes: In his piece listing the seven highlights of Beyoncé’s film, Billboard ’s Kyle Denis notes that the film “is as much about the enigmatic artistic genius as it is about community — the various intersecting communities that crafted the album and tour, enjoyed the music at the concerts, and inspired the throughlines of Black queer liberation that course through Queen Bey’s most recent musical era.”

Beyoncé’s husband, Jay-Z; mother, Ms. Tina Knowles; and three children, Blue Ivy, Rumi and Sir Carter, are featured in the film. There are also cameos from Diana Ross, Megan Thee Stallion, Cardi B, Kendrick Lamar and Tracee Ellis Ross, as well as Bey’s former Destiny’s Child bandmates Kelly Rowland, Michelle Williams, LeToya Luckett and LaTavia Roberson.

The film premiered at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Los Angeles on Nov. 25, before the film’s theatrical release in the U.S. on Dec. 1. 

Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert

Release Date: Feb. 1, 2008

Domestic Gross: $65.3 million

Running Time: 1:14

Notes: Cyrus was just 15 when this film was released, yet it became the highest-grossing contemporary music concert film ever by a female artist. (For the time being.) The film features Miley’s dad Billy Ray Cyrus and special guests Jonas Brothers. An album, Best of Both Worlds Concert , was released the following month (on March 11), and reached No. 3 on the Billboard 200 dated May 3, 2008. The film premiered on Disney Channel on July 26, 2008, reaching 5.9 million viewers.

Michael Jackson’s This Is It

Release Date: Oct. 28, 2009

Domestic Gross: $72.1 million

Director: Kenny Ortega

Running Time: 1:51

Notes: “Like you’ve never seen him before” was the tagline for this film, which was released just four months after Jackson’s shocking death on June 25, 2009. It’s a compilation of interviews, dancer auditions, rehearsals and backstage footage as Jackson prepared for his 50-show run at the 02 Arena in London (which was set to kick off on July 13.) There was a heated debate at the time about whether Jackson, who was famously a perfectionist, would have wanted this rehearsal footage to be released. Here he was, working toward a goal – but he wasn’t there yet. However, many thought seeing the work process here humanized him. Turns out achieving perfection is bloody hard work. A double-disk soundtrack from the film entered the Billboard 200 at No. 1.

Jackson’s nephew, Taj Jackson, makes a strong argument that, since Jackson didn’t get This Is It to the O2 stage, This Is It should be viewed as a documentary, not a concert film. But since Jackson died, this is the closest we will ever get to a concert film from the show he was creating at the time of his death. Anyway, for now, at least, the film is listed in boxofficemojo.com’s list of top concert films.

Justin Bieber: Never Say Never

Release Date: Feb. 11, 2011

Domestic Gross: $73 million

Director: Jon M. Chu

Running time: 1:45

Notes: “Find out what’s possible if you never give up” was the inspiring tagline for this film, which followed the then-16-year-old pop star on his 2010 concert tour. The film, which also featured Boyz II Men, Miley Cyrus and Sean Kingston, is the first (and only) film from MTV Films to receive a G-rating. An EP, Never Say Never: The Remixes , was released three days after the film. It entered the Billboard 200 at No. 1. A sequel,  Justin Bieber’s Believe , was released on Dec. 25, 2013, but it grossed just $6.2 million domestically.

Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour

Release Date: Oct. 13, 2023

Domestic Gross: $179.2 million

Director: Sam Wrench

Notes: Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour  was shot over the course of Swift’s first three shows at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif., where she performed a total of six shows in early August. It was directed by Sam Wrench, who received a Grammy nomination late last year for directing  Billie Eilish Live at the O2 , which was a contender for best music film. He has also worked on projects by BTS, Lizzo, Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber, The Weeknd and Mary J. Blige.

The Eras Tour  film depicts performances of almost all of the songs on the tour’s standard set list. A handful of songs were cut to keep the film’s running time under three hours. The film received critical acclaim for capturing the show’s spectacle and energy. Billboard ’s Katie Atkinson’s main takeaway : “Whether you never attended The Eras Tour or you went dozens of times, you will leave this movie with a new perspective of the career-spanning trek. While front-row fans or the JumboTron cameras might have captured a cute facial expression or dance move here and there, the cameras caught  everything , making it feel like you’re onstage with Swift and crew.” 

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The 20 best concert films to stream right now

Your guide to music gig streaming, from Stop Making Sense to Sign o' the Times.

There's no substitute for seeing live music in person. But, sometimes, fans have to settle for the next best thing: watching shows online. While everyone from classical musicians to punk bands are performing live shows, anyone staying home also has a variety of on-demand gigs to choose from.

Whether you're looking for straight-up concerts, ones with a documentary feel, or something a little artsier, these movies will satisfy even the antsiest fans. All 20 of our picks are available for free on YouTube or at no extra cost on subscription services, so you won't have to shell out anything on top of your existing bills. (Also: Don't forget about free trials!) Best of all, your at-home concert experience won't involve overpriced drinks, long bathroom lines, or the people in front of you blocking your view with their phones.

Beyoncé: Homecoming (2019)

In 2020, following the cancellation of SXSW, the postponement of Coachella was the ultimate sign that the coronavirus would wreak havoc on the concert industry. Thankfully, we still had Beyoncé 's 2018 performance from the festival, as documented in this collaboration with Netflix. A surprisingly in-depth look behind the scenes at Bey's creative process, Homecoming is a stunner that truly upped the bar for all headliners to come.

Watch it on Netflix

Monterey Pop (1968)

Woodstock might get all the glory, but this '67 festival arguably had a bigger impact on music history. Monterey Pop helped introduce the world to Janis Joplin , the Who and their instrument-destroying ways, the show-stopping Otis Redding , and Jimi Hendrix —who burned his guitar onstage while covering "Wild Thing." This 1968 documentary from D.A. Pennebaker captures all of that, plus the Mamas & the Papas, Simon and Garfunkel, and Jefferson Airplane.

Watch it on HBO Max

The Last Waltz (1978)

When the Band decided to call it quits, they enlisted Martin Scorsese to capture their star-studded final concert. Filmed in San Francisco on Thanksgiving 1976, the freewheeling show featured the group's greatest hits, covers, and appearances from Bob Dylan , Eric Clapton , Van Morrison, Joni Mitchell , Muddy Waters, Dr. John, Neil Diamond , and Neil Young , who performed with a glob of cocaine in his nostril so noticeable that Scorsese had to edit it out in post-production.

Watch it on Pluto TV

Radiohead, In Rainbows—From the Basement (2008)

Seven months after the pay-what-you-want release of In Rainbows , Radiohead hit up the Hospital Club, a private London establishment for the arts crowd, to record this 12-song set of album cuts, plus a few tracks from Hail to the Thief and Kid A's "Optimistic." It's icily tight and the studio is just large enough for all of the members to maintain a proper two-meter social distance.

Watch it on YouTube

Stop Making Sense (1984)

Directed by Oscar winner Jonathan Demme ( The Silence of the Lambs ), this film enchants from the moment David Byrne walks out to perform "Psycho Killer" accompanied only by a boombox. One of the best concert movies ever made, Stop Making Sense captures the Talking Heads at their most inventive and energetic—highlighted, of course, by Byrne's wryly enlarged suit.

Justin Timberlake + the Tennessee Kids (2016)

Another Demme film—and the last before his 2017 death—this doc covers the final night of Justin Timberlake 's 20/20 Experience World Tour at Las Vegas' MGM Grand. JT's at the top of his game here, running—and dancing—through a career-spanning set that evokes memories of then-recently deceased Prince , to whom the film is dedicated.

Gimme Shelter (1970)

By now you've probably heard of the Rolling Stones ' infamous Altamont show, during which the Hell's Angels—serving as the event security—killed a man in the crowd. This movie documents the lead-up to it, including footage of the band's recording of "Wild Horses" and "Brown Sugar," as well as the performance and the death. If you're looking for something less somber, try Scorsese's celebratory Shine a Light .

Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese (2019)

With footage culled from Bob Dylan 's 1975 tour—considered to be his greatest string of performances by devotees—this film blends fact and fiction using real-life attendees and completely made-up characters. If the fantastical elements aren't your thing, you can always head to Spotify for two contemporaneous live albums, a Bootleg Series entry, and a sampler from the 1975 Live Recordings 14-disc set.

loudQUIETloud (2006)

This documentary takes you inside the Pixies ' 2004 reunion, which came after frontman Black Francis dissolved the group in 1993—and informed two of the members of his decision via fax. The title comes from the group's habit of starting songs at full blast, going soft for the verse, and roaring back on the chorus, a tactic Kurt Cobain says he stole for "Smells Like Teen Spirit."

Watch it on Tubi

Sign o' the Times (1987)

If you liked the performances in Purple Rain but could do without the film à clef plot, you'll love Sign o' the Times , a concert doc that comes with its own Princely drama. Ever the perfectionist, the Purple One filmed shows from this 1987 tour only to scrap the footage and re-record his act at his Paisley Park studio/home. Also worth streaming: Prince's 2007 Super Bowl halftime medley and his spotlight-stealing shredding of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps."

Watch it on Prime via Freevee

Shut Up and Play the Hits (2012)

Now that LCD Soundsystem has reunited, this doc's title really works. You can skip James Murphy's introspection about their then-farewell show and watch them play Madison Square Garden with all the passion of musicians that think this will be their final gig together.

T.A.M.I. Show (1964)

Depending on the flyer or ad you saw, T.A.M.I. stood for either "Teenage Awards Music International" or "Teen Age Music International." Either way, the 1964 show packed a lineup that would include eight future Rock Hall inductees: James Brown , the Stones, the Beach Boys , Chuck Berry , Marvin Gaye , Smokey Robinson , the Supremes, and Darlene Love. Oh, and the house band was the legendary Wrecking Crew.

The Kids Are Alright (1979)

Released just after drummer Keith Moon's death, this film tells the story of the Who through a greatest hits collection of their live performances and interview footage that inspired This Is Spinal Tap . There are many highlights, including Moon detonating an explosive hidden in his bass drum during a live TV taping and their rendition of "A Quick One (While He's Away)," a six-part mini rock opera.

Dave Chappelle's Block Party (2005)

Filmed before and released after Dave Chappelle abruptly walked away from his Comedy Central show, this Brooklyn-filmed concert features an all-star hip-hop and neo-soul lineup including the Roots , the Fugees , Erykah Badu , Mos Def , Talib Kweli , and Kanye West , way before he'd go down his own mercurial path. More than anything, the loose spirit of the outdoor event makes it a must-watch.

Watch it on Starz

Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1979)

Another concert film from D.A. Pennebaker, this 1973 concert was the last time David Bowie ever appeared as his alter ego, Ziggy Stardust. Though the film has its technical flaws (mainly in the picture quality), it's worth watching if you're a fan of this iteration of the Thin White Duke and all the early hits.

Heima (2006)

As you might expect from Sigur Rós, this film marries their ethereal sounds with stunning visuals of Iceland's landscape. From a massive outdoor show to a small acoustic set at a coffee shop, you get the best of all worlds.

Amazing Grace (2018)

Filmed in 1972 but unreleased until 2018 due to technical and legal issues, these kinetic visuals show the recording of Aretha Franklin 's live gospel album Amazing Grace in a Los Angeles church. You don't have to be a believer to want to get up and move to this one.

Watch it on Hulu

The National: Live at Rock the Garden (2019)

In support of their album I Am Easy to Find , the National traveled to the Twin Cities to headline Rock the Garden, an annual day festival put on by local radio station the Current. The setlist leans heavily on the new stuff but also includes favorites such as "Bloodbuzz Ohio" and "Fake Empire"—and it's always jarringly pleasant to see them performing in the sunshine.

Taylor Swift: Reputation Stadium Tour (2018)

By now you've already watched the powerful Miss Americana , so switch gears and enjoy two hours of Taylor Swift performing live in Texas in 2018. It's the best encapsulation of her shows—with all the jubilation, glitz, and crying fans—to date.

Fleetwood Mac: The Dance (1997)

One of the happiest times in Fleetwood Mac 's turbulent history, The Dance saw the Rumours -era lineup reunite for an MTV special that featured mostly the hits and a few new tracks from each of the five members. The set kicks off with "The Chain" and closes out with the 1-2 combo of "Tusk" and "Don't Stop," with the USC marching band adding their firepower to the quintet's reinvigorated punch.

Related content:

• David Byrne's American Utopia cast reflects on their Broadway return: 'It's been wonderful to be back'
• Watch Metallica's shredding tribute to Eddie from Stranger Things during Lollapalooza set

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The 20 greatest concert films – ranked!

As Taylor Swift’s Eras tour reaches cinemas, with Beyoncé’s Renaissance following soon, we pick the films that best converted the live experience to the screen

20. A One Man Show (1982)

The only commercial release of A One Man Show is a wasted opportunity, padding out six live tracks with four (admittedly fantastic) Grace Jones videos. But the live stuff is so fantastic – dramatically lit, beautifully staged, Jones snarling and imperious – it’s unmissable: it’s time someone released the whole gig.

19. Minor Threat Live at 9:30 Club (1983)

It’s shot on video cameras towards the end of Minor Threat’s career, but no other film captures US hardcore punk’s potency this well. Minor Threat don’t play like a band about to break up, and situating a camera behind the drums is an inspired idea, revealing the audience: a stage-diving, slam-dancing maelstrom of arms and legs.

18. Jay-Z: Fade to Black (2004)

Hip-hop concert movies are surprisingly thin on the ground, which means it’s worth overlooking Fade to Black’s premise – heralding a retirement that never happened – and luxuriating in the footage from Madison Square Garden, complete with guests including Kanye West, Missy Elliott, Mary J Blige and Beyoncé.

