Beatle Documentaries
Added 2024-12-25 21:36:14 +0000 UTCMerry Christmas and happy holidays everybody!
'The Beatles Documentaries: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly' was the winning topic for this month's bonus video.
With that in mind... What are all of the major documentaries about the Beatles? I have some obvious ones in mind (Anthology, Get Back, Eight Days a Week) but what are the others?
Leave your suggestions in the comments and I'll start watching and evaluating!
E.
Comments
Ok cool, I’ll consider upgrading! Thanks for the info. Big fan.
Connor Lammas
2025-01-08 01:21:57 +0000 UTCHey Connor, you can message me a suggestion but the ones that go in the poll must be submitted by people in the 'Submit Topics' tier.
Elliot Roberts
2025-01-08 00:46:14 +0000 UTCHey y’all/Elliot. I don’t know really where to submit ideas for the monthly bonus video but I’ve been in a big Beach Boys’ Smile phase and would love to see you give a history on the lost album, compare and contrast Brian Wilson Presents Smile, The Smile Sessions, and Smiley Smile, and maybe pick a favorite if you have one at the end. If there’s a place I can submit this topic formally that’d be great. Big fan!
Connor Lammas
2025-01-05 02:39:36 +0000 UTCThe Apple TV series 1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything has some post-beatle action in it
Patrick Farrugia
2024-12-31 03:10:11 +0000 UTCSgt Pepper’s Musical Revolution (2017) The Story of Sgt Pepper (1987 - it’s in the 2017 SPLHCB box set if you can’t find it elsewhere) The Compleat Beatles (1982) If These Walls Could Sing (2022) All Together Now: The Beatles’ LOVE (2006) - this one might be one to do a brief look at? I don’t know if you’re venturing into solo documentaries? If you are: Imagine: John Lennon (1988) Classic Albums: John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (2008) John & Yoko: Above Us Only Sky (2018) The Lost Weekend: A Love Story (2023) The Day John Lennon Died (2010) The U.S. vs. John Lennon (2006) Looking for Lennon (2017 - CAN’T RECOMMEND THIS ONE ENOUGH !!) Wingspan (2001) Paul McCartney: Echoes (1992) George Harrison: Living In The Material World (2011) The Concert for Bangladesh Revisited (2002) Hope this helps !!
Edward Rhodes
2024-12-30 23:35:41 +0000 UTCI really appreciated the glimpse into the Gonzalez family watching The Beatles debut on Ed Sullivan (in their living room 📺) And then afterwards when the next act came on, how the girl rolled her eyes like 🙄 Oh no, we're back in CornyLand lol It kind of served as a reminder as to what was around at that time
Tennille Astor
2024-12-30 02:09:53 +0000 UTCThere's a cool documentary called "Sgt. Pepper's Musical Revolution" hosted by Howard Goodall where he deconstructs various tracks from the album. The documentary uses studio recordings that I don't think have been made publicly available outside of it.
Miss Nezumi
2024-12-28 04:43:11 +0000 UTCI have not watched it, but in Dreaming the Beatles, Rob talks a lot about “The Compleat Beatles”. It seems to be considered the best documentary on the band BEFORE Anthology came out
Queen Emily
2024-12-27 12:06:09 +0000 UTCI just found a doc on Peacock called "The Art of McCartney" from 2014 which pays tribute to the solo work of Macca.
Jeremy Pierce
2024-12-26 17:04:43 +0000 UTC"The Ballad of John and Yoko" is a pretty interesting piece of work by Lindsay Ellis, avaliable on Nebula.
Leonardo Bach
2024-12-26 10:49:01 +0000 UTCThere's a beautiful YouTube documentary someone made called Understanding Lennon/McCartney. I don't know if that counts because it's fanmade but I think it might be worth a mention if you've seen it.
