The 25 Best Documentaries About Pop Idols and Rock Stars, Ranked

These are the most captivating documentaries about the likes of The Beatles, Tina Turner, Billie Eilish, and more.

Today , every soda pop deed under the sun has a documentary . The medium became de rigueur in the 2010s , with current and retired musicians alike revisit the high and low of life-time in the blind limelight . This twelvemonth alone , we ’ll see infotainment aboutGeorge Michael , Leonard Cohen , Lizzo , Sinead O’Connor , David Bowie , Menudo , Ronnie James Dio , Tanya Tucker , Jerry Lee Lewis , andLil Baby , in addition to already released projects about Jennifer Lopez ( Halftime , fresh available on Netflix ) , Olivia Rodrigo , Sheryl Crow , Kanye West , Janet Jackson , and the former rapper XXXTentacion .

Many of the films in this genre are glorified public press releases that reveal trivial about their subjects , taking a paint - by - numbers pool technique better accommodate toBehind the Musicthan a proper characteristic plastic film . But over the twelvemonth , a handful of directors have found inspired approaching . Some capitalized on the vérité stylings introduced in 1962’sLonely Boy(about former teen heartthrob Paul Anka ) , 1964’sWhat ’s Happening ! The Beatles in the U.S.A. , and 1967’sDont Look Back(about Bob Dylan ) , while others lucked into a saga so luscious it must be seen . Maybe they got access to a whiz at a key moment , or peradventure they were able to deconstruct the mythology surrounding that someone ’s renown in a novel room . Whatever it is , they manage to transcend the net ’s legerdemain of transparency and the music business ' heavily corporatized gatekeepers .

Thrillist has ranked 25 worthwhile rock docs , with a few caveats . Qualifying film must be proper documentaries , which means concert plastic film like Beyoncé’sHomecoming , Aretha Franklin’sAmazing Grace , and speak Heads’Stop Making Sensedon’t count . And to streamline what would otherwise be an unruly ranking , we ’re only regard profiles of individual artists and bands , as opposed to movies about a particular prospect , era , or event , à laThe Decline of Western Civilization , Sound City , or last year’sOscar - winningSummer of Soul .

best rock star documentaries

Design by Mallory Rosten for Thrillist

25.Miss Americana(2020)

WhenMiss Americanapremiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2020 , the question in the aura was : Would a celebrity as splendidly guarded as Taylor Swift reserve a documentary film to break , frankly , anything about her ? The answer is yes and no : function with Lana Wilson , Miss Americanais memoir - like in its coming to its subject . You ’re getting Taylor ’s Version , yes , but it ’s also intimate . Swift and Wilson opt not to lean full into the gossip of the Kim - Kanye affray , alternatively set up the film around Swift ’s political awakening , including an argument with her father about her willingness to speak up . Maybe you ’re not get the full storey , but Swift is as loose as she wants to be . — Esther Zuckerman

24.Gaga: Five Foot Two(2017)

There is the Lady Gaga of then — the meat dress , the lobster hats — and , as chronicle in this behind - the - scenes doc guide by Chris Moukarbel , the Gaga of now , a emphatic musical endowment who ’s just as vulnerable as every other " minuscule monster " on the planet . Gaga : Five Foot Twocontextualizes the woman behind the belted anthems in unremarkable living , from second before her big Super Bowl halftime show to the placed ofAmerican Horror Storyto the recording studio to the doctor ’s office , where realism hits hard . The doc follow the opus of her fifth albumJoanne , which marked a notable departure from the pop anthems that made her into a superstar and the showtime of a new era of melodic experiment that only Gaga could make . — Emma Stefansky

23.Oasis: Supersonic(2016)