17. Mad Dogs & Englishmen (1971)

Mad Dogs & Englishmen is now a fantastic period piece, documenting a vast, overblown musical travelling circus touring the US on the morning after the 60s. There’s a bludgeoning intensity about the music, Joe Cocker remains a bizarre, compelling presence, but the scene-stealer is the charismatic, if faintly unsettling keyboard player, Leon Russell.

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

A fascinating attempt to re-frame the concert movie: 50 fans at a Beastie Boys’ Madison Square Garden show were handed camcorders and told to film the entire show. Edited together, the lo-fi results are occasionally headache-inducing, but few films so accurately replicate the experience of actually being in the audience at a gig.

15. Don’t Think (2012)

Adam Smith’s astonishing film of a Chemical Brothers set at Japan’s Fuji Rock mixes colour-saturated visual bombardment with audience members wandering off for food midway through the performance. It genuinely feels like being at a festival in an altered state: moreover, it captures the lost-in-the-moment transcendence central to dance music.

14. Elvis: That’s The Way It Is (1970)

Without wishing to pick nits, it’s the 2001 cut of That’s The Way It Is you need to see – more performance and fewer fans rhapsodising, thus more compelling evidence that, initially, Elvis in Vegas represented a career highlight: on stage he’s spontaneous, emotionally powerful and still carries a distinct sexual energy.

13. Sign O’ the Times (1987)

Prince diehards may favour the rarely screened film of Prince’s 1986 Parade tour – which features the Revolution and mercifully eschews Sign O’ the Times’ scripted “dramatic” vignettes – but Sign O’ the Times is fantastic nonetheless: beautifully shot, with a setlist heavy on the career-highlight album with which it shares a title.

12. Wattstax (1973)

The Wattstax festival was labelled the Black Woodstock, but the subsequent film is infinitely more interesting than that of Woodstock itself: the performances are all spectacular (Isaac Hayes is the star, the Bar-Kays possibly the highlight) and the director’s contextualising is gripping – it’s a festival situated in a tense, deprived Black neighbourhood.

11. Depeche Mode: 101 (1989)

DA Pennebaker’s film inadvertently helped invent reality TV – the footage of Depeche Mode is interspersed with that of young fans who’ve won a contest to see them live. Quite aside from the performance at the Pasedena Rosebowl, 101 ends up saying fascinating things both about Depeche Mode on the brink of vast fame, and about late-80s America.

10. The Song Remains the Same (1976)

The fantasy sequences may be the last word in 70s rock self-indulgence, some sections of footage may feature the band miming at Shepperton Studios, Robert Plant might have dismissed it all as “bollocks”, but no matter: the highlights of Led Zeppelin’s 1973 live performance at Madison Square Garden are so fierce as to trample all objections underfoot.

9. Dance Craze (1981)

The making of Dance Craze was apparently fraught with arguments between the director Joe Massot and the artists, but you can’t tell from the end product: a relentless onslaught of frenetic live performances – from the Specials, Madness, the Beat et al – that perfectly captures the rowdy euphoria of the Two Tone movement’s zenith.

8. The Last Waltz (1978)

Martin Scorsese approached shooting the Band’s farewell show like a feature film: storyboarding, employing seven cameramen, playing close attention to lighting. But it’s the performances – not just the Band, but Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and an accelerated-looking, high-kicking Van Morrison – that make it worth watching.

7. The TAMI Show (1964)

The story of The TAMI Show – of James Brown’s determination to upstage headliners Rolling Stones – is better known than the film itself, which spent decades out of circulation. Brown is incredible, but the rest of the lineup is great too, taking in Motown, the Beach Boys, Lesley Gore and garage punk (via the Barbarians): a perfect survey of mid-60s US pop.

6. Homecoming: A Film by Beyoncé (2019)

The rehearsal footage is perhaps a little too hagiographic, but Beyoncé has every right to feel pleased with herself: the first Black woman to headline Coachella put on an authentically jaw-dropping show, its thrills amplified by the movie cutting between its two performances, denoted by a change in costume colour.

5. Monterey Pop (1968)

Jimi Hendrix’s guitar-immolating appearance is Monterey Pop’s most famous moment, but really, the viewer looking for highlights is spoilt for choice: Janis Joplin’s racked reading of Ball and Chain, the thuggish power of the Who – utterly at odds with the festival’s peace-and-love vibe – or Otis Redding’s majestic career-changing appearance.

4. Gimme Shelter (1970)

Most great concert movies make you wish you’d been there; Gimme Shelter makes you delighted you weren’t. The Rolling Stones’ performances are really good, but that’s besides the point: the film’s power lies in the way it keeps cutting back to the band’s subsequent reaction to reports and footage of the violence and murder at Altamont.

3. Stop Making Sense (1984)

Director Jonathan Demme called Stop Making Sense a “performance film” rather than a concert film, stripping away visual and lighting effects to concentrate on Talking Heads’ incredible, highly choreographed performance, catching them at their post-Speaking in Tongues musical peak, their augmented live band awesomely tight and funky.

2. Amazing Grace (2018)

When Aretha “gets her body and soul all over some righteous song, she’ll scare the shit out of you”, the late Billy Preston once opined. Well, quite: other concert films may be more visually spectacular, but for sheer, blazing musical intensity, nothing matches this long-unreleased 1972 film of Aretha Franklin at her father’s LA church.

1. Summer of Soul (2021)

Summer of Soul isn’t so much a concert film as an incredible piece of cultural archaeology, unearthing long-buried footage of the 1969 Harlem cultural festival. It seems astonishing it was ever forgotten in the first place: it may well represent the pop era’s greatest gathering of Black talent – with every participant at the top of their game – and the audio and visual quality is stunning. Literally every performance, from Nina Simone’s incendiary rabble rousing to Sly and the Family Stone’s euphoric set, to Mavis Staples and Mahalia Jackson’s soaring gospel, is jaw-dropping: no wonder it scooped every award going.

• Grace Jones
• Beastie Boys
• Chemical Brothers
• Elvis Presley

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9 concert film favorites to watch now that you’ve seen Taylor Swift’s ‘Eras Tour’

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Maybe you’re a Swiftie — or perhaps you’re only Swiftie-adjacent. Three hours of “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” will either be way too long for you or not nearly long enough. Undoubtedly, though, there are other concert films that capture that cellphone-hoisting, let’s-hit-the-merch-booth magic for you. Here are several of our picks.

‘Amazing Grace’ (2018)

In 1972, Aretha Franklin recorded her legendary gospel album “Amazing Grace” at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Watts. The stunning two-night event, performed with band, choir and congregation, was filmed on 16-millimeter cameras by director Sydney Pollack, but the footage languished for decades, unslated, unsynched and unedited, until a painstaking restoration effort got under way. Due to Franklin’s own opposition, it wasn’t until after her death in 2018 that, with her family’s blessing, the film could finally be shown publicly, whereupon it was rightly hailed as a masterpiece about the making of a masterpiece. To watch it now is to revel anew in Franklin’s off-the-charts musical brilliance (even her fellow performers seem overwhelmed) and to witness a depth of spiritual passion that feels genuinely miraculous. It once was lost but now is found. — Justin Chang

‘The Decline of Western Civilization’ trilogy (1981, 1988, 1998)

Penelope Spheeris’ 1979 punk documentary “The Decline of Western Civilization” made then-LAPD chief Daryl Gates so mad he wanted to ban it from ever being screened in the city again. Naturally, her wry and visceral scenes of L.A. legends like X, Black Flag, Circle Jerks, Alice Bag and the Germs did just the opposite. The film captured the city’s most explosive bands tearing up their stages and flophouses, making Spheeris the poet laureate of disenchanted young Los Angeles. (Its reputation helped land her the gig directing “Wayne’s World.”) A second installment on the city’s metal scene — with bombastic live sets and acidic musings from Megadeth, Poison, Ozzy Osbourne and Lemmy from Motörhead — is both comedy gold and a ferocious concert doc. A third and final film in the series, a bleak look at truly down-and-out gutter punk culture in L.A., suggested the scene was a last refuge for young people chewed up in Gates’ dreams for L.A. — August Brown

‘Depeche Mode: 101’ (1989)

Fans find this make-or-break moment in the British synth-pop band’s history particularly compelling: an American tour that climaxed with a sold-out show at Pasadena’s Rose Bowl. But even if you can’t stand the music (I pity you), there’s a major reason why this film makes our shortlist. In addition to concert footage and the usual backstage shenanigans, “101” included what was then something truly radical: a busload of teenage fans, following the tour and letting us into their own personal dramas. MTV took notice of the innovation and began to develop what would become the first season of “The Real World.” For better or worse, this concert doc invented modern reality TV. Not for nothing, legendary director D.A. Pennebaker called “101” his best film — the one he had the most fun making. Pennebaker also did Bob Dylan’s “Dont Look Back” and David Bowie’s “Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars,” but he’s absolutely right. — Joshua Rothkopf

‘Homecoming’ (2019)

The magic trick that drives “Homecoming” — Beyoncé’s account of her awe-inspiring 2018 headlining performance at the annual Coachella festival — is how she reveals all the work that went into the gig without leaving you even 1% less amazed as you watch what she’s pulling off onstage. A painstakingly imagined homage to the cultural traditions enshrined at America’s historically Black colleges and universities, the live concert wove together music and dance from throughout Beyoncé’s career with quotes and samples and interpolations from a deep archive of Black music and literature; the filmed version, which Beyoncé wrote and directed herself — and which came accompanied by a killer live album — comes as close as seems possible to capturing the thrill of being there in person (as I’m grateful to have been) while adding crucial detail and context to the experience. A joy, and a lesson too. — Mikael Wood

‘The Last Waltz’ (1978)

On Thanksgiving Day 1976, Canadian-American rock group the Band gave its final concert at San Francisco’s Winterland Ballroom, inviting a who’s who of musical luminaries — including Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Eric Clapton, Muddy Waters, Emmylou Harris and the Staples Singers — to help mark the occasion. Vividly captured by director Martin Scorsese and a camera crew featuring some of the era’s best cinematographers, the result proved far more than the final bow of a beloved group; as the title suggests, it represented a collective summation of an entire era in rock history. As the Band’s guitarist and songwriter Robbie Robertson says in the film, “We wanted it to be more than a concert. We wanted it to be a celebration.” With Robertson’s recent death leaving 86-year-old Garth Hudson the Band’s only surviving member, “The Last Waltz” now feels particularly elegiac, Still, 45 years later, the electrifying performances of classics like “Up on Cripple Creek,” “The Weight” and “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” remain as vital as ever. — Josh Rottenberg

‘A Prairie Home Companion’ (2006)

It may be unorthodox to select a scripted feature as one of the all-time great concert movies, but there’s no doubt in my mind that “A Prairie Home Companion” qualifies. Toggling between backstage shenanigans and spotlit bliss, this tale of the long-running radio program’s last broadcast bears all the hallmarks of the genre — creative friction, bone-deep camaraderie, an unswerving love of craft — in lively fictional form, with particularly entertaining turns from Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly as comic cowboys and Lily Tomlin and Meryl Streep as singing sisters. Sure, the framing device, involving a P.I. (Kevin Kline) and an angel of death (Virginia Madsen), is a little contrived, and Garrison Keillor’s avuncular drawl may ring false to today’s ears. But as with so many of the titles on this list, you needn’t be a longtime listener for Altman’s camera, observing invention in action, to conjure up genuine magic. Indeed, I’d place “Prairie” among the most loving and lovelorn films of the master’s 50-year career: If the cast’s closing reprise of “Red River Valley” doesn’t leave you in tears, the knowledge that Altman made his final film an unobtrusive elegy for the popular arts almost certainly will. — Matt Brennan

‘Sign ’o’ the Times’ (1987)

Having already starred in the epic piece of autofiction and self-mythology that is “Purple Rain,” something like a simple concert film just wouldn’t do for Prince. So 1987’s “Sign ’o’ the Times” finds him showcasing songs from his masterful album of the same name, displaying his talents as live showman, multi-instrumentalist and utterly captivating screen presence. The electrifying version of “I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man,” for example, somehow finds him singing, whipping off guitar solos, working through choreography and spinning on block-heel boots all at the same time. There are fragments of a narrative involving an onstage love triangle, which allows for moments such as when Prince propositions one of his dancers and she bluntly turns him down, which you just know Prince thought was hilarious. Culled from footage shot at European concerts and his own Paisley Park soundstage in Minnesota, the film captures the breathtaking breadth of Prince’s talents, from ecstatic to soulful, dirty to divine. Prince being Prince, he directs too. — Mark Olsen

‘Stop Making Sense’ (1984)

We didn’t need Spike Lee and Paul Thomas Anderson to tell us that “Stop Making Sense” is the greatest concert movie ever, though they did in fact say just that when Jonathan Demme’s 1984 joyride was rereleased in theaters last month in a new restoration. Firsthand evidence was there for the taking as multiplex audiences bopped their heads and, yes, got off their feet and moved to the music made by Talking Heads and an expanded lineup that included keyboard player Bernie Worrell, guitarist Alex Weir, percussionist Steve Scales and, most essentially, vocalists Lynn Mabry and Ednah Holt. The core band members are introduced individually, almost as characters, beginning with twitchy frontman David Byrne singing that anthem of alienation, “Psycho Killer.” From there, the music — and the staging — progresses and builds, culminating in the wide-shot communal ecstasy of Al Green’s “Take Me to the River.” Demme and cinematographer Jordan Cronenweth capture it all: the playful interactions, the lamp dance, the big suit. The movie’s 88 minutes fly by impossibly fast. Same as it ever was. But now everyone gets it for the masterpiece that it is. — Glenn Whipp

‘Summer of Soul’ (2021)

It’s an Oscar-winning love letter to the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, which placed performances from a 19-year-old Stevie Wonder next to gospel titan Mahalia Jackson in front of nearly 300,000 onlookers. Held at the height of the Black Power movement and one year after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., the spiriting concert series ran deeper than just the music — look to the teary-eyed faces of vocal group the 5th Dimension, appearing in the doc as they rewatch footage of their performance, as evidence of how much it meant. It’s a shame footage from the event remained discarded for 50 years, but Questlove, a walking music encyclopedia who came to prominence as the drummer for the Roots, was the one to unearth it. My favorite moment? Sly Stone’s refusal to depart the stage once his set had ended, instead drawing fervid peace signs from the crowd as he leads a call-and-response chant. — Kenan Draughorne

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August Brown covers pop music, the music industry and nightlife policy at the Los Angeles Times.