Tom Gallagher
2024-12-26 10:42:43 +0000 UTCOh dang, I forgot about the McCartney 3, 2, 1 Hulu series and the Produced by George Martin BBC documentary from 2011 lol
Jacob Witmer
2024-12-26 04:34:52 +0000 UTCAre you counting post-Beatles stuff? Because one I didn't hear much about was The Lost Weekend: A Love Story. I didn't entirely agree with the thesis of that movie and you could tell May Pang had a very heavy involvement in the story it was telling, but it still offered a very interesting perspective
Justin Ciner
2024-12-26 04:32:53 +0000 UTCWOW thank you
Elliot Roberts
2024-12-26 02:53:33 +0000 UTCThe whole list that I can think of off the top of my head: “What’s Happening?!?! The Beatles in the U.S.A.”; the Maysles brothers documentary of the band’s arrival in the states which later got reddited with Ed Sullivan and Coliseum footage as “The First US Visit” “The Long And Winding Road” Workprint Neil Aspinall made in the 70s which was originally considered lost media until a VHS dub came out on bootleg DVDs, it’s available on archive.org There’s the “Compleat Beatles” VHS which came out in 1982 There’s the “Imagine: John Lennon” documentary made by the Willy Wonka filmmakers and commissioned by Yoko which came out in 1988 There’s the Granada-TV “It Was Twenty Years Ago Today” special celebrating Sgt. Pepper’s 20th anniversary in 1987, as well as the 1992 “Making of Sgt. Pepper” South Bank Show documentary that later served as a pilot episode for those Classic Albums documentaries and was later included in the Sgt. Pepper 50th anniversary box set. There’s the multitude of documentaries, concert films and TV specials Paul would put out with each of his solo albums and tours (The Bruce McMouse Show, James Paul McCartney TV Special, Rockshow movie and Wings Over the World TV special, Back to the Egg TV special, The Paul McCartney special from 1986, Put It There and Paul McCartney: Get Back, The World Tonight VHS documentary on Flaming Pie, the Chaos and Creation in Abbey Road TV Special, Live at Capitol Studios) Paul and his daughter Mary made his own sequel to Anthology in 2001 with the Wingspan documentary There was The US vs John Lennon documentary that came out in 2006 about John and Yoko’s fight to stay in the States; as well as the Classic Albums doc on the Plastic Ono Band album from 2007 Not really a Beatles doc but a significant portion of the Billy Joel doc “The Last Play at Shea” has stuff about the Beatles’ performance there and Paul’s surprise appearance at Billy Joel’s closing concert There’s the mini-documentaries that came bundled with the 2009 remastered CDs, as well as the special BBC re-edit called The Beatles On Record There’s the Martin Scorsese “Living in the Material World” two part doc about George which basically divides into Part One being focused on The Beatles and Part Two being focused on the Solo Years In 2010 there was the LennoNYC doc on PBS that focuses on John’s life and career after moving to New York which was released in tandem with the John Lennon solo remasters in 2010 There’s the Above Us Only Sky documentary from a couple years ago focused on John’s Imagine album (as well as the 2002 Gimme Some Truth film containing outtakes from the 1971 Imagine film) And then from there I suppose there’s all the docs you’ve already mentioned or covered like Let It Be, Get Back, Eight Days a Week and Beatles ‘64 I suppose there was the “If These Walls Could Sing” doc about Abbey Road that Mary McCartney directed that’s got a lot of Beatles in it On the fringe side of things I suppose there’s the ITV special The Nation’s Favorite Beatles #1 Song which came out in 2015, I think there was a Brian Epstein BBC documentary made in 1999 that Paul was interviewed for… Oh yeah, there’s All Together Now, the 2008 doc about the Cirque de Soleil LOVE show… Ummm, I guess there’s The Love You Make doc by Albert Maysles which shows Paul walking round New York after 9/11 and rehearsing for The Concert for New York City, I think MPL might wanna bury that one these days since it shows Paul talking about hanging out w/ the Weinsteins. Beyond that I can’t think of anything else that’s in the “officially endorsed” realm (though I’m certain there are some that are slipping my mind). And of course there are the multitude of unofficial ones made without the cooperation of either Apple Corps or the other organizations representing the individual Beatles.
