The 25 best music documentaries of all time

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

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

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

Beyhive, assemble! Beyonce initially cancelled her inaugural Coachella appearance in 2017, only to return a year later and deliver one of the most bombastic headlining sets the festival has ever seen. If you’ve ever questioned whether the over-the-top devotion of her fanbase is justified, this bracingly shot concert film should erase all doubt.

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

Turning the spotlight on several career backup singers, director Morgan Neville shows that, in the music industry, it’s rarely talent that ends up separating the superstars from the relative unknowns. Artists like Merry Clayton, Darlene Love and Lisa Fischer may have never made what Bruce Springsteen calls ‘the long walk’ from the back of the stage to the front, but they have voices (and personalities) as big as Aretha’s and Mariah’s – and here, at least, they get to show them off.