Matt Brennan is a Los Angeles Times’ deputy editor for entertainment and arts. Born in the Boston area, educated at USC and an adoptive New Orleanian for nearly 10 years, he returned to Los Angeles in 2019 as the newsroom’s television editor. He previously served as TV editor at Paste Magazine, and his writing has also appeared in Indiewire, Slate, Deadspin and numerous other publications.

Justin Chang was a film critic for the Los Angeles Times from 2016 to 2024. He is the author of the book “FilmCraft: Editing” and serves as chair of the National Society of Film Critics and secretary of the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn.

Kenan Draughorne is a reporter at the Los Angeles Times and was a member of the 2021-22 Los Angeles Times Fellowship class. When he’s not writing a story, you can find him skating across Dockweiler Beach, playing the drums or furiously updating his Spotify playlists.

Mark Olsen writes about all kinds of movies for the Los Angeles Times as both a feature writer and reviewer.

Joshua Rothkopf is film editor of the Los Angeles Times. He most recently served as senior movies editor at Entertainment Weekly. Before then, Rothkopf spent 16 years at Time Out New York, where he was film editor and senior film critic. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Sight and Sound, Empire, Rolling Stone and In These Times, where he was chief film critic from 1999 to 2003.

Josh Rottenberg covers the film business for the Los Angeles Times. He was part of the team that was named a 2022 Pulitzer Prize finalist in breaking news for covering the tragic shooting on the set of the film “Rust.” He co-wrote the 2021 Times investigation into the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. that led NBC to pull the Golden Globe Awards off the air while the organization underwent major reforms. A graduate of Harvard University, he has also written about the entertainment industry for the New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, Fast Company and other publications.

Glenn Whipp covers film and television for the Los Angeles Times and serves as columnist for The Envelope, The Times’ awards season publication.

Mikael Wood is pop music critic for the Los Angeles Times.

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Concert Tour Films Are Having a Moment

From Taylor Swift’s new ‘The Eras Tour’ to the revival of the Talking Heads classic ‘Stop Making Sense,’ the next best thing to seeing your favorite artist live might be reliving their best concert moments on the small screen

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Screenwriter Jim Gibson admits that back when he was 15 years old he was “a little bit of a music snob.” In December 1983, he was obsessed with the Talking Heads, but he missed out on getting tickets to the three Speaking in Tongues Tour shows in Los Angeles that the band was planning to record for a concert film. Then, while coming back from a class field trip, Gibson heard on the radio that the band was doing a last-minute fourth and final performance that night. He and his friend happened to be near the Tower Records in Westwood and were able to score two of the last remaining seats.

The tickets were ridiculously good, something like the center of the 10th row in the orchestra. But when they arrived at the Pantages Theatre, they saw that their seats were covered by a large platform with multiple cameras set up on top of it. The ushers told them the section was closed and didn’t offer any alternatives. Luckily, the camera operators were cool and said the two teens could sit on the platform, as long as they promised not to stand during the performance. They now had the best seats in the entire place. “My head was three feet underneath the lens that was filming the center of the stage,” Gibson says.

As the decades passed, the music of the Talking Heads was still important to him, but he rarely revisited their records. Of course he saw Stop Making Sense , the Jonathan Demme–directed film that those Pantages shows turned into, when it first came out in 1984, yet what Gibson came to remember from that concert over the years wasn’t the music itself, but the circumstances that got him there. Then, this past September, he went to an opening weekend screening of A24’s newly restored version of the concert movie in IMAX. “It was like the Proustian madeleine,” Gibson says. “I was like, ‘Wow, this was a really fucking good show.’”

Most of us weren’t lucky enough to have our teenage concert memories immortalized on film by one of the best directors of the late 20th century. Until recent history, shows were usually fleeting moments—the details of them blurring and fading until all that’s left are a few stray fragments and a feeling . Over the past decade-plus, smartphones capable of recording decent quality videos have enabled music fans to easily preserve, rewatch, and disseminate what they experienced at shows. Professionally-produced livestreams have become increasingly common from services like YouTube, Amazon, and Hulu. And artists and film distributors of all kinds are seeing the broader possibilities in concert films. Though the medium has existed for decades and produced some bona fide classics— Stop Making Sense ( which Spike Lee and others have called the “greatest concert film ever” ) among them—the majority have been made relatively cheaply and only targeted the featured act’s most dedicated fans, whether it’s Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience or Neil Young: Heart of Gold . Now, with movie theaters seemingly eager to bring in ticket-buyers looking for communal events, concert films, if done right, may be able to provide those moments.

Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour and Beyoncé’s Renaissance World Tour were two of the biggest cultural happenings of 2023, and by the end of this calendar year, both will have IMAX-ready versions in theaters—an incredible turnaround time. The two hours and 49 minutes–long Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour took in almost $93 million domestically during its first three days in theaters this month, breaking the record for the biggest opening weekend for a concert film and becoming the second-biggest October film opening ever. The Eras Tour hit theaters before Swift’s actual tour has even concluded—she’ll be performing in South America, Asia, Australia, and Europe before a final stretch of North American stops next fall. But most fans could already preview the entire show since the tour launched in March, as crowd-shot footage flooded TikTok and Instagram Live. In The Eras Tour , the biggest supporting character may be the thousands of illuminated cellphone screens seen shining throughout L.A.’s SoFi Stadium.

Older music fans (and many artists) often complain about younger concertgoers’ immediate impulse to pull out their phones during a show instead of, you know, living in the moment, man . Brittany Spanos, a senior writer at Rolling Stone who has also taught the college course “Topics in Recorded Music: Taylor Swift” at NYU’s Clive Davis Institute, understands the appeal of trying to film a concert yourself, or viewing the results of others who have done so. “We want to experience those moments as quickly as possible and relive them, and if we weren’t there, feel like we were part of them,” she says. Spanos admits to having spent hours checking out shaky, grainy footage of people crying at Swift’s concerts. “It’s kind of endearing to watch and witness that excitement.”

Spanos saw the Eras Tour live in May. Taking in the filmed version, away from the physically and emotionally overwhelming environment that the in-person show created, she was able to better appreciate certain elements, like the choreography or just being able to hear Swift’s voice above all the fans screaming along. Still, even at the relatively chill, 18-and-up showing she went to last weekend in Toronto, she was seated next to a woman who began full-on sobbing as soon as “Cruel Summer” started and didn’t stop until the movie was over. “I was really obsessed with her,” Spanos said. “I loved sitting next to her and she could not have sat next to a better person, because I was very supportive of her tears.”

There were major issues with access to the Eras Tour, whether because of the high cost of tickets on the secondary market, a fundamentally broken ticket-buying system, or simply all the places the tour didn’t go. Swift’s fans have been encouraged to use the movie as a way to recreate the in-person concert experience by getting dressed up, sharing friendship bracelets, dancing and singing in the aisles, and recording and posting every moment. The crowd at the Sunday night screening I went to at Universal CityWalk in Hollywood was jubilant, applauding for everything from the seizure warning at the start of the film to when the CGI snakes appeared before the Reputation set. “It’s this simulation of getting to experience something that’s iconic and beloved,” Spanos says. “You don’t need to watch a concert film to feel amazing singing along to ‘All Too Well (10 Minute Version)’ with other people who know that song. But that visual element, that packed-theater element, it just creates something extra special.”

Watching The Eras Tour , it’s obvious what an impressive feat Swift pulled off, both as a performer and a cultural uniter. What it doesn’t do is delve into the phenomenon the tour created. There’s probably a compelling documentary sequel to be made from the thousands of hours of fan-shot footage—one that’s more focused on capturing the anticipation, release, and validation that these shows came to provide for so many of her fans.

Other artists have explored the possibilities of crowd-created material before. In 1988, director Wayne Isham handed out cameras to audience members to help shoot the clip for Bon Jovi’s “Bad Medicine” so viewers wouldn’t get, as comedian Sam Kinison puts it in the intro, “the same video slop that we always get from these glam-rock pretty boys.” In 2003, Led Zeppelin put out a self-titled double DVD set that supplemented rare performance footage that the band commissioned with bootleg recordings that had been surreptitiously captured by fans. The result was a welcome rebalance to the group’s over-the-top concert film The Song Remains the Same from 1976.

Beastie Boys went even farther for Awesome; I Fuckin’ Shot That! , released in 2006, which documents their To the 5 Boroughs Tour stop at Madison Square Garden. Group member Adam Yauch, directing the film under his Nathanial Hornblower pseudonym, bought and distributed 50 Sony Hi8 Handycams to ticketholders right before the show and instructed them to document whatever happened that night. Combined with shots filmed by a small professional crew, the movie includes dizzying footage of fans going to the bathroom, attempting to hype up the people in the nosebleeds, heading to the concession stand, and trying to sneak backstage. You’ll even spot a pre-fame Donald Glover rapping along to “Three MC’s and One DJ.”

Though this tactic may seem like an insightful prediction of where society was headed, in reality, Yauch’s decision was impulsive and utilitarian. Neal Usatin, who edited Awesome; I Fuckin’ Shot That! and many of Yauch’s other projects before the Beastie Boy’s death in 2012, says the director hatched and pulled off the concept in a matter of days. Yauch even returned almost all of the cameras to the store once the concert was over to get his money back. Of the concept, Usatin explains, “To a certain extent, [Yauch] was like, ‘Who wants to watch a whole film of just us?’”

Though pre-production was minuscule, the editing process stretched on for over a year as they tried to find the most resonant approach, one that reflected the group’s larger outlook of always trying out new shit and hoping their listeners would come along for the ride. “It was an interesting process of trying to put together these different versions of what was possible and getting Adam’s buy-in that there’s a story here,” Usatin says. “Let’s embrace the fans, let’s embrace the perspectives.”

Earlier this year, the film We are Fugazi From Washington, D.C. premiered at AFI Silver in Silver Spring, Maryland, and has subsequently been screened in a few other cities. The film traces the post-hardcore band’s history from 1986 to 2002, through fan footage of over a dozen performances that have been synced with the band’s own soundboard-recorded audio. The results are powerful. What makes the film even more special are the contemporary interviews with the people who shot the material, most of whom were teenagers back then borrowing their parents’ camcorders for the night. They’re given the focus as they explain why they filmed the shows in the first place and what impact the band had on them.

In keeping with the group’s highly-principled ethos, the members of Fugazi aren’t doing press in support of the film and neither are the three filmmakers who “curated” it. There are no plans to put it on a streaming service or organize a broader theatrical release, but anyone can book a screening of it in their town, as long as they’re willing to expend the energy and resources to put it together and donate the profits to charity. Fugazi will probably never perform together in public again, but for fans who missed the era when they were around, or who were there but simply miss the band, it’s a decent substitute. “You’ll never recapture those moments, but this is the closest you can come,” says Joe Nelson of the punk archival and reissue label Trust Records, who set up a September screening of the film at Brain Dead Studios, a repertory theater in Los Angeles.

During the two decades since they stopped performing live and releasing new music, certain perceptions of Fugazi have taken hold. There is the idea that they were stuck in an antagonistic relationship with the audience, constantly lecturing them to stop stage-diving or getting too wild. Yes, they gave those warnings to specific bad actors, and We Are Fugazi does include footage of Guy Picciotto delivering his infamous “ice cream–eating motherfucker” moment, but through the film it becomes clear that their intention was always to foster a community where people could exist freely without the threat of violence. One of the most compelling performances in the film is “Suggestion,” a song about street harassment and male complicity in sexual assault, with their friend Amy Pickering handling most of the vocals. Film viewers can see the Sacred Heart Church hall in Washington, D.C., packed with people—even the stage is full. Underneath a glittering red heart, directly behind the band, a group of young women cry, hug, and sing along. It’s proof that no matter the size of the venue or the level of spectacle, a concert film can convey the catharsis that’s possible through live music.

“I came away from that screening saying every band of note who can put this together should do it,” Nelson says.

Concert films also have the ability to calcify an understanding of what an artist’s live show was like. Beyoncé’s first-week performance at Coachella in 2018 was shown as part of the festival’s official livestream. Unauthorized recordings of it were chopped up and spread across social media for anyone to revisit. Then, almost exactly a year later, Homecoming rendered them irrelevant. Homecoming is cinematic, even if it’s only available for streaming on Netflix. Not only are her performances spellbinding, but Beyoncé provides the context of what went into making the show and offers a treatise on the importance of Black fellowship. From the trailer for Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé , it appears she’ll once again give more than high-quality concert footage.

In February 1984, after the Pantages concerts were filmed for Stop Making Sense , the Talking Heads played a small string of shows in Australia and New Zealand. Then they actually did what the Band promised they were going to do after The Last Waltz (the other critical contender for greatest concert film ever)—they stopped touring and became solely a recording enterprise, making three more albums before officially splitting up in 1991. The last time the Talking Heads publicly performed music together was during their induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2002.