Yes , guy wire with acoustic guitar playing " Wonderwall " have been the bane of college parties for virtually 30 years , but haven ' debut and consequent prison-breaking as the second coming of The Beatles — thanks to the albumsDefinitely Maybeand(What ’s the Story ) Morning Glory?—are more gripping than the mordant apparition of one song might allow you to retrieve . haven : Supersonic , directed by Mat Whitecross , traces the band ’s organisation and their meteorological mid-’90s rise that catapulted them from Manchester lad to the new face of Britpop , driven largely by the arrogance of the smarmy Gallagher brother , Liam and Noel . While the doc only touches on the Gallagher competition that led to the stripe ’s dying , it ’s for the most part a sunny spell of ' 90s nostalgia that captures the illusion of one group ’s halcyon days.—Leanne Butkovic

22.Charli XCX: Alone Together(2022)

Charli XCX is an interesting soda water phenomenon , being that she ’s always existed somewhat out of doors of the mainstream despite constant vital acclaim for her innovative music . It ’s something she does n’t seem to heed all that much , though , because of the heartfelt , supportive fan base known as the Angels that she ’s garnered over the years . Charli XCX : Alone Togetheris singular in that it depict the qualification of an record album — her 2020 releasehow i ’m feeling now , which was register at home during lockdown — but focuses mainly on her fascinatingly penny-pinching relationship with her fans . Compiling domicile footage from both thehyperpopprincess and some of her biggest fan , Alone Togethershows how she ’s regulate so many young queer mass and how they intoxicate her just the same . It ’s a humble film pretty designed for confirmed Angels but a cherubic piece of pandemic nontextual matter that shew how special a relationship between artist and booster can be . — Sadie Bell

21.BLACKPINK: Light Up the Sky(2020)

Unless you ’ve been live under a rock and roll , this should n’t hail as news : kB - pop has been commanding the music industry with its picture - perfect idols , puff - out aesthetics , contemporise choreography , and pa - rap firecracker . This documentary about genre royalty BLACKPINK is an excellent entranceway spot in gather a mystifying agreement about the intensive work its members put in to make their lover , telephone Blinks , go raging . Documentarian Caroline Suh ( Salt Fat Acid Heat ) chronicles the group ’s acclivity , from their former days breeding under direction agency YG Entertainment , to their spherical breakout , with contemporary interview and behind - the - scenes search at their performances . Light Up the Skyturns the stage lights on these four artists — Lisa , Rosé , Jennie , and Jisoo — to play up their individualism , struggles , and victory . It ’ll for sure give you a newfound esteem for the young woman chemical group . Or if you ’re already a Blink , you ’ll love these women even more.—LB

20.Metallica: Some Kind of Monster(2004)

What happen when a metal lot past its prime undergoes group therapy sessions as its fellow member seek to record a new album?Some Kind of Monster . In the early 2000s , Metallica take the strange step of charter a clinical psychologist — skilful for them!—to help them mold through the many , many intrapersonal emergence its stay on members James Hetfield , Lars Ulrich , and Kirk Hammett work up up after drop more than a 10 together . During that clock time , they were also auditioning new bass players , ensue in Robert Trujillo join the band , and spend two years memorialize their 2003 albumSt . Anger , which famously inspireddividedopinions . Directed by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Simonofky , who worked onBrother ’s Keeperand theParadise Losttrilogy together , Some Kind of Monsteris many thing at once : semi - on purpose hilarious , distressing , self-examining , and euphoric , all of it humanizing one of the biggest bands still working and offering exquisite insight into the moral force of a mathematical group with huge personalities.—LB

19.Everybody’s Everything(2019)

Lil Peep , née Gustav Elijah Åhr , was a immense deal among certain euphony circle , yet unknown almost wholly to others until after his death via an inadvertent overdose of Xanax laced with Sublimaze on his hitch bus in 2017 , not long after his twenty-first birthday . Achieving the true definition of cultus condition , a pioneer of the SoundCloud emo - rap tantrum and penis of the Goth Boi Clique , Peep exit behind a vocation on the wand of mainstream stardom . His shocking expiry extend fans searching for closure — which is whatEverybody ’s Everything , executive bring forth by Terrence Malick and Åhr ’s mother , set out to do . Directed by Sebastian Jones ( who has cut many of Malick ’s films , includingA Hidden Life ) and Ramez Silyan , the film is gentle in its approach , dive into the quiet , sensitive hombre Gus was in secret and the heavily tattoo , bombastic bearing Peep was onstage , command raucous trade - out arena shows in major cities across the world . It ’s a poignant portrait of a wunderkind gone too soon.—LB

