Music Documentaries

[Blue_Beetle]

I've seen Bob Dylan: No Direction Home and The Devil and Daniel Johnston about 5000 times each, and I look for lots of music documentaries. Mainly about bands I like and stuff like that. I've never seen any as good as those two though. I was wondering if anyone out there has seen some great documentaries about The Beatles or Brian Wilson. I look for them but it's always a bunch of people talking about stuff that happened and the people who where actually there aren't in the movie, or they legally can't play the music in the movie or some stupid stuff like that. Anyone have any really fantastic music documetnaries you've seen? Could be about anyone, I was just usuing Beatles/Beach Boys as an example.

Sex Pistols: The Filth and the Fury and Ramones: End of the Century are great too.

[Buried Alien]

For the Beatles, there are two options.

For a quick fix that you can watch in one sitting (about two hours), THE COMPLEAT BEATLES from 1982 is a good, entertaining, and informative summary of the band's career.

A more thorough treatment is the DVD box set BEATLES ANTHOLOGY, in which the Fabs tell their own story.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[Brian Gravity]

You might enjoy Dig!, featuring one of the most underrated/unknown great bands on Earth: The Brian Jonestown Massacre. I'd also recommend Theremin: An Electric Odyssey.

Other than that, Gimme Shelter probably reigns as one of my favorites.

[Ilash]

Amazing Journey: The Story of the Who and The Kids Are Alright are great individually but they're amazing when watched back to back as the latter celebrates the Who, while the former is a far more thorough summation of the band up to a few years ago.

Oil City Confidential is a brilliant doc about one of the great overlooked bands from the 1970s, Dr Feelgood.

[J. Robb]

I really liked Martin Scorsese's documentary "George Harrison: Living in the Material World". But I've always been a George fan.

[Ziggy Stardust]

This Is Spinal Tap! ;)

[king mob]

Sex Pistols: The Filth and the Fury

Splendid documentary and one of the few that actually manages to realistically capture what Britain was actually like in the 70's and has become a template for virtually every documentary about punk and the 70's that followed. The rest of Julien Temple's music documentaries are excellent too, with Glastonbury and his Joe Strummer film being exceptional highlights.

As for other music documentaries, BBC 4 regularly run lots of them, including as part of their irregular Britannia series. So, here's a few to check out.

Punk Britannia.

Synth Britannia.

Reggae Britannia.

Festivals Britannia.


There's loads more too, but I can't remember what else they've done.

[Tish-the-Scorpion]

look up electric purgatory on youtube, it's a documentary about how modern black rock musicians can't break through to the mainstream.

[FanboyStranger]

Beats, Rhyme, and Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest is my favorite of recent vintage, but there's a lot of great choices already in the thread.

[blackdragon6]

look up electric purgatory on youtube, it's a documentary about how modern black rock musicians can't break through to the mainstream.

Beats, Rhyme, and Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest is my favorite of recent vintage, but there's a lot of great choices already in the thread.

all of the above are great recommendations...the former infuriated me, and depressed me, the latter made a tear fall from my eye. i would also recommend Tupac Resurrection. surprisingly moving and ultra depressing.