Unlike Jim Gibson, I don’t have teenage memories of seeing the Talking Heads live. I am, however, old enough to remember being taken to see Stop Making Sense at Oakland’s Grand Lake Theatre in 1984 when I was 6 years old—an anecdote that says more about the coolness of my dad than the coolness of me. Seeing Return of the Jedi on opening night at that same theater a year earlier taught me that going to a movie could be an event. Seeing Stop Making Sense taught me that going to a movie could be a party. Before we went, I’d seen a segment on one of the local news stations about people dancing in the aisles as the movie played, scenes that are quite similar to what’s happening now in theaters during The Eras Tour . No one stood at our showing, but I do remember noticing how the bodies around me started moving more and more as the band on-screen grew bigger and bigger.

I saw the recent re-release of Stop Making Sense at the TCL Chinese Theatre, one mile west on Hollywood Boulevard from where the shows were filmed. This time, members of the crowd—some old and awkward, others young and buoyant—did get up and dance. A guy in my row (glasses, probably late 50s), started running laps around the aisles during “Take Me to the River” and was escorted out to the lobby, missing the “Crosseyed and Painless” encore. One of the key elements of Stop Making Sense is that there are no shots of people in the crowd until the very end. The effect is that whoever is watching the movie at that moment becomes the Talking Heads’ audience for the night. My favorite part of the showing was when I couldn’t tell if the applause when a song was over was coming from the people around me or from people 40 years in the past.

For most fans that got into the band post-1984, myself included, an imagined Talking Heads show looks like Stop Making Sense . It’s even hard to wrap my brain around the fact that many of that tour’s 64 concerts were performed outdoors, including two nights at L.A.’s Greek Theatre just four months earlier. If other Talking Heads shows are talked about, it’s usually from the band’s early days, when they were the self-knowing dweebs wearing white button-down shirts and khakis amid the leather jacket and filth at CBGB. But there was nearly a decade in between, filled with experimentation and other big ideas. I recently texted my wife’s hip uncle and asked if he went to the Speaking in Tongues Tour. Of course he had, crossing the Wisconsin border in August 1983 to catch the band at the Poplar Creek Music Theatre, a long-gone open-air venue outside of Chicago. He didn’t remember the show that much. He had much more vivid memories from 1979, when the band came through the clubs and auditoriums of the Midwest.

“Fear of Music Tour was intensely cool. Demented and challenging to a lot of people. I loved it,” he wrote. “That’s their pinnacle.”

Sounds amazing. I looked around online and all I could find from that time was an episode of The South Bank Show with some sick clips in it and a degraded version of an entire concert , shot charmlessly from the side of the stage in Amarillo, Texas. If you somehow have better footage of those actual shows, I’d love to see it.

And I might not have the hours to take in all of your Taylor Swift and Beyoncé videos on social media right now, but give me 20 years and I’ll probably want to see those, too.

Eric Ducker is a writer and editor in Los Angeles.

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The 10 Best Concert Movies of All Time, According to Letterboxd

The concert comes to the theater.

Concerts have proven themselves to be the tried and true perfect way for fans to experience some of their favorite musical artists and bands live and in person. However, for a number of reasons, whether it be financial struggles, distance-related issues, or simply not being alive at the time, not everyone is able to experience every great concert experience out there. Thankfully, concert films have come in to act as a worthwhile alternative for those who simply are unable to attend the concert in question.

Especially when a concert film is able to recapture and show off one of the most iconic performances of a band's career, it can be enthralling to be able to rewatch it anytime and anywhere. A number of concert films have even broken into the echelon of all-time greatest films, being some of the most highly rated films on internet sites, most specifically, Letterboxd. While a number of ratings may simply come from fans of the artist showing support for their favorite artists, the truly great concert films have risen to the top thanks in part to their amazing strengths.

10 'My Chemical Romance: The Black Parade Is Dead!' (2008)

Letterboxd Average Rating: 4.38/5

The Black Parade is Dead shows the iconic rock band My Chemical Romance 's final performance as their onstage characters, The Black Parade. The story of The Black Parade centers around a dying character known as The Patient, who reflects on events throughout his life while he is confronted by Death in the form of his fondest memory, his father taking him to see a marching band.

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The Black Parade is Dead acts as a perfect book-capping send-off to some of the most iconic characters and songs that have ever been created by My Chemical Romance. The show is similarly decorated similarly to the band as their characters, fully encapsulating the strength of the story of The Black Parade as well as the powerful undeniable energy of the songs being performed.

9 'The 1975 'At Their Very Best' Live from Madison Square Garden' (2022)

Letterboxd Average Rating: 4.39/5

The 1975 'At Their Very Best' Live from Madison Square Garden follows English pop rock band The 1975 performing at New York City's Madison Square Garden in support of their fifth studio album. On top of songs from their fifth album Being Funny in a Foreign Language, the band also performed a number of their most iconic songs including It's Not Living and Give Yourself a Try .

Few concert films are able to effectively recapture the powerful energy of actually being in a packed concert stadium in person, yet this film masterfully makes its audience feel as if they are in the front seats at Madison Square Garden. Especially with how wild and chaotic the performance at the center actually becomes, this easily becomes one of the most exciting, interesting, and engaging concert films, even to those who aren't already fans of the band.

8 'Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour' (2023)

Letterboxd Average Rating: 4.43/5

Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour is the cinematic transformation of the groundbreaking Eras Tour concert run, which acted as worldwide phenomenon Taylor Swift 's culmination of over 17 years and 10 albums of music. As the concert goes through every era of Swift's long and iconic music career, the concert in itself shifts and transforms to create a once-in-a-lifetime concert experience.

It's no surprise that one of the most successful and well-regarded concert runs of all time would equate to an equally exciting and enthralling concert film , which The Eras Tour delivers in every way. It's truly mesmerizing to watch an artist's entire discography transformed and reimagined into a singular beautiful and effective concert, with all the ups and downs of their work creating a beautiful historic experience. The film has already made massive waves at the box office and will continue to do so, as a result of the undeniable power of Taylor Swift.

7 'Kendrick Lamar's The Big Steppers Tour: Live from Paris' (2022)

Letterboxd Average Rating: 4.44/5

The Big Steppers Tour is the fifth concert tour by iconic rap artist Kendrick Lamar , in support of his album, Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers . Accompanied by opening acts by Baby Keem and Tanna Leone , the concert tells the story of Mr. Morale, who is tasked with exiting his comfort zone through therapy.

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Lamar's stage presence and emphatic musical abilities have always been signature to both his songs and his on-stage performances, with The Big Steppers Tour being considered by fans to be his greatest concert. The concert film is equally able to recapture all the greatest and most enthralling moments of the concert, as it allows for every masterful aspect of the performance to shine through in expert fashion.

6 'Alice In Chains: MTV Unplugged' (1996)

Alice in Chains: MTV Unplugged sees rock band Alice in Chains performing their first concert in two and a half years at the Brooklyn's Academy of Music's Majestic Theater for the TV series MTV Unplugged . After an absence from live music for such an extended period, the band returns in full force to perform a legendary 13-song set, featuring songs such as Heaven Beside You , Rooster , and Would?

While MTV Unplugged had its fair share of amazing and memorable live performances over the years, the return of Alice in Chains was a defining moment for the show as a whole. The amazing transformation of some of Alice in Chains' most iconic songs into acoustic versions works tremendously for the live performance, bringing out the emotional power of the songs in a way only live performance can.

5 'Taylor Swift: Reputation Stadium Tour' (2018)

Letterboxd Average Rating: 4.45/5

Reputation Stadium Tour is a concert film following her highly successful and memorable fifth concert tour, which launched in support of her sixth studio album, Reputation. Transformed from the performance in Dallas, the concert reflects all of the themes and iconic visuals of the Reputation era, making for one of the most energizing and visually enthralling concerts to come from Swift.

Before The Eras Tour redefined what a Taylor Swift concert film could even be, Reputation Stadium Tour was previously Swift's biggest and most popular concert tour. Its popularity makes sense when considering the powerful energy on display throughout the entire concert, making full opportunity of the possibilities from Reputation's music and themes. The concert film's release on Netflix only allowed for even more of Swift's fans to experience the amazing concert experience and all of its visually stunning glory.

4 'Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions' (2020)

One of the few concert films to be directed by the musical artist in question, Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions is a much more intimate and personal take on a concert film experience. The film sees Taylor Swift performing each song from her album folklore in order, yet on top of simply playing the songs in the iconic recording studio, she also reveals the meaning and stories behind all 17 tracks for the first time.

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Music has always acted as an art form of passion and emotion, and to see an artist be fully vulnerable and provide a glimpse into their life and inspiration is an unprecedented choice for a concert film. It's a decision that genuinely makes The Long Pond Studio Sessions unlike any other concert film out there, as it toes the line between simply being a concert film and being a genuine documentary on the impact and making of folklore .

3 'Nirvana: Unplugged In New York' (1993)

Letterboxd Average Rating: 4.48/5

Nirvana: Unplugged In New York sees the iconic rock band Nirvana performing an acoustic rendition of their songs at Sony Music Studios in New York for the TV series MTV Unplugged . Unlike the tradition of playing a band's most well-regarded songs for the show, Nirvana chose to primarily play their lesser-known material, on top of covers of songs by other artists, including Vaselines , David Bowie , and Meat Puppets .

Especially considering the tragic nature of Nirvana and Kurt Cobain that would take place in the year following this performance, it's difficult to not get emotional at this recording's somber and slower tone. Unplugged in New York acts as a perfect bookend to the legacy and power of Nirvana as a band, and shows that even when playing other songs in their nonstandard acoustic, Nirvana was at the top of their game as a rock band.

2 'Radiohead: In Rainbows - From the Basement' (2008)

Letterboxd Average Rating: 4.60/5

In Rainbows - from the Basement sees a live performance from rock band Radiohead as they perform songs from their seventh album, In Rainbows . The film acts as a part of a series of live performances from producer Nigel Godrich , known as the From the Basement series, as their performance was filmed at Maida Vale Studios in London.

In Rainbows was already considered one of the greatest albums to come from Radiohead according to fans, and the From the Basement concert movie only drives home everything great about the album and its songs. There is an undeniable strength and energy that simply comes from a group of determined musicians playing from their souls in a small room, away from the worries of the rest of the world. While quite simplistic on the surface, there simply is nothing like In Rainbows , as the Letterboxd community continuously finds itself praising the hidden genius of the concert film.

1 'Stop Making Sense' (1984)

Letterboxd Average Rating: 4.65/5

From Silence of the Lambs director Jonathan Demme and iconic American rock band Talking Heads , Stop Making Sense documents the band at the height of their popularity, on tour for their album Speaking in Tongues . The band takes the stage one by one, joined by an array of guest musicians for a career-spanning cinematic performance where they play their greatest hits, including Psycho Killer , Burning Down the House , and Once in a Lifetime .

More than simply a concert film, Stop Making Sense holds an outstanding legacy as one of the defining cinematic achievements of all time. The film sees a masterful combination of the amazing music from Stop Making Sense in combination with unbelievable cinematic visuals that make one feel like they're on stage with the band in real-time. The film is so well-beloved that it recently received a restored rerelease in IMAX theaters , and Letterboxd loves the film so much that it even holds the spot as the #1 highest-rated documentary of all time .

NEXT: 'Summer of Soul' and 7 Great Concert Films for Anyone Who Misses Live Music

The 10 Highest-Grossing Concert Movies of All Time

From Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience to Michael Jackson's This Is It, here are the highest-grossing concert movies of all time.

There is nothing like attending the concert of your favorite artist. Concertgoers experience the music not from the comfort of their own room, but in a venue with anywhere from a small number to millions of people. The artist is no longer someone that exists exclusively in the digital realm, but a real person performing in front of their fans. Concerts offer an incredible experience, but for many practical reasons, there will always be people who are unable to attend.

That's where concert movies come in , which present an alternative to being there in-person. 2023 is seeing the rise of the concert movie, as evidenced by the presales of Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour , the announcement of Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé , and the re-release of the beloved Talking Heads film, Stop Making Sense . Join us as we look at the 10 highest-grossing concert movies of all time.

10 Glee: The 3D Concert Movie (2011) — $18.7M

The musical comedy-drama series, Glee , is one of the most popular television series of the early-2010s. Glee: The 3D Concert Movie stars 14 members of the series' cast, including Cory Monteith, Chris Colfer, Lea Michele, Naya Rivera, and Dianna Agron. The concert footage is taken from the cast's East Rutherford, New Jersey performance during the Glee Live! In Concert! tour. Glee: The 3D Concert Movie grossed a box office total of $18.7 million.

9 U2 3D (2008) — $26.2M

U2 3D is the first live-action movie to be "shot, produced, and exhibited in digital 3-D" (via U2 ). The movie showcases performances during the 2006 Vertigo Tour, featuring a setlist that includes classics "Sunday Bloody Sunday," "Vertigo," "Pride (In the Name of Love)," and "Beautiful Day." More than 15 years later, the concert movie is yet to receive a home media release.

8 Madonna: Truth or Dare (1991) — $29M

The Madonna documentary Truth or Dare puts the spotlight on the singer's backstage life during the controversial Blond Ambition World Tour. Truth or Dare is primarily presented in black-and-white and switches to color for Madonna's musical performances. The movie has a box office total of $29 million, which makes Truth or Dare the highest-grossing documentary film of all time before the release of Bowling for Columbine in 2002.

These Madonna Films Still Hold Up Today

7 jonas brothers: the 3d concert experience (2009) — $30.4m.

Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience is a concert movie released in the band's A Little Bit Longer era. The movie features performances during the Burning Up Tour, which sees Demi Lovato join the Brothers to perform the Camp Rock song, "This Is Me," and Taylor Swift perform "Should've Said No" from her self-titled debut album. Swift will soon have her own concert movie with Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour , which has already surpassed $100 million in advance ticket sales.