18.Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry(2021)

R.J. Cutler ’s aspect at Billie Eilish is a miracle of access . ThoughThe World ’s a Little Blurrycame out after Eilish first sail the Grammys , Cutler started following her when she was still in the process of writing her launching album , When We All Fall Asleep , Where Do We Go?,with her brother Finneas in their childhood home . What follow is a portraiture of nascent stardom and a closely - knit family attempt to navigate an imminent storm . Cutler captures both how talented Eilish is and how golden she is to have a financial support system while transforming into a global champion . The camera capture incredible moments — Eilish freaking out over Justin Bieber ; Orlando Bloom sticky himself — but beyond the gossip , The World ’s a Little Blurryis one of the best feeling at teen fame ever put to screen . — EZ

17.A Band Called Death(2012)

The doc ’s tagline read it all : Before there was punk , there was a band called Death . Formed by Bobby , David , and Dannis Hackney in early-’70s Detroit , the three Black teens were making thrashing , angsty , guitar - drive music year before the Sex Pistols and The Clash vulgarize the genre . This doctor , directed by Mark Christopher Covino and Jeff Howlett , figure out to set the track record directly about Death as one of the early primogenitor of punk , their blood line into obscurity ( * cough * institutional racism ) , and their rediscovery through crateful - fag record gatherer . run parallel is a journey through the lot ’s privileged workings as young kids first inspired by The Beatles onThe Ed Sullivan Show , how they were determine by their father ’s sudden death , and their shape - reposition medicine calling and complicated personal lives after last ’s dissolution in the late ' seventy and reunification in 2009 when their catalogue was rereleased via Drag City . A story of long - merit recognition , A Band name Deathis a hugely important piece in the rock - doc canon.—LB

16.Tina(2021)

There ’s an inherent risk in making a Tina Turner documentary film . She resent the level to which connive about her much - chronicled marriage to the controlling and physically scurrilous Ike Turner has haunt her ever since she left him in 1976 . To make a film about her life is to return to that well yet again , andTinaspends a lot of its two - hour running time mapping out the repugnance story that was their relationship . But it ’s an essential preamble to what becomes the moving picture ’s unfeigned stress : her prideful liberation . Thanks to an volatile solo career in the ' 80s , Turner has built a legacy entirely separate from Ike . Tinahonors that trajectory , ante up court to one of the most electrifying bouncy performers to ill-use her decadent legs onstage . — Matthew Jacobs

15.Nas: Time Is Illmatic(2014)

Nas ' 1994 debutIllmaticis think one of the most legendary rap record album of all clip and a landmark for the New York sound . Time Is Illmaticis a historic feeling at what led to the making of the record album , as well as a proposal that nearly everything in an artist ’s life mold the first statement they put out into the world . In just 74 minutes , it thoroughly see how Nas ' puerility , his early days search the New York scene , and the Queensbridge neighborhood informed his prowess . And likeIllmaticitself , in chronicling Nas ' life , it makes a powerful assertion about the insidious ways imprisonment shape communities and how few supporting system exist for Black men . Rather than being a strictly celebratory retrospective , the One9 - directed cinema finds the doorknocker and key collaborators both sobering and candid about the backdrop that inspired the album and the responsibility Nas has always felt with his success story . — SB

14.The Sparks Brothers(2021)