Jacob Witmer
2024-12-26 01:33:44 +0000 UTCThe concert for George documentary film ❤️
Keelan Bellard
2024-12-26 01:23:39 +0000 UTCI remember watching a few Lennon ones, like The US vs John Lennon, LennoNYC, and John & Yoko: Above Us Only Sky when they all came out, which all tackled different aspects of his post-Beatles period.
Eric Cheung
2024-12-25 23:48:43 +0000 UTCSpeaking as Irish, this one was a delight to watch, "Good Ol’ Freda" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqO3DIaKTXM
Andriy Griffin
2024-12-25 23:34:49 +0000 UTCBeatles solo, you could include Wingspan.
Neil Williamson
2024-12-25 23:18:54 +0000 UTCMerry Christmas! Excited to see this content and how you tackle it. There are many Beatles documentaries. How the Beatles changed the world, The Beatles in India, The Beatles Up close and Personal, Good ole Freida, etc. Would you include say George Harrison living in a material world as a part of this or have that as another solo Beatle doc review? Because there are many to explore for just John, some on Paul, and of course limited for George and Ringo.
Shea Donlin
2024-12-25 23:02:05 +0000 UTCSolo Beatles count? Them maybe “Above Us Only Sky” bout John and Yoko’s 1971, and also “Living In the Material World” is just great!!
Freddy
2024-12-25 22:45:09 +0000 UTCThe US vs John Lennon
Dylan Van Ourkerk
2024-12-25 22:40:26 +0000 UTCI'm not sure if it's gonna count but it's this documentary that Pete Best made himself called "Best Of The Beatles". Umm, spoiler alert: it's really bad and legit hard to get through. BUT the ending is really telling on how Pete Best felt when he got kicked out of the group. The dude sounded traumatize. 💀
Kelly Thompson
2024-12-25 22:35:27 +0000 UTC👀
noremac
2024-12-25 22:25:10 +0000 UTCThere will be
Elliot Roberts
2024-12-25 22:18:24 +0000 UTCI remember a documentary by the Beatles chauffeur (Alf Bicknell?) that was made in the early 90s. Not sure how it has held up but this was the only documentary of the Beatles my public library owned
Madison Garrett
2024-12-25 22:11:01 +0000 UTCthere will never be another beach boys video 😭
noremac
2024-12-25 21:59:18 +0000 UTCMan we ain’t ever gettin things wings video (am excited about this one though)
Kendy Parchman
2024-12-25 21:44:57 +0000 UTCThe Beatles: The First U.S. Visit
Jon Reynoso
2024-12-25 21:44:38 +0000 UTCIn the mid 70s, there was Tony Palmer's All You Need Is Love documentary series which had an all Beatles episode and David Frost made a Beatles special which he interviewed Mal Evans among other people. To my mind, both of those documentaries would later help inspire Eric Idle to make the Rutles movie. In 1987 (during the 20th anniversary of Sgt. Pepper), Granada Tv made a great doc called It Was 20 Years Ago Today (which coincided with Derek Taylor's memoir of the same name). It had great interviews with Paul and George and even had a great animated segment of the album cover too. To me (besides the Anthology), the Compleat Beatles is the best Beatles documentary out there.
Todd Costa Rica
2024-12-25 21:44:34 +0000 UTCLiving in the Material World is my favorite, but I'm sure you're familiar with that one!
DandyProphet
2024-12-25 21:40:11 +0000 UTCThe Compleat Beatles is one of the earliest ones, and I've heard it's very good
Andrew Kuder
2024-12-25 21:37:32 +0000 UTCWings Iterations is set to be the inside joke of this community lol
Jack Almoro
2024-12-25 21:37:15 +0000 UTC