6 BTS Permission to Dance on Stage - Seoul (2022) — $32.6M

BTS is currently on hiatus to fulfill South Korea's mandatory military service but continue to be the biggest boy band in the world. Unlike the others on this list, BTS Permission to Dance on Stage - Seoul is not a traditional movie, but rather, a live-stream of a concert that played in theaters. The screening has a box office gross of $32.6 million from a one-night-only event. The Hollywood Reporter ranks BTS Permission to Dance on Stage - Seoul as "the top-grossing live cinema event of all time."

5 Katy Perry: Part of Me (2012) — $32.7M

Released in between albums Teenage Dream (2010) and Prism (2013), Katy Perry: Part of Me carries the message that if you can be yourself, then you can be anything. Part of Me dives into key parts of the singer's life, such as her religious upbringing, her original debut as "Katy Hudson," and the end of her marriage with Russell Brand. The concert-documentary is the second highest-grossing concert movie by a woman artist.

4 One Direction: This Is Us (2013) — $68.5M

One Direction: This Is Us is the first concert movie featuring One Direction, released during the 2013 Take Me Home Tour. The movie journeys back to the boy band's beginnings on X Factor and tells the story of their rise to superstardom. This Is Us is said to be unscripted, with Harry Styles previously describing filming as "nerve-racking" due to camera crews filming everything the band was doing (via Metro ). Although in fourth place on the list of highest-grossing concert movies, This Is Us is the highest-grossing concert movie that centers on a boy band.

3 Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert (2008) — $70.6M

The Hannah Montana era is over, but the memories still remain. Despite only being in theaters in the United States and Canada for one week, the Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert has an impressive box office gross of $70.6 million. The concert movie features songs from the albums Hannah Montana and Hannah Montana 2: Meet Miley Cyrus , the latter of which serves as both a soundtrack for Hannah Montana 's second season and the debut studio album of Miley Cyrus.

The Best of Both Worlds Concert features performances by the Jonas Brothers, who appear in the 42nd and highest-rated episode of Hannah Montana . More than 15 years later, the Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert continues to hold the biggest opening for a movie released during the Super Bowl weekend. This, of course, is due to a lack of crossover between the target demographic of Hannah Montana and the Super Bowl.

2 Justin Bieber: Never Say Never (2011) — $99M

Featuring the marketing tagline of "find out what's possible if you don't give up," Justin Bieber: Never Say Never follows the Canadian idol in the days leading up to his August 2010 performance at Madison Square Garden. The movie is titled after the theme song of 2010's The Karate Kid , which Bieber recorded with lead actor Jaden Smith. Justin Bieber: Never Say Never is directed by Jon M. Chu ( Step Up franchise, In the Heights ), who is also the director of the 2013 follow-up, Justin Bieber's Believe .

Will Taylor Swift's Concert Movie Be the Biggest Film This Year?

1 michael jackson's this is it (2009) — $261.2m.

As it currently stands, Michael Jackson's This Is It is the highest-grossing concert movie of all time. The movie showcases the King of Pop's rehearsals for the This Is It tour, which was canceled following Jackson's death in June 2009. Michael Jackson's This Is It is directed, co-written, and co-produced by choreographer Kenny Ortega, who is known for directing Hocus Pocus , the High School Musical trilogy, and The Cheetah Girls 2 .

Some view Michael Jackson's This Is It as the first concert rehearsal movie ever. Ortega tells audiences that the footage used in the movie was initially never planned to be released. Messages from Jackson's fans asking to see the footage later changed Ortega's mind, leading to a movie that shows "the development and intentions of the show, and the concert as it moved closer to London" (via Digital Spy ).

pop culture

14 of the best concert movies to stream right now.

Whether it's because a specific day just didn't work out to attend that live show or the fact that you simply weren't born yet, we've all missed out on concerts we've wanted to attend. Thankfully for film, it makes these instances hurt a bit less.

The main separation between a concert movie and a music documentary is simply the amount of time focused on the artists themselves: a documentary might tell the whole life story of one particular person whereas a concert film is centered around a specific performance or a tour. The following 14 films span the 1960s to the present day, touching on a wide variety of genres and iconic performances throughout the years.

1. "Sign o' the Times"

This film captures Prince right in his element as he performs live at Paisley Park Studios after he wasn't pleased with the picture quality of the original concert footage that was set to be used in the film. In this concert, he performs the songs off of his 1987 album, Sign o' The Times , including "Little Red Corvette." While the album didn't do as well as he thought, the film, however, was a success, but more so after the fact than during the time of its release.

2. "Nirvana: Live at the Paramount"

While some might jump first to their live performance at Reading as one of their best performances, this one perfectly encapsulates Nirvana as a band after first hitting some success. Playing covers like "Jesus Doesn't Want Me for a Sunbeam" and working out hits that would later be released like "Rape Me," this 1991 Halloween performance at Seattle's Paramount Theatre takes a snapshot of Nirvana on their home turf and in the transition phase from garage band to the mainstream. As Nevermind was released only a month before this concert, things are just starting to fall into place for the band.

3. "HOMECOMING: A film by Beyoncé"

Beyoncé's Netflix Original documentary, HOMECOMING , captures the artist at Coachella in 2018 as she puts on an insanely elaborate and detailed performance, singing hits like "Crazy in Love," "Feeling Myself," and "Partition," among 33 other tracks. Since its release in 2020, many critics have deemed it one of the greatest concert films ever made; the movie even ended up winning Best Music Film at the Grammy Awards. Artistically, the concert and film went on to inspire tons of other artists and creators because of the sheer amount of effort that went into the performance beforehand as well as during it.

4. "Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace and Music"

Everyone knows about Woodstock, but not everyone has actually seen the performances that made the festival what it ultimately became. This film pieces together each moment and performance of the three days, including classics like Jimi Hendrix's "The Star-Spangled Banner" and lesser-spoken-about sets by Grace Slick and Joan Baez.

5. "Amazing Grace"

Focusing on the live recording of Aretha Franklin's 1972 live album, Amazing Grace , this film of the same name captures the artist in one of the most intimate ways we've seen yet. Though it was originally meant to be released in 1972, a number of technical (and later, legal) issues occurred, preventing it to be released until 2018.

6. "Rockshow"

In Paul McCartney's first departure from his work as part of The Beatles, Rockshow focuses on his time with his band, Wings—namely four performances during their 1976 North American tour. The music recorded from these concerts was used in their live album that was released the same year, Wings Over America , which is arguably their best record.

7. "Monterey Pop"

Chronicling the 1967 Monterey International Pop Festival, this film features performances by Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, The Mamas and Papas, The Who, and Otis Redding, among many others. Occurring before Woodstock, this was one of the first main stages that both Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin performed at, which ended up launching their careers.

8. "Shine a Light"

Martin Scorsese follows The Rolling Stones from their 2006 performance at the Beacon Theatre in New York City as part of their A Bigger Banger Tour. For a few of their performances, they bring on special guests, including Jack White of The White Stripes as well as Christina Aguilera.

9. "Summer of Soul"

Directed by Questlove of The Roots, Summer of Soul is like unearthing a treasure chest from the ground: over 4o hours of footage from the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival went unwatched from the time it was filmed until about 2004 when it was finally discovered. The festival featured performances by Gladys Knight & the Pips, Nina Simone, Sly and the Family Stone, and Stevie Wonder, among many other artists.

10. "Madonna: Truth or Dare"

Largely regarded as one of the best tours to have ever occurred in music history, Madonna: Truth or Dare documents Madonna's 1990 Blond Ambition World Tour, tracking her through an almost-shutdown in Canada, a family performance in Michigan, and troubles before her Italy appearances. While this film documents most of the songs performed on her setlist, it's also complemented by tons of backstage footage and interviews, which makes this one a bit of a hybrid between music documentary and concert film.

11. "Miss Americana"

Documenting Taylor Swift's 2018 Reputation Stadium Tour as well as the time leading up to the release of her album, Lover, in 2019, Miss Americana is a part-music documentary, a part concert film. The film touches on the more emotional side of Swift, which we don't usually see, as well as the outer side of herself that she presents to the world at large.

12. "Gimme Shelter"

This one is another that fits into both categories of concert film and music documentary as it takes place over the course of The Rolling Stones' last weeks in their 1969 U.S. tour. The film equally combines concert footage with backstage features of the band members, including video of the tragedies that took place during the Altamont Free Concert in California.

13. "The Beatles: Get Back" (Episode 3)

Whereas the first two episodes of this documentary series feature the creation and recording of Let It Be , the final episode highlights one of their most well-known (and final) concerts, which occurred on the rooftop of Apple Corps in London. Not only does the footage focus on the concert happening on the rooftop, but also on what's going down below both with the (lack of) planning and public disturbance/police presence.

14. "Carole King and James Taylor: Just Call Out My Name"

This newly-released documentary is a throwback to Carole King and James Taylor's 2010 concert at The Troubadour in Los Angeles as part of their reunion tour. The film also weaves in bits and pieces of the pair's friendship over the years, as they've known each other and have collaborated since the 1970s.

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The Top 13 Highest-Grossing Concert Films of All Time

From “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” to Martin Scorsese’s “Shine a Light”

“Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” made a surprise appearance on the theatrical release calendar this October and has already become the second-highest grossing concert documentary ever, drawing in fans who wanted to re-experience her Eras Tour in movie form and those who weren’t able to catch this summer’s concert. But while “The Eras Tour” movie still isn’t the top music doc (yet), it’s something of an outlier when it comes to just how much it’s made at the box office — $178 million and counting.

Several other big-name musicians and bands have released documentaries about their tours or certain albums, but the only ones to come close to the success of “The Eras Tour” include Michael Jackson and Justin Bieber, so far. Beyoncé’s “Renaissance” tour documentary, slated for a Dec. 1 release, could further shake up the stats and the box office.

Below we’ve rounded up a list of the highest grossing concert movies of all time, including Miley Cyrus, BTS and One Direction.

1. “Michael Jackson: This Is It” – $261 Million

The king of pop still reigns supreme with his posthumous concert documentary.

2. “ Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” – $178 Million So Far

Taylor Swift’s “The Eras Tour” concert documentary, directed by Sam Wrench, launched in theaters via AMC on Oct. 12.

3. “Justin Bieber: Never Say Never” – $99 Million

Released in February 2011, Justin Bieber’s concert documentary was produced by Insurge Pictures, MTV Films, Scooter Braun and L.A. Reid Media. It was distributed by Paramount Pictures. Justin Bieber’s 2013 concert doc “Believe” made $10 million worldwide.

4. “Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert” – $70.6 Million

This 2008 concert film transitioned Miley Cyrus from star of Hannah Montana on the Disney Channel to an artist in her own right.

5. “One Direction: This Is Us” – $68.5 Million

One Direction — the heartthrob boy band formed by Simon Cowell on “The X Factor” — clocks in the top 5 with “This Is Us.” The band split up in 2015, with all five members attempting solo musical careers.

6. “Katy Perry: Part of Me” – $32.7 Million

Katy Perry’s “Part of Me” came out in 2012 when she was breaking up with Russell Brand. Since then, she has married Orlando Bloom, judged on “American Idol” and performed at the coronation of King Charles III.

7. “BTS Permission to Dance on Stage – Seoul: Live Viewing” – $32.6 Million

The K-Pop band’s 2022 concert documentary contains a series of performances they headlined.

8. “BTS: Yet To Come in Cinemas” – $29.2 million

This film about the South Korean boy band spotlights their free show at Busan’s World Expo in October 2023. More than 50,000 people were in attendance.

9. “Madonna: Truth or Dare” – $29 million

Released in 1991, this documentary followed the singer’s controversial “Blond Ambition” tour. Madonna recently embarked on her “The Celebration” tour after a health scare.

10. “Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience” – $23.2 million

Although we’re not quite to the year 3000 yet, the Jo Bros have grown up quite a bit since their concert film came out in 2009.

11. “U2: 3D” – $22.7 million

U2 also had their 1988 “Rattle and Hum” documentary, which grossed $8.6 million.

12. “Glee: The 3D Concert Movie” – $18.7 million

In addition to its six-season run on Fox, “Glee” got a concert movie experience in 2011.

13. “Shine a Light” – $15.7 million

Martin Scorsese’s documentary about the Rolling Stones includes footage from their “A Bigger Bang” tour.

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The 5 best concert movies of 2023

From BTS to Beyoncé, here’s how our favorite concert films of the year measured up

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Have you heard? 2023 was the year concert films saved cinema — or at least boosted movie theaters . Normally, it would be difficult to wrangle up enough notable entries to warrant an end-of-year concert movie ranking, but not this year. This year, the concert film ruled . Taylor Swift and Beyoncé sidestepped Hollywood to work directly with theaters for the distributions of their respective box-office champions. Culture-shifting global superstars BTS managed to make waves in theaters, despite being on group hiatus for all of 2023. And Hollywood indie darling A24 re-released 1984’s Stop Making Sense , widely considered to be one of the best concert films of all time .

Like any ranking, it’s important to come up with a criteria. This one is based not on the quality of the performance recorded, but rather the unique merits of the concert movie as, well, a movie. Frankly, there aren’t any bad movies on this list — it really was a good year for concert-focused filmmaking — but there were some examples that were more cinematically ambitious than others. In a year of concert films, let’s talk about which movies did something particularly unique with the format.

5. BTS: Yet to Come

Where to watch: Prime Video

It pains me to put my beloved BTS so low on this list, but remember, all five of these concert movies are Quite Good. As a card-carrying member of BTS ARMY, BTS: Yet to Come — a filmed version of the K-pop sensation’s final performance before the group went on hiatus for mandatory military service —was the concert film I personally had the most fun watching in 2023. However, helmed by experienced K-pop concert film director Oh Yoon-dong , BTS: Yet to Come isn’t doing anything special beyond point-and-shoot in the translation to film. Still, its cinematic release gave fans an excuse to get dressed up, change the batteries in their ARMY Bomb , and scream the lyrics to “Cypher Pt 3” with other fans. Nothing wrong with those ambitions!