Edgar Wrightsets out to excuse the hugger-mugger phenomenon behind Ron and Russell Mael ’s two - human being band Sparks , which has weaved in and out of the public eye since the early seventies . The director methodically goes through the Maels ' discography in his long and loving documentary film , highlighting their dada experiments and deep funny and off-the-wall lyrics . It ’s meticulous and also enormously funny , feature sixth sense from the Maels themselves as well as devoted buff like Flea , Weird Al , and Mike Myers . ( Wright has a nifty time with the chyrons place these talking head teacher . ) There are animated recreations , recreations acted out by the elder Maels , and tons of archival footage of " the best British band ever to come out of America . " Mostly , you leave with a towering affection for these nutcase and their crazy music . — E

13.Dig!(2004)

Most striation are n’t too slap-up to air their dirty laundry , resulting in " unauthorised " documentaries about controversy and fire wars . But most band are n’t The Brian Jonestown Massacre or The Dandy Warhols , West Coast trailblazers who got their offset in the mid-’90s and eventually had a notorious fall - out . Using sparse , broody voiceover from Dandy ’s lead vocalizer Courtney Taylor - Taylor and vérité - style footage captured by director Ondi Timoner across seven years of the frenemy bands ' shows , transcription sessions , and often explosive hangouts , Dig!strikes dissimilar chord , sometimes play as a rueful threnody for better days between Taylor - Taylor and BJM frontman Anton Newcombe — who would fire bandmates in the middle of sets — and other times like a flailing punk song as Newcombe and Taylor - Taylor ’s outsized personality and overzealous conviction that they are God ’s gift to euphony flare up in overly cozy claptrap and one - liners like " I sneeze and hits come out . " Eventually acquired by MoMA , rock docs likeDig!just do n’t get made anymore.—LB

12.The Go-Go’s(2020)

The Go - Go’sgot a bit lose in the on-going rock - doc wave , but it ’s a will to the high this literary genre can extend to when the right director is paired with the right topic . Australian documentarian Alison Ellwood , who has also made miniseries about The Eagles and the Laurel Canyon euphony scene , suffuse the pic with an tickle pink punk look , charting the rise of the first girl group to attain No . 1 by save their own songs and work their own official document . Once the quintet became wealthy , the fights let out out — a timeless story that Ellwood recite with enough pizzazz and melancholy to make it palpate brand new . The best documentaries about creative person make you rethink what you know , andThe Go - Go’silluminates an often oversimplified narrative about a band that saw wild high and wilder lows . — MJ

11.George Harrison: Living in the Material World(2011)

The debate over which Beatle is " the good " will ramp on through eternity , but permit the one and only Martin Scorsese to pitch you on George ( who is , in fact , the best Beatle ) . Yes , this doc is long , clocking in at three hours and 28 min , but you will come out on the other side with a profoundly thorough intellect of the late Beatle , who perish in 2001 after a battle with lung cancer , two years after being stabbed in a home invasion . The film , blessed and executive produce by his widowed married woman Olivia , explores every aspect of Harrison ’s personality and lifelong evolution , make the fount that his cultural impact — as an underrated Beatles songster , a vivacious solo performer , a medium , a pic producer ( and the grounds most Americans know Monty Python ) , and a pioneer of benefit concerts — can’t be deny . George might have been the timid guitar virtuoso of The Beatles , but his legacy as a unfeigned visionary speaks volumes.—LB

10.Listening to Kenny G(2021)

Even if you ’re a Kenny 1000 hater — or mayhap especially if you are — you would be impudent to watch Penny Lane ’s gripping and thoughtful exploration of the oeuvre and legacy of the curly - haired sax man known for creating the kind of bland idle words that is pipe into tooth doctor offices and elevators . Lane ’s doc is a fascinating portrait of Kenny G himself , as he sits for recollective interview draw his perfectionist panache with an almost deluded self - authority . But it ’s also a meditation on what makes music quote - unquote goodness . She gives space to those who remember that Kenny G ’s melody are a blight on the ears as well as those who are buff , take a detour to China , where his songs have become part of the ethnic custom . The film is funny and will make you reconsider your biases , even if you still hate Kenny G when it ’s over . — EZ