BTS: Yet to Come might have bopped its way further up the list if not for the film’s decision to trim down and move the placement of the concert’s “ments,” the closing remarks made by performers at K-pop concerts. Ments are one of the many unique aspects of attending a K-pop concert, and— especially given the significance of this performance —it would have been nice to see these speeches in their entirety. Presumably, the decision was made for runtime reasons, but the ments montage made for a jarring shift in editorial style that didn’t quite match the straight-forward, like-you’re-there structure of the rest of the film. (This film also loses points for cutting out the hardworking cameraman who put his body on the line for all of us so he could get the shot. Never forget.)

4. Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour

Where to watch: Digital rental/purchase on Amazon , Apple , and Vudu

Like BTS: Yet to Come , Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour is another straightforward concert film designed to recreate the experience of being at a stop on the pop star’s ongoing, record-breaking world tour. But unlike BTS: Yet to Come , Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour draws from three separate shows, giving director Sam Wrench more material to pull from. Also, it was filmed at state-of-the-art SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, allowing for a more dynamic captured performance. The viewer is, like, in it at Swift’s pop culture party of a show.

As 2023 comes to a close, Swift’s The Eras Tour —a three-plus-hour show that chronicles the first 17 years of Swift’s career —is on track to become the highest-grossing tour of all time . It’s not just a good show; it’s representative of a cultural shift in how people define themselves as fans. Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour gave a glimpse into what that kind of community can look like, both for those who are already a part of it and for those who might be curious.

3. Renaissance: A Film By Beyoncé

Where to watch: Theaters

Part concert film, part behind-the-scenes documentary, Renaissance: A Film By Beyoncé showcases Beyoncé’s power not only as a performer, but as a director . Queen Bey wrote, produced, and directed the cinematic experience, which gives a peek behind what went into putting together and pulling off her massive Renaissance world tour.

Unlike most of the other concert films on the list, Renaissance drew from many different stops on her 56-show tour, giving a more ambitious, broader depiction of the tour as a whole. The viewer doesn’t just get a front-row seat to some of Beyoncé’s meticulously choreographed numbers, including one in which she flies through the air on the back of a giant silver horse. We also get Beyoncé’s musings on aging, motherhood, capitalism’s pretty effective efforts to turn us into machines, how our hometowns form us, and the construct of time. We also get deep dives into the rich history of ball culture , and a tribute to Beyoncé’s late Uncle Johnny, who helped raise her.

If that sounds like a lot to pull off in one concert film, it is. However, Beyoncé manages to pull it into a cohesive whole as a filmmaker and performer by using the story of her show as a backbone. We return to it again and again, a reminder not only of the beautiful art humans can create together in this flawed, frustrating world, but that art cannot be separated from the process that creates it and us.

2. Stop Making Sense

In a recent interview with CBS Sunday Morning , Talking Heads bassist Tina Weymouth described the structure of Stop Making Sense , which immortalizes the post-punk band’s 1983 performance at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre, like this: “It’s the story of love. It really is. It starts with one person, an individual alone in this world, and then a community builds around it.” Is there any greater working definition of live music performance than this? Is there any film that better captures that feeling than Stop Making Sense , which pioneered some of the concert film techniques utilized by other entrants on this list?

This year, A24 issued a re-release of the Jonathan Demme film, which was a smash hit when it was originally released in 1984 and still slaps 40 years later. It’s a snapshot of a band at a creative high, finding euphoric joy in their music and sharing that joy with their audience. From frontman David Byrne’s weird, wonderful movements (sometimes in an absurdly large business suit) to the looks shared amongst the performers on stage and the cleverness of the performance’s construction, it’s incredible how the artistic intensity of this specific euphoric moment in space and time has been preserved on celluloid. Thankfully for preservationists, Demme and the Talking Heads pioneered the use of digital audio in this kind of filmmaking, too.

The amalgamation of three Hollywood performances captured in Stop Making Sense would be part of the Talking Heads’ final tour as a group. In 1988, they went on hiatus, and would “officially” break up in 1991. Whatever happened, it was messy, and the four members— Byrne and Weymouth, as well as drummer Chris Frantz and keyboardist/guitarist Jerry Harrison — are more or less still estranged as a group. Prior to the promotion for this film, the Talking Heads had not appeared together in public since their 2002 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, which was kind of awkward . This meta context makes the experience of watching Stop Making Sense in 2023, especially on the big screen, even more precious.

1. Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus

Ryuichi Sakamoto died in March 28, 2023. In his 71 years, the Japanese composer and world-renowned piano soloist was a pioneer of electronic music through his work with the Yellow Magic Orchestra, and an Academy Award-winning composer who wrote the soundtracks for films including The Last Emperor and The Revenant . He has inspired and/or collaborated with countless artists, including David Byrne, David Bowie, Michael Jackson, Iggy Pop, and BTS rapper Suga, who featured Sakamoto on his 2023 album .

In addition to being an astoundingly accomplished and influential musician, Sakamoto was also a baller. Not only did he compile a 33-track playlist to be played at his funeral, he participated in the filming of one of his final performances, released in cinematic form posthumously by his filmmaker son Neo Sora. The result is Opus , an unflinchingly graceful depiction of one man’s connection to music and performance.

Opus is boldly simple in its setup: Sakamoto sits alone at a Yamaha grand piano in Tokyo’s NHK Studio, and plays 20 pieces from across his expansive career, including fan favorite “Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence.” There’s no context, and no in-studio audience. There is only Sakamoto, and his piano. Shot in crisp black and white, Opus is unhurried in its exploration of its subject. Over the course of 100 minutes, we linger on shots of Sakamoto’s hands and face, on shots of the instrument’s strings, hammers, and keys, on how well they know each other and work together. The studio’s artificial lighting intentionally moves the space, this film’s whole world, from morning to night.

For the filming of the movie, Sakamoto’s health only allowed him to record a few pieces per day — and even that reportedly took a lot out of him. There are moments, intentionally preserved in the final cut, when Sakamoto messes up and starts again — a messy, magnificent part of any artistic process. In the film, the artist is running out of time to perform. He has run out of time to perform, by the time we watch the film. But Opus refuses to worry about the inevitability of death, even as it informs so much of what we see and feel on screen. Opus knows that art like Sakamoto’s stays. What a gift it is.

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10 concert films to watch before seeing Beyoncé, Taylor Swift in theaters

If you missed your chance to see Taylor Swift or Beyoncé live during their recent tours don't fret, because you can see the entire concert and behind-the-scenes features at your local theater.

Taylor Swift's Eras Tour and Beyoncé's Renaissance World Tour both ended recently, but both Grammy award-winning artists aren't ending their show just yet.

Beyoncé's "Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé' will be in theaters Friday, Dec. 1, while "Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour" comes out Friday, Oct. 13.

This isn't the first time musicians have released a concert film. The earliest known concert film was 1948's "Concert Magic," which featured violinist Yehudi Menuhin at the Charlie Chaplin Studios in 1947.

Here are 10 other concert films from talented artists you should check out:

'Amazing Grace' - 2018

Filmed in 1972, the concert film was not released until 46 years later due to difficulty in synchronizing audio with visuals. After attempts to release it over the years, and Aretha Franklin's death, the Queen of Soul's family allowed the film to show in theaters.

The movie shows Aretha Franklin recording her 1972 live album of the same name, and co-stars gospel singer James Cleveland and features her father C. L. Franklin.

Where to watch: The concert film is available to stream on Max.

'Blackpink: The Movie' - 2021

Since their debut in 2016, Blackpink, the South Korean pop girl group, has taken the world by storm and has earned the title of "biggest girl group in the world."

The concert film features interviews with the four members, Jisoo, Jennie, Rosé and Lisa, and live performances from two tours.

Where to watch: The concert film is available to stream on Hulu.

'Glee: The 3D Concert Movie' - 2011

Based on the Fox TV series "Glee," the 3D concert film features the cast performing during the "Glee Live! In Concert!" tour in 2011.

The movie features behind-the-scenes footage, a setlist of songs from the first two seasons and a mini-series focusing on three teenagers who are fans of the TV show.

Where to watch: The concert film is available to rent for $3.99 on Apple TV and Prime Video.

'Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert' - 2008

The concert movie shows Miley Cyrus performing in her sold-out, 69-city tour.

The film shows a new dimension to the pop idol that fans had not seen yet. It featured the singer, 15-years-old at the time, become a multimedia sensation with a "backstage pass" to her life on tour.

Where to watch: The concert film is available to stream on Disney+.

'Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience' - 2009

The 3D film follows the Jonas Brothers during their "Burnin' Up Tour" in a behind-the-scenes look at their busy schedule while in New York City in 2008.

Viewers also get to see the trio go on a press tour, perform songs with Demi Lovato and Taylor Swift and debut two, then-new, songs.

'Justin Bieber: Never Say Never' - 2011

At the peak of his career, pop star Justin Bieber starred in his concert documentary that showcased him interacting with his fans, his hometown and family.

While the film is centered on Justin Bieber, he is never interviewed. His family and friends are the ones who share stories about their time with him.

'Katy Perry: Part of Me' - 2012

Another 3D concert film, the autobiographical documentary shows pop singer Katy Perry during her "California Dreams Tour."

It provides an insight into her journey with stardom while detailing various aspects of her professional and personal life.

Where to watch: The concert film is available to stream on Paramount+.

'Madonna: Truth or Dare' - 1991

The risqué concert film follows pop icon Madonna on her 1990 "Blond Ambition Tour." It is filmed in black and white to provide an intimate look at her behind the scenes, and then bursts into color during her performances.

The movies shows various instances of her public life including threats of arrest in Canada and a birthday tribute to her father in Michigan.

Where to watch: The concert film is available to rent for $3.99 on Apple TV and $4.59 on Prime Video.

'Michael Jackson's This Is It' - 2009

The 2009 concert film was met with some criticism since it was released just four months after Michael Jackson's death. However, the movie broke numerous pre-sale and box office records at the time.

The documentary shows the King of Pop during rehearsal and preparation for the "This Is It" concert scheduled to start 18 days before his death. While his family said they don't support the film, it made $261 million worldwide, making it the highest-grossing documentary/concert film of all time worldwide.

'One Direction: This Is Us' - 2013

Another concert film in 3D, "One Direction: This Is Us" shows the British boy band during their "Take Me Home Tour."

Aside from concert footage at their London performance at the O2 Arena, the movie includes footage from their lives pre- and post-"X-Factor" appearance.

Where to watch: The concert film is available to rent for $3.99 on Apple TV and $3.59 on Prime Video.

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John Oliva covers entertainment and community news in South Texas. Contact him at [email protected] or Twitter  @johnpoliva .

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For that live show experience, these films capture exhilarating music by Shakira, A Tribe Called Quest, Talking Heads and more.

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By The New York Times

If you saw “ Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé ,” in a theater and enjoyed the vicarious thrill of seeing a concert but onscreen, here are eight more films of live shows — picked by the Culture desk writers — that will give you a taste of the same experience.

Beyoncé, ‘Homecoming’

Available to stream on Netflix

Beyoncé’s 2018 performance at Coachella was the stuff of legends. Marching bands! A Destiny’s Child reunion! So when “Homecoming” dropped on Netflix the next year, it truly felt like a gift. The film is one of intriguing contradictions, feeling both intimate and outsize at once. You see the painstaking hard work in every stunning piece of choreography and hear it in every breathtaking vocal, yet Queen Bey makes it look effortless. Mekado Murphy

Talking Heads, ‘Stop Making Sense’

In theaters

What elevates “Stop Making Sense” — and what has made its recent 40th anniversary rerelease in theaters such a sensation — is its formal elegance. David Byrne begins alone onstage with a tape player and, as fellow musicians gradually accrue with each song, ends as the large-suited ringleader of a rock ’n’ roll circus. The director Jonathan Demme knows he doesn’t need spectacle or special effects to transfix: He just allows each frame to fill with the charisma of a great band. Lindsay Zoladz

‘Summer of Soul’

Available to stream on Disney+ and Hulu

If 1970’s “Woodstock” is one of the defining concert documentaries, “Summer of Soul,” released in 2021, acts as a sort of complement and rejoinder to it. Questlove’s Oscar-winning film exuberantly unearths footage of the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival — which took place the same summer as Woodstock — and cuts together some of the most extraordinary performances from artists like Stevie Wonder, Sly and the Family Stone, Gladys Knight, Nina Simone and so many more. Questlove includes interviews with participants and attendees that contextualize the sets musically and historically, but the film’s power is the ability to make you feel as if you are in the crowd even if you are just sitting on your couch. Esther Zuckerman

The Rolling Stones, ‘Gimme Shelter’

Available to stream on Max

This 1970 documentary directed by the Maysles brothers and Charlotte Zwerin is known as something of a Zapruder film for the death of the ’60s, with its footage of a killing at the Rolling Stones’ free concert at Altamont Speedway a year earlier. Still, the movie’s great music gets across the promise that was lost: Mick Jagger in an Uncle Sam top hat and a long lavender scarf, hip-thrusting his way through “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.” The Flying Burrito Brothers raving up “Six Days on the Road” when it still seemed like Altamont could be “the greatest party of 1969.” And most explosively, Tina Turner, singing “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long” and giving a microphone the time of its life. David Renard

‘Depeche Mode: 101’

Available to stream or rent on major platforms

The Music for the Masses tour brought the British synth band’s yearning songs — reverberating like confessional hymns in a cathedral — to the Rose Bowl and beyond in 1987-88. “Depeche Mode: 101” takes in the smokily lighted shows (with lead singer Dave Gahan in a billowing white shirt) and the bright-eyed “bus kids,” fans who went along for the ride. D.A. Pennebaker tunes into the heartbeat of Depeche Mode’s electronic sound, co-directing with Chris Hegedus and David Dawkins. Nicolas Rapold

‘Rage Against the Machine: The Battle of Mexico City’

Available to rent or buy on most major platforms .

I would wager this is the only concert film, directed by Joe DeMaio, that periodically cuts away from the performance to show documentary segments about the Zapatistas, the rebel political group of southern Mexico. Tonally, it’s a turn-of-the-century time capsule: The frenetic live footage (recorded in 1999 and released in 2001) seems to have been edited by a can of Red Bull. But the band’s knockout blend of overt leftist ideology and inventive, funky rap-over-metal holds up. Look for the guitarist Tom Morello’s rhythmic tapping of the unplugged tip of his guitar cable to make music, like somebody using the board game Operation as an instrument. Gabe Cohn

‘Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest’

Michael Rapaport’s documentary about the groundbreaking rap group A Tribe Called Quest isn’t exactly a concert film per se, but it is bookended by a pair of critical tours: a 2008 run that rapper Q-Tip bitterly declares backstage is its last performance ever, and another in 2010 that sees the trio cautiously reuniting. In between is a vibrant tribute, particularly enhanced after Phife Dawg’s death in 2016, and a no-frills look at the story of a singular group that changed hip-hop, even as success distanced them from one another. Brandon Yu

‘Shakira: Live From Paris’

Available to rent or buy on most major platforms

If Shakira’s performance at the MTV Video Music Awards impressed you, this 2011 release will floor you. Singing in three languages (often while dancing vigorously) and playing multiple instruments, the Colombian megastar commands the stage with a magnetic intensity. There isn’t much artifice on display here, only Shakira surrendering her entire body to the vitality of her genre-defying, globally inspired music. Take as proof her sensational belly dancing during “Ojos Así” or her transition from tenderness to fury in the rock ballad “Inevitable.” Carlos Aguilar

Inside the World of Taylor Swift

A Triumph at the Grammys: Taylor Swift made history  by winning her fourth album of the year at the 2024 edition of the awards, an event that saw women take many of the top awards .

‘The T ortured Poets Department’: Poets reacted to Swift’s new album name , weighing in on the pertinent question: What do the tortured poets think ?  

In the Public Eye: The budding romance between Swift and the football player Travis Kelce created a monocultural vortex that reached its apex  at the Super Bowl in Las Vegas. Ahead of kickoff, we revisited some key moments in their relationship .

Politics (Taylor’s Version): After months of anticipation, Swift made her first foray into the 2024 election for Super Tuesday with a bipartisan message on Instagram . The singer, who some believe has enough influence  to affect the result of the election , has yet to endorse a presidential candidate.

Conspiracy Theories: In recent months, conspiracy theories about Swift and her relationship with Kelce have proliferated , largely driven by supporters of former President Donald Trump . The pop star's fans are shaking them off .

Screen Rant

Taylor swift's 8 documentaries & concert movies, ranked (including eras tour).

From concert films to her Netflix original feature Miss Americana, here is a ranking of Taylor Swift's documentaries, including The Eras Tour movie.

• Taylor Swift's documentaries and concert films give fans an intimate look into her concerts and personal life, showcasing her incredible stage presence and genuine screen presence.
• The Eras Tour movie stands out as a complete experience that celebrates all of Taylor Swift's eras and is considered her best concert film.
• Miss Americana is one of Taylor Swift's most revealing documentaries, delving into her life as a global superstar who stands up for what she believes in and addresses heavy topics like her eating disorder.

Taylor Swift has made various intriguing documentaries and concert films throughout her career, from smaller-scale films like Speak Now World Tour Live to Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour . The singer-songwriter was born to be on stage and loves giving fans a closer look into her concerts with films like City of Lover Concert or The Eras Tour . Swift has allowed a handful of her concerts to be captured for the enjoyment of her fans, and she's also featured in a documentary revealing her life off the stage.

In recent years, Swift has taken on acting roles in movies , but it's her nonfiction films where audiences can appreciate her best performances as well as her most genuine screen presence. The life of a worldwide superstar who can't go anywhere without causing a scene is quite fascinating. With the Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour movie releasing in October 2023 (and Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (Taylor's Version) making its streaming debut on Disney+ in March 2024) , it is worth taking a look back at some of her earlier documentaries and concert films and seeing how they rank against one another.

9 Every Taylor Swift Documentary In Release Order

In total, Taylor Swift has released eight concert films and documentaries over the years of her impressive career. Starting in 2010 with her Fearless movie, the singer-songwriter has built upon the success of her songs and albums by debuting accompanying films and documentaries featuring a rare glimpse at her personal life. Hopefully, Swift plans to continue using this strategy for her future projects.

8 Taylor Swift: Speak Now World Tour Live (2011)

Taylor Swift: Speak Now World Tour Live premiered in November 2011 and features footage of the pop star's second world tour promoting Taylor Swift's third studio album , Speak Now . The film doesn't include commentary but showcases Swift's incredible stage presence, even at the young age of 22. Her performances of songs like "Dear John," in which fireworks explode as the singer belts the high note at the end of the bridge, prove her talent.

Unlike Taylor Swift: Speak Now World Tour Live , The 1989 World Tour Live features commentary from Swift and her close friends, giving it an edge over the previous film.

Swift knew how to command a crowd early in her career, which is how she went from playing two shows at Madison Square Garden to three sold-out nights at MetLife Stadium during her third concert tour. Looking back on it, Taylor Swift: Speak Now World Tour Live was a sweet beginning to Swift's career and is nostalgic to watch. The movie captured every mesmerizing moment of the whimsical concert and is a fun time all around. However, Swift has released many other concert films and documentaries that are of better quality.

Who & What Is Taylor Swift's "Champagne Problems" About? Lyrics & Meaning Explained

7 the 1989 world tour live (2015).

For Taylor Swift's fifth studio album, 1989 , she took the show on the road again in 2015 and later released the concert as a movie on Apple Music. This was around the time Swift had removed all her music from Spotify and influenced Apple Music to change their policy regarding paying their artists with an open letter posted on her Tumblr account. Unlike Taylor Swift: Speak Now World Tour Live , The 1989 World Tour Live features commentary from Swift and her close friends, giving it an edge over the previous film.

Every Song In Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (& Which Were Cut)

One part that makes the film special is when Swift discusses all the guests she brought out during her shows. A few of the most memorable singers were Mick Jagger, Alanis Morissette, and The Weeknd. However, one of The 1989 World Tour Live 's weaker aspects is the quick cuts that make it feel disorienting. For example, there is a goofy clip where Swift seems to be levitating as the dancer she's leaning on has been inexplicably edited out. The editing unfortunately plays against The 1989 World Tour Live .

6 Taylor Swift: City of Lover Concert (2020)

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Taylor Swift's Lover era was cut short. However, in late 2019, before the pandemic, the pop star took her album promo to Paris, France. There, Swift performed multiple songs from Lover for fans at the Olympia in Paris. This show is presented in the short film Taylor Swift: City of Lover Concert , which aired on ABC in May 2020.

The concert showcases Swift's sharp vocals, specifically from her acoustic performance of "Cornelia Street," which is undoubtedly a highlight of Taylor Swift: City of Lover Concert . It also features upbeat pop hits like "You Need to Calm Down," demonstrating Swift's versatility as a music artist. Airing the special during the lockdown was the perfect way for Swift to uplift her fans with memories of a happier time.

Taylor Swift: City of Lover isn't available on streaming, but performances of each song featured in the film are on YouTube.

5 Taylor Swift: Journey To Fearless (2010)

Taylor Swift: Journey to Fearless feels like a lifetime ago compared to how far Taylor Swift has come in her career. While the special was eventually released in full on DVD, it was initially a three-episode series that aired on The Hub, which has since been rebranded as Discovery Family. Taylor Swift: Journey to Fearless showcases Swift's first tour in 2009-2010 promoting her second studio album, Fearless. The film features commentary from Swift, her mother, and some of her bandmates as she talks about the experience of taking Fearless on the road.

The singer talks about her post-show meet and greet, in which her team members chose fans from the audience to meet her after the show for free. She also discusses how incredible it is to do what she loves for a living. Fearless is the album that launched Swift into the spotlight, and Taylor Swift: Journey to Fearless is a nostalgic look back on how she ended up as the biggest pop star on the planet. Eleven years later Swift re-recorded the Fearless songs and released Fearless (Taylor's Version) .

4 Taylor Swift: Reputation Stadium Tour (2018)

Taylor Swift dominated the music industry with her fifth studio album, 1989 . But after the drama between her and Kanye West and Kim Kardashian in 2016, Swift fell from her pedestal and rebranded herself with her sixth album, reputation . Today, millions of people fight for a chance to secure Taylor Swift tickets, but back in 2018, she had to fight a bad reputation from social media and the press. The Reputation Stadium Tour was so special because it was for the fans who stood by Swift during some of her most difficult days.

How Much Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour Has Made At The Box Office (& How Much It Cost)

Taylor Swift: Reputation Stadium Tour was released in 2018 on Netflix and chronicled the Reputation Stadium Tour from start to finish. Swift revisited older songs like Speak Now 's "Long Live" but also performed almost all the reputation tracks like "I Did Something Bad" and "Don't Blame Me." It's special rewatching this tour movie because it takes fans back to when Swift's real friends, whom she sings about in "This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things," and her real fans were all that mattered. Unfortunately, Netflix removed Taylor Swift: Reputation Stadium Tour from its streaming library in 2024.

3 Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions (2020)

One of the best things that came out of the Lover era ending was the creation of folklore and evermore . However, before the release of evermore , Swift celebrated her eighth studio album folklore (one of the albums Swift owns ) with Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions on Disney+. In the documentary, Swift takes fans through her writing process, from the love triangle she sings about in "cardigan," "august," and "betty" to the people pleaser's anthem "mirrorball."

Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour ultimately broke records and became the highest-grossing concert film of all time.

Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions also features folklore co-writers and producers Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner, who joined Swift in the Long Pond Studio in New York to perform all 17 tracks on the album. The documentary shows how Swift's creativity came to life during a time of global uncertainty and fear. It was the perfect way for Swift to connect with her fans in a time of social distancing and isolation, years before it was safe for her to perform the songs in stadiums worldwide.

2 Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (2023)

Taylor swift: the eras tour.

Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour is a film rendition of the colossal worldwide event that sees the legendary pop star hit the stage in a specially curated film event. Performing the hits of her over seventeen-year career in music, The Eras Tour highlights Taylor Swift and her team as they put on a show of a lifetime.

One year after Taylor Swift's Reputation Stadium Tour , the singer-songwriter released her seventh studio album, Lover , and planned a much smaller tour called Lover Fest. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic caused the pop star to cancel the concerts. In the years between the worldwide shutdown and opening night of the Eras Tour, Swift wrote and released three albums — folklore , evermore , and Midnights . Additionally, she began releasing her rerecorded albums in 2021, so Swift had a lot of material to work with while planning her next tour.

How To Watch Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour

The biggest question was how Taylor Swift would promote so many albums on tour. Swift's response was the three-and-a-half-hour-long Eras Tour, a journey through all her albums, which quickly became the highest-grossing tour of all time. When fans struggled to get tickets due to extreme resale prices, Swift brought the show to the big screen via a movie directed by Sam Wrench. It was a jaw-dropping success, and Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour ultimately broke records and became the highest-grossing concert film of all time.

Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour premiered in theaters on October 13, 2023, and Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (Taylor's Version) made its streaming debut on March 14, 2024, on Disney+.

Fans went wild in theaters by dancing, starting conga lines, and forming large circles during the ending credits, where they held hands and spun around like a coven inspired by "willow." Moviegoers stocked up on Swift's merch, such as popcorn buckets and soda cups. However, those who didn't get to see Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour and experience the camaraderie in theaters can now watch a longer version of the film (with more songs) — Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (Taylor's Version) on Disney+ . Swift went all out with this tour and this movie, and her efforts paid off tremendously.

Swift has released several concert films in her 17-year career, but Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour knocks the rest out of the park, or as Swift might prefer, out of SoFi stadium. It is a complete and immersive experience that almost matches the feeling of watching the concert live. Ultimately, Taylor Swift: T he Eras Tour lives up to its name, celebrating all of Swift's eras and taking viewers on a journey through her awe-inspiring career.

1 Miss Americana (2020)

Miss americana.

*Availability in US

Not available

Miss Americana is a documentary on the popular singer and songwriter Taylor Swift. The documentary was directed by Lana Wilson and debuted on Netflix in January 2020. The film follows Swift through several years of her life as she grew to become a pop culture icon in the music industry.

One of Taylor Swift's most revealing documentaries is Netflix's Miss Americana . The documentary, directed by Lana Wilson, dives into Swift's life as a people-pleasing global superstar trying to stand up for what she believes in. The film contains clips of Swift planning her would-be-canceled 2020 Lover Fest tour and recording songs for her album Lover . However, Miss Americana also covers heavier topics like Swift's eating disorder and her 2017 sexual assault trial.

Miss Americana takes its name from Lover 's seventh track, "Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince," one of the first times Swift got involved with politics, just like in the Miss Americana documentary. One memorable scene shows Swift arguing with her father and her management team over her need to speak out against Tennessee senator Marsha Blackburn's blatant homophobia and other dangerous ideologies. Miss Americana presented a side of the singer fans hadn't seen before, but it's one that Taylor Swift should consider showing more often.

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When will ‘Renaissance’ be streaming? How to watch every Beyoncé documentary and concert film

With the release of 'cowboy carter,' beyoncé is ushering in a new era. but what about 'renaissance'.