9.The Beatles: Get Back(2021)

Peter Jackson ’s epic rock’n’roll documentaryThe Beatles : Get Backis a collection of small , knowledgeable moment that follow the making of the lot ’s final studio record album , Let It Be , over nearly a month of marathon recording sessions . fastidiously cut together from hundreds of hours of archival footage , the three mega - episodes of the serial chart the band members ' shifting relationship and loyalties , zeroing in on present moment of tension and cooperation among a chemical group of multitude who have known each other for most of their lives . One of the good of these is the making of " Get Back " itself , the record album ’s first unmarried and one of the most recognizable Beatles Sung of all time , which Paul McCartney composed by just picking around on a guitar for a few minutes . Despite the status of the band and the pressure they were under at the meter , the movie has a playful , impish quality that ’s reflect in the way the members interact . Fundamentally , it ’s a motion picture about riffing : musically , comedically , professionally , romantically , and socially . — einsteinium

8.The Punk Singer(2013)

Sini Anderson ’s bio - doc about Kathleen Hanna is as much a portrait of the Bikini Kill frontwoman as it is a history of the musical style she helped to establish . The film is a belly laugh grrrl tome as well as an emotional geographic expedition of pain and fucking over the patriarchy . Anderson charts Hanna ’s importance within the riot grrrl movement and count at her life out of the public eye as she deals with chronic pain have by previous - stagecoach Lyme disease . It ’s a love story about how Hanna , the face of feminine rage , fell for Adam Horovitz , the Beastie Boy who once knap misogynous lyric . It ’s as mussy and as honest as its subject . — EZ

7.The Velvet Underground(2021)

seldom has a documentary been so thrilling , so viscerally active , so completely enfold asThe Velvet Underground . It ’s no surprise it comes from the dexterous direction of none other than queer ikon Todd Haynes , who has glam rock gleam through his veins . A portrait of the seminal band that stick with the very beginnings of the Lou Reed enterprise that changed artistic creation and music , the film turn over into the knotty relationships between Lou and John Cale , the striation and Nico , and everyone and Andy Warhol . It ’s a fascinating look at a group that perhaps did n’t specify out to change civilisation , but did anyway . And as Ewan McGregor ’s Curt Wild says in Haynes ' glam - rock masterpieceVelvet Goldmine , " We set out to change the world … and ended up just exchange ourselves . " — Kerensa Cadenas

6.Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck(2015)

A poetic journey through the psyche of the celebrated Nirvana frontman , Kurt Cobain : Montage of Heckdispels the overcooked lore that paint its subject as an avatar for anarchy . Using a trove of artwork , audio recordings , and diary launching that Courtney Love pass over , theater director Brett Morgan — whose Davie Bowie docMoonage Daydreamcomes out this September — weave together an immersive exploration of Cobain ’s troubled person , traffic in none of theBehind the Music - esque clichés that sink most stone docs . Some of Cobain ’s Quaker have saidMontage of Heck , which read its name from a sonic montage he create one year before Nirvana released their debut album , Bleach , focused too much on his pitiful - boy theatrical role and drug use , but the idea that everyone seems to know a dissimilar version of Kurt Cobain is the tip : He was mercurial , prone to fabrication , self - mythologizing , and insubordinate to any single interpretation . — MJ

5.Dont Look Back(1967)

Trailblazing documentarian D.A. Pennebaker pioneer the feature - length pop doc when he picked up his camera and captivate a 24 - class - erstwhile Bob Dylan during the folks legend ’s 1965 tour across England . Dylan ’s gift for language is as evident as his boundless rock - star hubris , andDont expect Back — free without an apostrophe in the title — showcased celebrity candor in an unprecedented way . Martin Scorsese ’s 208 - minuteNo Direction Homefrom 2005 is a far more comprehensive portrait of Dylan ’s life and cultural impact , but Pennebaker ’s vérité style has tempt multiple generations of documentarians seeking intimacy from their larger - than - sprightliness subjects . — MJ