Beyoncé is moving on to a new era in her music. If you haven’t listened to the singer’s new album , Cowboy Carter, yet — seriously, what are you doing reading this? Just a few months after her concert film/documentary, Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé, broke box office records, the Queen Bey announced that we were “ready” for her new music during a Super Bowl ad , officially ushering in Act II, AKA Cowboy Carter , AKA the sequel to Renaissance . Now that we’re in a brand new, distinctly Country era , fans may be wondering when the singer’s smash hit documentary capturing the making of Renaissance will be available to stream at home. Unfortunately, there’s no official word on when (or even if) Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé will be hitting HBO’s Max or Netflix or another popular streaming platform yet.

But when it comes to documentaries and concert films, Renaissance   was in no way Beyoncé’s first rodeo. The musical icon has put out many projects offering her audience a glimpse of what goes into the making of her albums and world tours, as well as unforgettable visual albums and concert performances. So while you wait for Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé to become available to watch online, why not revisit some of the “Texas Hold ‘Em” singer’s past projects? Here’s how to watch all of Beyoncé’s documentaries, concert films and visual albums.

Beyoncé: I Am… World Tour (2010)

In celebration of her successful world tour for her album I Am… Sasha Fierce, Beyoncé: I Am… World Tour (2010) immortalizes the 110-show tour. Footage focuses primarily on Beyoncé’s performances of hit songs including “Single Ladies” and “Halo,” but also includes behind-the-scenes clips shot by Beyoncé herself.

While I Am... World Tour isn't streaming on any platform right now, you can rent the concert film from Apple or free with a free trial through Amazon (and find it uploaded on YouTube ).

Watch free with Quello free trial $3.99 at Apple

Beyoncé: Year of 4 (2011)

Year of 4 focuses on the making of one of Beyoncé’s most iconic music videos, “Run The World (Girls).” This 20-minute short documentary film is available to watch totally free on YouTube.

Watch free on YouTube

Beyoncé: Life Is But a Dream (2013)

This full-length follow-up to Year of 4 takes a more intimate look at Beyoncé’s life in 2011 and early 2012. Beyoncé: Life Is But a Dream covers her decision to part ways with her father as her manager, the making of her fourth album, the miscarriage the star suffered right around the release of 4 , and the birth of Blue Ivy Carter. You can watch Life is But a Dream free with a free trial through Amazon (and find it uploaded on YouTube ).

Watch free with Quello free trial

Lemonade (2016)

While not technically a documentary or concert film, you can’t discuss Beyoncé’s on-screen work without including Lemonade. This hour-long film/visual album is "a conceptual project based on each woman's journey of self-knowledge and healing." You can watch the Lemonade film on Tidal (free with a free trial).

Watch free with Tidal free trial

Black Is King (2019)

Another can’t-miss visual album/film, Black is King is a companion musical film piece executive produced, and directed by Beyoncé, created as a visual companion to the 2019 album The Lion King: The Gift , which was curated by Beyoncé for the 2019 live-action remake of The Lion King . Black is King is streaming exclusively on Disney+.

Stream on Disney+

Beyoncé Presents: Making The Gift (2019)

This ABC special captures the behind-the-scenes process of making The Lion King: The Gift. The special is not currently streaming anywhere, but you can find the behind-the-scenes documentary uploaded on YouTube .

Watch on YouTube

Homecoming: A Film by Beyoncé (2019)

In 2018, Beyoncé became the first Black woman to headline Coachella. Homecoming: A Film by Beyoncé documents all the work that went into the singer’s historic performance, including the full setlist and all the behind-the-scenes effort. You can stream what is undeniably one of Beyoncé's most-popular documentaries/concert films on Netflix.

Stream on Netflix

Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé (2023)

Beyoncé’s most-recent film release, the box office record-breaking Renaissance, once again combines documentary and concert film into one, looking at the process of making Renaissance the album , creating the Renaissance World Tour and then the actual tour performances.

Unfortunately Renaissance is not out on digital or streaming yet. But at least you can listen to ACT II: Cowboy Carter while you wait for the concert film to drop online.

When does Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé   come out?

The film initially premiered in theaters on Nov. 25, 2023. Currently, Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé does not have a streaming or digital release date set.

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Apparently, fans don’t want JLo now. So her tour producers are hoping they’ll want JLo then.

The struggling North American “This Is Me…Now” tour – Jennifer Lopez ‘s first in five years — is transforming into “This Is Me…Live/The Greatest Hits.” It’s apparently hoped that the promise of familiar material will goose ticket sales, which already saw seven tour dates canceled.

It has been 10 years since Lopez’s last studio LP, 2014’s A.K.A. , and 22 years since 2002’s This Is Me … Then gave her two of her biggest hits in  “Jenny From the Block”  and “All I Have.” 

The two films are This Is Me…Now: A Love Story, and a documentary, The Greatest Love Story Never Told. ”

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Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band Get Loose in Los Angeles

• By Ethan Millman

Ethan Millman

Three hours into Bruce Springsteen ‘s epic return to Los Angeles on Thursday night with the E Street Band, he stared down the sold-out crowd at the Forum. “Do you have anything left?” he shouted, midway through “Twist and Shout,” the second-to-last song of his first L.A. show in eight years. Five decades in, the magic of a Springsteen show remains: He always seems to have a little bit left in the tank. 

The 2024 version of the tour has been looser than last year’s, which stuck fairly close to a single set list, and Thursday was no exception. Springsteen kicked off with a true rarity, a cover of John Lee Hooker’s “Boom Boom” (most frequently played on the Tunnel of Love Express Tour back in 1988), before jumping into “Lonesome Day” (rarely played last year, but now a staple in the set) and “Prove It All Night,” then his live -favorite arena-rock reworking of Jimmy Cliff’s “Trapped.”

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Six dates into their return to the road, Springsteen and the E Street Band sounded like they had never been interrupted. “Are you having fun yet? Because we haven’t had fun yet,” Springsteen told the crowd just over an hour into his show. “This is our pre-fun. We’re here to wake you up, shake you up, and take you to higher ground. The E Street Band is here to bring the joyous power of rock & roll into your life. But we need your help. We plan on sending you home with your feet hurting, your hands hurting, your ass in paralysis, and your sexual organs stimulated.”

Springsteen maintains a remarkably simple setup and show presentation compared to the other blockbuster live shows currently on the road. The visuals are limited to video screens and elegant stage lights, keeping the focus on the 17 musicians onstage with him. He doesn’t really need much else. 

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From there, the show was all joy and catharsis, with an unbroken string of hits and live favorites, beginning with Nils Lofgren’s jaw-dropping guitar virtuosity on “Because the Night,” and inevitably reaching “Thunder Road” and “Born to Run.” As he has throughout the tour, Springsteen finished the show alone with his meditation on life after death, “I’ll See You in My Dreams.” 

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OC Parks Presents The 2024 Summer Concert Series And Sunset Cinema Film Series

Celebrate summertime outdoors with 9 free concerts and 12 free movie screenings at OC Parks  June 7 to August 30, 2024. 

(Orange County, Calif.) – The County of Orange and OC Parks are excited to announce the 2024 lineup for the annual OC Parks Summer Concert Series and Sunset Cinema film series. Enjoy family-friendly entertainment under the stars at regional parks with free live music and movie screenings all summer long. All events are free to attend with free parking and food and drink options available for purchase. 

OC Parks Summer Concert Series returns with nine free outdoor concerts Thursday evenings, June 20 to Aug. 22 from 5 to 8 p.m. Enjoy live music from exceptional bands and artists at Craig Regional Park, Mason Regional Park, Irvine Regional Park, Mile Square Regional Park and Bluff Park at Salt Creek Beach.

The concert series kicks off with The Smiths and Morrissey cover band Sweet and Tender Hooligans June 20 at Craig Regional Park in Fullerton, followed by popular local and renowned artists including Mariachi Divas, Flashback Heart Attack, A Thousand Horses, No Duh, Ozomatli, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and The FABBA Show. Jimmy’s Buffet will round out the 2024 OC Parks Summer Concert Series at Bluff Park at Salt Creek Beach. 

OC Parks Sunset Cinema  film series brings the big screen to the great outdoors in your favorite regional parks with 12 free movie screenings Friday nights beginning June 7 to Aug. 30 at Craig Regional Park, Carbon Canyon Regional Park, Mason Regional Park, Yorba Regional Park, Irvine Regional Park, Laguna Niguel Regional Park and Bluff Park at Salt Creek Beach. Guests of all ages can enjoy recent blockbusters and popular classic films, complete with dynamic pre-show entertainment such as character interactions, DJ-led games and more. Cinema events begin at 6 p.m. with screenings starting after sundown, at approximately 8 p.m. 

Friday night films kick off June 7 and include Wonka  (2023), The Little Rascals  (1994), Migration (2023), Men in Black  (1997), Trolls Band Together  (2023), Barbie  (2023), National Treasure  (2004), Frozen II  (2019), Napoleon Dynamite  (2004), The Super Mario Bros. Movie  (2023), 13 Going on 30  (2004) and The Goonies  (1985).

“The County of Orange and OC Parks are thrilled to continue this beloved annual community tradition,” said Chairman Donald P. Wagner, Orange County Board of Supervisors. “The return of the OC Parks Summer Concert Series and Sunset Cinema promises yet another season of free, outdoor entertainment, inviting everyone to experience the joy of music and film throughout Orange County’s stunning regional parks."

OC Parks Summer Concert Series and OC Parks Sunset Cinema film series are open to the public of all ages and free to attend with free parking. Food trucks will serve a variety of tasty food options at each event and a beer and wine garden will be available to those 21 and older. Gather your chairs, blankets, friends and family and enjoy free concerts and movie screenings this summer with OC Parks.

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• Chinese-Traditional
• Vietnamese  

OC Parks Summer Concert Series

Thursday nights, 5 p.m. (Event starts at 5 p.m., live music begins at 6 p.m.)  *Translation services available upon request*

Date: June 20 Concert: Sweet and Tender Hooligans @ Craig Regional Park

Date: June 27 Concert: Mariachi Divas @ Craig Regional Park

*No summer concert July 4 in observance of Independence Day.

Date: July 11 Concert: Flashback Heart Attack   @ Mason Regional Park

Date: July 18 Concert: A Thousand Horses @ Irvine Regional Park

Date: July 25 Concert: No Duh: The Ultimate Tribute to No Doubt & Gwen Stefani @ Irvine Regional Park

Date: August 1 Concert: Ozomatli @ Mile Square Regional Park

Date: August 8 Concert: Big Bad Voodoo Daddy @ Mile Square Regional Park

Date: August 15 Concert: The FABBA Show @ Bluff Park at Salt Creek Beach

Date: August 22 Concert: Jimmy’s Buffet @ Bluff Park at Salt Creek Beach

OC Parks Sunset Cinema

Friday nights, 6 p.m. (Event starts at 6 p.m., movie begins at sunset)  *All movies will be shown in English*

Date: June 7 Movie: Wonka  (2023) @ Craig Regional Park

Date: June 14 Movie: The Little Rascals  (1994) @ Craig Regional Park

Date: June 21 Movie: Migration  (2023) @ Carbon Canyon Regional Park

Date: June 28 Movie: Men in Black  (1997) @ Carbon Canyon Regional Park

*No cinema event July 5 in observance of Independence Day weekend.

Date: July 12 Movie: Trolls Band Together  (2023) @ Mason Regional Park

Date: July 19 Movie: Barbie  (2023) @ Yorba Regional Park

Date: July 26 Movie: National Treasure  (2004) @ Yorba Regional Park

Date: August 2 Movie: Frozen II  (2019) @ Irvine Regional Park

Date: August 9 Movie: Napoleon Dynamite  (2004) @ Irvine Regional Park

Date: August 16 Movie: The Super Mario Bros. Movie  (2023) @ Laguna Niguel Regional Park

Date: August 23 Movie: 13 Going on 30  (2004) @ Laguna Niguel Regional Park

Date: August 30 Movie: The Goonies  (1985) @ Bluff Park at Salt Creek Beach

OC Parks manages nearly 60,000 acres of parks, historical and coastal facilities and open space for the County of Orange as part of OC Community Resources.   http://www.ocparks.com

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Jennifer Lopez Quietly Rebrands Tour as Greatest Hits Show Amid Weak Ticket Sales

By Steven J. Horowitz

Steven J. Horowitz

Senior Music Writer

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After canceling seven dates of her first North American tour in five years amid weak ticket sales, Jennifer Lopez has renamed it to apparently broaden its scope, changing it from “This Is Me… Now” to “This Is Me… Live | The Greatest Hits.”

Requests for comment from Lopez’s reps and Live Nation, which is producing the tour, went unanswered. Live Nation’s site hasn’t been updated to reflect the tour’s name change, but it does have conflicting titles on Lopez’s listings, including “This Is Me… Live” and “This Is Me… Now The Tour.” While some venues hosting Lopez’s performances haven’t changed the original listings on their respective sites, there are a few instances confirming the rebrand, for shows at Palm Springs’ Acrisure Arena and Inglewood’s The Forum . A sponsored Facebook ad from Lopez also features a graphic with the new title.

Upon release in February, “This Is Me… Now” struggled to find an audience, selling 14,000 copies in its first week. While the album did debut atop the Billboard Top Album Sales Chart due to 11,000 in physical sales, it arrived at No. 38 on the Billboard 200, becoming the second of her nine studio albums to bow outside the top 10.

The album was one part of a self-financed $20 million multimedia project including the tour and the two films, “This Is Me…Now: A Love Story,” and a documentary, “The Greatest Love Story Never Told.” Variety described the endeavor as an examination of “Lopez’s life as a serial romantic” following her romantic rekindling with actor Ben Affleck, who she married in 2022 after nearly two decades apart.

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