4.Searching for Sugar Man(2012)

A catalog of pre - internet fame , music discovery , and redemption , the Oscar - win documentarySearching for Sugar Man , directed by Malik Bendjelloul , explores the remarkable career of Rodriguez , a instrumentalist who released two albums in the other 1970s before melt into obscureness . Unbeknownst to Rodriguez , his medicine had become wildly popular in South Africa , where he reportedly outsell Elvis Presley and his song became anthems for the grow apartheid movement . InSearching for Sugar Man , two obsessive fans in the late ' ninety decide to traverse down what became of their enigmatic family line idol , who by then was rumor bushed . One of the best plastic film from 2012 , documentary and otherwise , the movie ’s literal durability lie in its empathy for and focus on the fans themselves , embarking on an investigative whirlwind drive by dearest and determination that eventually led to a later - calling revival of a once - leave musician.—LB

3.Amy(2015)

Truly , there has never been anyone quite like Amy Winehouse . Perhaps there never will be . The British vocalizer kick the bucket tragically at 27 , releasing only two albums in her lifetime . She was a tabloid habitue for her exploits , which at times overshadow her in the raw talent . That ’s what Asif Kapadia ’s Oscar - winning archival documentaryAmyexplores . When it was released in 2015 , the wound her death left feel like it had give receptive again . The plastic film is both tender and bristled , showcasing the immense endowment she had and the delicious mortal she was . But it also gets into her demons — her menage , lovers , addiction , culture medium scrutiny . It ’s a complicated portrait of a woman who could never be easily determine and exit a void both in art and the souls of the multitude who she could have never known she think of the world to . — KC

2.Madonna: Truth or Dare(1991)

Often one pace onwards of her peers , Madonna had a documentary beforeeveryonehad a documentary . Truth or Darewas in the first place meant to be a straightforward concert film , but itmorphed into something biggerwhen director Alek Keshishian started interviewing Madonna ’s dancers ( most of them singular men of vividness , at once headstrong and vulnerable ) while on the road . What ensue was an evocative portrait of a superstar play mother to a brood of young soul . But even if her dancers and backup Isaac Merrit Singer became pocket-size celebrities unto themselves , it ’s Madonna who , to no one ’s surprise , have the show , not least becauseTruth or Dareis intercut with numbers racket from her influential 1990 Blond Ambition term of enlistment . Spiky and highly aware that she ’s at the acme of her powers , Madonna is having a blast , making the celluloid a respite from the industry hardships show in most showbiz docs.—MJ

1.Gimme Shelter(1970)

No euphony documentary film on this list is sound at depicting the torture and ecstasy of writing , composing , and perform than Albert Maysles , David Maysles , and Charlotte Zwerin ’s revolutionaryGimme Shelter , which follows the last weeks of the Rolling Stones ' 1969 US tour and end with their passably fateful concert at the Altamont Speedway . start with the end of the band ’s Madison Square Garden show , the cinema eavesdrops on the head - scrub negotiation needed to put on an tremendous gratis concert on a California racetrack , drops in on the studio sessions for " Brown Sugar " and " Wild Horses , " and at last truck all the way out to Altamont , where the Stones light up the stagecoach after the ilk of Jefferson Airplane and the Flying Burrito Brothers , with security from an increasingly raucous — and finally wild — hearing render by Hell ’s Angels armed with pool cues . What ’s more stone ' n ' roll than that ? film in the Maysles ' direct - celluloid mode of the ' 50s , ' sixty and ' 70s , for which the filmmakers followed their subjects around , depicting events as they go on rather of intercutting a tale from mile of footage and interviews , the doc is as much a portrayal of intertwined element take the counterculture of the mid-20th century as it is of the banding itself , whose songs provide the rumbling , fiery musical measure . As Mick Jagger says in one of his characteristically dry moments during a press conference : " Financially dissatisfied , sexually quenched , philosophically trying . “—ES

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